Short History of the Movies, A

by Mast, Gerald; Kawin, Bruce F.

• ISBN13: 9780321106032
• ISBN10: 0321106032
• Edition: 8th
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2003-01-01
• Publisher: Longman

Summary

B> The seventh edition of A Short History of the Movies continues the tradition that has made it one of the most popular books ever in film history. This volume offers students a panoramic overview of the worldwide development of film, from the early Mack Sennett and Charlie Chaplin shorts, through the studio heyday of the 1930s and 1940s and the Hollywood Renaissance of the 1960s and 1970s, to the pictures and their technology appearing in the multiplexes of today. This new edition, which has been revised and rewritten to reflect current scholarship and recent industry developments, and new films and filmmakers, represents an accurate, scrupulous updating of a classic. Features an emphasis on key historical and aesthetic principles provides solid scholarship in an accessible, intelligent, and readable format. Inlcudes almost 500 color and black-and-white photographs including frame enlargements and production stills. Includes evaluations of great works from such directors as Griffith, Ford, Scorsese, and Hitchcock illuminates conflicts and controversies in many areas of filmmaking. Also features extensive treatment of international film enables comparison and contrast between American films and those of other countries, particularly Germany, Russia, France, Italy, and China. For anyone interested in the history of film.

Table of Contents

Preface.

1. Introductory Assumptions.

2. Birth.
Persistence of Vision.
Photography.
Thomas Edison.
Projection.
The First Films.

3. Film Narrative, Commercial Expansion.
Early Companies.
Narrative.
Business Wars.
The Film d'Art.

4. Griffith.
Apprenticeship.
The Birth of a Nation.
Intolerance.
1917-31.

5. Mack Sennett and the Chaplin Shorts.
Krazy Keystones.
Charlie.

6. Movie Czars and Movie Stars.
Stars over Hollywood.
The Emperors and Their Rule.
Morality.
Films and Filmmakers, 1910-28.
The Comics.
Hollywood and the Jazz Age.

7. The German Golden Age.
Expressionism, Realism, and the Studio Film.
Fantasy.
Psychology.
The End of an Era.

8. Soviet Montage.
The Kuleshov Workshop.
Sergei M. Eisenstein.
Vsevolod I. Pudovkin.
Other Major Figures.
Socialist Realism.

9. Sound.
Processes.
Problems.
Solutions.

10. France Between the Wars.
Surrealism and Other Movements.
Gance and Dreyer.
Reni Clair.
Jean Renoir.
Vigo and Others.

11. The American Studio Years: 1930–45.
Film Cycles and Cinematic Conventions.
The Comics.
Masters of Mood and Action.

12. Hollywood in Transition: 1946–65.
Enemies Within: Freedom of Association and Free Entertainment.
Films in the Transitional Era.
Surfaces and Subversion.
Finding the Audience.

13. Neorealism and the New Wave.
Italian Neorealism.
Romantics and Antiromantics.
France: Postwar Classicism.
1959 and After.
The French (and Italian) Revolution.

14. National Cinema 1: 1945–.
Sweden and Denmark.
England.
Central and Eastern Europe.
Cinemas East.

15. Hollywood Renaissance: 1964–76.
The New American Auteurs.
The Independent American Cinema.

16. National Cinema 2: 1968–.
Das neue Kino.
Third World Cinemas.
Up from Down Under, Down from Up Above.
Russia and the Former Soviet Union.
Iran.
The New Internationalism.

17. The Return of the Myths: 1977–.
Star Wars and the New Mythology.
Leading Directors.
Business and Technology.
The Look of the Future.

Appendix: For Further Reading and Viewing.

Distributors.

Glossary.

Acknowledgments.

Index.