Film Criticism

Softcover. Baltimore, Johns Hopkins University, 1st, 1998, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, 327 pages, b&w illustrations. At least three of director Jacques Tourneur's films--Cat People, I Walked with a Zombie and The Leopard Man--are recognized as horror classics. Yet his contributions to these films are often minimized by scholars, with most of the credit going to the films' producer, Val Lewton. A detailed examination of the director's full body of work reveals that those elements most evident in the Tourneur-Lewton collaborations--the lack of monsters and the stylized use of suggested violence--are equally apparent in Tourneur's films before and after his work with Lewton. Mystery and sensuality were hallmarks of his style, and he possessed a highly artistic visual and aural style. This insightful critical study examines each of Tourneur's films, as well as his extensive work on MGM shorts (1936-1942) and in television. What emerges is evidence of a highly coherent directorial style that runs throughout Tourneur's works. Clean copy.

Hardcover. Jefferson NC, McFarland & Company, 1st, 1998, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Hardcover, 271 pages. Maroon cloth with silver lettering to front and spine. No dust jacket. Clean, tight copy.

Hardcover. Scranton PA, Newmarket, 1st, 1999, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright dust jacket. Illustrated with 72 photos and 19 posters. Based on interviews conducted over a period of 18 months. Fascinating and instructive comments by Kazan on his casting decisions, directorial techniques and perceptions, etc. All 19 of Kazan's films are discussed, including: A Tree Grows in Brooklyn (1947), Gentleman's Agreement (1947), A Streetcar Named Desire (1951), On the Waterfront (1954), East of Eden (1955), etc. Also recounted here are his role in the McCarthy era, his controversial testimony before the House Un-American Activities Committee in 1952, his thoughts about the blacklist, and involvement with the Communist Party. Filmography. Credits. Bibliography. Index. Clean copy.

Hardcover. US, White Star Publishers, 1st, 2013, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, 616 pages. Hardcover with no dust jacket. Clean, unmarked copy with only minor wear to boards. Holographic 3D cover.

Hardcover. New York, Liberty Street, 1st, 2012, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, 176 pages. Hardcover with dust jacket. Very clean, unmarked copy with only minor wear to dust jacket edges. B&W and color photographs throughout. Fifty years ago, the dashing Scottish actor Sean Connery kicked off the Bond franchise, a cinematic series unlike any other. In November 2012, Skyfall, the 23rd movie in what is seen as the authorized line of Bond films, will be released, with Daniel Craig (the sixth Bond) again in the lead role. The world will once more stream to the theaters for another dose of Bond. LIFE was on the scene in the swinging '60s when James Bond became a cultural icon (in fact, when we put the gold-painted actress Shirley Eaton on the cover in 1964, we helped him along), and now LIFE tells the whole story in this commemorative book.

Softcover. Seattle, University of Washington Book Store, 1st, 1927, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover. Rare early 26 page analysis of the films of Ms. Gish. Frontispiece portrait of Lillian Gish. Light blue wrappers printed in black within decorative border with same vignette. The author, Edward Wagenknecht (1900-2004), was an American literary critic who also wrote on film. He received his PH.D. in 1932 from the University of Washington, where he taught from 1925 to 1943. This was his first published work. Clean copy.

Hardcover. Durham NC, Duke University Press, 1st, 2008, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Hardcover, black cloth with magenta gilt lettering on spine, 269 pages, b&w illustrations. Masculine Singular is an original interpretation of French New Wave cinema by one of Frances leading feminist film scholars. While most criticism of the New Wave has concentrated on the filmmakers and their films, Genevive Sellier focuses on the social and cultural turbulence of the cinemas formative years, from 1957 to 1962. The New Wave filmmakers were members of a young generation emerging on the French cultural scene, eager to acquire sexual and economic freedom. Almost all of them were men, and they wrote in the masculine first-person singular, often using male protagonists as stand-ins for themselves. In their films, they explored relations between men and women, and they expressed ambivalence about the new liberated woman. Sellier argues that gender relations and the construction of sexual identities were the primary subject of New Wave cinema.Sellier draws on sociological surveys, box office data, and popular magazines of the period, as well as analyses of specific New Wave films. No dust jacket, Clean copy.

Hardcover. Geneva, Liber, 1st, 1995, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Harcover, glazed boards, 120 pages, mostly b&w, some color illustrations. FRENCH TEXT. No dust jacket issued.

NY, Frederick Unger, 1st, 1981, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright, unclipped dust jacket. 383 pages, b&w illustrations. Clean copy.

Hardcover. NY, Thames & Hudson, 1st, 2013, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright, unclipped dust jacket. In the first fully illustrated work of his illustrious career, David Thomson re-examines a series of moments - which readers will experience in beautifully reproduced imagery - from seventy-two carefully selected films across a hundred-year time span. His moments range from a set of Eadward Muybridge's pioneering photographs to sequences in films from the classic - Citizen Kane , Sunset Boulevard and The Red Shoes - to the unexpected - The Piano Teacher , Burn After Reading - immersing the reader via a groundbreaking marriage of imagery and the author's accompanying narrative. David Thomson's evocative, unflinching prose and profound understanding of what makes film and art form identify him as one of the great film writers of our time, making it likely that Moments that Made the Movies will be widely viewed as an important classic on the subject of international cinema. Clean copy.

Hardcover. NY, Viking, 1st, 1991, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover, 304 pages. In essays that function at once as film criticism and autobiography, 23 writers recall the films that shaped them in this thoughtful and moving book that explores the mysterious interplay of art and life. Includes Russell Banks on Bambi, Joyce Carol Oates on Dracula, and Harold Bloom on The Fatal Glass of Beer.

Softcover. Baltimore, Johns Hopkins University Press, 1st, 2014, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, 210 pages with index, b&w illustrations. Smoke. Shadows. Moody strains of jazz. Welcome to the world of "noir musical" films, where tormented antiheroes and hard-boiled musicians battle obsession and struggle with their music and ill-fated love triangles. Sultry divas dance and sing the blues in shrouded nightclubs. Romantic intrigue clashes with backstage careers. In her pioneering study, Music in the Shadows, film noir expert Sheri Chinen Biesen explores musical films that use film noir style and bluesy strains of jazz to inhabit a disturbing underworld and reveal the dark side of fame and the American Dream. Clean copy.

Softcover. London, Creation Books, 1st, 1997, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, 250 pages. Celebrating the celluloid expression of the Beat spirit--arguably the most sustained legacy in U.S. counterculture--Naked Lens is a comprehensive study of the most significant interfaces between the Beat writers, Beat culture, and cinema. Naked Lens features key Beat players and their collaborators, including William Burroughs, Allen Ginsberg, Jack Kerouac, Charles Bukowski, Brion Gysin, Antony Balch, Ron Rice, John Cassavetes, Andy Warhol, Bob Dylan, Klaus Maeck, and Gus van Sant. As well as examining clearly Beat-inspired films such as Pull My Daisy, Chappaqua, and The Flower Thief, Jack Sargeant discusses cinema verite and performance films (Shadows and Wholly Communion), B-movies (The Subterraneans and Roger Corman's Bucket of Blood), and Hollywood adaptations (Heart Beat and Barfly).The second half of the book is devoted to an extensive analysis of the films relating to William Burroughs, from Antony Balch's Towers Open Fire to David Cronenberg's Naked Lunch. This book also contains the last ever interview with writer Allen Ginsberg, recorded three months before his death in April 1997.

Hardcover. Boston, Twayne Publishers, 1st, 1977, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Hardcover, light tan cloth with black and gilt lettering on the spine, 230 pages with index. B&w illustrations. Career study of the director of IN A LONELY PLACE, REBEL WITHOUT A CAUSE, BIGGER THAN LIFE, JOHNNY GUITAR and other such fare. Includes: chronology, selected bibliography; filmography. Clean copy.

Hardcover. NY, Miramax/Hyperion, 1st, 1997, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover, 191 pages, in a bright, unclipped dust jacket.Profusely illustrated with black and white film stills. With a knowledgeable text by the director and film historian. Clean.

Hardcover. Chicago, Chicago Review Press, 1st, 2007, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright, unclipped dust jacket. 378 pages, b&w illustrations. Lanza looks at the life and work of director Ken Russell, detailing the wild ideas, surreal moments, personal faith, and the cavalcade of colorful personalities surrounding this eccentric filmaker, on and off the set. Clean copy.

Softcover. NY, Columbia University Press, 1st, 1995, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, 252 pages. Chow situates contemporary Chinese film within the broad context of Chinese history and culture, giving readers a glimpse of the unique shared identity that characterizes the current crop of outstanding filmmakers, such as Chen Kaige and Zhang Yimou.

Softcover. NY, Museum of Modern Art, 1st, 1983, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, 222 pages. Softcover. B/w illustrations throughout. Wrapper and pages have some tanning due to age, otherwise clean. Front cover has a crease. In very good condition, no rips or tears. Binding tight.

Hardcover. London, Ashgate, reprint, 2010, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, 248 pages. Hardcover with dust jacket. Clean, unmarked copy with only minor wear to dust jacket. Silver gilt on spine. 'Like "the ring" itself, this book is viral: it gathers into itself literature and film, disease and survival, cultural studies and aesthetics, Japan and America, technology and the family. We won't read Suzuki's novels or watch the films in the same way again. A thoroughly readable and teachable text!' Steven Bruhm, Robert and Ruth Lumsden Professor of English, The University of Western Ontario, and author of Reflecting Narcissus: A Queer Aesthetic 'Taking as its point of departure the phenomenon of The Ring in all its manifestations"the Japanese novel, the Japanese film, the American film, and the various sequels"The Scary Screen offers an in-depth and sustained speculation about the anxiety created by the development of communication technologies. The collection introduces startling insights into the relationship between changes in media forms and widespread fears of contagion, while also identifying a new universal form of horror that has emerged in recent decades as the status of reproduction"both technological and biological"has undergone a profound transformation. The essays included here represent a powerful theoretical response to this transformation.' Todd McGowan, University of Vermont, and author of The Impossible David Lynch and The Real Gaze '... The Scary Screen is a useful contribution to studies of The Ring, horror film, and cultural anxieties evoked by technology.' Journal of the Fantastic in the Arts.

Hardcover. NY, William Morrow & Co. , 1st, 1989, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright, unclipped dust jacket. The movie critic for "Time" magazine explores the works and legacies of thirteen filmmaking giants, discussing how they shaped the industry and offering a revised perspective on The Hollywood Ten. Indexed. Essays on Marlon Brando, James Cagney,Harold Lloyd, Stanley Kubrick, John Ford, others. 312 pages, indexed. Clean copy.

Hardcover. NY, Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1st, 1979, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Good, Hardcover, 295 pages, b&w photos. In a bright dust jacket that has 1/2" gone from bottom of spine. Otherwise very good.

Softcover. Durham NC, Duke University Press, 1st, 2007, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, 340 pages, b&w illustrations. Various critics continue the film lovers' ongoing conversation about the low, the bad, and the sleazy face of cinema, this book examines the ineffable quality of "sleaze" in relation to a range of issues, including the production realities of low-budget exploitation pictures and the ever-shifting terrain of reception and taste.

Softcover. Durham NC, Duke University Press, 1st, 2013, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, 384 pages. Noel Burch and Genevieve Sellier adopt a sociocultural approach to films made in France before, during, and after World War II, paying particular attention to the Occupation years (1940-44). The authors contend that the films produced from the 1930s until 1956--when the state began to subsidize the movie industry, facilitating the emergence of an "auteur cinema"--are important, both as historical texts and as sources of entertainment.Citing more than 300 films and providing many in-depth interpretations, Burch and Sellier argue that films made in France between 1930 and 1956 created a national imaginary that equated masculinity with French identity. They track the changing representations of masculinity, explaining how the strong patriarch who saved fallen or troubled women from themselves in prewar films gave way to the impotent, unworthy, or incapable father figure of the Occupation. After the Liberation, the patriarch reemerged as protector and provider alongside assertive women who figured as threats not only to themselves but to society as a whole. Still in publisher's shrinkwrap.

Hardcover. Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 1st, 2000, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright, unclipped dust jacket. In this daring reexamination of the connections between national politics and Hollywood movies, Lary May offers a fresh interpretation of American culture from the New Deal through the Cold War and one in which a populist, egalitarian ethos found itself eventually supplanted by a far different view of the nation. Clean copy.