The Best Film Books?
Which are the most inspirational five books about film ever written? This was the question the British Film Institute asked 51 leading critics and writers, and their answers are printed here in full.
Those lists provided me with some new titles to check out. (I’ve just begun reading Stanley Cavell’s A World Viewed, which made it onto a good many of the lists.) At any rate, I’d love to learn about your favorite books on film. Here are my top five:
Gilles Deleuze — Cinema 1: The Movement-Image [&] Cinema 2: The Time-Image
Jean-Luc Godard — Godard on Godard
P. Adams Sitney — Visionary Film
Stan Brakhage — Essential Brakhage: Selected Writings on Film-Making
David Bordwell — Making Meaning: Inference and Rhetoric in the Interpretation of Cinema
Tentacles Are Hair You Wear On Your Spleen, Ideally
“You might define the general trend in my work as a synthesis of aesthetics and psychology. Traditionally, in Japan, these are not two different things. Neither is aesthetics in conflict with realism. I believe this is unique to Japan.” – Yukio Mishima
“To Be Natural Is Such A Difficult Pose To Keep Up”
Salvador Dali and Gala Dali (1936)
Blockquotes excerpted from Susan Sontag’s “Notes on Camp,” dedicated to Oscar Wilde.
Drunk On That Vintage Kick
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nCKtEvjoGOs
Some things are inept in their own time. And like a fine wine, they have to age.
Psychedelic Hoo-haha
Like my obsession with Brian Eno, some things never change.
If You Will Permit a Thought on TV
Throughout the nineties and for the first half of the past decade, there were two dominant strains of sitcom: the blue-collar/white-collar family sitcom (Roseanne, Everybody Loves Raymond, Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, Frasier, etc.), and the five-or-so-friends-hanging-out-in-a-city sitcom (Seinfeld, Friends, Cheers, etc.). The former culminated and withered with the end of Everybody Loves Raymond–now most often reiterated ironically by The Simpsons (which was far ahead of its time in that respect) and Family Guy–while the latter still persists in a way, only disguised or retooled as the workplace sitcom (30 Rock, The Office, Parks and Recreation, Party Down), a formula which began in part with Murphy Brown and, in its current mode, with Scrubs and the British Office.
This is a map made by an exiled pianist, as a directive to the members of his band. He could not foresee that his musical and topographical instruction should be used backwards. As a cartographer, he was not appreciated in his own country.
What's funnier than Adam Sanblerg?
While trying and failing to embed Peter Greenaway’s hilarious film, A Walk Through H (1978), which is what I actually want you to watch here (so pardon this aside – it’s what I do), I found this 3D walk-through of the Beis Hamikdash in Jerusalem. This is the temple where, in the New Testament, Jesus is said to have prayed and chased merchants away, claiming they were desecrating the temple. The temple in this video. READ MORE >
WORLD PREMIERE: THE HOUSE THAT JOEY BUILT
Presented by The Agriculture Reader, in celebration of the release of issue #4, which is now available for purchase.
Film socialisme
Via James Greer, a free and legal artist-offered download of Jean-Luc Godard’s latest (and perhaps final) film: Film socialisme, which according to IMDB = “A symphony in three movements. Things such as a Mediterranean cruise, numerous conversations, in numerous languages, between the passengers, almost all of whom are on holiday… Our Europe… Our humanities. Visits to six sites of true or false myths: Egypt, Palestine, Odessa, Hellas, Naples and Barcelona.” Here’s a trailer: