|
Loading... What is Cinema?, Volume 1by Andre Bazin
None. The best aspect of this collection is the evident pleasure Bazin takes in viewing and analyzing the cinema. His delight in the medium shines through in the essays and he never fails to recognize the enjoyment to be found in movie watching. Particular highlights are the essays "The Myth of Total Cinema" "The Virtues and Limitations of Montage" and "Charlie Chaplin" (a lovely reflection on Chaplin's brilliance). That said, many of Bazin's concerns and examples are pretty dated and may not be of much use to the modern reader (I consider myself fairly well-watched but was unfamiliar with many of the films he mentions). Luckily, Bazin does manage to impart a degree of universality to many of his arguments, even if they derive from specific (and now fairly obscure) films. Worth reading. (  ) Mducman | Apr 22, 2013 |  no reviews | add a review
Amazon.com Amazon.com Review (ISBN 0520000927, Paperback)André Bazin is a great film critic and essayist, arguably the best France ever produced. His impact on the international cinema was monumental and continues to be felt today. He popularized the auteur theory, the idea that directors were the authors of their films. He was one of the first to take American "B"" movie genres, such as Westerns and films noir, seriously. He waxed eloquently on the Italian neorealist movement of the late '40s and '50s and inspired the "New Wave" of French directors, many of whom wrote for the journal he founded and edited, the legendary Cahiers du Cinema. François Truffaut dedicated The 400 Blows to him.Bazin had a keen eye for cinematic detail and technique, but was also one of the cinema's great sociologists, psychologists, and historians. Volume two of What Is Cinema? collects some of his most characteristic writings. It contains essays on the aesthetic of neorealism; individual neorealist films by Vittorio De Sica, Roberto Rossellini, and Federico Fellini; the brilliance of Charlie Chaplin; and the mythmaking qualities of the Western. The volume ends with an appreciation of the great Jean Gabin and three essays on sex in the movies, including the delightful "Entomology of the Pin-Up Girl." Bazin's essays are short, smoothly written, revelatory, and filled with remarkable insights and a profound love for his subject. (retrieved from Amazon Fri, 04 Jan 2013 19:02:49 -0500) No library descriptions found. |
 Google Books — Loading...Popular coversRatingAverage: (4.02)
Is this you?Become a LibraryThing Author. |
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Wikipedia in English (1)
8