A Short History of the Movies, Tenth Edition
Bruce Kawin, University of Colorado at Boulder
Gerald Mast (late), University of Chicago
The tenth edition of A Short History of the Movies continues its long-standing tradition of scrupulously accurate details, up-to-date information, and jargon-free writing style that has made it the most widely adopted film history textbook.
This edition offers students a panoramic overview of the worldwide development of film. From the early experiments with motion photography, through the American studio years of the 1930’s and 1940’s, from Neorealism and the New Wave, up to the present age of digital cinema, A Short History of Film provides a comprehensive presentation of the history of cinema. This tenth edition has been revised and updated to include current scholarship, recent industry developments, and new films and filmmakers.
Features:
• Provides solid scholarship in its emphasis on key technical and aesthetic principles in an accessible, intelligent, and highly readable format.
• Contains approximately 500 color and black-and-white photographs—including frame enlargements and production stills— that enhance the narration.
• Presents the material in chronological order and in concise chapters making the text easy to synchronize with a survey course.
New to this Edition:
• Covers the new generation of digital camera systems and projectors in a chapter on Digital Cinema (Ch. 18), also updated to reflect the newest developments in shooting, post-production, and digital projection.
• Discusses "Women in the Studio Era" in a new section that explores the contribution of women behind and in front of the camera during a critical period of film history.
• Presents new material and more coverage of the Russian Revolutions and dialectical montage, the Sixth Generation in China, and Bollywood in India.
Praise for A Short History of the Movies, Tenth Edition:
“This is easily the most ‘readable’ yet thorough survey of film history currently available. It manages to be ‘student friendly’ while remaining rigorous enough to tell the complex tale of film history with sufficient detail and perspective.” — David O. Thomas, Ph. D., Ohio University
“This text is engaging and very reader friendly — comprehensive, yet never overwhelming students with dense factual information.” — Susan Tavernetti, De Anza College
1. Introductory Assumptions.
For Further Reading and Viewing.
2. Birth.
Frames per second.
Pictures on Film.
Speed.
Flicker and the Continuous Signal.
Persistence of Vision and Other Phenomena.
Seeing with the Brain.
Visual Masking and Retinal Retention.
Early Observations.
Separating and Integrating Frames.
The Phi Phenomenon and Beta Movement.
Short-Range Apparent Motion.
Constructing Continuity.
Scientific Toys.
Émile Reynaud.
Photography.
Muybridge and Marey.
Thomas Edison.
W. K–L. Dickson and William Heise.
Early Cameras and Films.
The Kinetoscope.
A Sound Film and Studio.
Projection.
The Magic Lantern.
The Loop and Other Solutions.
The Lumière Brothers.
R.W. Paul.
The Vitascope.
The First Films.
For Further Reading and Viewing.
3. Film Narrative, Commercial Expansion.
Early Companies.
Narrative.
George Melies.
Cohl and Others.
Edwin S. Porter.
From Brighton to Biograph.
Business Wars.
The Film d’Art.
For Further Reading and Viewing.
4. Griffith.
Apprenticeship.
Biograph: The One-Reelers.
Two Reels and Up.
The Birth of a Nation.
Intolerance.
1917-31.
Broken Blossoms and Way Down East.
The Struggle.
For Further Reading and Viewing.
5. Mack Sennett and the Chaplin Shorts.
Krazy Keystones.
Charlie.
For Further Reading and Viewing.
6. Movie Czars and Movie Stars.
Stars over Hollywood.
The First Stars.
California, Here We Come.
The Emperors and Their Rule.
Major Studios.
Movie Palaces.
Morality.
Sermons and Scandals.
The Hays Office.
Films and Filmmakers, 1910-28.
Thomas Ince.
Douglas Fairbanks.
DeMille and von Stroheim.
Greed.
Henry King.
Oscar Micheaux and the Race Movie.
Webber and Watson.
Weber and Women.
King Vidor.
Lubitsch and Others.
Flaherty and the Silent Documentary.
The Comics.
Laurel and Hardy and Hal Roach.
Harold Lloyd.
Harry Langdon.
Buster Keaton.
The Gold Rush and The General.
Hollywood and the Jazz Age.
Modernism.
Jazz, Booze, and It.
For Further Reading and Viewing.
7. The German Golden Age.
Expressionism, Realism, and the Studio Film.
Fantasy.
Caligari.
Destiny and Metropolis.
Nosferatu and Others.
Psychology.
The Last Laugh.
Pabst and die neue Sachlichkeit.
The End of an Era.
Beyond the Studio.
Exodus to Hollywood.
Using Sound.
Lei Riefenstahl.
For Further Reading and Viewing.
8. Soviet Montage.
The Kuleshov Workshop.
Sergei M. Eisenstein.
Battleship Potemkin.
October.
Sound and Color.
Vsevolod I. Pudovkin.
Mother.
Later Works.
Other Major Figures.
Alexander Dovzhenko.
Dziga Vertov.
Socialist Realism.
For Further Reading and Viewing.
9. Sound.
Processes.
Problems.
Solutions.
For Further Reading and Viewing.
10. France between the Wars.
Surrealism and Other Movements.
Gance and Dreyer.
Abel Gance.
The Passion of Joan of Arc.
Rene Clair.
Jean Renoir.
Grand Illusion.
The Rules of the Game.
Vigo and Others.
Jean Vigo.
Carné and Prévert.
For Further Reading and Viewing.
11. The American Studio Years: 1930-45.
Film Cycles and Cinematic Conventions.
The Production Code.
Cycles.
Studios and Style.
The Comics.
Late Chaplin.
Disney’s World.
Lubitsch and Sound.
Frank Capra.
Preston Sturges.
George Cukor.
The Marx Brothers.
Mae West.
W.C. Fields.
Masters of Mood and Action.
Josef von Sternberg.
John Ford.
Howard Hawks.
Alfred Hitchcock.
Orson Welles.
For Further Reading and Viewing.
12. Hollywood in Transition: 1946-65.
The Hollywood Ten and the Blacklist.
3-D, CinemaScope, Color, and the Tube.
Films in the Transitional Era.
Freedom of Speech, Preminger, and the Blacklist.
Message Pictures: Kazan and Others.
Adaptations and Values: John Huston and Others.
Film Noir and Other Genres.
The Freed Musicals.
Surfaces and Subversion.
Samuel Fuller .
Late Hitchcock.
Nicholas Ray.
Late Ford.
Douglas Sirk.
Finding the Audience.
For Further Reading and Viewing.
13. Neorealism and the New Wave.
Italian Neorealism.
Roberto Rossellini.
De Sica and Zavattini.
Luchino Visconti.
Romantics and Antiromantics.
Federico Fellini.
Michelangelo Antonioni.
Pasolini and Bertolucci.
Germi, Leone, and Others.
France---Postwar Classicism.
Cocteau and Others.
Max Ophüls.
Robert Bresson.
Tati, Clouzot, and Clément.
1959 and After.
The New Wave.
François Truffaut.
Jean-Luc Godard.
Alain Resnais.
Chabrol, Rohmer, and Rivette.
Varda, Marker, and the Documentary.
Malle and Others.
For Further Reading and Viewing.
14. National Cinemas: 1945-.
Sweden and Denmark.
Ingmar Bergman.
England.
Postwar Masters.
Another New Wave.
From A Hard Day’s Night to Masterpiece Theatre.
Central and Eastern Europe.
The Czech Golden Age.
Poland.
Hungary.
The Balkan States.
Cinemas East.
Japan.
India.
China.
Taiwan.
Hong Kong.
Korea.
For Further Reading and Viewing.
15. Hollywood Renaissance: 1964-76.
The New American Auteurs.
John Cassavetes.
Woody Allen.
Robert Altman.
Francis Ford Coppola.
Martin Scorsese.
Malick, De Palma, and Others.
Stanley Kubrick.
The Independent American Cinema.
Early History.
The New Film Poets.
For Further Reading and Viewing.
16. National Cinemas 2: 1968-.
Das neue Kino.
Rainer Werner Fassbinder.
Werner Herzog.
Wim Wenders.
Von Trotta and Others.
Third World Cinemas.
Emerging Cinemas, Emerging Concerns.
Instructive Dramas.
Documentaries.
Alex and Sembene.
Other English-Language Cinemas.
Australia.
New Zealand.
Canada.
Ireland and Elsewhere.
Russia and the Former Soviet Union.
Paradjanov, Tarkovsky, and Others.
Glassnost and After.
Iran.
The New Internationalism.
Luis Bunuel.
For Further Reading and Viewing.
17. The Return of the Myths: 1977-.
Star Wars and the New Mythology.
Supermen, Slashers, and Cops.
Feelgood Movies and Bummers.
Popular Heroes and Postmodern Irony.
Leading Directors.
Lucas and Spielberg.
Dark Satire: Lynch, Waters, and Others.
The Comic Edge: Burton, Zemeckis, and Others.
Politics, Insight, and Violence: Lee, Carpenter, and Others.
For Further Reading and Viewing.
18. Conglomerates and Cassettes: 1975-.
It’s A Wonderful Deal.
Sequels and Blockbusters.
Conglomerates.
For Sale: Studio.
The Budget Explosion.
Executive Decisions.
Theatres.
Studio Shake-ups.
Movies in the Age of Video.
Tape and Videotape.
Analog and Digital Information.
Sampling and Conversion.
Videotape Recorders.
Cassettes and Discs.
DVDs.
Out of the Vaults.
Pixels and Lines.
Film and Video Frames.
Changes on the Set.
Nonlinear Editing.
Copies and Originals.
Colorization.
Electronic Cinema.
For Further Reading and Viewing.
19. Digital Cinema: 1999-.
Doing without Film.
Beginnings.
Production and Distribution.
The Look of the Future.
For Further Reading and Viewing.
Distributors.
Glossary.
Acknowledgments.
Index.