Lumet’s book is fantastic. There are so many great books out there about film theory and technique. The Eisenstein books are extremely hard to come by (I have been hunting for them myself to no avail). Some of my own personal recommendations would be Peter Bogdanovich’s Who The Devil Made It, which is a collection of interviews he conducted with many great classic filmmakers; also, The Movie Brats by Michael Pye and Linda Myles about the celebrated filmmakers of the 70’s is a damn great read. And as for autobiographies that focus on both a filmmaker’s life and craft, the best of the best are Luis Bunel’s My Last Sigh, Sam Fuller’s A Third Face, and Walter Murch’s In the Blink of an Eye, which really isn’t so much an autobiography but more of Murch’s ideas and technical advice on film editing. Also, in that vein, there is Painting With Light, a fantastic dissection of the art of cinematography by the great film noir DP John Alton (the book was written in 1959 so all of the film stocks mentioned as well as many of the lights have gone the way of the dodo, but the techniques and ideas that Alton writes about are as relevant as ever).
Hope that helps a bit.
Conversations with Great Moviemakers from Hollywood Golden Age at the American Film Institute by George Stevens Jr. It’s basically a compilation of a bunch of interviews with various directors like Billy Wilder, Federico Fellini, Ingmar Bergman, Satyajit Ray, Alfred Hitchcock, Harold Loyd, and a ton of other filmmakers and craftspeople.
Eisensteins Film Form and Film sense are readily available and pretty accessible. I found on at used bookstore near me and my library has plenty of his writings. Those two books contain many of his essays and are available on AMazon. There is also another thread on here with the same topic and lots and lots of responses. I forget what it’s called but my favorite that I dropped in that thread is Laurent Tirard’s “Moviemakers’ Master Class: Private Lessons from the World’s Foremost Directors”
Yeah, That Laurent Tirard book is awesome. I checked it out from my library and xeroxed my favorite interviews. I always read those as a source of inspiration.
The one book I recommend to learn a very important lesson in film making – mainly what NOT to do – is Steven Bach’s “Final Cut: Dreams and Disaster in the making of ’Heaven’s Gate’”. I find it to be a perfect cautionary tale, and a good reminder for potential film makers to stay humble. Yes, you have to have confidence and a great belief in your project without the worry of commercial prospects (cause let’s face it, in a way that IS commercial), but Cimino had such unshakable faith in what he was doing that the project had no other choice but to fail as he refused to listen to ANYBODY – even those who offered very sensible advice, and his ego DID get a little out of hand (with only 2 movies to his credit at the time of the preproduction of “Heaven’s Gate”, one of his contractual demands was that the movie be referred to as “Michael Cimino’s ’Heaven’s Gate’” with his name as big as the title). Steven Bach makes clear that Cimino and perhaps a few others involved would tell a different story, but I think Bach tells it pretty much the way it was – and in such an entertaining way.
I recently got ‘Godard on Godard’ and it’s quite interesting so far.
Some of the filmschool textbooks are useful especially just for referencing technical aspects of production, I’ve even had to buy some film history books that dug pretty deep, but by all means avoid those “(whatever) for Dummies” or “make a movie in 2 days and impress your friends” books you’ll find at barnes & noble.
Transcendental Style in Film: Ozu, Bresson, Dreyer by the filmmaker Paul Shrader is an excellent book about a certain type of film and these filmmakers in particular. Must reading if you like these directors.
Books that I had to read for different classes that were terrific:
In The Blink Of An Eye – Walter Murch
Shot By Shot: A Practical Guide To Filmmaking – John Cantine, Susan Howard, Brady Lewis
The Autobiographical Documentary In America – Jim Lane
Almodovar on Almodovar
My Last Sigh – Luis Bunuel
A History Of The French New Wave Cinema – Richard Neupert
cassavetes on cassavetes is an inspiring read.
I liked James Monaco’s How to Read a Film
Rosenbaum’s MOVIE WARS is an important polemic that is truly eye-opening and potentially transformative (for a cinephile at least).
Of Robin Wood’s work (personally my favourite critic), I’d recommend SEXUAL POLITICS AND NARRATIVE FILM. He is probably best known for HITCHCOCK’S FILMS REVISTED.
Of those I’ve read completely, I recommend:
Andrei Tarkovsky: Interviews – Andrei Tarkovsky, John Gianvito
Something Like An Autobiography – Akira Kurosawa
Lynch On Lynch – David Lynch, Chris Rodley
Cronenberg On Cronenberg – David Cronenberg, Chris Rodley
The Impossible David Lynch – Todd McGowan
Of those I’ve read partially, I recommend:
The Ingmar Bergman Archives – Paul Duncan
The Films Of Akira Kurosawa – Donald Richie, Joan Mellen
Andrey Tarkovsky, Sculpting In Time: Reflections On The Cinema – Andrei Tarkovsky, Kitty Hunter-Blair
Agitator: The Cinema Of Takashi Miike – Tom Mes
The best place to start with Eisenstein is FILM FORM. It is readily available in both new and used copies at affordable prices. I would suggest beginning with the last essay in this collection entitled “Dickens, Griffith, and the Film Today”, which is an article that Eisenstein wrote in the 1940s summarizing the Soviet filmmakers discovery (via Griffith) of the significance of montage. Although FILM FORM does not contain all of his best essays, it’s a good place to start. I also strongly recommend, if you can track down an affordable used print, Vladimir Nizhny’s LESSONS WITH EISENSTEIN. Nizhny was a student of Eisenstein’s in the 1930s, and he recounts the master’s lectures. The highlight is Eisenstein’s transformation of a scene from CRIME AND PUNISHMENT into cinema. Brilliant.
As for Bazin: WHAT IS CINEMA, VOLUME ONE contains “The Ontology of the Photographic Image”, an essential starting point; VOLUME TWO is even better, I think, with seminal essays on Italian neo-realism (especially “In Defense of Rossellini”), and many other fantastic pieces (“The Evolution of the Western”, “Marginal Notes on Eroticism in the Cinema”). BAZIN AT WORK, released many years later includes several terrific, seminal essays that, for some strange reason, were not chosen for the English edition of WHAT IS CINEMA, especially “William Wyler, or the Jansenist of Directing,” and “The Myth of Stalin in the Soviet Cinema.”
Read together, they establish without any doubt whatsoever that Bazin was the greatest film critic in the history of cinema.
Having said that, you won’t find any articles by Bazin on the French New Wave b/c he died in 1958. However, if you want to get a good sense of the critical/creative ferment that lead to the emergence of the movement, look at the reviews/articles published by Cahiers du Cinema during the 1950s. There is an English-language anthology, edited by Jim Hillier, which includes articles by Bazin, Truffaut, Rohmer, Rivette, Godard, et.al. It’s marvelous.
Hitchcock/Truffaut
For the silent perspective and a wonderful history of the “foundations” of modern filmmaking, the book that has been my bible since I started loving films is THE PARADE’S GONE BY’ by Kevin Brownlow. Interviews, analysis, and marvelous picture examples of the glory of silent film making.
For a good, concise history of Japanese filmmaking from the beginning up to 1971, JAPANESE CINEMA by Donald Richie is an engaging read in a paperback-sized book you can take anywhere.
If you want to understand story structure, read “Story”. Best book on the subject.
All books on story and it’s structure are derivative of Joseph Campbell’s The Hero’s Journey. As FREEDMAN pointed out, McKee’s version is exemplar, but it is (and everything else I’ve read) a revision of Campbell’s primeval process. (Count and collate the steps, it is assured).
Dara Marks’ Inside Story: The Transformational Arc is the intrinsic follow-up. It delves into the personal journey of your main character(s) with regard to your plot and conflicts. To me it spoke volumes.
As for film-history, Alain Silver’s and James Ursini’s The Noir Style is enamoring. Admittedly, the illustrious prints outdo the indulgent, albeit educated, theology.
Hey check out The Big Picture Filmmaking Lessons from a Life on the Set by Tom Reilly.
The writer worked with Woody Allen for eighteen years. The book is all about his experience. Really interesting.
A History of Narrative Film, by David A. Cook, is a fantastic resource if you’re interested in a detailed history of the medium. (Given the scope of the text it’s impressive the author manages to get rather in-depth the likes of Birth of a Nation, Citizen Kane, and other heavy hitters.) The only drawback is the exclusion of animation, though the author notes such a topic deserves its own history.
Fellini on Fellini offers semi-autobiographical tangents on his experiences and practices in film. A very entertaining, joy-filled read.
The Film Genre Readers (Barry Keith Grant, ed.) cover a wide and hearty range within film theory.
Nightmare USA: The Untold Story of the Exploitation Independents, by Stephen Thrower, is exactly as the title sounds. Hundreds of films are showcased and there is an entire spotlight portion of the book for behind-the-scenes stories and interviews with some of the obscure names associated with underground cinema. The text is also deluged by hundreds of original photographs, posters, stills, and cult ephemera.
Walt Disney’s Nine Old Men and the Art of Animation, by John Canemaker, an award-winning animator himself. It’s patterned after Lives of the Artists and does a bang-up job chronicling not only the biographies but also the working habits, artistic approach, inventions, and influence of the animators most responsible for rocketing the medium of animation to where it exists today. It also properly credits just who did what in the multitude of Disney features, highlighting the animator’s acting talents so often overlooked in today’s live-actor biased world.
The Animator’s Survival Kit: A Manual of Methods, Principles, and Formulas for Classical, Computer, Games, Stop Motion, and Internet Animators, by Richard Williams. I haven’t read it all the way through but I understand it to be one of the — if not the — gold standard for aspiring animators working in the business today. Williams is an animation legend in his own right but he defers a great deal to the Nine Old Men, some of whom he worked and studied with for a great many years, and thus provides a very direct bridge to their wealth of experience. This is the book form of a master class he’s taught for years and there is also a DVD edition which presents the actual animations of all the published illustrations. Even for those not striving to be an animator this work should do very well in opening up the intricacies of the art form.
I’d recommend…
Any book from the University of Mississippi Press: http://www.upress.state.ms.us/category/film (this still growing series of interviews with directors is invaluable)
Cult Movies v1-3 by Danny Peary
Medium Cool: Movies of the 60s by Ethan Mordden
Stan Brakhage: Filmmaker edited by David E. James
Bertolucci’s Dream Loom: A Psychoanalytic Study of Cinema by T. Jeff Kline
Francois Truffaut Correspondence 1945-1984 (excellent collection of letters between Truffaut & friends, associates, and of course Godard!)
Five Films by Frederick Wiseman: Titicut Follies, High School, Welfare, High School II, Public Housing
Film As A Subversive Art by Amos Vogel and Scott MacDonald
Confessions of a Cultist by Andrew Sarris
Has anybody read I, Fellini? I’m thinking about giving it a read.
I took a look at I, Fellini, and it looked pretty good, a very insightful read. Fellini gives many great observations on his own films, and a lot of good observations about where he could have done things better. It’s pretty filled, and pretty awesome.
I know that it might be considered a tad dated (though not really…‘97), but Roger Ebert’s Book of Film is an absolutely fantastic collection of writings by or about movies in general, directors, actors, stuntmen, cinematographers, and everything. It is absolutely filled with great writings. Also, it’s a great jumping off point, especially since mush of the writings come from books you can buy, and so, at the very least, it’s an awesome sampler.
Savvy
Hey guys check out this web site www.tomreillyauthor.com I just finished his new book The Big Picture filmmaking Lessons from a life on the set and it is awesome! Read the last two chapters about the ride to the airport and the teamsters and then read about Lunch in the movie business. Nobody has written about film like this before. You still get the technical stuff but he fills the pages with fun inside stories from working on the set. Woody Allen even gave a quote for the jacket, “Where was this book when I was starting out.” I’m going to give a copy of this book to my dad for fathers day and he doesn’t even like movies.
Visionary Film: The American Avant-Garde 1943-1978 by P. Adams Sitney is highly recommended.
Always enjoy the BFI Film Classics
“The Conversations: Walter Murch and the art of film editing” by Michael Ontaatje. …what a wonderful book. Reading it is like having a great master talk to you about the fine points of his art. Also great is “In the Blink of an Eye” by Walter Murch.
Also a great read: “This is Orson Welles,” by Orson Welles and Peter Bogdanovich.
The thread on camera angles and mise-en-scene made wonder about books that would help me gain a better understanding of film—an understanding that would help me appreciate films more. So if there were only 2-3 books you would recommend, which would they be?
Also, if there are any books mentioned in hear that you strongly recommend, let me know. Mahalo.
Down & Dirty Pictures – Peter Biskind
This is his follow up to “Easy Riders, Raging Bulls” which tackles the indy movement of the 80’s and 90’s focusing mainly on Miramax & the Weinsteins (mostly Harvey); Bingham Ray & October films and Sundance.Since the largest parts are about Miramax and October Films, the focus is on film aquisitions and marketing, though as the book progresses production becomes a bigger part. If you want to read about how big a piece of shit Harvey Weinstein is, this is the right place. Thouroughly reasearched by Biskind, this book includes all the major and minor players involved in the 25 year span, and features input from many characters including: Tarantino, Kevin Smith, Todd Solondz, Matt Damon/Ben Affleck, Martin Scorsese, Steven Soderberg, Eisner, Scott Greenstein, Tom Tykwer, and way too many more to name. The book is phenomal, informative and above all more entertaining than i ever expected.
The Impossible Lynch – Todd McGowan
An interesting psychoanalytical approach to the films of David Lynch from Eraserhead – Mulholland Drive. Good reflective read, though i beleive McGowan’s comparisons and theories are a stretch.
On Directing: David Mamet
Short read/conversation by David Mamet about his simplified version of the directing process. Though he sounds like a dick, I found his very simple view of the craft to be helpful.
Bank
I recently read Sidney Lumet’s book called “Making Movies” and thought that it was absolutely marvelous. I’ve been meaning to read some of Andre Bazin’s essays on the French New Wave. I’m trying to get into Sergei Eisenstein’s readings too but I don’t know where to start. Any recommendations?