Here are 100 books that Afterimage fans have personally recommended if you like
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I’m a historian, with a special interest in the 20th century. I’ve written about Freud’s Vienna, the aftermath of the First World War, strikes in the 1920s and 1930s in America’s cotton South, the plot to assassinate Hitler, and the notorious 1940s gangsters nicknamed “Murder, Inc.”. What intrigues me about the 20th century are the era’s underlying values and the shocking and violent collisions among them. In Casablanca’s Conscience, I use the great film as a lens with which to take another look at the tumultuous times just a generation ago.
Isenberg has explored all the Hollywood archives and has produced a delightful and fascinating story of the actors, the director and producer, the writers, and all the technicians who created the film. A splendid guide to Casablanca and a great example of an in-depth, how-it-was-made history of a single film.
Casablanca is "not one movie," Umberto Eco once quipped; "it is 'movies.'" Film historian Noah Isenberg's We'll Always Have Casablanca offers a rich account of the film's origins, the myths and realities behind its production, and the reasons it remains so revered today, over seventy-five years after its premiere.
I’m a historian, with a special interest in the 20th century. I’ve written about Freud’s Vienna, the aftermath of the First World War, strikes in the 1920s and 1930s in America’s cotton South, the plot to assassinate Hitler, and the notorious 1940s gangsters nicknamed “Murder, Inc.”. What intrigues me about the 20th century are the era’s underlying values and the shocking and violent collisions among them. In Casablanca’s Conscience, I use the great film as a lens with which to take another look at the tumultuous times just a generation ago.
Kracauer was a German film critic in the Weimar years. This classic text, first published in 1947, relates the crisis of German culture in the 1920s and 1930s–which climaxed in Hitler and Nazism–to famous Weimar films, like The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, and M. Kracauer’s effort to track Germany’s cultural zeitgeist in the movies. This relation is not without controversy.
His book remains a fine example of the struggle to see mass psychology in the movies and the movies in the context of mass psychology.
An essential work of the cinematic history of the Weimar Republic by a leading figure of film criticism
First published in 1947, From Caligari to Hitler remains an undisputed landmark study of the rich cinematic history of the Weimar Republic. Prominent film critic Siegfried Kracauer examines German society from 1921 to 1933, in light of such movies as The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, M, Metropolis, and The Blue Angel. He explores the connections among film aesthetics, the prevailing psychological state of Germans in the Weimar era, and the evolving social and political reality of the time. Kracauer makes a startling…
I’m a historian, with a special interest in the 20th century. I’ve written about Freud’s Vienna, the aftermath of the First World War, strikes in the 1920s and 1930s in America’s cotton South, the plot to assassinate Hitler, and the notorious 1940s gangsters nicknamed “Murder, Inc.”. What intrigues me about the 20th century are the era’s underlying values and the shocking and violent collisions among them. In Casablanca’s Conscience, I use the great film as a lens with which to take another look at the tumultuous times just a generation ago.
Robert Pippin is a well-respected philosopher who has written on Hegel, Nietzsche, and Heidegger. Here, he writes about westerns: Hawks’ Red River, and Ford’s The Man Who Shot Liberty Valence and The Searchers.
Pippin is interested in both political psychology and political philosophy within an American context, but there is nothing starchy or narrowly academic about this thoughtful reflection on these films.
Neither Hawks nor Ford was a philosopher, but Pippin shows that their movies are charged with philosophical meaning.
In this pathbreaking book one of America's most distinguished philosophers brilliantly explores the status and authority of law and the nature of political allegiance through close readings of three classic Hollywood Westerns: Howard Hawks' Red River and John Ford's The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance and The Searchers.
Robert Pippin treats these films as sophisticated mythic accounts of a key moment in American history: its "second founding," or the western expansion. His central question concerns how these films explore classical problems in political psychology, especially how the virtues of a commercial republic gained some hold on individuals at a time…
I’m a historian, with a special interest in the 20th century. I’ve written about Freud’s Vienna, the aftermath of the First World War, strikes in the 1920s and 1930s in America’s cotton South, the plot to assassinate Hitler, and the notorious 1940s gangsters nicknamed “Murder, Inc.”. What intrigues me about the 20th century are the era’s underlying values and the shocking and violent collisions among them. In Casablanca’s Conscience, I use the great film as a lens with which to take another look at the tumultuous times just a generation ago.
Yes, of course, just about everyone has heard of Roger Ebert (d. 2013), the great film critic for the Chicago Sun-Times and co-host, with Gene Siskel of the PBS program Sneak Previews. But have you ever read any of his reviews? They’re delightful–smart, funny, touching, and thoroughly readable.
Ebert must have seen every film ever made (his reviews are arranged in these collections alphabetically by film title). In each short review he offered, not just his opinion of the film in question, but striking insights into the film’s themes, meanings, symbols, and underlying philosophy.
Any film lover should immediately obtain all four collections.
America’s most trusted and best-known film critic Roger Ebert presents one hundred brilliant essays on some of the best movies ever made.
Roger Ebert, the famed film writer and critic, wrote biweekly essays for a feature called "The Great Movies," in which he offered a fresh and fervent appreciation of a great film. The Great Movies collects one hundred of these essays, each one of them a gem of critical appreciation and an amalgam of love, analysis, and history that will send readers back to that film with a fresh set of eyes and renewed enthusiasm–or perhaps to an avid…
I was old (or young) enough to have only seen two Kubrick films in the cinema: Full Metal Jacket and Eyes Wide Shut. I began teaching film studies and Hollywood in 1998, and I have been teaching and researching Kubrick intensively since 2007, visiting his archive in London on numerous occasions. At one point, I held the record for the researcher who had spent the most hours in the Archive. I also met Christiane and Jan and spoke to many others who knew and worked with Kubrick. Having been familiar with Robert Kolker’s work, it became clear that collaborating with an international authority on film was a necessity as well as a pleasure.
Peter Biskind chronicles the rise of New Hollywood in the 1970s, featuring such "movie brat" directors as Martin Scorsese, Francis Ford Coppola, and Steven Spielberg. But he also refers to such older directors as Stanley Kubrick.
It’s written in a chatty and easy-to-read style and is full of useful tidbits of information about Kubrick and especially his new backers at Warner Brothers.
When the low-budget biker movie Easy Rider shocked Hollywood with its success in 1969, a new Hollywood era was born. This was an age when talented young filmmakers such as Scorsese, Coppola, and Spielberg, along with a new breed of actors, including De Niro, Pacino, and Nicholson, became the powerful figures who would make such modern classics as The Godfather, Chinatown, Taxi Driver, and Jaws. Easy Riders, Raging Bulls follows the wild ride that was Hollywood in the '70s -- an unabashed celebration of sex, drugs, and rock 'n' roll (both onscreen and off) and a climate where innovation and…
I have taught philosophy and film for almost 40 years, first at Ohio State and then at Notre Dame. My focus had been German cinema, but I was drawn to Hitchcock for three reasons: first, he received his origins in Weimar Germany and owes much to German expressionism; second, his films are so cinematically beautiful and effective that I began teaching them again and again, and the students loved them; finally, I thought it worthwhile and a fun project to address the extent to which his films raise deep and engaging philosophical questions.
This is the first book I read that confirmed my own intuition—that Hitchcock’s works are as rich and complex as great literary works.
Brill’s book was a relatively early work of Hitchcock criticism, but an enduring one, a humanistic study with considerable attention paid to the films’ aesthetic and religious dimensions. The latter is fitting because Hitchcock was a deeply Catholic director.
The book offers excellent analyses, with good attention to cinematic and artistic features.
Was Alfred Hitchcock a cynical trifler with his audience's emotions, as he liked to pretend? Or was he a profoundly humane artist? Most commentators leave Hitchcock's self-assessment unquestioned, but this book shows that his movies convey an affectionate, hopeful understanding of human nature and the redemptive possibilities of love. Lesley Brill discusses Hitchcock's work as a whole and examines in detail twenty-two films, from perennial favorites like North by Northwest to neglected masterpieces like Rich and Strange.
Funny stuff happens all the time in my wafty, solo-travelling life. Sometimes that funny stuff will only become apparent after the proverbial dust has settled and I’m no longer in imminent danger or at my wit’s end: the hilarity of a situation reveals itself when I’m telling the story. Travelling alone puts you in a vulnerable position of being open to ‘the moment’ far more so than when you are travelling with someone else. I get a sense of place and people and write about what happens true to my voice which is intrinsically connected to my funny bone—an intention to capture culture through accurate observation and tragi-comic humour.
Apart from being a wonderfully talented actor, Richard E. Grant is a fantastic writer.
This 1996 book is a raw and honest account of his early acting career from landing his springboard role in the cult classic With Nails to working with some of the giants in Hollywood from Steve Martin and Bruce Willis to Francis Ford Coppola and Martin Scorsese.
Each chapter is a film role, and Grant seems to float through the various hiccoughs and hilarity with a self-effacing charm. His perspective of being the observer, seeing everything from the sidelines; of someone who perhaps shouldn’t really be there, is the essence of his writing.
Richard E. Grant captures the crazy of Hollywood film culture in the narrative and snippets of conversation, nuance of character, situation, and place.
'An exceptionally vivid and penetrating insight into Hollywood film-making ...What most of us want is gossip about stars, and this is something the book delivers in spades ...Qualifies for that exclusive niche reserved for film star memoirs that are worth much more than a casual flick on the bookshop shelf' Jonathan Coe, Observer 'It's a star-packed savagely observed delight, and as a vivid psychological insight into one actor's complete experience of a film, it really does stand alone' Empire 'In these dashing diaries of his recent years in the movies, Grant shares with candour his wonder at this aberrant universe…
My journey of being an author has been a magical ride. I wrote my first book at 47 when nobody gave me credit about becoming a real author and later I left my good job to fulfill this dream and changed my life completely with a bit of thoughtlessness behavior, I must admit now if I look back. But it has been worthwhile. I wrote books on gratitude, forgiveness and love but my most famous book is The Power and Magic of Gratitude that became a bestseller in Italy. Since then I have been known for spreading the powerful message of Gratitude with countless meeting, conferences and events.
This is a star-filled book where each celebrity shares what they are most thankful for. Among others, you can find stories by Alicia Keys, Jeff Bridges, Sheryl Crow, B.B. King, Francis Ford Coppola, Dave Grohl, Stan Lee, Forest Whitaker, Ringo Star, and many many more. I have found this reading very profound as you can see the humble side of these celebrities and how they are thankful for all the gifts they received along the way. Every story is different and some are really intriguing but the common point is they do not forget to be grateful and that is the main message they leave in the heart of readers.
Ricky Gervais says...Pajamas.I've started wearing pajamas out, because they're more comfortable than trousers. (Laughs) I started out with jeans, then went to sweatpants about ten years ago. Now it's just pajamas. I wore them to the White House. I've gone whole hog.
Dolly Parton says...Humble Roots.I think being brought up dirt poor left with me with a feeling of what it was like to go without, so I can relate when people are having a hard time. In my case, being a songwriter, I'm able to write not only for and about myself, but…
I have taught philosophy and film for almost 40 years, first at Ohio State and then at Notre Dame. My focus had been German cinema, but I was drawn to Hitchcock for three reasons: first, he received his origins in Weimar Germany and owes much to German expressionism; second, his films are so cinematically beautiful and effective that I began teaching them again and again, and the students loved them; finally, I thought it worthwhile and a fun project to address the extent to which his films raise deep and engaging philosophical questions.
With the exception of the prefatory material, which one can skip, this is one of the very best books on Hitchcock.
It is beautifully written and attentive to cinematic details and larger themes. It offers rich interpretations of several central films, with the first half focused on close interpretation and the second half, written later in Wood’s career, more orientated toward Marx, Freud, and gay studies.
Though the book is uneven, it contains some of the best analyses one will ever read of Hitchcock’s major films.
When "Hitchcock's Films" was first published, it quickly became known as a new kind of book on film - one that came to be considered a necessary text in the Hitchcock bibliography. When Robin Wood returned to his writings on Hitchcock's films and published "Hitchcock's Films Revisited" in 1989, the multi-dimensional essays took on a new shape - one that was tempered by Wood's own development as a critic. This new revised edition of "Hitchcock's Films Revisited" includes a substantial new preface in which Wood reveals his personal history as a film scholar - including his coming out as a…
I have taught philosophy and film for almost 40 years, first at Ohio State and then at Notre Dame. My focus had been German cinema, but I was drawn to Hitchcock for three reasons: first, he received his origins in Weimar Germany and owes much to German expressionism; second, his films are so cinematically beautiful and effective that I began teaching them again and again, and the students loved them; finally, I thought it worthwhile and a fun project to address the extent to which his films raise deep and engaging philosophical questions.
If one wants to hear Hitchcock’s voice, this set of interviews provides the gold standard. The book, which was also important for Hitchcock’s reception, includes discussions of every major film.
Hitchcock talks informally about what his intentions were, how he created individual scenes, and what kinds of meanings lie hidden in the works. Most readers are drawn to Hitchcock criticism after being engaged by an individual film, and they will find welcome orientation here.
One is ravished by the density of insights into cinematic questions...Truffaut performed a tour de force of tact in getting this ordinarily guarded man to open up as he had never done before (and never would again)...If the 1967 Hitchcock/Truffaut can now be seen as something of a classic, this revised version is even better. Phillip Lopate The New York Times Book Review
