Paris Hollywood: Writings on Film

by Peter Wollen

In this new collection of essays on film, all written over the last ten years, Peter Wollen explores an extraordinarily wide range of topics, stretching from an analysis of ‘Time in Film and Video Art’ to a study of ‘Riff-Raff Realism’ in British films. There are provocative discussions of the works of established auteur directors such as Howard Hawks and Alfred Hitchcock and of the film-making careers of such experimental movie-makers as William Burroughs and Viking Eggeling, the dadaist pioneer of abstract film. The collection also includes fascinating studies of a number of film classics, such as John Huston’s Freud , Jean Renoir’s Rules of the Game and Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner .

Other essays deal with the relationship of film to the other arts, such as dance and architecture, and explore the interaction between film and anthropology. This is not a theoretical book but it is one that suggests many new approaches to thinking about film and many unexpected connections between film studies and the history of such strangely  related activities as espionage, psychoanalysis, Stalinism, love of speed and digital technology. Full of fascinating new insights, Peter Wollen’s new book is based on the premise that there are no fixed ways of writing about film but, rather, a plethora of paths leading in very different directions, each contributing to a new understanding of the twentieth century’s major art-form.

Genres: Film, Nonfiction

320 pages, Paperback

First published December 1, 2002

About the author

Peter Wollen was an English film theorist and filmmaker. He studied English at Christ Church, Oxford. Both political journalist and film theorist, Wollen's Signs and Meaning in the Cinema (1969) helped to transform the discipline of film studies by incorporating the methodology of structuralism and semiotics. He taught film at a number of universities and was Professor Emeritus at the University of California, Los Angeles, at the time of his retirement.

Reviews

[Jason Alley]

Warning. Wollen's book is for film geeks only. His myriad references to film history (not to mention literature and the other visual arts), makes this book not for the novice reader. However, anyone who has taken a general history of film class (or educated him/herself via the Criterion Collection and/or their favorite repertory movie theater) may still find much to savor. A series of essays musing on topics ranging from Howard Hawks to "Blade Runner" to representations of time in film and video, Wollen reminds us of the joyful passions that infuse filmmaking, filmgoing and film criticism.

[Tosh]

Peter Wollen is one of my favorite critical writers on film and the arts. Reading his book is best when you are at a bar or coffee shop, and you just get sort of drunk with this thoughts on particular films and filmmakers. He's really good on the Hollywood of the 40's and 50's - but also knows his experimental films as well. Great collection of essays about the cinema.

[Luke Devenish]

C'est bonza.