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The story of cinema: A complete narrative history, from the beginnings to the present
Traces the history of film from 1895 to the present and discusses the most important movies, directors, actors, and actresses
1280 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1982
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
June 19, 2008
Just as Gibbon devoted his life to his own interpretation of the Roman Empire, David Shipman in no-uncertain opinionated terms gave his all to the movies in this staggering magnum opus. Pound for pound I think this is the best survey book of the movies ever written.
Shipman has all of David Thomson's (and Oscar Wilde's) gay bitchy flamboyance, devastating wit, and deft turns of phrase, but puts it all in service of a tome that really delivers in terms of fulsome content. Thomson's famous and best-selling Biographical Dictionary of Film is, let's face it, a dessert among film reference books, a bonbon one can enjoy after the main course. It's star-centric and fawning and very personal, but not really useful if one would rather concentrate on the movies themselves rather than the personalities.
This is where Shipman comes in. The Story of Cinema is, itself, a deeply personal book, not in the least academic, and if there is any weakness in it it's that Shipman fails to note the importance, general reputation and place in film history of most of the films he assesses. Without that context, all the films he surveys more or less come off as being equal in importance. He's also hamstrung by circumstance (lack of availability of information and film access at the time of the writing) into short-shrifting continental Asian and Third World cinema. His too-easy write-offs of Everyman auteurs such as Sam Fuller as unworthy of assessment also makes him slightly uncool by today's inclusive standards.
Nevertheless, the book is phenomenal, an astounding labor of love. Shipman surveys pretty much every important (and not always so important) movie from the inception of the cinema up to the early 1980s (the author died not long thereafter). Each assessment/analysis has the personal stamp of a reviewer and the writing never stoops to academic gibberish, and the films are presented within a sensible chronological narrative framework, as opposed to, say, a simple alphabetical listing as in Halliwell's, Maltin's and the plethora of similar guides that have proliferated in the past three decades. Shipman is strong in citing predecessors and remakes, story origins, and production histories, and for giving due credit to screenwriters.
The book is heavy as a brick and enormously filling as a read. Shipman champions many obscure films and filmmakers (eg., Werner Hochbaum and Luis Trenker) who deserve greater notoriety, and elevates Masaki Kobayashi's 1959-1961 three-part humanist Japanese WWII epic, The Human Condition, to the status of greatest film ever made. That trilogy is a moving and powerful achievement, no doubt, and despite my admiration for it I obviously disagree with Shipman's claim, but his passion and knowledge are persuasive.
To demonstrate to you how much I love this book, I own two copies, and have contemplated investing in a third, just to have safety copies at hand. Obviously no single film reference can do the job in telling the story of the movies, and this great book can only be an adjunct to so many others. In short, it's an unjustly lesser-known bravura work.
(KR@KY, amended 2016)
Shipman has all of David Thomson's (and Oscar Wilde's) gay bitchy flamboyance, devastating wit, and deft turns of phrase, but puts it all in service of a tome that really delivers in terms of fulsome content. Thomson's famous and best-selling Biographical Dictionary of Film is, let's face it, a dessert among film reference books, a bonbon one can enjoy after the main course. It's star-centric and fawning and very personal, but not really useful if one would rather concentrate on the movies themselves rather than the personalities.
This is where Shipman comes in. The Story of Cinema is, itself, a deeply personal book, not in the least academic, and if there is any weakness in it it's that Shipman fails to note the importance, general reputation and place in film history of most of the films he assesses. Without that context, all the films he surveys more or less come off as being equal in importance. He's also hamstrung by circumstance (lack of availability of information and film access at the time of the writing) into short-shrifting continental Asian and Third World cinema. His too-easy write-offs of Everyman auteurs such as Sam Fuller as unworthy of assessment also makes him slightly uncool by today's inclusive standards.
Nevertheless, the book is phenomenal, an astounding labor of love. Shipman surveys pretty much every important (and not always so important) movie from the inception of the cinema up to the early 1980s (the author died not long thereafter). Each assessment/analysis has the personal stamp of a reviewer and the writing never stoops to academic gibberish, and the films are presented within a sensible chronological narrative framework, as opposed to, say, a simple alphabetical listing as in Halliwell's, Maltin's and the plethora of similar guides that have proliferated in the past three decades. Shipman is strong in citing predecessors and remakes, story origins, and production histories, and for giving due credit to screenwriters.
The book is heavy as a brick and enormously filling as a read. Shipman champions many obscure films and filmmakers (eg., Werner Hochbaum and Luis Trenker) who deserve greater notoriety, and elevates Masaki Kobayashi's 1959-1961 three-part humanist Japanese WWII epic, The Human Condition, to the status of greatest film ever made. That trilogy is a moving and powerful achievement, no doubt, and despite my admiration for it I obviously disagree with Shipman's claim, but his passion and knowledge are persuasive.
To demonstrate to you how much I love this book, I own two copies, and have contemplated investing in a third, just to have safety copies at hand. Obviously no single film reference can do the job in telling the story of the movies, and this great book can only be an adjunct to so many others. In short, it's an unjustly lesser-known bravura work.
(KR@KY, amended 2016)
January 31, 2008
if you have nothing else to do then this is a good read
June 17, 2011
I read a history of the cinema but this is maybe not the specific book. I'm a movie fan and once was a fanatic. Don't go much any more. Date read is a guess.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews