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A History of the Cinema From its Origins to 1970
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
May 2, 2023
Woof, was on this bad boy for months. Picked it up on a whim in oxfam. Began with fervour, slowly but surely lost myself in slog land. It picked up majorly at the end, though, with sections on Japanese cinema and the French new wave. I LOVED all the stuff on the silent era, and in particular cinema of the weimar period and soviet union, mainly because I knew shamefully little about both!
It was really fascinating to read an account from the 70s. The author dismisses some absolute pillars of the modern canon. It's a wonderful life? Melodramatic. Persona? Does not belong among his best.
Overall, though, it was often bogged down in overlong descriptions of plot, outdated psychoanalytic analysis and stuff, but was also certainly worth a read. 3.5
It was really fascinating to read an account from the 70s. The author dismisses some absolute pillars of the modern canon. It's a wonderful life? Melodramatic. Persona? Does not belong among his best.
Overall, though, it was often bogged down in overlong descriptions of plot, outdated psychoanalytic analysis and stuff, but was also certainly worth a read. 3.5
November 28, 2022
A great one-volume film history should be in anyone's library
You cannot have too many "Histories of the cinema," books. There were a few out there that were written just to take up space. But this is not one of those books. Eric Rhode has done an excellent job of chronicling great films and how they change throughout the decades. He also covers how they relate to the politics of the time.
The book is also permeated with stills from great movies that match the eras that he is speaking about. I just enjoy perusing the pictures and thinking about when I watched the films.
Just a small selection from this great collection:
Inventions and discoveries
The age of D. W. Griffin
Aspects of the Soviet cinema
The influence of the French Avant-grade
Weimar and Scandinavia
Hollywood in the 20s
Adapting to sound
The depression: the media and social conscience
The Second World War
Neo-realism and the Cold War
Internationalism
Just a note: Eric Rhode is a good writer so this is not just a compilation of dry facts.
You cannot have too many "Histories of the cinema," books. There were a few out there that were written just to take up space. But this is not one of those books. Eric Rhode has done an excellent job of chronicling great films and how they change throughout the decades. He also covers how they relate to the politics of the time.
The book is also permeated with stills from great movies that match the eras that he is speaking about. I just enjoy perusing the pictures and thinking about when I watched the films.
Just a small selection from this great collection:
Inventions and discoveries
The age of D. W. Griffin
Aspects of the Soviet cinema
The influence of the French Avant-grade
Weimar and Scandinavia
Hollywood in the 20s
Adapting to sound
The depression: the media and social conscience
The Second World War
Neo-realism and the Cold War
Internationalism
Just a note: Eric Rhode is a good writer so this is not just a compilation of dry facts.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews