100 Ideas that Changed Film:

by David Parkinson

100 Ideas that Changed Film chronicles the most influential ideas that have shaped film since its inception. Entertaining and intelligent, it provides a concise history as well as being a fascinating resource to dip into.

Arranged in a broadly chronological order to show the development of film, the ideas include innovative concepts, technologies, techniques and movements. From the silent era's masterpieces to today's blockbusters and art house movies, these highly illustrated pages are a chance to discover or rediscover films from all around the world.

"I bought this book as a birthday present, but when I saw it couldn't resist flicking through the pages – and I will definitely ask to borrow it afterwards! The films which Parkinson names range from old classics to modern creations, and it's interesting to see how film has developed over the years and the meanings within them. It doesn't seem too heavy either, as each chapter is only a few pages long so it looks as if you can gather quite a lot of ideas and information, but without having to dedicate a long time to investigating the various genres and techniques, etc. It seems ideal and fun for a film fan, and I am sure it will be received with genuine pleasure!" – Amazon reviewer

Other books in this popular series include 100 Ideas that Changed Fashion, 100 Ideas that Changed Art, 100 Ideas that Changed Design, 100 Ideas that Changed Graphic Design and the upcoming 100 Ideas that Changed Architecture and 100 Ideas that Changed Photography.

Genres: Film, Nonfiction, Art, Media Tie In, Collections, Design

216 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2012

Reviews

[Paul Bryant · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is neither fish nor fowl, ape nor apricot, neither a hawk nor a handsaw, but what it is is often quite aggravating. I had thought it would be a kind of absolute beginners guide to basic film ideas which is what I was after because although a movie fan I am, I am, all previous encounters with film theory have left me dismayed and in a state of mild-to-medium paralysis. With film theory I always end up more confused than before I started.

This book did not help that much. Probably not at all. I'm still an ignoramus, I can just drop a few names, that's all. This book doesn’t look advanced, i.e. for film students and theory geeks only, in fact it looks like it’s for me, with its 2 page lavishly illustrated entries on such stuff as Censorship, Poetic Realism, Blaxploitation, 3-D, Queer Cinema, and slightly more arcane stuff like Process Shots, Free Cinema, Persistence of Vision, Match Shots and the like. But this guy David Parkinson is clearly a geek and an early-film geek to boot, because for almost every entry we get

The diagonal tracking shots in Gionanni Pastrone’s Cabiria (1914) proved so influential in taking the viewer into the heart of the scene that so-called “Cabiria movements” came to feature in such diverse pictures as Yevgeni Bauer’s The Child of the Big City (1914) and William J Bowman’s all-but-forgotten The Second-in-Command (1915).

Or

Despite the popularity of American features like Traffic in Souls (1913) and Damaged Goods (1914), and German Aufklarungsfilme or enlightenment films such as Hyenas of Lust (1919), early exploitation was strictly censored.

(I’m not even sure that last sentence makes sense – just because these movies were popular, why wouldn’t they still be censored? Anyway, I digress.)

These 100 ideas are strung together in a loosely chronological fashion, from e.g. No. 3 The Kinetoscope to No 100 CGI but even in Idea No 98 Mr Parkinson is still banging on about The Execution of Mary, Queen of Scots (1895) and Intolerance (1916). All these very early films are important and even though you’ll never have even one tiny impulse to go and watch them, you need to know this!

The other thing is that the author lapses into quart-in-a-pint-pot technogibber at various moments :

Point of View shots soon acquired prospective and retrospective uses. Exploiting cross-cutting and eyeline matches, film-makers also devised continuing, discovered, delayed, multiple, open and forged perspectives.

I would have liked some explanation about all those perspectives but no such luck.

Or

The shifting line between on- and off-screen space was also crucial to the mise en scene style perfected by the likes of Max Ophuls and Kenji Mizoguchi. But the master of off-screen technique was Yasijiro Ozu, who used off-centre framing to exploit an image’s centrifugal force to guide the viewer to the edges of the frame and the real world that existed beyond. In order to achieve this, he devised a fully circular film space around which he could construct alternative axes of action and this create totally new spatial contexts throughout a scene.

I’m sure he knows what he’s talking about, and maybe if I saw these movies by Ozu I’d see straight away, but this is too compressed.
Still, an awful lot of hard work has gone into this book, and there are great nuggets to be unearthed. Like

Two-hour pictures now contain upwards of 2000 shots, compared to 300-500 over 90 minutes in the studio era… the average shot lengths halving from four to two seconds between LA Confidential (1997) and The Bourne Supremacy (2004).

And you can’t beat insights like

The average feature contains around 40 minutes of music. However, some have none at all.

Aw, sorry, David Parkinson. Sometimes you lead with your chin.

[Andreea · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was a touch more academic than I was in the mood for but I’m glad I powered through. A comprehensive look at cinema from its inventive roots to the industrialisation of the Hollywood studio system. I was surprised to learn that some of the technologies we think of as more recent (like colour and 3D) have actually been around in one form or another as long as moving pictures have.

[Kafamdaki Makine · Rating 5 out of 5]

Sinemayı değiştiren 100 fikri tek tek işleyip bunu resimlerle süsleyen bir şaheser. Gerek kağıdı gerek cildi ben buradayım diyor, arşivlik hatta ansiklopedik bir tar verdiği aşikar. Elime aldığımdan beri okumaya doyamıyorum, görsel olarak oldukça doyurucu bir kitap. Sinemayı anlamaya çalışmak, onun doğuşunu hissetmek ve fikirlerini irdelemek için biçilmiş kaftan. Bu tarz kitapların editörlüğüne bayılıyorum. Resimler yazılar, ufak bilgiler insanı alıp götürüyor. Farklı bir boyutta ulaşıyorsunuz. Tüm sinema aşıklarının bir an evvel edinmesi gereken bir kitap. En sevdiğim sinema kitaplarından biri oldu bile… ( Hala bir ders kitabı edasıyla üzerine notlar alış çevirip çevirip okuyorum. )

[Declan Green · Rating 3 out of 5]

This isn’t a book for budding film enthusiasts. David Parkinson seems to take joy in drawing on his own obscure interests of early, primitive films even in later chapters as the ideas progress to the modern day. Not to say I didn’t find this book incredibly interesting, because I do think my understanding of the entire topic has been broadened. But the specific examples provided are often completely unrecognisable and you are given little context to understand them. The way they are presented in dense lists can leave you feeling out of your depth.

[Erik · Rating 4 out of 5]

Covers everything from film making techniques and themes to the studio system and distribution. Books have been written about each of these topics individually, but this is a pretty good history of film and a perfect introduction for anyone just beginning to explore the film world.

[Jane · Rating 3 out of 5]

이 책은 잘 읽히지 않았다. 우선 전문성이 요구되는 책이기도 하고 드라이하게 쓰였다는 점. 그리고 책에 나오는 그림(흥미로운 그림이 많음)이랑 설명이 별로 연관이 없다고 해야하나. 설명도 그림도 키워드에는 충실한 편인 것 같은데도 말이다. 여튼 내가 영화에 대한 지식이 조금이라도 더 쌓인다면 더 재밌게 읽을 수 있지 않을까 싶다.

[Veronica Adams · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love how the book discussed the history of the film industry innovations.

[Abby Epplett · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book was a decent overview of Western film.

[DJ_Keyser · Rating 3 out of 5]

Essentially a fly-by of the history of cinema, the format dooms this book to inadequacy, as there’s only so much that Parkinson can delve into for each of the ideas before it’s on to the next one. Each idea could prop up a book of its own.

[Airidas · Rating 3 out of 5]

You could make a drinking game out of each time the author mentions mise en scène or throws a jab at CGI and video games. The author's biases aside, it's quite informative, especially for beginners.

[Ints · Rating 4 out of 5]

Kino nemaz nav tik sens izgudrojums, tam ir tikai nedaudz pāri par simts gadiem. Tomēr kā jau visas progresīvās lietas, tas ir ieņēmis lielu vietu masu kultūrā un mūsu ikdienas dzīvē. Visbiežāk, ja vien mēs neesam kinokritiķi vai nopietni kinomīļi, mūsu priekšstats par kino vairāk aprobežojas tikai ar pašu galaproduktu – filmu, kuru izrāda kinoteātros. Šī grāmata dod ieskatu kino konceptos un to vēsturiskajā evolūcijā, kas izveidojuši kino tādu, kādu mēs to pazīstam šodien.

Grāmata lasītājam tiek pasniegta kā alternatīvs ieskats kino vēsturē. Šeit kino vēsture ir dekonstruēta, autoraprāt, simts galvenajās idejās (Redzes inerce, Žanrs, Flešbeki, Montāža, Tuvplāni, utml.), kuru vēstures apskatīšanai tiek veltīta viena grāmatas lapaspuse. Ja standarta vēstures grāmatās esam raduši lasīt hronoloģiski, tad šeit sanāk lasīt pa šķirkļiem kā enciklopēdiju. Šī grāmata man arī asociējas ar bagātīgi ilustrētu enciklopēdiju. Izziņas un vizuālais materiāls ir ļoti bagātīgs, tā kā līdz šim par kino vēsturi nebiju īpaši interesējies, uzzināju daudzas jaunas lietas.

Piemēram, kino galvenais dzinējspēks, protams, ir bijusi peļņas gūšana, un ir pārsteidzoši uzzināt, ka mūsdienās, kā novitāte pasniegtais 3D kino, patiesībā ir jau n-tais Holivudas mēģinājums pārdot šo tehnoloģiju skatītājam. Arī B kategorijas filmas savulaik radušās lielajām kinokompānijām mēģinot pārstrukturēt savu peļņas gūšanas modeli. Visvairāk man patika nodaļas, kuras vēstīja tieši par kino uzņemšanas tehnoloģiju evolūciju, par skaņas un krāsu ieviešanu un par datorgrafikas izmantošanu.

Tā kā neesmu rūdīts kinoskatītājs, tad mani īpaši neizbrīnīja, ka lielāko daļu no šajā grāmatā piesauktajām filmām un režisoriem dzirdēju pirmo reizi. Nebija jau tā, ka būtu galīgi nekompetents, jo “Metropoli” un “Lubeni” esmu redzējis, un daļu no šī gadsimta kases gabaliem.

Šī nav grāmata, kurai piesēsties un izraut cauri vienā vakarā. Grāmata ir no tām, kuras lasīšanas procesu var un vajag izstiept vairāku nedēļu garumā. Grāmatas struktūra ļauj sākt lasīšanu jebkurā brīvi izvēlētā nodaļā. Lai lasītu par Dokumentālo kino, nav obligāti jāizlasa nodaļa par Mēmo kino vai Autorkino. Var droši lasīt par to, kas dotajā brīdī šķiet interesants un brīdim piemērots.

Grāmatai lieku 8 no 10 ballēm, viegls lasāmais, kas saistošā veidā ievedīs lasītāju līdz šim nezināmā pasaulē, kā tas bija manā gadījumā. Domāju, ka šī grāmata pamudinās mani izlasīt vēl kādu kino tehnoloģiju attīstības vēstures grāmatu.

[Colin · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is the kind of book that as a young person I would have loved, as it's the perfect type of book to pick up and browse for five minutes here, and five minutes there when you're waiting for other things to happen. As an adult, though, I have to say that it is pretty thin and the information given in each section of the 100 ideas is brief, and their effects on specific films is treated with at most a single line or a shared line.

Perhaps the book was a victim of my expectations? I was hoping for more of a historical overview of developments in film, where each development is dealt with in a chronological fashion. Although there seems to be a loose association of sections with when in time they developed, there is no real overarching sense of the historical timeline of these events in relation to the films that they influenced.

Still, it's an interesting book to flip through, and certainly worthy for the nice selection of pictures/stills from movies and the information provided, although thin, is still interesting for any fan of film history.

Recommended for casual fans interested in light reading and nice pictures from film.

[Jasper · Rating 4 out of 5]

Altough the word usage is often too academic, making it for the average reader hard to understand, David Parkinson’s ‘100 Ideas that Changed Film’ is a comprehensive study into Film’s most important inventions through the years. A useful read for every cinephile, filmmaker, -student and -theorist interested in the highlights in Film’s history.

[Cyrus · Rating 3 out of 5]

Little too inside baseball.