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Magic and Myth of the Movies
Book by Tyler parker
- GenresFilm
283 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1947
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
October 9, 2018
I can’t tell if this book is brilliant, brilliantly insane, or simply insane.
March 13, 2024
I found myself fumbling, unable to fully grasp Tyler’s theories. Partially due to ignorance of the subject matter. He references actors and movies of the 1920s through the mid-‘40s as examples. Half the actors and none of the movies were familiar to me. About a third through I discovered a list of fifty movies at the end of the book that Tyler uses as references. I had seen two of them once, decades ago.
Moreover, his style of writing was overly-scholarly and difficult for me to understand. I pushed through, skimming sometimes, but finally gave up. It was a tortuous exercise with little payoff for me. I got what I could out of what I did read. Blah.
Moreover, his style of writing was overly-scholarly and difficult for me to understand. I pushed through, skimming sometimes, but finally gave up. It was a tortuous exercise with little payoff for me. I got what I could out of what I did read. Blah.
November 30, 2017
insight and erudition in frothy purple prose
If you ever look at the photographs taken by Alfred Stieglitz in the 1890s, you have to marvel---that is, if you don't take them for granted. Stieglitz was the first to take photos with a hand-held camera and the first to take night photos, among other things in photography. His work, today "competent", "cool" or otherwise commendable, at the time was amazing ! You have to think when the photos were taken, not how they look today. Stieglitz also argued for photography to be accepted as a true art, which it wasn't in his day. That's the same way you have to set your mind when you read the present book, MAGIC AND MYTH OF THE MOVIES. It was published in 1947. It was the first of its kind. People thought `high culture' resided only in theatres, concert halls, or museums. Cinema was more or less a popular trick that went along with popcorn and chewing gum. Tyler thought otherwise. He realized that it was an art.
OK, I'm not going to tell you this is a `must read'. This conglomeration of musings on myth, psychology, drama and poetry, often cantakerous or catty towards various actors or actresses, is so over the top in its plummy, fruity verbiage and the author's obvious love of the sound of his own voice, that few readers will make it to the end without skipping a page or three. The second caveat for modern readers is that Tyler wrote about the Hollywood films of his day, the late 1930s, and 1940s. Unless you are quite familiar with large numbers of them (I wasn't), you are going to be left gaping when plots, scenes, and behavior are described in order to proceed with the analysis. But if you want to know where serious cinema studies began in the USA, I think you've come to the right place. "Essentially, myths are not factual but symbolic. I assume that movies are essentially likewise." (p. xxi) Starting from here, you get an amazingly dense, imaginative analysis. You can argue that it's TOO imaginative. Maybe. Anyway, it was a beginning and not a tentative one. Get ahold of this book and see what I mean.
If you ever look at the photographs taken by Alfred Stieglitz in the 1890s, you have to marvel---that is, if you don't take them for granted. Stieglitz was the first to take photos with a hand-held camera and the first to take night photos, among other things in photography. His work, today "competent", "cool" or otherwise commendable, at the time was amazing ! You have to think when the photos were taken, not how they look today. Stieglitz also argued for photography to be accepted as a true art, which it wasn't in his day. That's the same way you have to set your mind when you read the present book, MAGIC AND MYTH OF THE MOVIES. It was published in 1947. It was the first of its kind. People thought `high culture' resided only in theatres, concert halls, or museums. Cinema was more or less a popular trick that went along with popcorn and chewing gum. Tyler thought otherwise. He realized that it was an art.
OK, I'm not going to tell you this is a `must read'. This conglomeration of musings on myth, psychology, drama and poetry, often cantakerous or catty towards various actors or actresses, is so over the top in its plummy, fruity verbiage and the author's obvious love of the sound of his own voice, that few readers will make it to the end without skipping a page or three. The second caveat for modern readers is that Tyler wrote about the Hollywood films of his day, the late 1930s, and 1940s. Unless you are quite familiar with large numbers of them (I wasn't), you are going to be left gaping when plots, scenes, and behavior are described in order to proceed with the analysis. But if you want to know where serious cinema studies began in the USA, I think you've come to the right place. "Essentially, myths are not factual but symbolic. I assume that movies are essentially likewise." (p. xxi) Starting from here, you get an amazingly dense, imaginative analysis. You can argue that it's TOO imaginative. Maybe. Anyway, it was a beginning and not a tentative one. Get ahold of this book and see what I mean.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews