Film Art

It's one of the most revered movies of Hollywood's golden era. Starring screen legend Gary Cooper and Grace Kelly in her first significant film role, High Noon was shot on a lean budget over just 32 days but achieved instant box-office and critical success. It won four Academy Awards in 1953, including a best actor win for Cooper. And it became a cultural touchstone, often cited by politicians as a favourite film, celebrating moral fortitude.

Known as “Hitler's Filmmaker,” Leni Riefenstahl directed two of the most innovative and effective propaganda documentaries ever made, Triumph of the Will (1935) and Olympia (1938), which glorified the Third Reich. In this definitive biography, Steven Bach illuminates the truths and lies regarding the self-proclaimed apolitical artist's involvement with Hitler and other Nazi leaders who financed and advanced her career. Probing the borders that divide art and beauty from truth and humanity, Bach untangles the past and gives an objective but unsparing appraisal.

For five decades, no American filmmaker has been as prolific or as paradoxical as Woody Allen. From Play It Again, Sam (1972) to Midnight in Paris (2011) and Blue Jasmine (2013), Allen has produced an average of one film a year; yet in many of these movies Allen reveals a progressively skeptical attitude toward both the value of art and the cultural contributions of artists.

As depicted in the movie Goodfellas, fictional gangster Henry Hill is not the kind of person who would ever use the phrase "life hacks", but if you know what to look for, the film is full of useful lessons that can help speed you through your personal journey, whether you're an executive, teacher, sales professional, artist, or forklift operator.

Since Stan Lee and Marvel introduced Spider-Man in Amazing Fantasy 15 in 1962, everyone's favorite webslinger has had a long career in comics, graphic novels, cartoons, movies, and even on Broadway. In this book some of history's most powerful philosophers help us explore the enduring questions and issues surrounding this beloved superhero: Is Peter Parker to blame for the death of his uncle? Does great power really bring great responsibility? Can Spidey champion justice and be with Mary Jane at the same time?

Famously a playboy, Warren Beatty has also been one of the most ambitious and successful stars in Hollywood. Several Beatty films have passed the test of time, from Bonnie and Clyde (which confirmed for him the importance of controlling the projects he was involved in) to Shampoo, Heaven Can Wait, Reds (for which he won the best director Oscar), Bugsy, and Bulworth.

In this mixture of cultural and social history that is both scholarly and vastly entertaining, Eyman dispels the myths and gives us the missing chapter in the history of Hollywood, the ribbon of dreams by which America conquered the world.

The Mockumentary.. or fake documentary.. is becoming an increasingly successful film and television formula across many genres. Although they all investigate very different people, places, and events, they all share one key characteristic that differentiates them from most documentaries. None of it is real. They're all make-believe.

In 1937, it seemed as if Cary Grant had it all: the fame and fortune of being a leading man for one of Hollywood’s biggest studios, with a life of luxury that was a world away from the hardship and misery he knew growing up in Bristol, England. But all that glitters is not gold. Grant felt that he had no say in the development of his own career, and he was seeing signs that the studio was losing interest in him…other than to just be a handsome face. He yearned for better roles to prove himself as an actor. And so, he did the inconceivable.

Warren Beatty guarded his privacy even before he became a movie star, when he burst onto the screen in 1961 as the earnestly handsome all-American boy in Splendor in the Grass. When he started acting, Beatty kept secret the fact that actress Shirley MacLaine, already a star, was his older sister. Over time, he has cultivated a mystique, giving few interviews and instructing others not to talk about him. Until now.

Peter Cowie's book chronicles the life and the sixty-year film and stage career of Ingmar Bergman as he wrestles of themes of love, sex, and betrayal with the figure of Death hovering overhead. Blending biographical information with critical comment, Cowie presents a man whose life and work were intimately fused.

Baseball has always been a symbol as much as a sport. With a blend of individual confrontation and team play, a luxurious pace, and an immaculate urban parkland setting, it offers a sunny rendering of the American Dream, both the hard work that underpins it and the rewards it promises. Film, America's other national pastime, which magnifies and mythologizes all it touches, has long been the ideal medium to canonize this aspirational idea.

Christina Rice offers the first biography of the actress and activist perhaps most well-known for her role in Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (1953). Despite the fact that her movie career was stalled for nearly a decade, Jane Russell's filmography is respectable. She worked with some of Hollywood's most talented directors—including Howard Hawks, Raoul Walsh, Nicholas Ray, and Josef von Sternberg—and held her own alongside costars such as Marilyn Monroe, Robert Mitchum, Clark Gable, Vincent Price, and Bob Hope.

Barbara Stanwyck (1907-1990) rose from the ranks of chorus girl to become one of Hollywood's most talented leading women-and America's highest paid woman in the mid-1940s. Shuttled among foster homes as a child, she took a number of low-wage jobs while she determinedly made the connections that landed her in successful Broadway productions. Stanwyck then acted in a stream of high-quality films from the 1930s through the 1950s. Directors such as Cecil B. DeMille, Fritz Lang, and Frank Capra treasured her particular magic

For the first time, learn what really happened inside the walls of Hotel des Mille Collines. In Inside the Hotel Rwanda, survivor Edouard Kayihura tells his own personal story of what life was really like during those harrowing days within the walls of that infamous hotel and offers the testimonies of others who survived there, from Hutu and Tutsi to UN peacekeepers. Kayihura writes of a divided society and his journey to the place he believed would be safe from slaughter.

So, you want to make a movie and you’ve never done it before. Well the Independent Filmmaking: The Ultimate Guide is a book that can get you started on the right path and learn what to expect going on the journey of independent filmmaking. You will learn the basics of script writing, pre-production, finding cast and crew, production, camera, lighting, sound, editing, and distribution, just to name a few. Learn from me, a filmmaker who has learned and found success in making independent films while seeing and going through all the pitfalls.

Celebrate the greatest saga ever told: All of us who are deeply influenced by the epic saga of Star Wars have our favorite moments. Each time the screen goes black and you see those words - "a long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away" - the music blasts through you, and you're a kid again. Ken Napzok, expert appreciator of Star Wars, counts down each one of those special moments that makes this series not just the best movies of all time, but the greatest saga ever told.

In this passionate love-hate letter to the film industry, Peter Bart pulls together his best columns from Variety and GQ, outlining in detail the history and inner workings of Hollywood. In story after story, Bart shows how the major studios have diverted their energies away from production of the shrewdly crafted pictures that once made the industry powerful.

This book will show you how to go from your unrealized dream to being a director. We'll start off by showing you how to do all the planning that will help this film project go off without a hitch and avoid some of the more common pitfalls that commonly plague first-time directors. Next, you'll get a look at the production itself, from how to keep your crew happy and productive to directing actors into giving the performance you've imagined.

Today, the name Clint Eastwood conjures up many different and unforgettable images. While many will always associate him as the quintessential Western hero in classics like The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly, new generations know him as a critically acclaimed director and even an outspoken conservative firebrand.