Synopsis
Ranging from the late nineteenth century to the present day, this exhilarating survey by cultural critic Peter Conrad explores the ways film has changed how we see the world.
This is a thematic roller-coaster ride through cinema history, with film expert Peter Conrad in the seat beside you. Thoroughly international, this book ranges from Fay Wray to Satyajit Ray, from Buster Keaton to Kurosawa, from westerns to nouvelle vague. Conrad explores the medium’s relationship to speed, technology, fantasy, horror, dream, color, sound, light, and shadow with reference to scores of films, from the earliest nineteenth-century silent experiments to the latest multisensory Hollywood blockbusters.
The author’s insights are amplified by voices from inside and outside the industry: directors and critics are included alongside artists, writers, philosophers, and historians ranging from Leo Tolstoy to Salvador Dalí, Theodor Adorno to Philip Roth. Arranged by topics, such as “Meta-Movie” and “The Physics of Film,” rather than chronological events, The Mysteries of Cinema focuses on film’s otherworldly, hypnotic, and magical qualities. Perfect for both movie fans who will discover new films and directors, and for students of film who will see familiar classics in a new light, this volume is full of unique insights into the genre. Combining his vast knowledge with a forensic eye for a director’s every quirk and mannerism, Conrad offers a fascinating and thrilling exploration of film.
60 color illustrations"synopsis" may belong to another edition of this title.
About the Author
Peter Conrad taught English literature at Christ Church, Oxford, for four decades. He has written more than twenty books, including Orson Welles: The Stories of His Life; The Hitchcock Murders; How the World Was Won: The Americanization of Everywhere; Creation: Artists, Gods, and Origins; Modern Times, Modern Places: Life and Art in the Twentieth Century; and Mythomania: Tales of Our Times from Apple to ISIS.
"About this title" may belong to another edition of this title.
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The Mysteries of Cinema: Movies and Imagination
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Thames & Hudson Ltd, United Kingdom, London, 2021
ISBN 10: 0500022992
ISBN 13: 9780500022993
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Paperback. Condition: Very Good. People who saw the first moving pictures at the end of the nineteenth century were delighted by a new art that communicated without words yet they were also alarmed to be witnessing events in a strange, mute, spectral realm, where the laws of time and space were suspended and magical transformations could occur. Some early commentators hailed cinema as a blessing and praised it for resurrecting the dead; others likened it to a hypnotic trance or a hallucinogenic drug. The medium has always been excited by speed, and it enjoys sending the body on furious kinetic chases; at the same time, it stealthily probes our minds, invading our dreams and titillating our desires. Although this is an art kindled by light and inflamed by colour, it is nurtured by darkness and can reduce life to an insubstantial shadow play. Either way, as Peter Conrad argues in this brilliant book, the movie camera has given us new eyes and changed forever our view of reality. The Mysteries of Cinema sets out to map this ambiguous territory by taking readers on a thematic roller-coaster ride through movie history. Directors and critics speculate about the nature of cinematic vision, and there are contributions to the debate from writers like Kafka, Virginia Woolf and Joan Didion, artists including Salvador Dali, George Grosz and Fernand Leger, and the composers Arnold Schoenberg and Dmitri Shostakovich. The book begins from the audacious innovations of silent film, and examines the influence of French surrealism and German expressionism; it accounts for the appeal of Hollywood genres like the Western, the horror film and the musical, and ends by considering the fate of the moving image in our visually glutted society. Combining contagious enthusiasm with an eye for the subjective quirks of filmmakers and the allure of favourite performers, Conrad delivers an astonishing addition to the literature on the seventh art. With 61 illustrations. The book has been read, but is in excellent condition. Pages are intact and not marred by notes or highlighting. The spine remains undamaged. Seller Inventory # GOR012818358
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