I was hunting film books through Amazon and ran across this:
This best-selling text is a succinct guide to thinking critically and writing precisely about film. With numerous student and professional examples along the way, this engaging and practical guide progresses from taking notes and writing first drafts to creating polished essays and comprehensive research projects. Moving from movie reviews to theoretical and critical essays, the text demonstrates how an analysis of a film becomes more subtle and rigorous as part of a compositional process. Both an introduction to film study and a practical writing guide, this brief text introduces students to film terms and the major film theories to enable them to write more critically. For individuals who want to think and write critically about film.
Looks like good stuff...it's a college textbook so I'm not sure whether it's a pleasurable read or not, but one reviewer comment mentions that the book is divided into the following sections:
Some contents:
Writing about the Movies
Preparing to Watch and Preparing to Write
Film Terms and Topics
Six Approaches to writing about Film
Style and Structure in Writing
Researching the Movies
Manuscript Form
Unfortunately, because it's a college textbook, it's selling for $40 new, but because it's a college textbook there's also a bunch of used copies online going for half the price. I may buy it!
Oh, and to give this topic a theme, what books on films do you guys like? I'll list my favorites:
Sergio Leone: Something To Do With Deathby Christopher Frayling
http://www.amazon.com/Sergio-Leone-Something-Do-Death/dp/0571164382/ref=pd_bbs_sr_2/002-4858821-8067247?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1182497630&sr=1-2The definitive Leone biography, by film professor Sir Christopher Frayling. Prof. Frayling gives a detailed account of Leone's life, from his youth as the son of a film director and film actress, to his start as an assistant on films such as Ben-Hur and Bicycle Thieves, to his eventual success as the father of the spaghetti Western, and the long struggle to make Once Upon A Time in America. Anyone who likes Leone's movies owes it to themselves to read this book. It has extensive interviews with practically all of Leone's collaborators and is meticulously researched.
Spaghetti Westerns: Cowboys and Europeans from Karl May to Sergio Leoneby Christopher Frayling
http://www.amazon.com/Spaghetti-Westerns-Cowboys-Europeans-Society/dp/1845112075/ref=sid_dp_dp/002-4858821-8067247?ie=UTF8&qid=1182497630&sr=1-2An earlier book by Frayling (written back when Leone was still alive) that provides analysis not just of the spaghetti Western phenomenon and numerous films, but contextualizes the emergence of the genre in Italy with the film industry of the time and the social significance that films had in Europe. It is also an exploration of the long-held fascination that Europeans have had for the Western, as both myth and history.
The Invention of the Western Film: A Cultural History of the Genre's First Half-Centuryby Scott Simmon
http://www.amazon.com/Invention-Western-Film-Cultural-American/dp/0521555817/ref=sr_1_5/002-4858821-8067247?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1182498336&sr=1-5While Frayling covers the European Western, Simmon's focus is on its emergence in America (though he does cover European Western novels, such as Karl May's), beginning with its literary origins in the novels of James Fenimore Cooper and the short stories of Bret Harte, then moving on to the emergence of the pastoral "Eastern" Western films made in New York at the turn of the 20th century, and then following the genre's development in California, from its start as pure pulp entertainment until it gains a measure of respectability with the release of John Ford's Stagecoach. It contains analysis and information of the creation of the Western myth, the development of its tropes and stereotypes, and in-depth looks at early Western films.
Something Like an Autobiographyby Akira Kurosawa
http://www.amazon.com/Something-Like-Autobiography-Akira-Kurosawa/dp/0394714393/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/002-4858821-8067247?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1182498624&sr=1-1Kurosawa's autobiography is eminently readable and very accessible, due to its first-rate translation. This book covers the first half of Kurosawa's career. His youth as an activist, the loss of his brother to suicide, his experiences living in Japan during World War II, and his career switch from painting to filmmaking. It's a firsthand look at the filmmaking process of one of the great masters of the 20th century. Kurosawa is typically Japanese in his humility and self-effacement - his writing contains none of the ego or arrogance that seem to exist within his American contemporaries.
Waiting on the Weather: Making Movies with Akira Kurosawaby Teruyo Nogami
http://www.amazon.com/Waiting-Weather-Making-Movies-Kurosawa/dp/1933330090/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/002-4858821-8067247?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1182499007&sr=1-1This is the perfect companion volume to Kurosawa's autobiography, written by a woman who worked with him through almost his entire career. Nogami's book is partly an autobiography, since her life is linked so closely to Kurosawa's and to the Japanese film industry in general. The most interesting part of this book is seeing her comments on the same films that Kurosawa discusses in his own autobiography. Her anecdotes show Kurosawa to be a perfectionist, someone so driven to fulfill his vision that he often steps on others' toes.
Scorsese on Scorseseedited by David Thompson and Ian Christie
http://www.amazon.com/Scorsese-Revised-David-Thompson/dp/0571220029/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/002-4858821-8067247?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1182499263&sr=1-1This is essentially a book-long interview with Scorsese, and easily the most insightful look into the man's career that I've ever read. This book covers everything he's done, from his start as a film student to the filming of The Aviator. This is an invaluable piece of work, and required reading if you like Scorsese.
Hitchcock/Truffautby Francois Truffaut
http://www.amazon.com/Hitchcock-Revised-Helen-G-Scott/dp/0671604295/ref=pd_sim_b_5/002-4858821-8067247?ie=UTF8&qid=1182499263&sr=1-1This is probably the greatest book about Hitchcock ever made. It's actually a transcription of a several-days long interview of Hitchcock by French director Francois Truffaut, in which the latter covers the former's career film by film and asks questions that are both insightful and probing, while gently massaging the master of suspense's ego (especially when talking about films which were either commercial or critical failures). Thanks to Truffaut's tact and knack for asking great questions, Hitchcock opened up and talked more about his filmmaking process than he ever had before and probably ever did since (Hitchcock was famous for not taking interviews seriously and making outrageous statements just because he thought they were funny).
