I’m having a bad week, so my post today will only be an announcement. DVDPlanet is now pre-ordering one of the cinema’s supreme masterpieces, Yasujiro Ozu‘s Tokyo Story (1953), to be released as a 2-disc Criterion Collection package on October 14.

Details will include:

ï New high-definition digital transfer, with restored image
and sound
ï Audio commentary by Ozu-film scholar David Desser, editor
of Ozu’s Tokyo Story
ï I Lived, But…: (1983) a two-hour documentary
about the life and career of Ozu, featuring former assistant Shohei Imamura (director of The Pornographers, The Eel), critics Donald Richie and Tadao Sato, actors Chishu Ryu, Mariko Okada, Haruko Sugimura, and many more
ïTalking with Ozu: a 30-minute tribute to
Yasujiro Ozu featuring reflections from directors Stanley Kwan, Aki Kaurismaki, Claire Denis, Lindsay Anderson, Paul Schrader, Wim Wenders, and Hou Hsiao-Hsien
ïOriginal theatrical trailer
ïNew essay by David Bordwell, author of Ozu and the Poetics of Cinema
ïNew and improved English subtitle translation.

Check out my friend Nick’s www.ozuyasujiro.com for more information.

This weekend, I had the opportunity to attend the American Film Institute’s Cinema’s Legacy program, which featured Paul Schrader and a screening/discussion of his favorite film, Robert Bresson‘s Pickpocket (1959). Schrader, whose claim to fame probably remains his screenplays for early Martin Scorsese pictures like Taxi Driver (1976) and Raging Bull (1980), has directed a few films over the years with mixed results (American Gigolo, Cat People, Auto Focus).

However, many cinephiles remember him best for having written one of the few English studies of Bresson, Transcendental Style in Film: Ozu, Bresson, Dreyer. The resurgence of astute Bresson commentary with James Quandt’s 1998 touring Bresson retrospective (in particular, Quandt’s cooresponding tome of essays) has made Schrader’s 1972 book seem somewhat reductionistic, useful for specific art-theological contextualizations, but shaky as film theory or a very wide-ranging summary of Bresson’s style as a whole.

Nevertheless, I’d never miss an opportunity to see a Bresson film on film, and the print used at the event rewarded my hopes with nary a scratch throughout its entire length. I’ve seen Pickpocket five or six times over the years, and never fail to marvel at its economy and complexity: a film about a compulsive thief who needs to be imprisoned in order to discover freedom, told with Bresson’s trademark merging of sparsity (minimal “acting,” abbreviated dialogue, “empty” moments) and compression (major events are elided, confrontations are abrupt, the entire film is just over an hour long).

After the screening, a critic from the Los Angeles Daily News interviewed Schrader, and I was disappointed as the conversation quickly drifted away from Bresson into “whatever happened to the great filmmaking of the Seventies?” and dour pronouncements regarding the State of Cinema Today. (Somehow, it would have been easier to take if I hadn’t known Schrader is currently filming The Exorcist IV.) With my belongings in hand, I quietly left the theatre, although I’ve since heard that a resulting Q&A with the audience offered a substantial improvement to the proceedings.

I appreciate the AFI offering this series, particularly since it involves films that won’t come anywhere near their highly-publicized but mediocre Top 100 Lists. Later in August, Polish filmmaker Agnieszka Holland (Europa Europa) will present Agnes Varda‘s Le bonheur, and the event is already marked on my calendar.

Photo by Piotr Jaxa.

Well, the latest issue of everyone’s favorite film journal is up, Senses of Cinema, No. 27. Published in Melbourne, Australia, it specializes in “serious and eclectic discussion of cinema” and contains a few years worth of challenging, invigorating essays. Visit the archives and enjoy.

This particular issue includes a career retrospective I wrote on the late Polish filmmaker Krzysztof Kieslowski, a typically fine summation of Greek filmmaker Theo Angelopoulos by Strictly Film School‘s Acquarello (an ongoing participant in our Discussions), daily reports from the 52nd Melbourne International Film Festival, a variety of commentary on the work of Steven Spielberg, Nicholas Ray, Orson Welles, Katherine Hepburn, and much more.

Finally, I’d also like to announce a fairly extensive overhaul of Masters of Cinema, a project established between myself, Trond Trondsen, Jan Bielawski, and Nick Wrigley. The idea is to collate our various websites devoted to the work of our favorite master filmmakers: Robert Bresson, Carl Theodor Dreyer, Yasujiro Ozu, and Andrei Tarkovsky. The site also provides general information about other major international filmmakers whose work could use greater popular visibility. Check it out, enjoy the news and links, and send in your questions, comments, and suggestions!

In case you haven’t heard, on June 2, the Federal Communications Commission (the government agency charged with regulating media in the US) granted sweeping new freedoms to individual media companies–the most extensive in decades. Among the changes were the freedom to own a newspaper as well as multiple television, radio, and cable stations within the same market (city or town), and the freedom to own more television stations penetrating the national market, up from 35% to 45% of US households. In an era when media concentration offers Americans fewer broadcasting voices, the ruling was strongly supported by the major networks and the White House. (News Corp., which owns Fox, and Viacom Inc., which owns CBS and UPN–as well as MTV, Showtime, and Blockbuster Video–both currently exceed their 35% limit.)

Yesterday, however, the House voted 400-21 in favor of rolling back the television restriction to 35% (although it allowed other aspects of the FCC ruling), and the Senate looks likely to follow suit. President Bush has threatened his first-ever veto if the rollback is successful, but the bipartisan opposition appears overwhelming. (Apparently, both liberals and conservatives feel they’re the minority voice on today’s airwaves.)

Media mergers have a profound impact on what Americans see, hear, and read. As David Bordwell and Kristin Thompson point out in their book, Film Art, “Warner Brothers can finance a film, distribute it, produce a sound track CD, promote the film on CNN and in Entertainment Weekly, and later feed it to US cable on HBO and to worldwide cable/sattelite showing on TNT–all within the same company.”

Outrageously, FCC Chairman Michael Powell (the son of Secretary of State Colin Powell) has defended the 45% ruling by claiming it will increase diversity: “”We are confident in our decision. We created enforceable rules that reflect the realities of today’s media marketplace. The rules will benefit Americans by protecting localism, competition and diversity.”

Does anyone even think through such statements anymore? Or is everything merely boiled down to nice-sounding catchphrases, randomly applied?

Stay tuned for more developments…

Movies compliment and critique the 20th century in such a way that one can almost trace world history through the aesthetic development of the cinema alone. One of the most pivotal movements in film, for example, was Italian neorealism, a style predicated on engaging the realities of postwar European life.

Born in antagonistic response to the polished “white telephone” films of upper class fantasy promoted by the Fascist Italian government of the ’30s and ’40s, neorealism exhibited eviscerated street locations, nonprofessional actors, natural lighting, and an intense social awareness. Its greatest successes (Open City, Shoeshine, Paisan, La Terra Trema, Bicycle Thieves, etc.) flowered for several years immediately following WWII.

One of the final masterpieces of the movement was Vittorio De Sica‘s Umberto D. (1952), released this week on DVD by the Criterion Collection. It’s a model of narrative simplicity, emotional directness, and insights into the human condition.

Like many neorealist films, it opens in the streets of Rome. Retirees are picketing for higher pensions, but are suddenly dispersed by police and dashed into alleys because they lack the proper permits. One of those fleeing is an elderly man who, gasping for breath, reaches out and shakes the hand of a fellow demonstrator. His name is Umberto Domenico Ferrari, he says, and he briefly introduces himself: he’s running out of money, has no children, and his landlady is increasing the rent. As he speaks of her, his emotions boil: “She’s a . . .” but he restrains himself. He clutches his small dog and simply shakes his head.

Thus begins the story of a man’s struggle to retain his dignity in an undignified world. As Umberto slowly perseveres through old age and pitiful means, selling the few items in his possession day by day, his small dog Flike becomes his sole companion and grateful recipient of his care, as well as a perpetual reminder of Umberto’s intrinsic worth. In fact, not only is it a landmark neorealist film, it’s probably the greatest dog movie ever made.

70-year-old Carlo Battisti inhabits the role of Umberto with such urgency and completeness, it’s remarkable to remember that acting wasn’t his profession–teaching glottology in Florence was. Like Renee Falconetti in Dreyer’s The Passion of Joan of Arc, it’s one of those rare performances which is so perfectly realized that it automatically negates the possibility of future roles. Battisti’s enduring gift to audiences–Umberto’s tired eyes and determined lips, his inner fire and helpless embrace of Flike–remains indelibly imprinted in our memories.

Sometimes criticized as melodramatic or simply depressing, the film actually balances its overt emotional components with a great deal of honesty and complexity. We never learn, for example, why Umberto is alone or much about his past. And virtually his only sympathizer is a young maid, Maria (Maria-Pia Casilio), who lives across the hall–a woman whose living situation is similarly threatened when she discovers she is pregnant and doesn’t know who the father is. Umberto is hardly a helpful father figure, but an exhausted man so wrapped up in his own troubles that he addresses hers almost as an afterthought.

The film is famous for its depictions of ordinary life. One scene presents Maria’s morning ritual–killing the day’s ant trail, grinding coffee, and boiling water–while she sleepily gazes at nothing in particular. The simplicity and peacefulness counterbalance the chaos and hopelessness which threatens her destiny. De Sica never resorts to cheap effects and the film is all the more emotionally powerful because of it.

Running beneath the film is a current of social critique. When Umberto attempts to sell his watch or a few old books, it becomes exercises in cutthroat haggling. When he considers leaving Flike at a kennel, the owners warily discuss the financial arrangements while dogs yelp from caged inattention. Everywhere Umberto goes, people are afraid to give in, to offer something they could miss later on, and every interaction reveals a constant concern for self-preservation.

Worse, the general economic problems separate the have-nots from the have-nothings, and in a society where everyone struggles, those who struggle the most are ostracized. The street sellers and acquaintances Umberto encounters never seem more personally remote than when they catch on to the fact that he is in a desperate situation. Umberto recognizes this, and one of the film’s most famous scenes occurs when he begrudgingly resorts to begging, but cannot physically bring himself to do it, and thus commands Flike to stand upright with his hat while Umberto hides behind some Roman columns–ancient symbols of social stability and justice which are now merely fleeting ideals.

Such scenes reveal the true beauty of Umberto D., with its ability to juxtapose the struggles of life with the simple joys found in relationships. Like the father and son in De Sica’s earlier Bicycle Thieves, the film is not so much a dreary examination of social malaise as much as an affirmation of the quiet power of love and its ability to provide dignity and meaning in an otherwise indifferent world.

The neorealist movement continues to be felt in a wide variety of films today, particularly in the New Iranian Cinema of the ’90s and beyond. Its emphasis on barebone narratives, natural locations and day-to-day living conveys the human spirit with piercing conviction. Presenting a world destitute and crumbling, it quietly proclaims life worth living, if for no other reason than for love and companionship–even between a man and his dog.

One of the pleasures of the Internet is getting access to companies and voices which one might otherwise have difficulty finding–in the electronic world, all websites are created equal. For those seeking documentary options (particularly films which address social, political, or environmental issues), Bullfrog Films offers an extensive catalogue at the click of a button. Never heard of them? Checkout their website and browse their hefty collection. Although many of their titles are sold or rented at institutional prices, they offer special discounts to nonprofit and activist groups.

Bullfrog was a major supplier of the titles I saw at the West Hollywood Amnesty International Film Festival in June. Recently, I was able to catch up with one of the films I missed: The New Rulers of the World (2001), written and presented by John Pilger, the award-winning British journalist known for critical exposÈs like the acclaimed Paying the Price: Killing the Children of Iraq (2000) as well as numerous books and articles.

In New Rulers, Pilger focuses on the effects of globalization on Indonesia, the fifth most populous country in the world and a nation rich in natural resources–but one that has suffered much from a corrupt military regime, the Asian financial crisis, and an economy which is increasingly dominated by multinational, foreign investors. (According to UNICEF, 34% of Indonesian children under the age of five suffer from malnutrition.)

A brief history. In 1965, a CIA-backed coup by General Soharto massacred thousands of Indonesians and established an open connection with the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the World Bank, and Western investors. Political Science professor Jeffrey Winters at Northwestern University states, “I’ve never heard of a situation like this, where global capital essentially holds a meeting with the representatives of the state and hammers out the legal conditions for entry into the country.” Billions of IMF dollars were loaned to Suharto’s regime (even as it attempted genocide of the East Timorese and personally confiscated many of the funds) and although Suharto was forced to resign in 1998, the people of Indonesia still owe $262 billion–and counting. Given that the minimum wage in the country is $1 a day, a large percentage of the population has little hope of living decently, much less ever repaying its national debt. Unfortunately, this suits Western companies like Nike and The Gap just fine, who continue to employ the people of Indonesia for pennies to produce expensive brand goods for Western consumers.

Pilger travels to Indonesia and visits dilapidated tenements, interviews workers, infiltrates sweatshop factories, and records conversations with economic experts and IMF spokesmen like Stanley Fischer, the organization’s deputy director. What emerges is a scathing portrait of the way Western commerce has taken over the economy of Indonesia and continues to maintain its grip in a way which prevents the country from ever rising above its poverty.

Stephanie Black‘s 2001 documentary, Life and Debt, was recently released on DVD and it offers another case study: Jamaica. Her film is substantially more creatively-assembled than Pilger’s quasi-60 Minutes approach. Black merges picturesque images of ocean waves and sandy beaches with enchanting reggae music (the typical tourist associations) as counterpoint to the harsh realities within the country due to its foreign-dominated economy. Incorporating second-person narration, Black shows the viewer what he or she might experience at a weekend resort while pointing out that everything–from the hotel amenities to the four-course meals served in restaurants–is imported from Miami or other sources.

Dr. Michael Witter, Professor of Economics at the University of West Indies, a Jamaican himself, is interviewed at length throughout the film. He explains:

“And since our society is so heavily dependent on imported food, imported fuel, and imported medicine, when we devalue, the cost of those things we import go up for the citizen. As a result, the economy today is much more under the control of foreigners, not through any direct ownership, but through the mechanism of debt. In the 1970s we owed $800 million, by the end of the 1980s we owed $4 billion, nowadays we owe $7 billion. So all the time, the debt is rising and our ability to produce is getting less.”

Black interviews Jamaican farmers who are fighting a losing battle to compete against foreign produce shipped into Jamaica daily. Lettuce grown in America sells for less in the markets than the lettuce harvested by machetes in Jamaican fields (grown with imported seeds and fertilizer, no less). The film also interviews ex-Prime Minister Michael Manley, who details the relationship of his country with the IMF and the World Bank after its independence from British colonialism in 1962, and, like New Rulers, converses with the IMF’s Stanley Fischer. It’s a challenging and informative look at the increasingly commonplace role of Western capital and third world economies. As Manley puts it, “They call it a free market, but it’s not free–it goes in one direction only.”

What will they think of next?

Giving new meaning to the phrase “an underground film festival,” Interfilm organizers in Berlin have come up with a genuinely new idea: exhibit a series of short films on monitors in Berlin subway trains and allow the passengers to be the jury.

The festival will run from January 29 to February 4, 2004. All the films will be no longer than 90 seconds and must be “free of extreme violence or obscene content.”

As exhibitors around the globe continue to think of ways of integrating artistically-minded films within the general populace, this idea sounds like a hopeful venture.

Want to submit a film yourself? The deadline is October 15, 2003.

I work at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech), and last night was the second week of our film club’s summer series. The night air cooled with a comfortable breeze and the screening was held outdoors in a small amphitheatre with a simple setup comprised of a video projector, a projection screen, and the ubiquitous popcorn machine.

The film screened was Under the Skin of the City (2001), a powerful Iranian feature by Rakhshan Bani-Eternad about a working class family and its travails in contemporary Tehran, which only recently acquired theatrical distribution in the US. Like many films of the New Iranian Cinema of the past decade (see Godfrey Cheshire’s recent summary for Newsweek), it draws heavily upon neorealist aesthetics (actual locations, uninflected camerawork, straightforward performances, an attention to everyday realities) to address socially relevant issues. Bani-Eternad is currently one of many prominent female directors working in Iran, a fact which might surprise Westerners who think of Iran solely in terms of patriarchal censorship, and her film places a strong emphasis on the plight of Iranian women. It was voted Best Film by Iranian critics the year of its release.

The movie exhibits highly competent dramaturgy, but it also provides a vision of Tehran I haven’t come across before: pizza parlors and Sony ads, corporate tycoons and drug-running. It addresses the current political tide by setting its story during the parliamentary elections of 1998 and depicts a city caught between tradition and reform, poverty and international commerce, despair and hope. Abbas (Mohammad Reza Foroutan) is a young man hoping to work abroad to offer his tired parents and pre-college siblings a better future, but he finds that social advancement requires risk-taking that doesn’t offer any security and could undermine all they have already achieved.

After the film, some members of the Iranian club at Caltech offered watermelon, pastries, and frozen refreshments, and conversations bubbled with commentary on the film as well as many personal introductions. Given the commercially-restrained and consumer-oriented model of film culture Hollywood actively promotes, it was exciting to experience film as a free, communal event for a change. Film clubs may have risen to prominence at many American universities during the ’60s, but the video age has often separated, isolated, and relegated audiences to their own living rooms. As a child of the ’70s, I find that I increasingly cherish any opportunity to rediscover the cinema as a genuine social experience. The screening last night delivered that in full.

After what seems like an eternity of hand-wringing and navel-gazing, Woody Allen‘s protagonist in Stardust Memories (1980), a burned-out movie director, suddenly finds himself face-to-face with a descending spacecraft. As super-intelligent extraterrestrials greet the human race for the first time, the filmmaker blurts out his abiding angst: “If nothing lasts, why am I bothering to make films, or do anything, for that matter?” “We like your films,” the aliens intone, “Particularly the early funny ones.”

As has often been noted, there is a marked difference between Allen’s pre- and post-Annie Hall (1977) career. The former delights in absurd, random slapstick punctuated with one-liners; the latter aspires toward elegant drama, which often teeters precariously between sophistication and pretention with its indebtedness to popular ’50s art cinema, namely works by Federico Fellini and Ingmar Bergman.

But of all his early funny pictures, one of the most convulsively hilarious is his debut feature, What’s Up, Tiger Lily? (1966), released on DVD today by Image Entertainment. Long before MST3K delivered its countertextual derisions, Allen redubbed this lurid, sensationalistic Japanese spy thriller originally entitled Key of Keys (1964) as an absurd comedy with an entirely new storyline. After presenting an action prologue in its original Japanese language, Allen inserts footage of himself ostensibly being interviewed about the project. “To my recollection,” the interviewer muses, “I’ve never heard of this being done before, where the actors are acting one story and saying another.” “Oh, it was,” Allen nods, “Actually, it was Gone With the Wind.”

What follows is a lunatic espionage plot regarding a race to recover a stolen egg salad recipe, which will permit the Grand Exalted High Majah of Raspur (“a nonexistent but real-sounding country”) to establish his nation “somewhere between Italy and Greece” once a space opens on the map. (It’s no laughing matter, he assures the hero, all his people are packed in crates.) What makes the film especially funny is the way Allen’s dialogue seems to fit the action and performances perfectly, albeit outrageously. Spinning as many James Bondian clichÈs as possible, from idiot thugs to homoerotic machismo to random sexpots, Tiger Lily brims with nonstop humorous invention. (A maniacal killer rasps, “This Peter Lorre imitation is killing my throat!”)

According to Eric Lax’s biography of Allen, the film was largely written by Allen and his friends when he rented a hotel room and screened the film three times while everyone supplied their own spontaneous dialogue–the funniest lines made the cut. Of course, Key of Keys is a tasteless genre film with routine sexist and racist elements which encourage Tiger Lily‘s occasional forays into ethnic humor and stereotyping that won’t endear Allen to any of his PC critics. On the other hand, the overall silliness and disdain the dub forces on the film can undoubtedly serve as stinging critique.

And speaking of looney, DVD Toons has announced the first of Warner Brother’s long-awaited Looney Tunes DVD box sets, due for release on October 28, 2003. More details to come…

Although I’ve long included classical Hollywood in my realm of cinephilia, I’m somewhat new to the films of Nicholas Ray (1911-1979), the director of such classics as Rebel Without a Cause and Bigger Than Life. An intensely personal filmmaker who worked within the studio system, Ray is known for his attention to setting, architecture, colors, and investigations of psychological torment. His work initially attracted critical attention with the early Cahiers du CinÈma writers, as can be seen by FranÁois Truffaut’s 1955 remarks:

“We discovered Nicholas Ray about seven or eight years ago with Knock on Any Door. Then, at the film festival, “Rendezvous de Biarritz,” there was the dazzling confirmation of They Live By Night, which is still his best film. Then followed, though largely unnoticed in Paris, In a Lonely Place, On Dangerous Ground, The Lusty Men, and now, Johnny Guitar.

A young American filmmaker–of the generation of Robert Wise, Jules Dassin, Joseph Losey–Nicholas Raymond Kienzle [his birth name] is an auteur in the best sense of the word. All his films tell the same story: the violent man who wants to renounce violence and his relationship with a morally stronger woman. Ray’s constant hero, the bully, is a weak man-child, when he is not simply a child. He is wrapped in moral solitude, always hunted, sometimes lynched. Those who have seen the films I have just mentioned can multiply and enrich these connections for themselves; the others will simply have to take my word for it.”

If the above description makes Ray sound like a forerunner of Martin Scorsese, the comparison isn’t too far off–Scorsese reverentially lauds Ray in his documentary, A Personal Journey Through American Movies (1995). But even given the handful of Ray films I’ve seen lately, I find myself much more emotionally engaged by Ray’s work, whose characters seem like genuinely tragic heroes. Scorsese’s violent protagonists, on the other hand, often strike me (no pun intended) as hot-headed thugs.

James Quandt of the Cinematheque Ontario has organized a traveling retrospective of Ray’s work this year, but for those of us who aren’t lucky enough to see it yet, Columbia has released a sparkling new DVD restoration of Ray’s 1950 masterpiece, In a Lonely Place. Widely acknowledged as a key work in Ray’s oeuvre, it’s a classic film noir about Dixon Steele (Humphrey Bogart), a volatile Hollywood screenwriter who recovers his creative edge when the author of a book he’s adapting is murdered. The police immediately suspect him, but an alibi witness, Laurel Gray (Gloria Graham–Ray’s actual wife), comes to his aid. The two subsequently fall in love, which only intensifies police suspicion, and the mounting pressures of the investigation provoke Steele’s violent fits of temper and, increasingly, Gray’s second thoughts regarding his innocence and their future together.

The film is shot in the classical Hollywood style with an emphasis on medium shots–its noirish visual elements only gradually emerge as the story progresses, but the film is rife with personal Ray touches. Having once studied architecture under Frank Lloyd Wright, Ray’s emphasis on place is vivid. The apartment complex Steele and Gray live in was a direct recreation of Ray’s own residence, and the screenplay suggests a thematic purpose: “You’ve got me at a disadvantage,” Steele tells Gray, “You can see into my apartment but I can’t see into yours.” “I won’t take advantage of it,” Gray promises. “I would if I were you,” Steele notes wryly.

Three Mexican-style paintings in Gray’s apartment become especially prominent in the latter half of the film, appearing in the background in several scenes. The left picture depicts a serene female portrait, the middle picture depicts a woman in the foreground and a man behind her looking into the air with binoculars, and the right picture depicts a male peasant struggling with a heavy yoke. The combination suggests Gray’s emotional balance and Steele’s internal burden, and the fragile relationship between them–together yet separate. (Graham and Ray divorced two years later.) The insertion of Ray’s personal life into key aspects of the story have often been read as part confession and part self-critique.

The DVD includes a tribute to the film by filmmaker Curtis Hanson (L.A. Confidential), who tours Ray’s extant apartment complex while reflecting on the film, as well as an informative film restoration documentary, which begins with the ominous statement: “During Hollywood’s Golden Age, the studios produced 400 films a year. Of the 21,000 films produced before 1950, nearly half of them are lost forever.” Thankfully, In a Lonely Place isn’t one of them.

Billing itself as the “first comprehensive examination of the cinematographer’s art,” Making Pictures: A Century of European Cinematography (2003) is a coffee table book that is a treasure trove of film history, an inspiring viewing guide–and a book that could have been better produced. Celebrating the role of the director of photography, it is copiously illustrated with pictures from the multitude of films it discusses. The glaring problem: the photos are reprinted with terrible fidelity. Colors are often washed out (checkout Tarkovsky’s Solaris) or printed with baffling grain (Resnais’ Last Year at Marienbad).

Aside from this serious limitation, the hefty book offers a wealth of fantastic information. It opens with a series of essays by cinematographers, such as Jack Cardiff (“Oddly enough, really good lighting should not be noticed at all, except in larger-than-life films, musicals, etc.”) and Sven Nykvist (“The most important task of the cinematographer is to create an atmosphere… I mostly perform this task by using very little light and little colour”), as well as Bernardo Bertolucci (who provides a director’s perspective) and Marcello Mastroianni (who provides an actor’s perspective).

For the next 70 pages, the book offers an extensive history of cinematography, from the zoetrope to German expressionism, from Italian neorealism to the French New Wave and contemporary films.

The next 60 pages offer a theoretical investigation of the film medium, including comparisons to classical art and painting, through a myriad assortment of essays.

Over 200 pages of text and pictures are subsequently devoted to 100 films selected by a jury comprised of three cinematographers: Jaromir Sofr (Czeckoslovakia), Tony Forsberg (Sweden), and Wolfgang Fischer (Germany). The list is as representative and diverse as one could possibly wish. I was happy to see the standard examples (The Passion of Joan of Arc, Ivan the Terrible, The Third Man, Breathless) as well as some personal favorites (Faust, The Marquise of O…, Mirror, Europa) and many I’ve yet to see (Miss Julie, The White Dove, Diamonds of the Night, Raffl, Dreamsplay). Each film includes an informative one-page analysis and an evocative capsule review by the jury.

On The Passion of Joan of Arc (1928):

“A unique visual masterpiece, this ascetic, rigorously framed film is a remarkable departure from cinematic conventions. Rudolf MatÈ portrays the human face as the centerpiece of events, filming with black shadows and white light, a distinctive milky white, the ‘Dreyer white,’ which had never been seen before.”

On The White Dove (1960):

“A rare film-poem which influenced directors of the Czech New Wave, its images and moods owe much to the artistry of Jan Curik. His visualisation of the director’s concept reveals a deep understanding of graphic stylization and the full tonal range of black-and-white film.”

The final portion of the book includes a technical overview of camera systems, film stocks, labs, and studios, likely to appease even the most devout aficionados of cinematographic lore.

All in all, it’s a handsome heavyweight package and well worth a browse at your local bookstore. Whether or not it’s worth its $65 list price, however, will likely depend on one’s tolerance for the uneven quality of its stills.