Reviews for History of Narrative Film, 1889-1979

The average rating for History of Narrative Film, 1889-1979 based on 2 reviews is 5 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2013-06-18 00:00:00 Mads Brevik If you want to explore the world of cinema, this is as good an atlas as you can have. Like any atlas, it's an overview—you'll have to look elsewhere for topographic maps and street-level views of the Czech New Wave, Cinema Novo, French Poetic Realism or whatever happens to catch your eye—but it grounds every movement in the history of both its national cinema and the historical and technological development of film as a whole, giving you a practical sense of awareness in the great filmic scheme of things. Although it's a thick book and does contain paragraphs that are just lists of film titles, Cook's narrative proceeds smoothly and you can certainly read it cover to cover, skipping those paragraphs if you're uninterested. Speaking of lists: yes, the internet is a better place for them than a printed book and you can find plenty of good film lists online (Jonathan Rosenbaum's 1000 Essential Films is a great one), but Cook digs up titles you usually won't see elsewhere and he does it objectively, on a global scale and for over one hundred years of film production. He also never leaves you questioning why a particular film is important, even if his explanation is just a single densely-packed sentence. Sometimes he does spend a page or two on a film, but these close-ups aren't the book's strength. Uncontroversial, they mostly illustrate that film, which is often approached very personally or dogmatically in theory books, can be studied analytically: there truly is a visual language. A History of Narrative Film is enthusiastically recommended to anyone with a burgeoning interest in cinema.

Review # 2 was written on 2008-06-19 00:00:00 Heather Almond This was my primary reference for film courses when I attended Marquette U. back in the mists of time. I had two main film professors there. One, James Arnold, was outstanding: a published scholar in the field and a wonderful, personable guy. The other, whose name I can't remember and wouldn't mention if I did, was a true idiot who seemed to be going senile and knew nothing about film aesthetics or style or philosophy or history and whose only criterion of film quality was if a film addressed "social problems." He was like a Bosley Crowther pedant freeze dried with the water sucked away. All you had to say on the blue book quiz was "social problems" 20 times to get an 'A.' As least he showed us some good (and at the time, rare) films. I actually went to Arnold's office to complain about this guy, but Arnold stuck to the Masonic old-boy's club, no-snitch-teacher-protection-racket code, or some such. It was like filing a complaint with police internal affairs. But anyway, I appreciate Cook's narrative of the history of the movie art a lot more now than I did at the time. It is remarkably thorough and dense for all it tries to cover and is well presented and smartly written, and liberally illustrated with stills. (Several editions have appeared since this one). A few years ago I found and read an interview with Cook on some website and I was shocked and disillusioned by what a film philistine he is. His tastes struck me as odd. That bias, to his credit, does not appear in his book, which remains an essential work for film studies. (KevinR@Ky, amended 2016)