Cinema If You Please

In Cinema, If You Please, Murray Pomerance explores our ways of watching film in light of socially organized forms of pleasure that date back to the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Wedding the notion of pleasure in film viewing to the history of pleasure in the West, the book considers pleasure gardens and promenading; the history of oil painting and its display; the passion for travel and exposure to the exotic and strange; and forms of musical repetition and restatement. With in-depth studies of films like Vertigo, The Passenger, A Matter of Life and Death, Clouds of Sils Maria, Personal Shopper, Call Me By Your Name and Blow-Up, this ground-breaking book draws the reader into the past and the present at once, joining an understanding of personal and visual delight to their cultural and historical roots.

Mouse celebrates the holidays in this picture book in the beloved #1 New York Times bestselling If You Give... series! If you take a mouse to the movies, he'll ask you for some popcorn. If you give him the popcorn, he'll want to string it all together. Then he'll want to hang it on a Christmas tree. The famous little mouse from If You Give a Mouse a Cookie that has delighted millions of readers is back in an irresistible tale full of holiday antics. Collect all the books in this giggle-inspiring classic series!

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • Stand-up comedian and Hollywood box-office hit Kevin Hart keeps the laughs coming in an illustrated middle-grade novel about a boy who has big dreams of making a blockbuster superhero film. Perfect for readers of James Patterson's Middle School series and Lincoln Peirce's Big Nate series. "Keep[s] kid readers on the edge of their seat." –Parents Magazine Marcus is NOT happy to be stuck in after-school film class . . . until he realizes he can turn the story of the cartoon superhero he’s been drawing for years into an actual MOVIE! There’s just one problem: he has no idea what he’s doing. So he’ll need help, from his friends, his teachers, Sierra, the strong-willed classmate with creative dreams of her own, even Tyrell, the local bully who’d be a perfect movie villain if he weren’t too terrifying to talk to. Making this movie won’t be easy. But as Marcus discovers, nothing great ever is—and if you want your dream to come true, you’ve got to put in the hustle to make it happen. Comedy superstar Kevin Hart teams up with award-winning author Geoff Rodkey and lauded illustrator David Cooper for a hilarious, illustrated, and inspiring story about bringing your creative goals to life and never giving up, even when nothing’s going your way.

The Soviet T-35A is the only five-turret tank in history to enter production. With a long and proud service history on parade grounds, the T-35A was forced to adapt to the modern battlefield. Outclassed and outdated, the T-35A tried to hold its own against German invaders with terrible consequences. Fallen Giants: The Combat Debut of the T-35A Tank gives a grim depiction of the aftermath of the goliath that was the T-35A. Very little is known of these strange vehicles bar their basic shape and photographs of parade grounds and frontline action. For the first time, battlefield photographs have been cross-referenced with maps and documents to bring the most complete look at the T-35A in the Second World War to date. Explore the changes that were made to the design throughout the 1930s and interesting conversions often missed.

How should we understand film authorship in an era when the idea of the solitary and sovereign auteur has come under attack, with critics proclaiming the death of the author and the end of cinema? The Bressonians provides an answer in the form of a strikingly original study of Bresson and his influence on the work of filmmakers Jean Eustache and Maurice Pialat. Extending the discourse of authorship beyond the idea of a singular visionary, it explores how the imperatives of excellence function within cinema’s pluralistic community. Bresson’s example offered both an artistic legacy and a creative burden within which filmmakers reckoned in different, often arduous, and altogether compelling ways.

"The end of the Second World War saw the emergence in Italy of the neorealism movement, which produced a number of films characterized by stories set among the poor and working class, often shot on location using non-professional actors. In this study Christopher Wagstaff provides an in-depth analysis of neorealist film, focusing on three films that have had a major impact on filmmakers and audiences around the world: Roberto Rossellini's Roma città aperta and Paisà and Vittorio De Sica's Ladri di biciclette. Indeed, these films are still, more than half a century after they were made, among the most highly regarded works in the history of cinema. In this insightful and carefully researched work, Wagstaff suggests that the importance of these films is largely due to the aesthetic and rhetorical qualities of their assembled sounds and images rather than, as commonly thought, their particular representations of historical reality.The author begins by situating neorealist cinema in its historical, industrial, commercial, and cultural context. He goes on to provide a theoretical discussion of realism and the merits of neorealist films, individually and collectively, as aesthetic artefacts. He follows with a detailed analysis of the three films, focusing on technical and production aspects as well as on the significance of the films as cinematic works of art.While providing a wealth of information and analysis previously unavailable to an English-speaking audience, Italian Neorealist Cinema offers a radically new perspective on neorealist cinema and the Italian art cinema that followed it."

Reprint. Originally published in paperback: 2006.