Making Movies Into Art

Focusing on early cinema's relationship with the pictorial arts, this pioneering study explores how cinema's emergence was grounded in theories of picture composition, craft and arts education – from magic lantern experiments in 1890s New York through to early Hollywood feature films in the 1920s. Challenging received notions that the advent of cinema was a celebration of mechanisation and a radical rejection of nineteenth-century traditions of representation, Kaveh Askari instead emphasises the overlap between craft traditions and modernity in early film. Opening up valuable new perspectives on the history of film as art, Askari links American silent cinema with the practice of teaching the public how to appreciate fine art; charts its entrance into arts education via art schools and university film courses; shows how concepts of artistic production entered films through a material interest in the studio; and examines the way in which Maurice Tourneur and Rex Ingram made early art films by shaping an image of the film director around the idea of the fine artist.

Why does a director choose a particular script? What must they do in order to keep actors fresh and truthful through take after take of a single scene? How do you stage a shootout—involving more than one hundred extras and three colliding taxis—in the heart of New York’s diamond district? What does it take to keep the studio honchos happy? From the first rehearsal to the final screening, Making Movies is a master’s take, delivered with clarity, candor, and a wealth of anecdote. For in this book, Sidney Lumet, one of our most consistently acclaimed directors, gives us both a professional memoir and a definitive guide to the art, craft, and business of the motion picture. Drawing on forty years of experience on movies that range from Long Day’s Journey into Night to Network and The Verdict—and with such stars as Katharine Hepburn, Paul Newman, Marlon Brando, and Al Pacino—Lumet explains how painstaking labor and inspired split-second decisions can result in two hours of screen magic.

From Drugstore Cowboy to Elephant, Milk and Good Will Hunting, Gus Van Sant's films have captured the imagination of more than one generation. Alongside his filmaking, however, Van Sant is also an artist, photographer and writer. Based on a series of completely new and exclusive interviews, this book provides a personal insight into how Van Sant successfully approaches these different and very varied artforms, providing an inspirational look into the working life of one of America's most pivotal cultural and creative practitioners.

This is the second volume of Thomas Cripps's definitive history of African-Americans in Hollywood. It covers the period from World War II through the civil rights movement of the 1960s, examining this period through the prism of popular culture. Making Movies Black shows how movies anticipated and helped form America's changing ideas about race. Cripps contends that from the liberal rhetoric of the war years--marked as it was by the propaganda catchwords brotherhood and tolerance--came movies that defined a new African-American presence both in film and in American society at large. He argues that the war years, more than any previous era, gave African-American activists access to centers of cultural influence and power in both Washington and Hollywood. Among the results were an expanded black imagery on the screen during the war--in combat movies such as Bataan, Crash Dive, and Sahara; musicals such as Stormy Weather and Cabin in the Sky; and government propaganda films such as The Negro Soldier and Wings for this Man (narrated by Ronald Reagan!). After the war, the ideologies of both black activism and integrationism persisted, resulting in the 'message movie' era of Pinky, Home of the Brave, and No Way Out, a form of racial politics that anticipated the goals of the Civil Rights Movement. Delving into previously inaccessible records of major Hollywood studios, among them Warner Bros., RKO, and 20th Century-Fox, as well as records of the Office of War Information in the National Archives, and records of the NAACP, and interviews with survivors of the era, Cripps reveals the struggle of both lesser known black filmmakers like Carlton Moss and major figures such as Sidney Poitier. More than a narrative history, Making Movies Black reaches beyond the screen itself with sixty photographs, many never before published, which illustrate the mood of the time. Revealing the social impact of the classical Hollywood film, Making Movies Black is the perfect book for those interested in the changing racial climate in post-World War II American life.

The Oxford Handbook of Silent Cinema is a collection of new scholarship that investigates the first decades of motion-picture history from diverse perspectives and methodologies. Featuring over thirty essays by leading scholars in the field, the Handbook offers a comprehensive overview of cinema's earliest years while also illuminating how cinema derived strength from competing cultural forms, becoming in the process the most influential mass medium of the early twentieth century.

Michael Rubbo's groundbreaking work has had a deep and enduring impact on documentary filmmaking worldwide, though his name has remained relatively unknown. In The Documentary Art of Michael Rubbo, author D.B. Jones traces Rubbo's filmmaking from his days as a film student at Stanford, through his twenty years at the National Film Board of Canada, where Rubbo developed his distinct documentary style. Jones then describes Rubbo's post-NFB venture into feature film directing, followed by Rubbo's return to his native Australia, first as an executive with the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, and later as a director of feature-length documentaries and maker of short, personal films for YouTube. Exploring locales from Montreal to Vietnam, topics as diverse as plastic surgery and French Marxism, and from interviewing Margaret Atwood to documenting a failed attempt to interview Fidel Castro, Rubbo's wide-ranging work establishes his innovative, personal, lyric, and spontaneous documentary style. In The Documentary Art of Michael Rubbo D.B. Jones reveals not only the depth of meaning in Rubbo's films, but also the depth of their influence on filmmaking itself.

The official behind-the-scenes companion to New Line Cinema’s international blockbusters IT and IT Chapter Two. The 2017 film IT brought a disturbing new vision to Stephen King’s classic horror novel of the same name. In 2019, the story continued with IT Chapter Two, in which Bill Skarsgard delivered another acclaimed performance as the terrifying Pennywise the Clown. Collecting the best artwork produced during the making of both of these films—including concept art, sketches, storyboards, and behind-the-scenes photography—The World of IT explores the films’ singular aesthetic and meticulous world-building. This compendium includes commentary from director Andy Muschietti; producer Barbara Muschietti; the acclaimed ensemble cast; and other creative players who helped bring King’s perennial bestseller to life.

Behind the scenes—and the mask—of the great Batman film trilogy, including stunning illustrations. In 2005, director Christopher Nolan reimagined and forever redefined the Batman legend when he began his epic trilogy of films—Batman Begins, The Dark Knight, and The Dark Knight Rises—starring Christian Bale as the Caped Crusader in a fresh, dynamic reboot of the franchise. All three films would go on to blockbuster success and critical acclaim—including an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for Heath Ledger’s unforgettable performance as Batman’s eternal nemesis, the Joker. The Art and Making of the Dark Knight Trilogy tells the complete story of these three monumental films. Based on in-depth interviews with Nolan and all of the films’ key cast and crew—including cowriters David S. Goyer and Jonathan Nolan, cinematographer Wally Pfister, and more—the book reveals the creative process behind the epic Dark Knight Trilogy, supported by lavish art and on and off-set photos. This is a fascinating glimpse into the minds that gave new life to one of the most beloved and renowned superheroes in history.