Description
Picasso apparently said, "when critics get together, they talk about theory. When painters get together, they talk about turpentine.' That has been my experience, as far as film and film studies are concerned. Critics, academics, and theoreticians talk theory. That is what they know. Artists talk about their processes in making art. This is my attempt to apply what I know to a beginning study of film.
Emerging filmmakers need to know the basics of their art form: the language of the camera, and lenses, the different crew roles, the formats, the aspect ratios. They also need to know some bare-bones theory: what an auteur is, what montage is, what genres are. Words like these are our currency: they must be known. But, even more urgently, young filmmakers need answers to their questions -- what lens was used? how did they do that effect? who paid for that picture? how did they get it past the censor?
Most important, all filmmakers require serious grounding in film. You cannot be a great artist if you aren't versed in great art. And this doesn't just apply to the cinema.
I believe 100% that a reasonably educated and intelligent person in any country of the world should be able to have a conversation about Luis Bunuel, about Akira Kurosawa, about Stanley Kubrick, about Fellini or Bergman, and talk knowledgeably about at least one of their films. Read this book, watch the films, and you can!
About the Author
Maverick British filmmaker Alex Cox is responsible for directing a host of acclaimed films from Sleep is for Sissies, Repo Man, Sid and Nancy, Straight to Hell, Walker and Highway Patrolman to Death and the Compass, Three Businessmen, Revenger's Tragedy, Searchers 2.0 and more recently Tombstone Rashomon. From 1987 to 1994, he presented the acclaimed BBC TV series 'Moviedrome', bringing unknown or forgotten films to new audiences. He's also the author of X Films: True Confessions of a Radical Filmmaker, 10,000 Ways to Die, The President and the Provocateur and Alex Cox's Introduction to Film and has written on the subject of film for publications including Sight and Sound, The Guardian, The Independent and Film Comment.
Reviews
This book by Alex Cox will give you great insights into the filmmaking process, from idea to production to cinema * Lock and Load, Brides of Christ *
A thought-provoking and thoroughly enjoyable read -- Colin Odell and Michelle Le Blanc
AN INTRODUCTION TO FILM is setting out to reinvent film studies -- Simon Kennedy
Book Information
ISBN 9781843447467
Author Alex Cox
Format Paperback
Page Count 232
Imprint Kamera Books
Publisher Oldcastle Books Ltd
