A Cinema of Loneliness: Penn, Kubrick, Scorsese, Spielberg, Altman

by Robert P. Kolker

Book Overview

The "New Wave" style of American film of the 1960s and 70s--characterized by exciting, narrative innovation and sometimes adventurous reworkings of older film genres, as well as images of solitude and explosive violence--has come to an end. Erasing virtually all traces of 60s and 70s experimentation, American film in the 1980s has returned with a vengeance to a more linear, conventional style.
In this newly revised edition of The Cinema of Loneliness,...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0195053907
• ISBN13: 9780195053906
• Release Date: June 1988
• Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
• Length: 464 Pages
• Weight: 0.85 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.9" x 5.4" x 8.0"

Customer Reviews

One of the best books of film criticism I've ever read

A paradigm of intelligent film criticism. Kolker's astute and subtle formal analysis of the films puts many other so-called critics to shame, and his discussions of the political implications of cinematic form and style are excellent. It is a serious book about movies, and his arguments and insights need to be thought about and struggled with- they are not a meant to be easily digested.

A film book of rare insight and intelligence........

Worth reading for the Kubrick chapter alone, this book considers the work of our finest directors and contrasts them with the conservatism and anti-intellectualism of 1980s cinema. Moreover, the author discusses community, alienation, dehumanization, and loneliness, all from a fresh, unpretentious standpoint.