The Classical Hollywood Cinema: Film Style and Mode of Production to 1960

by Kristin Thompson, David Bordwell, Janet Staiger, et al.

Book Overview

How films are conceived, planned, and produced leaves a mark upon the films, directly and structurally. The relations between film style and mode of production are, according to the authors, reciprocal and mutually influencing. The authors trace such topics as style, economics, and technology over time, demonstrating how significant changes occurrred in Hollywood from the earliest days through the sixties

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0231060556
• ISBN13: 9780231060554
• Release Date: September 1985
• Publisher: Columbia University Press
• Length: 506 Pages
• Weight: 0.85 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.2" x 7.5" x 9.8"
• Grade Range: Postsecondary and higher

Customer Reviews

A classic

Probably the only book of this sort; ambitious as it is informative, well written and wide in the scope of research; a true classic in the field of cinema history... Obligatory reading for all who want to understand, study or write about American cinema; BOTH classical and contemporary, the book is also useful to other students of cinema...

a very interesting study of classical hollywood

I love old movies. They have some kind of magic that sadly I can't find in movies today. What this book does is to study the classical years- The classical narrative and how the system, style and people made together these classical movies. The starting point of this book is that almost all of the movies from 1917 to 1960 have the same elements, the same style- the style that today we all referring to when we think of hollywood- the way the story goes, the technical making (filming, editing) that tries to stay unseen and more. The authors choose 100 films from these years,almost all of them are not famous ones or films that made special impact, but films that were made out of the system. Out of these films they show the reader how the hollywood style make us blind to the technical elements and to the similarity of them- because although the norms changed all the time by films that broke the old norms- they all have similar basis. This book is very interesting and I recommend it to everyone who wants to learn more about classical hollywood from the films themselves. The only complaint I have (and it's refering to the edition I read, which is from 1985)) is that the pages are divided to columns and it makes the reading a little uneasy, but still worth the reading.