BFI PUBLISHING (BRITISH FILM INSTITUTE)

(P/B) THE LIVES OF OTHERS
This study offers a fresh approach to the remarkable German film The Lives of Others (2006), known for its compelling representation of a Stasi surveillance officer and the moral and ethical turmoil that results when he begins spying on a playwright and his actress lover. (From the publisher)...
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(P/B) THE SHINING
Stanley Kubrick hailed The Shining as 'the scariest horror film of all time' before its release in 1980. Though the film opened to poor reviews, it has since become one of the most admired horror films in cinema history. Exerting an enormous influence on popular culture, The Shining has spawned a vast array of interpretations and conspiracy theories. Roger Luckhurst's illuminating study of this seminal film explores its themes, tropes and resonances through a detailed analysis of sequences and performances. Situating The Shining in a serie...
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(P/B) ROBERTO ROSSELLINI
A master of modern European cinema and a key figure in the Italian neo-realist movement, Roberto Rossellini had one of the longest and most varied careers of all major directors. From Rome Open City and Pais through to the 'Bergman' classics Stromboli and Journey to Italy and his later work for television, Rossellini's work and ideas had a profound influence on film-making and criticism. This specially commissioned overview of Rossellini's works examines key issues and themes covering all phases of his career. Leading critics from across t...
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(P/B) MIZOGUCHI AND JAPAN
For a majority of filmgoers, the names most usually associated with classic Japanese cinema are those of Kurosawa and Ozu. Yet during the early 1950s, at the same time that Kurosawa was becoming known to the public through the release of classics like Rashomon and The Seven Samurai, another Japanese director, Kenji Mizoguchi, quietly came out with a trilogy of films - The Life of Oharu, Ugetsu Monogatari and Sansho the Bailiff - that are the equal of Kurosawa's in mastery, and which by any account rank among the greatest and most enduring ...
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(P/B) ANIME
Japanese animation is at the nexus of an international multimedia industry worth over $6.5 billion a year, linked to everything from manga to computer games, Pok?mon and plushies. In this comprehensive guide, Jonathan Clements chronicles the production and reception history of the entire medium, from a handful of hobbyists in the 1910s to the Oscar-winning Spirited Away and beyond. Exploring the cultural and technological developments of the past century, Clements addresses issues of historiography within Japanese academic discourse and co...
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(P/B) BLADE RUNNER
Ridley Scott's dystopian classic Blade Runner, an adaptation of Philip K. Dick's novel, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, combines noir with science fiction to create a groundbreaking cyberpunk vision of urban life in the twenty-first century. With replicants on the run, the rain-drenched Los Angeles which Blade Runner imagines is a city of oppression and enclosure, but a city in which transgression and disorder can always erupt. Graced by stunning sets, lighting, effects, costumes and photography, Blade Runner succeeds brilliantly in ...
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(P/B) AGUIRRE, THE WRATH OF GOD
Aguirre, the Wrath of God (Aguirre, der Zorn Gottes) is and perhaps always will be Werner Herzog's most important film. Appearing in 1972, Aguirre put Herzog on the map of World Cinema. But the film's importance also derives from the young German director's tense, behind-the-scenes relationship with actor Klaus Kinski. Did Herzog really direct him at gunpoint? Did they plot each other's murder? The legends begin here. In this groundbreaking book, Eric Ames reconstructs the film as an experiment in visualising the past from the viewpoint of...
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FILM / GENRE (P/B)
Film/ Genre radically revises our notions of film genre. It is the first book to fully connect the roles played by industry critics and audiences in making and re-making genre. (. . .) (ΑΠΟ ΤΗΝ ΠΑΡΟΥΣΙΑΣΗ ΣΤΟ ΟΠΙΣΘΟΦΥΛΛΟ ΤΟΥ ΒΙΒΛΙΟΥ)...
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(P/B) A HISTORY OF EXPERIMENTAL FILM AND VIDEO
Avant-garde film is almost indefinable. It is in a constant state of change and redefinition. In this book A. L. Rees tracks the movement of the film avant-garde between, on the one hand, the cinema, and, on the other hand, modern art (with its post-modern coda). But he also reconstitutes the film avant-garde as an independent form of art practice with its own internal logic and aesthetic discourse. (ΑΠΟ ΤΗΝ ΠΑΡΟΥΣΙΑΣΗ ΣΤΟ ΟΠΙΣΘΟΦΥΛΛΟ ΤΟΥ ΒΙΒΛΙΟΥ)...
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(P/B) LARS VON TRIER
With the international success of Breaking the Waves (1996) and Dancer in the Dark (2000), Lars von Trier has established himself as a one of the most provocative and daring film directors working today. The founding father of Dogma 95, he made the movement's most controversial film, The Idiots (1998), and has played a leading role in the recent resurgence of Danish cinema. Yet despite his success, von Trier remains something of a polarising and enigmatic figure hailed as the new Godard by some and a charlatan by others. In this new study,...
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(P/B) THE SERVANT
Amy Sargeant's illuminating study of Joseph Losey's The Servant (1963) provides a detailed discussion of the film's production and reception history, as well as a textual analysis that focuses on Harold Pinter's adaptation of Maugham's novella; the film's use of architecture and interior design to establish character and relationships. (From the publisher)...
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(P/B) IL CONFORMISTA (THE CONFORMIST)
Bernardo Bertolucci's Il conformista (The Conformist) (1970), a political drama set in Mussolini's Fascist Italy, is widely recognised as a masterpiece of post-war cinema, a classic of Italian and European cinema and an inspiration for many other film-makers, particularly those of the American New Wave. Christopher Wagstaff's illuminating study of the film traces its pre-production and production history, considering how Bertolucci adapted Alberto Moravia's source novel for the screen. He provides a careful analysis of Il conformista's for...
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(P/B) ALIEN
A legendary fusion of science fiction and horror, Alien (1979) is one of the most enduring modern myths of cinema - its famously visceral scenes acting like a traumatic wound we seem compelled to revisit. Tracing the constellation of talents that came together to produce the film, Roger Luckhurst examines its origins as a monster movie script called Star Beast, dismissed by many in Hollywood as B-movie trash, through to its afterlife in numerous sequels, prequels and elaborations. Exploring the ways in which Alien compels us to think about...
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(P/B) FILM MARKETING INTO THE TWENTY-FIRST CENRTURY
How do you sell British humour to a French audience? Could piracy actually be good for the film business? Why are The Hobbit's revolutionary technologies not mentioned in some adverts? Exploring these questions and many more, Film Marketing into the Twenty-First Century draws on insights from renowned film academics and leading industry professionals to chart the evolution of modern film marketing. The first part of the book focuses on geographical considerations, showing how marketers have to adapt their strategies locally as films travel...
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(P/B) LA JETEE
Chris Marker's La Jetee is 28 minutes long and almost entirely made up of black-and-white still images. Since its release in 1964, this legendary French film - which Marker described as a 'photo-novel' - has haunted generations of viewers and inspired writers, artists and film-makers. Its spiralling time-travel narrative has also influenced many other films, including the Terminator seriesand Terry Gilliam's Hollywood 'remake' Twelve Monkeys (1995). But as Marker rarely gave interviews, little is really known about the origins of La Jetee ...
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(P/B) THE ITALIAN CINEMA BOOK
THE ITALIAN CINEMA BOOK is an essential guide to the most important historical, aesthetic and cultural aspects of Italian cinema, from 1895 to the present day. With contributions from 39 leading international scholars, the book is structured around six chronologically organised sections: THE SILENT ERA (1895-22) THE BIRTH OF THE TALKIES AND THE FASCIST ERA (1922-45) POSTWAR CINEMATIC CULTURE (1945-59) THE GOLDEN AGE OF ITALIAN CINEMA (1960-80) AN AGE OF CRISIS, TRANSITION AND CONSOLIDATION (1981 TO THE PRESENT) NEW DIRECTIONS IN CRITICAL A...
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(P/B) GLOBAL MEXICAN CINEMA
The golden age of Mexican cinema, which spanned the 1930s through to the 1950s, saw Mexico's film industry become one of the most productive in the world, exercising a decisive influence on national culture and identity. In the first major study of the global reception and impact of Mexican Golden Age cinema, this book captures the key aspects of its international success, from its role in forming a nostalgic cultural landscape for Mexican emigrants working in the United States, to its economic and cultural influence on Latin America, Spai...
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(P/B) CITIZEN KANE
Citizen Kane's reputation as one of the greatest films of all time is matched only by the accumulation of critical commentary that surrounds it. What more can there be to say about a masterpiece so universally acknowledged? Laura Mulvey, in a fresh and original reading, illuminates the richness of the film, both thematically and stylistically, relating it to Welles's political background and its historical context. In a lucid and perceptive critique she also investigates the psychoanalytic structure that underlies the film's presentation o...
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(P/B) VERTIGO
Vertigo (1958) is widely regarded as not only one of Hitchcock's best films, but one of the greatest films of world cinema. Made at the time when the old studio system was breaking up, it functions both as an embodiment of the supremely seductive visual pleasures that 'classical Hollywood' could offer and - with the help of an elaborate plot twist - as a laying bare of their dangerous dark side. The film's core is a study in romantic obsession, as James Stewart's Scottie pursues Madeleine/Judy (Kim Novak) to her death in a remote Californi...
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(P/B) TAXI DRIVER
Paul Schrader was in meltdown in 1972. Drinking heavily, living in his car, he was hospitalised with a gastric ulcer. There he read about Arthur Bremer's attempt to assassinate Alabama Governor George Wallace: the story was the germ of his screenplay for Taxi Driver (1976). Executives at Columbia hated the script, but when Martin Scorsese and Robert De Niro, who were flying high after the triumphs of Mean Streets (1973) and The Godfather Part II (1974), signed up, Taxi Driver became too good a package to refuse. Scorsese transformed the sc...
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