Film Art

From Oscar-winners and cult favorites, big budget blockbusters and indie darlings, this captivating series takes you on a deep dive into the pivotal projects that defined the careers of six extraordinary filmmakers—Cameron Crowe, Natasha Lyonne, Ron Howard, Amy Heckerling, Richard Linklater, and Chloé Zhao. Through candid anecdotes and behind-the-scenes stories, these artists reflect on the formative experiences, creative breakthroughs, and personal inspirations that gave rise to their most iconic work.

For five decades, no American filmmaker has been as prolific or as paradoxical as Woody Allen. From Play It Again, Sam (1972) to Midnight in Paris (2011) and Blue Jasmine (2013), Allen has produced an average of one film a year; yet in many of these movies Allen reveals a progressively skeptical attitude toward both the value of art and the cultural contributions of artists.

From the triumphant “Main Title” in Star Wars to the ominous bass line of Jaws, John Williams has penned some of the most unforgettable film scores—while netting more than fifty Academy Award nominations. This updated and revised edition of Emilio Audissino’s groundbreaking volume takes stock of Williams’s creative process and achievements in music composition, including the most recent sequels in the film franchises that made him famous. Audissino details his lasting impact and cements his legacy as one of the most important composers in movie history.

With warmth, wit and precision, Samira Ahmed reveals how the Beatles' first film changed both the band themselves and pop music's relationship with the screen. In a vivid and personal exploration, she shows how this black-and-white gem, shot in a documentary style and brimming with youthful energy, captured Britain at a moment of social transformation, with a portrayal of celebrity, camaraderie and media frenzy that still resonates today.

Filmmakers, film students, documentary makers for film and television, and lovers of pop culture will hear, in the filmmakers’ own words, the challenges and triumphs faced in making documentaries. Firsthand knowledge is shared on such topics as how the documentary process differs from making fictional films, storytelling technique, ethical boundaries, funding, film festivals, and much more.

Gordy LaSure's passionate about film. He eats film, he drinks film, and sometimes he'll even watch a film. But most of all, he loves talking about film, and how they'd be a shit-ton better if only people would pull their asses out of their ears and listen to Gordy LaSure. Why are some films bad and some films terrible? How come just a handful of films (Titanic, Porky's, Dirty Harry) are any good at all? Gordy'll tell you How and Why, and he'll give you a shot of Wherefore on the side. And he doesn't shoot from the hip; he shoots from the gut.

Barry Avrich - a self-made, Montreal-born film producer-director, flamboyant advertising executive, and legendary biographer and connector of moguls and stars. For over three decades, he has relentlessly produced films on some of the most notorious show-business titans and also found the time to market and promote feature films, concerts, and the biggest shows on Broadway.

This book is an invaluable and inspirational material for the film, television and theater professional. It helps directors, actors, writers, designers, producers and executives tap into their imagination and instincts, in turn helping them create the films they’ve always dreamed of creating.

William Esper, one of the leading acting teachers of our time, explains and extends Sanford Meisner's legendary technique, offering a clear, concrete, step-by-step approach to becoming a truly creative actor.Esper worked closely with Meisner for seventeen years and has spent decades developing...

Over a three-decade period that began in 1919, Oscar Micheaux wrote, directed, edited, produced, and distributed over 40 films nationally and internationally. These films usually featured all-Black casts. They spanned a silent film period and a talkie period (sound films). Given such a background and the period in American history into which he was born, Micheaux's achievements were extraordinary and his legacy is a study of survival, persistence, and bold determination to develop a new era in Black films.

When did documentaries get glamorous? Documentary Superstars looks at the history of documentaries and traces their transition from hands-off to in your face. Exclusive interviews with Michael Moore, Morgan Spurlock, Errol Morris, George Clooney, Sacha Baron Cohen, Morgan Freeman, Al Gore, and more of the biggest names in the field show the impact of the documentary style on mainstream movies and on our society.

How did we get from silent black-and-white films to streaming, blockbusters, and AI-powered filmmaking? Reel History takes teens on a fast, engaging journey through the evolution of cinema—without turning film history into homework.

In this compelling study, Joshua Clover undertakes the task of decoding the film. Examining The Matrix's digital effects and how they were achieved, he shows how the film represents a melding of cinema and video games (the greatest commercial threat to have faced Hollywood since the advent of television) and achieves a hybrid kind of immersive entertainment. He also unpacks the movie's references to philosophy, showing how The Matrix ultimately expresses the crisis American culture faced at the end of the 1990s.

Noir emerged as a prominent American film genre in the early 1940s, distinguishable by its use of unusual lighting, sinister plots, mysterious characters, and dark themes. From The Maltese Falcon (1941) to Touch of Evil (1958), films from this classic period reflect an atmosphere of corruption and social decay that attracted such accomplished directors as John Huston, Alfred Hitchcock, Billy Wilder, and Orson Welles.

One of the most beloved novels from the critically acclaimed novelist Laurie Colwin, Goodbye Without Leaving explores a woman’s attempts to reconcile her rock-and-roll past with her significantly more sedate family life as a wife and mother. As a bored graduate student, Geraldine Colshares is...

“The Nate series by Tim Federle is a wonderful evocation of what it’s like to be a theater kid. Highly recommended.” —Lin-Manuel Miranda, star and creator of the musical, Hamilton Winner of the Lambda Literary Award Encore! Nate Foster’s Broadway dreams are finally coming true in this...

"After a bit you realize there's only one invaluable commodity. Not gold or love, but time." How far are we willing to go to stay young? Hanif Kureishi -- acclaimed author of The Buddha of Suburbia and Intimacy -- explores the possibilities in this provocative story of an older man whose...

The 9th installment in the Aubrey/Maturin series All of Patrick O'Brian's strengths are on parade in this novel of action and intrigue, set partly in Malta, partly in the treacherous, pirate-infested waters of the Red Sea. While Captain Aubrey worries about repairs to his ship, Stephen Maturin...

When the queen of the tabloids, Juliette Cadbury, decides to film a movie in Fort Rosalie, Mississippi, local Tourist Bureau executive Mary Dell Hoskins is given the unenviable task of setting up a whirlwind inspection tour of the town's three bed-and-breakfasts - only one of which can win the...

From the best-selling coauthor of The Disaster Artist and “one of America's best and most interesting writers" (Stephen King), a new collection of stories that range from laugh-out-loud funny to disturbingly dark—unflinching portraits of women and men struggling to bridge the gap between art...