Showing results for "david thomson"

From one of cinema’s wisest and most penetrating observers, an arresting new perspective on the sweep of film history.David Thomson has been called “the greatest living writer on the movies.” Here is a career capstone of sorts—a one-volume history of film and screens as illuminating and provocative as his classic Biographical Dictionary of Film. In tracing the progress, from the Lumiere Brothers to the Coens, Thomson glories in the great movies, but admits...

From one of the most admired critics of our time, brilliant insights into the act of watching movies and an enlightening discussion about how to derive more from any film experience.Since first publishing his landmark Biographical Dictionary of Film in 1975 (now in its sixth edition), David Thomson has been one of the most trusted authorities on all things cinema. Now, he offers his most inventive exploration of the medium yet: guiding us through each element of the viewin...

A deep—and darkly comic—dive into the nature of disasters, and the ways they shape how we think about ourselves in the world"In this brilliant book, David Thomson tells the story of how we came to make disaster and catastrophe our best friends—how we let terror cocoon and take over our imaginations to avoid seeing the things that really frighten us. Riveting and totally original."—Adam Curtis, BBC filmmaker and political journalist"Erudite. . . . Engaging. . . . A cri de coeu...

How many acts of murder have each of us followed on a screen? What does that say about us? Do we remain law-abiding citizens who wouldn't hurt a fly?Film historian David Thomson, known for wit and subversiveness, leads us into this very delicate subject. While unpacking classics such as Seven, Kind Hearts and Coronets, Strangers on a Train, The Conformist, The Godfather, and The Shining, he offers a disconcerting sense of how the form of movies makes us accomplices in this sinister ...

In little more than a century of cinema - Birth of a Nation was one hundred years old in 2015 - our sense of what a film director is, or should be, has shifted in fascinating ways. A director was once a functionary; then an important but not decisive part of an industrial process; then accepted as the person who was and should be in charge, because he was an artist and a hero. But the world has changed. In a nutshell, the change takes the form of a question: Who directed The S...

“A marvelous bombshell of a book, by one of our most formidably knowledgeable and insightful writers on film, it is filled with surprises and witty asides. Though Thomson is quick to pounce on the hypocrisies and historical omissions of some of these war movies, there is nothing compromised about his own daredevil judgments. We are in the hands of a master critic/essayist.”—Phillip LopateFrom one of the greatest living writers on film, a magisterial look at...

In Television, David Thomson whom Michael Ondaatje has called the best writer on film in our time turns his attention to the ubiquitous small screen and delivers a history of its revolutionary transformation. In just a few years, this immobile piece of living room furniture in front of which viewers had to sit at appointed times in order to watch a finite number of channels has morphed into a glowing cloud of screens that supply near-endless content as and when we want it.Thomson n...

In this triumphant work David Thomson, one of film's greatest living experts and author of The New Biographical Dictionary of Film, tells the enthralling story of the movies and how they have shaped us.Sunday Times, New Statesman, The Times, Guardian, Observer and Independent BOOKS OF THE YEARTaking us around the globe, through time and across multiple media, Thomson tracks the ways in which we ...

Behind the scenes at the legendary Warner Brothers film studio, where four immigrant brothers transformed themselves into the moguls and masters of American fantasyWarner Bros charts the rise of an unpromising film studio from its shaky beginnings in the early twentieth century through its ascent to the pinnacle of Hollywood influence and popularity. The Warner Brothers—Harry, Albert, Sam, and Jack—arrived in America as unschooled Jewish immigrants, yet th...

This is possibly the most entertaining, surprising and enjoyable film book ever written. Thomson set himself the near-foolhardy task of writing one page each on 1000 of the films that he has particularly liked – or in some cases, abhorred. Some half-million words of funny, vigorous, wayward prose later, we are all the happy beneficiaries of his deranged labour.Always unexpected, never repetitive, ‘Have You Seen…?’ can be read consecutively – from Abbott and Costello Me...

From the brilliant film historian and critic David Thomson, a book that reinvents the star biography in a singularly illuminating portrait of Nicole Kidman—and what it means to be a top actress today. At once life story, love letter, and critical analysis, this is not merely a book about who Kidman is but about what she is—in our culture and in our minds, on- and offscreen.Tall, Australian, one of the striking beauties of the world, Nicole Kidman is that rare modern phenomenon—an a...

For almost thirty years, David Thomson’s Biographical Dictionary of Film has been not merely “the finest reference book ever written about movies” (Graham Fuller, Interview), not merely the “desert island book” of art critic David Sylvester, not merely “a great, crazy masterpiece” (Geoff Dyer, The Guardian), but also “fiendishly seductive” (Greil Marcus, Rolling Stone).This new edition updates the older entries and adds 30 new ones: Darren Aronof...