'Screen Writings: Genres, Classics, and Aesthetics' offers close readings of genre films and acknowledged film classics in an attempt to explore both the aesthetics of genre and the definition of 'classic' - as well as the changing perception of so-called classic movies over time. Implicitly theoretical as much as it is unashamedly practical, this book is a model not only of text analysis, but also of the enlightened deployment of cultural studies in the service of film study. The book includes re-considerations of such classic films as 'I vitelloni', 'Grand Illusion', 'Winter Light', and 'Tokyo Story'; it features genre examinations of the war film ('Flags of Our Fathers' and 'Letters from Iwo Jima'), farce ('Some Like It Hot'), the road film ('The Rain People'), the New York-centered movie ('Manhattan'), and avant-garde pictures that privilege narrative ('3-Iron' and 'Eternal Sunshine of the Classic Mind'); and 'Screen Writings: Genres, Classics, and Aesthetics' concludes with a searching investigation of the rise of the New American Cinema during a tumultuous decade and social change - from the late 1960s to the early 1970s.

The main purpose of 'Screen Writings' is to stake out territory for a certain type of film critic, somewhere between a reviewer-journalist and a scholar-theorist. At a time when the movie review has degenerated into mere publicity for Hollywood pictures, while film scholarship has become entangled in its own pseudo-scientific discourse, the author offers close readings of individual films that go beyond simple plot summaries and vague impressions about acting, yet refrain from hermetic theoretical pronouncements. With elegance, clarity, and rigor, the author explains how moviemakers use the resources of the medium to pursue complex, significant humanistic goals. Thus, in addition to chronicling the vitality and richness of international film art, 'Screen Writings' also aims to facilitate its understanding and appreciation. The reviews and re-viewings contained in 'Screen Writings' are acts of analysis and interpretation in the humanistic sense - they are neither theoretical musings nor pedantic tracts. As such, this book can be considered a call for the return of practical criticism as the best way to understand and appreciate the work of cinematic artists, including directors from a countries across the world. Contemporary films like 'Brokeback Mountain' and 'Lost in Translation' are treated, as well as classics like 'Tokyo Story', 'Forbidden Games', and 'Some Like It Hot'. These review-essays are supplemented by a previously unpublished interview with LuchinoVisconti and a investigation of the new screen violence, as well as by a bibliography of related criticism, directors' filmographies, individual film credits, and a thorough index.

Action draws on the very best published and unpublished interviews of the Bright Lights Film Journal, and contains many gems, including the last ever interview given by Francois Truffaut, four months before he died. The book also benefits from many rare photographs of these great directors on set, and scenes from their groundbreaking works.

"ACTION! Interviews with Directors from Classical Hollywood to Contemporary Iran" presents nineteen outstanding interviews with directors past and present, from around the world, working in a variety of genres and budgets and production environments from major studios to indie and DIY. The result is a vibrant group portrait of the filmmaking art, a kind of festival in words that explores everything from the enormous creative and personal satisfactions of filmmaking to the challenges and frustrations that range from meddlesome studio heads to state censorship. These articulate auteurs include iconic figures Fellini and Truffaut (in his moving final interview), avant-garde masters Otto Muehl and the Brothers Quay, social critics Barbara Kopple and Allie Light, mainstream mavericks Robert Wise and Douglas Sirk, and eleven others. While their work (and working methods) varies widely, these directors share the status of pioneer and subversive, fighting - sometimes against great odds - to put their unique vision onscreen.""

Over the last century, film actors from Charlie Chaplin and Lillian Gish to Meryl Streep and Jeff Daniels have spoken about the art and technique of playing to the camera. This fascinating anthology of their "insiders" observations will delight film lovers and aspiring film actors everywhere. The book has been edited by four leading film and theater historians, who have brought together selections from periodicals and books (some no longer in print), had some statements or conversations translated into English for the first time, and conducted new interviews with working actors. The book is divided into four parts-"The Silent Performance," "Finding a Voice," "European Acting," and "Hollywood Acting"-each of which is introduced by a brief commentary. This chronological and topical structure allows one actor to talk or argue with another as they offer astute-and often contradictory-opinions on a broad range of theoretical concerns. Among the issues they discuss are stage versus screen performance, the spiritual, emotional, and psychological underpinnings of the actor's art, and the performer's response to technical demands and other exigencies of filmmaking. The book, which also includes an insightful general introduction, film biographies of the actor-authors, and aptly chosen movie stills, is an essential resource-one that gives us, says Stanley Kauffmann, "the mapping of a new territory in art."

In 'Soundings on Cimena', film critic Bert Cardullo engages nine major international film directors - Antonioni, Bergman, Bresson, De Sica, Felini, Kaurismaki, Leigh, Renoir and Syberberg - in a series of dialogues about how they work and the meanings of their films.