The Big Screen
The Story of the Movies and What They Did to Us
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- $16.99
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- $16.99
Publisher Description
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 YEAR
Taking us around the globe, through time and across multiple media, Thomson tracks the ways in which we were initially enchanted by this mesmerizing imitation of life and let movies - the stories, the stars, the look - show us how to live. But at the same time he shows us how movies, offering a seductive escape from the everyday reality and its responsibilities, have made it possible for us to evade life altogether. The entranced audience has become a model for powerless citizens trying to pursue happiness by sitting quietly in a dark room. Does the big screen take us out into the world, or merely mesmerize us? That is Thomson's question in this great adventure of a book. A passionate feat of storytelling that is vital to anyone trying to make sense of the age of screens - the age that, more than ever, we are living in.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
From 19th-century photographer Eadweard Muybridge's motion studies to the latest cable-TV and video game offerings, this fascinating history of movies and their spinoffs celebrates and indicts the flickering image that beguiles. Film critic and historian Thomson (The Whole Equation: A History of Hollywood) concentrates on American movies, but takes excursions to other national cinemas and stops in occasionally on I Love Lucy and other gems of the small screen. His is a loose-limbed, conversational narrative, moving fitfully through time, dawdling over directors and films that interest him, shamelessly ogling every starlet that strikes his fancy, spouting provocative opinions thumbs up to Adam Sandler, thumbs down to Lars von Trier and his "insufferable" Dogme-tisms at every turn, ruminating throughout on the ravishing, corrupting essence of light playing across empty screens. Crackling with ideas and vivid impressionisms (get a load of Lauren Bacall, "holding up a doorway in case it faints") Thomson's stylish prose, simultaneously erudite and entertaining, captivates as it informs and if things get overlooked in his idiosyncratic treatment (where's John Wayne?) one notices mainly because one is dying to hear what he thinks about them. Buffs and casual fans alike will enjoy this extra-large serving of popcorn for thought. Photos.
