The library has a wonderful collection of film books that were generously donated by the Rinaldo family. A few I've singled out for this week are below.
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Setting the Scene: The Great Hollywood Art Directors FILM 791.43 SENN
Synopsis:
Setting the Scene: The Great Hollywood Art Directors pays tribute to those who make everyone else's work come alive, surveying the careers of the greatest Hollywood art directors from the silent era to the present, examining their work in detail. After a brief history the role the art director played in the Hollywood studio system, Setting the Scene looks at particular art directors' careers, their productions and sets, analyzing how art direction contributes to the success of the finished film. The book covers such memorable films as The Birth of a Nation and Batman.
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Behind the scenes of The Blackguard (1925, dir. Graham Cutts) Art direction by Alfred Hitchcock
When Hitchcock arrived on the set of The Blackguard, the great German director F.W. Murnau was filming The Last Laugh nearby on the UFA lot. Hitchcock either engaged Murnau in conversation, or overheard him tell others: “What you see on the set does not matter. All that matters is what you see on the screen.”
Hitchcock never missed an opportunity to quote this remark, which became a cornerstone of his own approach: The reality didn’t matter if the illusion was effective. He then emulated Murnau by hiring a slew of dwarves to stand far from the camera in The Blackguard, creating an artificial perspective for a crowd scene.
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FILM 791.430 B HIT-excerpted from Patrick McGilligan’s
Alfred Hitchcock: A Life in Darkness and Light
Seductive Cinema: The Art of Silent Film
FILM 791.4309 CARD
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James Card
From Publishers Weekly
In this lively, opinionated, delightful chronicle of the silent film era, film historian Card deflates the "near-hysterical devotion" to D. W. Griffith, arguing that his Biograph movies were not revolutionary in comparison with European silents. Moreover, asserts Card, the oft-repeated claim that Griffith invented the closeup and film editing is false; that honor here goes to British filmmaker James Williamson. Card, a pioneer collector and founder of the George Eastman film archive, praises the underrated pretalkie achievements of King Vidor and Cecil B. DeMille, while panning director Josef von Sternberg's "incredible lapses." Studded with glimpses of Clara Bow, Joan Crawford, John Barrymore, Greta Garbo, plus dozens more, and marvelously illustrated with photos and stills, this engaging blend of criticism, history, autobiographical reminiscence and film lore will captivate even those with only a passing interest in the silents.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.
