This engaging collection of Bruce F. Kawin's most important film essays (1977-2011) is accompanied by his interviews with Lillian Gish (1978) and Howard Hawks (1976). The Hawks interview is particularly concerned with his work with William Faulkner and their friendship. The Gish interview emphasizes her role as a producer in the 1920s. The essays take up such topics as violence and sexual politics in film, the relations between horror and science fiction, the growth of video and digital cinema and their effects on both film and film scholarship, the politics of film theory, narration in film, and the relations between film and literature.
Kawin's film essays and reviews have appeared in "Take One," "Film Quarterly," "American Book Review" and elsewhere. Until the publication of this volume, most of them were out of print and unavailable online. Among the most significant articles reprinted here are "Me Tarzan, You Junk," "The Montage Element in Faulkner's Fiction," "The Mummy's Pool," "The Whole World Is Watching," and "Late Show on the Telescreen: Film Studies and the Bottom Line." The book includes close readings of films from "La Jetée" to "The Wizard of Oz" and reviews of films from "Full Metal Jacket" to "The Fury."
The essays take up some of the most interesting aspects of film, from the effect of film violence on viewers to the changes brought by digital cinema, while remaining readable and free of jargon. As critic Howie Movshovitz says in the Foreword, "his writing is utterly, utterly clear." Original and independent, the book is free of attachment to any school of criticism or theory, and is dedicated to the fresh and open-minded appreciation of movies.
About the Author: Bruce F. Kawin is Professor of English and Film at the University of Colorado at Boulder. His books include "Telling It Again and Again: Repetition in Literature and Film," "Mindscreen: Bergman, Godard, and First-Person Film," "The Mind of the Novel: Reflexive Fiction and the Ineffable," "Faulkner's MGM Screenplays," "How Movies Work" and "Horror and the Horror Film." He is also the co-author of the last seven editions of "A Short History of the Movies."
Howie Movshovitz teaches film at the College of Arts and Media at the University of Colorado at Denver. He has been a film critic on Colorado Public Radio since 1976 and has reported on film subjects for National Public Radio since 1987.
