American Cinematographer - May 1988 - 26

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The

Bookshelf

FOR PROFESSIONAL
MOTION PICTURE LIGHTING

by George L. George
Maurice Zolotow's

Billy Wilder in Holly¬
an updating chapter,
combines fact and gossip in a lively account
of the director's notable career, stressing his
abrasive personality that often alienated
studio biggies but just as often yielded
screen classics. (Limelight NYC, $12.95).

wood, reissued with

In Comments on Film, critic
Giovanni Grazzini's wide-ranging interviews
reveal director Federico Fellinis emotional

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Evolution of social

concerns

in

post-1945 movies is traced by Paul Monaco
in a thoughtful and informative volume,

interplay of reality and fantasy stimulated by
surrounding world. (California State U.
Press, Fresno, $11.95).
Kathe Geist's comprehensive
study, The Cinema of Wim Wenders,
probes the director's recurrent identity crisis
and his revulsion from the spiritual empti¬
ness of post-war Germany, reflected in the
bleakly realistic films of his New German
Cinema period. (UMI Research Press, Ann
Arbor, Ml, $39.95).
In Romantic Comedy in Hol¬
lywood from Lubitsch to Sturges,
James Harvey explores the elements of
sophistication, slapstick and spiciness that
brought new vitality to a familiar film
genre. His detailed evaulation of films, di¬
rectors and performers illuminates a turn¬
ing point in the art of cinema. (Knopf, NYC,
$35).
Gerald Mast, in Can 't Help
Singing, examines 100 years of musical
productions on screen and stage. This schol¬
arly and entertaining book appraises the
work of major directors, performers and
songwriters, and clarifies the ethnic and

Ribbons in Time. French New Wave,
Italian Neo-Realism, German war films and

societal roots of

a

rich musical tradition.

(Overlook, NYC, $24.95).
The function of

For

are

response to everyday experience as a
source of his filmmaking style, a visual

the

Ballast

New perspectives on the classic
suggested by Bert Cardullo in In¬
delible Images. He questions accepted
views on adaptation of literary material
(Room at the Top), symbolic realization of
dreams (Some Like It Hot), building of empa¬
thy (Citizen Kane) and other conventional
treatments of narrative problems. (U. Press
of America, Lanham, MD, $28/15.75).
film

sic in narrative films is

background mu¬
perceptively dis¬

American interest in nostalgia offer evi¬
dence of cinema's acknowledgement of

changing times. (Indiana U. Press, Bloom¬
ington, $28.50/10.95).
Cinema's role in exploring per¬
sonality problems, genre identity, and hu¬
man communication is defined in Images
in Our Souls, edited by Joseph H. Smith
and William Herrigan. Hitchcock's Vertigo,
Bergman's Cries and Whispers, and Babenco's Kiss of the Spiderwoman are subject
studies of interplay between the sexes and
its appropriate screen presentation. (Johns
Hopkins U. Press, Baltimore, MD, $2950).
Jeff Rovin's well-researched

Encyclopedia of Super Villains inven¬
tories the most dastardly evildoers that ever
haunted movies, television and the print
media. Extensively illustrated, this compen¬
dium of some 1000 characters specifies their
costume, weaponry, first appearance and
biographical peculiarities. (Facts On File,
NYC, $29.95).
Covering the history of a popular
genre, Larry Langman's Encyclopedia of
American Film Comedy provides abun¬
dant and often original material on the
performers, directors and screenwriters

cussed

who created this often-dominant

Melodies,

movies that became screen classics, and the
various categories identified by their type

by Claudia Gorbman in Unheard
an analytical study of the na¬
ture, meaning and effect of the often only
subconsciously perceived musical accom¬
paniment. (Indiana U. Press, Bloomington,
$25/9.95).

May 1988

and content. (Garland, NYC,

style, the

$60).

Photographer Helmut Newton,
whose style ranges from the overly erotic to
American Cinematographer - May 1988

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of American Cinematographer - May 1988
