The story of cinema : a complete narrative history, from the beginnings to the present : Shipman, David : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive

The story of cinema : a complete narrative history, from the beginnings to the present : Shipman, David : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive

The story of cinema : a complete narrative history, from the beginnings to the present

by Shipman, David

Publication date 1982

Topics Motion pictures -- History, Motion pictures

Publisher New York : St. Martin Press

Collection claremont_school_of_theology; internetarchivebooks; inlibrary; printdisabled

Contributor Internet Archive

Language English

Item Size 3.5G

1280 pages : 26 cm

Based on his firsthand experience gained from his travel throughout the world to locate and view films, Shipman offers a complete narrative history of cinema, from the first commercial film program in 1895 through "Gandhi" and "E.T.," covering 5,000 films along the way. This detailed, meticulously researched survey covers not only English-language films, but also noteworthy films of other cultures and takes a revisionist view of some major figures, the movies themselves, and the structure of the industry. ISBN 0-312-76279-8 : $50.00 (For use only in the library)

Includes bibliographical references (pages 1233-1236) and index

Beginnings -- The rise of the American industry -- The screen's first master -- Germany in the twenties : shadows, poverty and prostitutes -- The U.S.S.R. : montage and message -- The United Artists -- Hollywood in the twenties : the studios -- The twenties : Britain and France -- Talkies! 

-- Japan: the first masters -- Sex, crime and booze : Warner Bros. in the thirties -- Hollywood before the code -- Film in the Third Reich -- Frank Capra, the name above the title -- Clowns and Korda -- Russia and France : argument and art -- Hollywood's golden age : RKO, Paramount and 20th-Century Fox -- Hollywood's golden age : Universal, Warner and M-G-M -- Hollywood's golden age : Columbia and United Artists -- Intermission -- Kane and other citizens -- The British at war -- Hollywood's war effort -- Italy : the tradition of realism -- French cinema during occupation and readjustment -- The M-G-M musical -- Postwar Hollywood : the directors in their brave new world -- Postwar Hollywood : the studios -- Production in austerity Britain -- Luis Buñuel and his followers -- A picture of India : the films of Satyajit Ray -- Hollywood in the age of television : the directors -- Hollywood in the age of television : the decline of the studios -- Ingmar Bergman : the quest for understanding 

-- The Japanese masters -- France : before and after the nouvelle vague -- Occasional bulletins from the Eastern Bloc -- Italy : traditions maintained and betrayed -- British cinema : a matter of collusion -- Movies around the world -- In Hollywood the director is king -- The movie brats

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Evan

1,086 reviews

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June 15, 2016

Just as Gibbon devoted his life to his own interpretation of the Roman Empire, David Shipman in no-uncertain opinionated terms gave his all to the movies in this staggering magnum opus. Pound for pound I think this is the best survey book of the movies ever written.

Shipman has all of David Thomson's (and Oscar Wilde's) gay bitchy flamboyance, devastating wit, and deft turns of phrase, but puts it all in service of a tome that really delivers in terms of fulsome content. Thomson's famous and best-selling Biographical Dictionary of Film is, let's face it, a dessert among film reference books, a bonbon one can enjoy after the main course. It's star-centric and fawning and very personal, but not really useful if one would rather concentrate on the movies themselves rather than the personalities.

This is where Shipman comes in. The Story of Cinema is, itself, a deeply personal book, not in the least academic, and if there is any weakness in it it's that Shipman fails to note the importance, general reputation and place in film history of most of the films he assesses. Without that context, all the films he surveys more or less come off as being equal in importance. He's also hamstrung by circumstance (lack of availability of information and film access at the time of the writing) into short-shrifting continental Asian and Third World cinema. His too-easy write-offs of Everyman auteurs such as Sam Fuller as unworthy of assessment also makes him slightly uncool by today's inclusive standards.

Nevertheless, the book is phenomenal, an astounding labor of love. Shipman surveys pretty much every important (and not always so important) movie from the inception of the cinema up to the early 1980s (the author died not long thereafter). Each assessment/analysis has the personal stamp of a reviewer and the writing never stoops to academic gibberish, and the films are presented within a sensible chronological narrative framework, as opposed to, say, a simple alphabetical listing as in Halliwell's, Maltin's and the plethora of similar guides that have proliferated in the past three decades. Shipman is strong in citing predecessors and remakes, story origins, and production histories, and for giving due credit to screenwriters.

The book is heavy as a brick and enormously filling as a read. Shipman champions many obscure films and filmmakers (eg., Werner Hochbaum and Luis Trenker) who deserve greater notoriety, and elevates Masaki Kobayashi's 1959-1961 three-part humanist Japanese WWII epic, The Human Condition, to the status of greatest film ever made. That trilogy is a moving and powerful achievement, no doubt, and despite my admiration for it I obviously disagree with Shipman's claim, but his passion and knowledge are persuasive.

To demonstrate to you how much I love this book, I own two copies, and have contemplated investing in a third, just to have safety copies at hand. Obviously no single film reference can do the job in telling the story of the movies, and this great book can only be an adjunct to so many others. In short, it's an unjustly lesser-known bravura work.

(KR@KY, amended 2016)

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