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The 'I' of the Camera: Essays in Film Criticism, History, and Aesthetics (1998) by William Rothman

0521820227.jpg
author William Rothman
publisher Cambridge University Press
ISBN 0521368286 (1st ed)
ISBN 0521820227 (2nd ed)
 

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Synopsis

Originally published in 1988, The 'I' of the Camera has become a classic in the literature of film. Offering alternatives to the viewing and criticism of film, William Rothman challenges readers to think about film in adventurous ways that are more open to movies and our experience of them. In a series of eloquent essays examining particular films, filmmakers, genres and movements, and the 'Americanness' of American film, Rothman argues compellingly that movies have inherited the philosophical perspective of American transcendentalism. This second edition contains all of the essays that made the book a benchmark of film criticism. It also includes fourteen essays, written subsequent to the book's original publication, as well as a new foreword. The new chapters further broaden the scope of the volume, fleshing out its vision of film history and illuminating the author's critical method and the philosophical perspective that informs it.

Notes

Originally published in 1988, an expanded 2nd edition of the book was published in 2003. Several of the chapters deal with Hitchcock and his films.

Contents - 1st Edition

  • Preface
  • Acknowledgments
  • Notes on the Essays
  • Hollywood Reconsidered: Reflections on the Classical American Cinema
  • D. W. Griffith and the Birth of the Movies
  • Judith of Bethulia
  • True Heart Griffith
  • The Ending of City Lights
  • Red Dust: The Erotic Screen Image
  • Virtue and Villainy in the Face of the Camera
  • Pathos and Transfiguration in the Face of the Camera: A Reading of Stella Dallas
  • Howard Hawks and Bringing Up Baby
  • To Have and Have Not Adapted a Film from a Novel
  • The Filmmaker in the Film: Octave and the Rules of Renoir's Game
  • The River
  • Vertigo: The Unknown Woman in Hitchcock
  • North by Northwest: Hitchcock's Monument to the Hitchcock Film
  • Alfred Guzzetti's Family Portrait Sittings

Contents - 2nd Edition

  • Foreword to the Second Edition (p. ix)
  • Preface to the First Edition (p. xix)
  • Acknowledgments (p. xxvii)
  • Notes on the Essays (p. xxix)
  • Hollywood Reconsidered: Reflections on the Classical American Cinema (p. 1)
  • D. W. Griffith and the Birth of the Movies (p. 11)
  • Judith of Bethulia (p. 17)
  • True Heart Griffith (p. 29)
  • The Ending of City Lights (p. 44)
  • The Goddess: Reflections on Melodrama East and West (p. 55)
  • Red Dust: The Erotic Screen Image (p. 67)
  • Virtue and Villainy in the Face of the Camera (p. 74)
  • Pathos and Transfiguration in the Face of the Camera: A Reading of Stella Dallas (p. 87)
  • Viewing the World in Black and White: Race and the Melodrama of the Unknown Woman (p. 96)
  • Howard Hawks and Bringing Up Baby (p. 110)
  • The Filmmaker in the Film: Octave and the Rules of Renoir's Game (p. 122)
  • Stagecoach and the Quest for Selfhood (p. 139)
  • To Have and Have Not Adapted a Film from a Novel (p. 158)
  • Hollywood and the Rise of Suburbia (p. 167)
  • Nobody's Perfect: Billy Wilder and the Postwar American Cinema (p. 177)
  • The River (p. 206)
  • Vertigo: The Unknown Woman in Hitchcock (p. 221)
  • North by Northwest: Hitchcock's Monument to the Hitchcock Film (p. 241)
  • The Villain in Hitchcock: "Does He Look Like a 'Wrong One' to You?' (p. 254)
  • Thoughts on Hitchcock's Authorship (p. 263)
  • Eternal Verites: Cinema-Verite and Classical Cinema (p. 281)
  • Visconti's Death in Venice (p. 298)
  • Alfred Guzzetti's Family Portrait Sittings (p. 304)
  • The Taste for Beauty: Eric Rohmer's Writings on Film (p. 321)
  • Tale of Winter: Philosophical Thought in the Films of Eric Rohmer (p. 325)
  • The "New Latin American Cinema" (p. 340)
  • Violence and Film (p. 348)
  • What Is American about American Film Study? (p. 358)

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