A Writer's Digest Book Club featured selection, Movies in the Mind brings her celebrated workshops to the page. A must for every writer of fiction from novice to novelist. This indispensable tool for tapping creativity and moving through writer's block contains inspiring exercises and a recommended bibliography.
"We used to go to the movies. We used to speak of flicks, even flicking out. We used to stand in line with friends in delicious anticipation to buy tickets for a movie that got a rapturous review. We used to be ushered into blinding darkness within cavernous halls of downtown gilded-age theaters to look at enormous screens. And we might go without regard to when the feature began, enter in the middle, sit through its ending, its double-bill and shorts, and only then watch the beginning of what we wanted to see. A small personal triumph occurred when, seeing a flick with friends or family, you were the first one to get up to leave announcing that "this was the place in the movie where we came in."--
Although books on the comedies of the silent era abound, few have attempted to survey film comedy as a whole—its history and evolution, how the philosophical visions of its greatest artists and directors have shaped its traditions, and how these visions have informed both the meaning and manner of their work. Blending information with interpretation, description with analysis, Mast traces the development of screen comedy from the first crude efforts of Edison and Lumière to the subtlety and psychological complexity of Annie Hall. As he guides the reader through detailed discussions of specific films, Mast reveals the structures, the values, and the cinematic techniques which have appeared and reappeared in comic cinema. The second edition of The Comic Mind treats the comic developments of the 1970s in terms of the traditions of film comedy set forth in the first edition, including a discussion of the evolution of Jacques Tati and the emergence of Mel Brooks and Woody Allen as the two greatest American comic stylists of the seventies. "The most comprehensive study of film comedy yet written in English. . . .The book's extensive index with references to companies from which 16mm prints of many of the cited films may be rented will be of great value to the film teacher and audiovisual librarian."—Choice
How is it that a patch of flickering light on a wall can produce experiences that engage our imaginations and can feel totally real? From the vertigo of a skydive to the emotional charge of an unexpected victory or defeat, movies give us some of our most vivid experiences and most lasting memories. They reshape our emotions and worldviews--but why? In Flicker, Jeff Zacks delves into the history of cinema and the latest research to explain what happens between your ears when you sit down in the theatre and the lights go out. Some of the questions Flicker answers: Why do we flinch when Rocky takes a punch in Sylvester Stallone's movies, duck when the jet careens towards the tower in Airplane, and tap our toes to the dance numbers in Chicago or Moulin Rouge? Why do so many of us cry at the movies? What's the difference between remembering what happened in a movie and what happened in real life--and can we always tell the difference? To answer these questions and more, Flicker gives us an engaging, fast-paced look at what happens in your head when you watch a movie.
Why is the moving image so important in our lives? What is the link between the psychology of Jung, Freud and films? How do film and psychology address the problems of modernity? Visible Mind is a book about why film is so important to contemporary life, how film affects us psychologically as individuals, and how it affects us culturally as collective social beings. Since its inception, film has been both responsive to historical cultural conditions and reflective of changes in psychological and emotional needs. Arising at the same moment over a century ago, both film and psychoanalysis helped to frame the fragmented experience of modern life in a way that is still with us today. Visible Mind pays attention to the historical context of film for what it can tell us about our inner lives, past and present. Christopher Hauke discusses a range of themes from the perspective of film and analytical psychology, these include: The Face, The Shadow, Narrative and Story, Reality in Film, Cinema and the American Psyche, the use of Movies in the Psychotherapy Session and Archetypal themes in popular film. Unique to Visible Mind, six interviews with top film professionals from different departments both unlocks the door on the role of the unconscious in their creative process, and brings alive the reflexive critical thinking on modernity, postmodernity and Jungian psychology found throughout Visible Mind. Visible Mind is written for academics, filmmakers and students who want to understand what Jung and Freud's psychology can offer on the subject of filmmaking and the creative process, for therapists of any background who want to know more about the significance of movies in their work and for film lovers in general who are curious about what makes movies work.
The latent symbolism in film imagery can be psychoanalyzed just like the imagery in dreams. This work applies to film the psychoanalytic techniques of Sigmund Freud, Erik Erikson, Carl Jung, Alfred Adler, Joseph Campbell, Otto Rank and Rollo May, providing a fundamental understanding of film symbols and structure. It offers a comprehensive and eclectic approach to film analysis, using a broad variety of theories and examples from both classic and contemporary movies, from Dracula (1930) to American Beauty (1999). The final chapter applies all the previously discussed techniques to one film, Malcolm X (1992). The work boasts a filmography and bibliography and is illustrated with film stills. Instructors considering this book for use in a course may request an examination copy here.
How is watching a movie similar to dreaming? What goes on in our minds when we become absorbed in a movie? How does looking “into” a movie screen allow us to experience the thoughts and feelings of a movie’s characters? These and related questions are at the heart of The Power of Movies, a thoughtful, invigorating, and remarkably accessible book about a phenomenon seemingly beyond reach of our understanding. Colin McGinn–“an ingenious philosopher who thinks like a laser and writes like a dream,” according to Steven Pinker–enhances our understanding of both movies and ourselves in this book of rare and refreshing insight.
Mind the Screen pays tribute to the work of the pioneering European film scholar Thomas Elsaesser, author of several volumes on media studies and cinema culture. Covering a full scope of issues arising from the author’s work—from melodrama and mediated memory to avant-garde practices, media archaeology, and the audiovisual archive—this collection elaborates and expands on Elsaesser’s original ideas along the topical lines of cinephilia, the historical imaginary, the contemporary European cinematic experience, YouTube, and images of terrorism and double occupancy, among other topics. Contributions from well-known artists and scholars such as Mieke Bal and Warren Buckland explore a range of media concepts and provide a mirror for the multi-faceted types of screens active in Elsaesser’s work, including the television set, video installation, the digital interface, the mobile phone display, and of course, the hallowed silver screen of our contemporary film culture.
The Phantom Empire is a brilliant, daring, and utterly original book that analyzes (even as it exemplifies) the effect that the image saturation of a hundred years of moving pictures have had on human culture and consciousness.