referencebooks

Encyclopedia of Early Cinema

Edited by Richard Abel

Published by Routledge, 2005.

This is a 7" by 10" hardcover book running to 791 pages including the bibliography and rich index, plus 30 pages of preferatory material. The book is well-manufactured, as Routledge books usually are. Its pages are printed in two columns using a not-very-big font.

This book is an example of a highly specialized and deep subject encyclopedia. The period of cinema covered is around 1890 to the mid 1920's, so you can imagine how deep the encyclopedia can get into the subject in its nearly 800 pages.

Here is a list of the first fifteen entries in the "P" sequence:

• Pagano, Bartolomeo or Maciste
  
• PAGU/AKGT
  
• painting and the visual arts
  
• palace cinemas
  
• Palestine
  
• Paley, William ("Daddy")
  
• Parnaland, Ambrose-François
  
• Pasquali & C. (1908-1921)
  
• Pasquali, Ernesto Maria
  
• Pastrone, Giovanni
  
• Patankar Friends & Company
  
• Pathé (Australia)
  
• Pathé, Charles
  
• Pathé Cinematograph
  
• Pathé Film (Sweden)
  

Most of the entries are for people and companies involved in film in its earliest days, but there are also entries for aspects of film and the film industry of the time. Those latter entries tend to be the longer ones. Entries range in length from a paragraph to a few pages. The entries focus on telling the history of early film. Accordingly, the writing doesn't involve a lot in the way of concepts in film theory; little or no specialized background knowledge is required to use the book.

The editor does not shy away from politically-related topics in the history of early film. For example, there are lengthy entries on the imperialism of the American film industry in its quest for new markets (that article is titled, "imperialism: USA") and on the labor movement in Europe and the United States in its relation to the film industry.

This is a deep, high-quality encyclopedia on a narrow topic. It's potentially of great use to anyone studying early film.

Critical Dictionary of Film and Television Theory

Edited by Roberta E. Pearson and Philip Simpson

Published by Routledge, 2001.

This is a 7" by 10" hardcover book running to 498 pages including an index, plus an introduction.

The introduction begins,

The field of film and television studies has emerged from several related disciplines: literary studies, history, sociology and psychoanalysis among others. During the past three decades the field has adapted paradigms borrowed from these disciplines, as well as evolving others of its own, resulting in a complex and sometimes confusing theoretical apparatus for the study of screen media. Such diversity can bewilder and discourage people who are encountering the field for the first time. Students are assumed to have understood difficult and extensive theoretical concepts in order to progress through their courses, and even more experienced scholars are hard-pressed to keep up with the ever growing knowledge necessary to their academic practice. The Critical Dictionary of Film and Television Theory is intended to meet the needs of both these groups by offering an acessible and authoritative introduction to key concepts in the field.

For a sense of the range of concepts covered, here is a list of the first fifteen items in the "C" sequence:

• cable and satellite
  
• camera style and lens style
  
• camp
  
• canon
  
• carnival
  
• castration
  
• catharsis
  
• censorship
  
• Certeau, Michel de
  
• channel
  
• character
  
• chat/talk show
  
• children and media
  
• cinema of attractions
  
• cinénema vérité
  

The word "theory" in the book's title, as a quick browse of the book shows, refers to the somewhat narrow present-day cultural studies sense of the word, with all of its postmodern and sometimes psychoanalytic implications. There is nothing wrong with that per se, but the potential ways that film and television could be theorized are much, much broader, and are in fact broader than the book represents (for example, there is scant attention to given to marxist concepts of analysis). So an awareness of the book's postmodernist sense of "theory" is important.

Entries, which are signed by the contributors, are often written using some of the vocabulary and sentence construction style of postmodernism, but aren't too off-putting or difficult for a literate person to follow, and are informative and interesting.

This is a fairly handy resource for those getting their feet wet in film and television theory or cultural studies generally.

Film Researcher's Handbook: A Guide to Sources in North America, South America, Asia, Australasia and Africa

Compiled by Jenny Morgan

Published by Routledge, 1996

This is a 5" by 9.5" hardbound directory running to 452 pages including the indexes, plus a nineteen page introductory section.

The title of this book is potentially misleading. It's not a guide for doing scholarly research in film studies, but a guide to sources of film and video footage, which is an ordinary need of people producing film and video, whether professionally or as amateurs and students. So, it is a directory of film archives, libraries, and stock footage licensing companies worldwide.

The introductory section gives a lot of valuable background information on the process and business and legal issues involved in finding and licensing film and video footage from these sources. The main part of the book is the listings, given twice, in a section for listings by country and a section for listings by subject. Then there are the listings for the national film archives. Finally there are the indexes by subject, source (archive), and place.

This is a very useful book for a specific and limited purpose.

The St. James Women Filmmakers Encyclopedia: Women on the Other Side of the Camera

Edited by Amy L. Unterburger.

Published by Visible Ink Press, 1999.

This is a 7" by 9" paperback book running to 568 pages including the lengthy index (covering people, film titles, and topics), plus a list of entries, introduction, foreword, and chronology of women filmmakers.

In what other biographical reference books about film is Diane Keaton going to be listed as "American actress and director?" Well, technically, that's what she is; she has six films to her credit as a director.

This book provides substantial career biographies of women who have had a role in film as directors, writers, producers, or other important behind-the-scenes creators. More than 200 filmmakers are covered who have worked in European and North American film (other parts of the world are left out). Lots of people are included just because they are women; that is, their careers may not have played a very important role in film, but their being women filmmakers justifiably makes them interesting and relevant enough to include in the book. Many of the filmmakers included, however, are extremely important in the history of film, and are found in other books. However, their entries in this book are likely to be more substantial than their entries in other biographical works on film, because of this work's focus on women. That's one thing that makes this work potentially very useful to people who aren't specifically researching the role of women in film.

The writing is very accessible, almost conversational, but filled with solid biographical information, often of a kind that provides insight into the world of film.

The major weakness of the book is its age. Since 1999, many women filmmakers have emerged who are extremely important. Lynne Ramsay is a promising filmmaker whose highly regarded first film, Ratcatcher, was being filmed probably as this book was being written, so it is very understandable that she is not included.

The omission of Catherine Breillat from the book, however, is more difficult to excuse. By 1999 she had made enough films to establish herself as an important and challenging filmmaker (her first widely-released film came out in the mid-70's). I simply don't understand why Catherine Breillat (whom I should disclose is one of my favorite writer/directors) is not included in the book.

If one doesn't expect the book to be complete, however, it can be a very useful resource for researching women filmmakers.

The American Film Institute Desk Reference: The Complete Guide to Everything You Need to Know About the Movies

Melinda Corey and George Ochoa, Editors-in-Chief

Published by Dorling Kindersley, 2002. Copyright held by The Stonesong Press and The American Film Institute.

This is a slick, colorful, hardbound book measuring 7.5" by 9.5" and running 608 pages including preface, introduction, "how to use this book," the meat of the book, the list of sources, the index, and the photo credits.

With photo illustrations on every page, the book covers basic facts on all aspects of the film industry. The book is divided into sections covering Movie History (in decades back to 1900 and a section for 1830-1899); Movie Basics (with such things as Studios; Features and Other Films; Film, Camera, and Projector; and How Much Are They Paid); Movie Crafts (Producing, Directing, Acting, Writing, Editing, Sound, etc.); People In Film (Actors, Directors, Screenwriters, Familiar Faces, Costume Designers, Stunt People, etc.); and Films (various important critics' and scholars' lists and award winners). Interspersed among these sections are readable essays by celebrities.

The book is designed to please the film buff more than the scholar, but it has a wealth of information that can make it satisfying to both as a very basic reference. With numerous full-page film stills, the book is designed for fun browsing as much as information-seeking.

My two complaints about the book are with its American bias and its superficiality. Granted, it is the desk reference of the American Film Institute, so American film should be expected to be the center of attention, but the book presents itself as a reference on the subject of movies, not the subject of American movies, which is what it is actually about. The book's superficiality is only partially a consequence of its breadth and limited size. It also seems geared toward an audience of film consumers rather than film students. Thus, there is little to no discussion of matters of technique in the sections on directing and cinematography, but plenty of anecdotes and things like separated blocks of text showing us "who says what" on a film set.

It's a fun book, and can probably be used to find some useful information, but for serious students of film more narrowly focused reference books or a film encyclopedia will probably be more satisfying and useful.

The Encyclopedia of Novels into Film

Edited by John C. Tibbetts and James M. Welsh.

Published by Facts on File, Inc., 1998.

This is a hardbound book measuring 8.5" by 11" and running 522 pages including an index, bibliography, list of contributors, and appendices, plus an introduction and a page titled "How to Use This Book," which begins:

"This encyclopedia is intended as a convenient reference for those seeking basic information about significant novels adapted to the screen and significant film adaptations of novels that may be of secondary importance as literature but have nonetheless achieved a certain popularity on their own or as a consequance of their being filmed."

The entries are arranged alphabetically by film title, with cross references to the titles of the novels, which sometimes differ. Each entry gives production information (director, screenwriter, producer, distributor), a plot synopsis, notes about the degree to which the movie followed the novel, and a significant discussion about particular issues involved in the adaptation of the novel to the film - length, point of view, interior monologues, and what changes were made. Finally, each entry has a short list of references for further reading.

The editors note that they wished to produce a larger book and were limited in terms of how many films they could include. As it is, the book has more than 300 entries, some of them combining discussions of more than one film adaptation of a novel. About a third of the entries are illustrated with black and white stills from the movies they discuss.

The discussions of the movies are insightful and intelligent without using jargon or assuming a prior knowledge of film.

The introduction is lengthy and addresses the question, "Why study film adaptations of novels?" with a look at film and literary history and criticism. The appendices include an essay, "Scenes from a Hollywood life: the novelist as screenwriter," and biographical sketches of selected authors. The bibliography is relatively brief and focused, and is potentially very useful to people studying in this area.

This is a good reference book.

The Film Studies Dictionary

By Steve Blandford, Barry Keith Grant, and Jim Hillier.

Published by Arnold (UK).

This is a 5" by 8" paperback of 273 pages covering the vocabulary of film studies.

The preferatory materials are very slight, with the actual alphabetic entries starting up right away.

The vocabulary includes terms from business, technical, and artistic aspects of film as well as concepts in film criticism. Some random examples of terms defined in the book are:

German Expressionism
Actualité
Sequence shot
Hegemony
Location manager
Discontinuity
Kuleshov effect
Foley art
MacGuffin
Mockumentary

In addition, there are entries in the dictionary for important publications in film studies.

The title of the book as a "dictionary" rather than an "encyclopedia" is appropriate, as nothing is explained in very much depth. For example, the entry on "Director" is only a page and a half in length, and the entry on "Editing" is a single page. But as a source of definitions of specialized terms encountered in film studies it does the job.