The Big Screen: The Story of the Movies - Hardcover

Thomson, David

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0374191891 ISBN 13: 9780374191894

Publisher: Farrar Straus & Giroux, 2012

Synopsis

The Big Screen tells the enthralling story of the movies: their rise and spread, their remarkable influence over us, and the technology that made the screen—smaller now, but ever more ubiquitous—as important as the images it carries.

The Big Screen is not another history of the movies. Rather, it is a wide-ranging narrative about the movies and their signal role in modern life. At first, film was a waking dream, the gift of appearance delivered for a nickel to huddled masses sitting in the dark. But soon, and abruptly, movies began transforming our societies and our perceptions of the world. The celebrated film authority David Thomson takes us around the globe, through time, and across many media—moving from Eadweard Muybridge to Steve Jobs, from Sunrise to I Love Lucy, from John Wayne to George Clooney, from television commercials to streaming video—to tell the complex, gripping, paradoxical story of the movies. He tracks the ways we were initially enchanted by movies as imitations of life—the stories, the stars, the look—and how we allowed them to show us how to live. At the same time, movies, offering a seductive escape from everyday reality and its responsibilities, have made it possible for us to evade life altogether. The entranced audience has become a model for powerless and anxiety-ridden citizens trying to pursue happiness and dodge terror by sitting quietly in a dark room.

Does the big screen take us out into the world, or merely mesmerize us? That is Thomson’s question in this grand adventure of a book. Books about the movies are often aimed at film buffs, but this passionate and provocative feat of storytelling is vital to anyone trying to make sense of the age of screens—the age that, more than ever, we are living in.

About this title

Review:

Probably the best overview of the cinema ever written. It sparkles with insight, is packed with anecdote, and pulses with passion ... a glorious celebration of one of humankind's great inventions (John Banville Guardian BOOKS OF THE YEAR)

A devilish, dazzling, out-there divination ... Criticism is rarely this passionate and brilliant. You come away wanting to watch it all (Empire)

David Thomson is a giant in the world of film criticism, and his book is the chest-crusher you might expect: erudite, delightfully tangential and surprisingly polemical (Kate Muir The Times)

Thomson has composed a grand aesthetic, spiritual, and moral account of cinema history assembled around the movies and artists that have meant the most to him. As Thomson reconstructs film history, movies bring us close to reality and deliver us into ecstatic dreams. A pungently written, brilliant book (David Denby (author of SNARK))

The theme of The Big Screen is the weirdness of desire ... Drawing on his vast stock of knowledge, Thomson takes us on a meander through Nouvelle Vague and Italian neorealism; Coppola and Scorsese; MGM musicals and film noir. He always comes back in the end to the kind of fun it is possible to have only at the movies, sitting in the dark, staring at the light ... Line by line, Thomson is still the greatest biographical writer about film of all time ... to read him on his favourite films is to be sent back with renewed yearning to that land of Californian light and loveliness (Sunday Times)

Subtle, erudite and entertaining (Economist)

Fascinating ... a loose-limbed, conversational narrative, moving fitfully through time, dawdling over directors and films that interest ... crackling with ideas and vivid impressionisms ... Thomson's stylish prose, simultaneously erudite and entertaining, captivates as it informs ... Buffs and casual fans alike will enjoy this extra-large serving of popcorn for thought (Publishers Weekly)

The greatest living writer on the movies ... The Big Screen is surely his magnum opus (John Banville New Statesman BOOKS OF THE YEAR)

Rigorous and rewarding, and a page rarely passes without insight (Independent BOOKS OF THE YEAR)

Nobody else would match its sweep, its erudition, its discernment or its warmth (David Hare Guardian BOOKS OF THE YEAR)

About the Author:

David Thomson, renowned as one of the great living authorities on the movies, is the author ofThe New Biographical Dictionary of Film, now in its fifth edition. His recent books include a biography of Nicole Kidman andThe Whole Equation: A History of Hollywood. Thomson’s latest work is the acclaimed“Have You Seen . . . ?”: A Personal Introduction to 1,000 Films. Born in London in 1941, he now lives in San Francisco.

About this edition

• Publisher: Farrar Straus & Giroux
• Publication date: 2012
• ISBN 10: 0374191891
• ISBN 13: 9780374191894
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 595