Surfing in the Movies: A Critical History - Softcover

John Engle

9780786495214: Surfing in the Movies: A Critical History

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0786495219 ISBN 13: 9780786495214

Publisher: McFarland & Co, 2015

Surfing has fascinated filmmakers since Thomas Edison shot footage of Waikiki beachboys in 1906. Before the 1950s surf craze, surfing showed up in travelogues or as exotic background for studio features.

The arrival of Gidget (1959) on the big screen swept the sport into popular culture, but surfer-filmmakers were already featuring the day's best surfers in self-narrated two-reelers. Hollywood and independent filmmakers have produced about three dozen surf films in the last half-century, including the frothy Beach Party movies, Point Break (1991) and Chasing Mavericks (2012). From Bud Browne's earliest efforts to The Endless Summer (1966), Riding Giants (2004) and today's brilliant videos, over 1,000 ""surfing movies"" have celebrated the ""stoke."" This first full-length study of surf movies gives critical attention to hundreds of the most important films.

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Review:

"A fundamental surf book. It should be read by surfers, surf historians, surf journalists, and sociologists interested in surfings own 'subculture'...you will feel an uncontrollable desire to watch the world's best surf movies"--Surfer Today; "a great new book"--The Inertia; "offers an analytic approach to hundreds of entertainment and documentary films featuring surfing"--Communications Booknotes Quarterly.

About the Author:

John Engle is a professor of literature and film at the Universit� de Toulon, France. He has written extensively on modern literature, education, popular culture, and cinema. He lives in Southern France.

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