Revolution!: The Explosion of World Cinema in the Sixties [Illustrated] [Hardcover]

Peter Cowie (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 22, 2004

An evocative and unique exploration of the most important era in international filmmaking

In film history, the sixties are commonly known as the golden age of international cinema. The period from 1958 to 1969 saw a brilliant explosion of talent not just in Europe but throughout the world. From Sweden and Poland to India and Japan, from Brazil and Hungary to Spain and Czechoslovakia, young filmmakers seemingly sprang out of nowhere, challenging the stale conservativism of fifties cinema. With films like Jules et Jim, 8 1/2, and Breathless, to name but a few, they flouted taboos both sexual and political while bringing sharper, fresher, franker, more violent, and more personal visions to the screen than ever before.

In Revolution!, Peter Cowie discusses the themes, trends, and creative filmmakers of the period-including Antonioni, Bergman, Cassavetes, Fellini, Godard, Kurosawa, and Truffaut-while focusing on those whose voices still evoke the struggles and achievements of the sixties and set the creative and intellectual standard by which today's finest films are still held.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

The 11-year span from 1958 to 1969 proved one of the most transformative and dynamic periods in cinema history, and film historian Cowie interweaves historical narrative and candid interviews with European filmmakers to chart the origins of this revolutionary celluloid expressionism and its later influence on American filmmakers such as Francis Ford Coppola and John Cassavettes. Movements such as Italian neo-realism, led by Luchino Visconti, Vittorio De Sica and Francesco Rosi, and the French New Wave reflected a post-World War II landscape brutalized by fascism and fascinated with the rise of communism. The period’s benchmark films, by mostly European directors and writers, shifted the camera lens to the character of society and away from the man who lives in it. "Rewriting the grammar of film," according to Cowie, was Jean Luc Godard, who launched the French New Wave movement with his 1960 film, a bout de souffle. With this and the endeavors of François Truffaut, Claude Chabrol and others, French filmmakers introduced a more natural, autobiographical style of moviemaking that accentuated the minutia and redundancy of life. Cowie also profiles less publicized pioneers, such as Andrzej Wajda, considered the Ingmar Bergman of Eastern Europe, who helped put Polish cinema back on the map after the country’s years of foreign occupation. In Britain, directors John Schlesinger, John Boorman and Carol Reed captured the bleak factory life of the proletariat and rebelled against social norms and the European class structure under the nose of the conservative British government. A comprehensive and engrossing study, the book ably illuminates the path from the 1960s explosion of ideas to their not-so-subversive presence in today’s art-house films. 62 b&w illustrations.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Review

"Possibly no writer has a better vantage point from which to survey the 1960s boom in European art cinema. Revolution! has the involving momentum . . . of a good TV documentary, shifting rapidly from country to country and innovation to innovation." --Godfrey Cheshire, The American Scholar

--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 304 pages
• Publisher: Faber & Faber (June 22, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0571209033
• ISBN-13: 978-0571209033
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.5 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,824,225 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A wonderful survey of an entire era, August 26, 2008

By 

Sean Yeatts "Sean Yeatts" (Lynchburg, VA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Revolution!: The Explosion of World Cinema in the Sixties (Paperback)

This is a wonderful, well-written and informative text on the cinema in the '60's. It's main focus is the European film industry, and through first-hand accounts, interviews and retrospective narratives, Cowie deftly examines the decade of revolution and how the cinema changed and the personalities who contributed to the art form's liberation. There are a number of names and films explored that are by now standard and should be studied (Fellini, Bergman, Wajda, "Persona," "L'Avventura") and a host of others who are more obscure but are deservedly mentioned (Schlondorff, Makavejev, Glauber Rocha, "Black God, White Devil"). Indispensable for anyone interested in the era, or European cinema in general.