Customer Reviews

A Short History of the Movies: Third Edition

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

My accidental encounter with an earlier edition of this book was the catalyst for my taking up film studies. The book is a clear, well written and systematically organized history of movies. It has a comprehensive and up to date bibliography and filmography. Chapters are chronological in sequence, but are organized around a particular theme. The authors introduce major influences in the cinema (whether directors, 'schools', actors or events), identify principal directors and films, and analyse major issues and advances. It is an excellent introduction to the history of movies and great jumping off point for further, more specialised study. It is refreshingly free from post-modernist jargon and abstractions. If you want a comprehensive introduction which is also a good read, I recommend this book most highly.

As a writer, Mast is without equal as a teacher, historian, and critic. The most readable, valuable film history text, in my opinion. Thank goodness it's still in print.

Mast describes both the panorama of cinema history as well as brilliant analyses of individual films and directors. He presents both breadth and depth, analyzing American, European and non-Western cinema. He also relates film to the social and political history of the countries. Students can use this book for a survey and for in-depth analysis.

This was a textbook for my Film Study class. My professor actually had the edition after this on the syllabus, but said that this version was acceptable... and for the price break, it was perfect!
While the bits of the text are quite wordy and full of LOTS of details on practically anything you can think of movie-related, my professor raves about the book. She says that unlike other books used in film study courses, it tells movie history as if it were a story. In other words, to her it's more chronological.
I don't know how very necessary this book has been for the course, considering I've gone all these weeks without havin to read it, so I'd recommend to anyone who's required to purchase this text to first get a feel for his/her course's particular content to see if the book is REALLY necessary.

My accidental encounter with an earlier edition of this book was the catalyst for my taking up film studies. The book is a clear, well written and systematically organized history of movies. It has a comprehensive and up to date bibliography and filmography. Chapters are chronological in sequence, but are organized around a particular theme. The authors introduce major influences in the cinema (whether directors, 'schools', actors or events), identify principal directors and films, and analyse major issues and advances. It is an excellent introduction to the history of movies and great jumping off point for further, more specialised study. It is refreshingly free from post-modernist jargon and abstractions. If you want a comprehensive introduction which is also a good read, I recommend this book most highly.

A friend loaned this book to me when I told her I was getting into film. I know most of the big names by this point, but wanted to know more about the back story than I already did.
I have to say this book is an extreme let-down. I don't mind if a scholar/critic doesn't agree with my taste, but Mast makes ridiculous claims. Here's just a few:
-Mistakenly credits the closing shot of the Magnificent Ambersons to Welles, and even claims that he doesn't know what Welles was doing putting such a tacked-on ending (Robert Wise shot this and a few other scenes)
-Claims that Birth Of A Nation isn't really racist (even D.W. Griffith felt bad about having made such a racist film). Clearly the film is important, but this claim is absurd.
-Calls people in the early industry "Jews" derogatorily, making the link between them being Jewish and only caring about money and not the art of a film.
-Discredits movies such as Metropolis for only being good "looking" films that have no real soul/interesting story.
-Claims that all Kubrick films are panned by critics (many critics panned his films, but certainly not by a majority!)

If you have any interest in film, you will learn more by finding out a director's name and reading their wikipedia. Also, I don't understand why a book with this title would cover HUNDREDS of directors.

This was a required text for an Intro to Cinema class I took at college. To put it bluntly Gerald Mast is a bore. I've never met the guy so I'm not going to comment on what I haven't seen but I have attempted to read his writings and fell asleep before I could finish the first paragraph. I'm an avid reader and have no indications leading me to believe I have ADD or ADHD but this was simply put the worst text I have ever seen about film. The author's subject matter is not only unappealing but at times also irrelevant. For example, Mast dedicates numerous pages to many shallow commercial filmmakers and leaves one paragraph for Stanley Kubrick. I'm sorry but Stanley Kubrick's impression on the medium is worth more than a paragraph. All in all a very boring read.

This book should only be read by master level film students highly interested in every single director, film and plot summary of every movie ever made. There are no summaries of the main points and this book should NEVER be used as a college core classroom book. I have never been so bored and overwhelmed by such trivial and useless information in my life!