A Short History of Film [Paperback]

Wheeler Winston Dixon (Author), Gwendolyn Foster (Contributor)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 5, 2008

The history of international cinema is now available in this concise, compact and comprehensive book, illustrated with over 300 rare stills and illustrations.The best one-stop source for the history of world film on the market, it's the story, accessibly and authoritatively told, of the major movements and events, directors, stars and studios from the 1880s to the present. The illustrations bring readers face to face with the key players and films that have made this modern world history such an exciting one. The book presents full sweep of cinema and its major events and technological developments, from the invention of the kinetoscope, through the introduction of sound and colour, to the computer-generated imagery of the twenty-first century. This history is original and satisfying in throwing its spotlight on the great filmmakers, on Hollywood, Bollywood and the New Wave cinemas of Britain, Europe and South America, but also bringing into the frame minority and independent films and filmmakers, women filmmakers and the cinemas of developing nations that have so often been overlooked in histories of cinema.

--This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.

Editorial Reviews

Review

This is the film history book we''ve been waiting for.

(David Sterritt chairman, National Society of Film Critics ) --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

About the Author

Wheeler Winston Dixon is the James Ryan Endowed Professor of Film Studies, University of Nebraska. He is editor of the 'Quarterly Review of Film and Video' and his publications include 'Visions of Apocalypse: Spectacles of Destruction in American Cinema' (20030 and 'Experimental Cinema: The Film Reader' (2002). Gwendolyn Audrey Foster is a professor, Department of English, University of Nebraska. Her books include 'Class Passing: Social Mobility in Film and Popular Culture' (2005). --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.

Product Details

• Paperback: 486 pages
• Publisher: Rutgers University Press; 1 edition (March 5, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0813542707
• ISBN-13: 978-0813542706
• Product Dimensions: 10 x 7 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #23,621 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Wheeler Winston Dixon is the James Ryan Endowed Professor of Film Studies, Coordinator of the UNL Film Studies Program, Professor of English at the University of Nebraska, Lincoln, and with Gwendolyn Audrey Foster, Editor-in-Chief of the Quarterly Review of Film and Video. His newest books include A History of Horror (Rutgers University Press, 2010); Film Noir and The Cinema of Paranoia (Rutgers University Press and Edinburgh University Press, 2009); A Short History of Film, written with Gwendolyn Audrey Foster, (Rutgers University Press and I.B. Tauris, 2008), which has gone through five printings, was issued in a Spanish translation from Ediciones Robinbook in November, 2009 as Breve historia del cine, and is forthcoming as an audio book from University Press Audiobooks in 2010; Film Talk: Directors at Work (Rutgers University Press, 2007); Visions of Paradise: Images of Eden in the Cinema (Rutgers University Press, 2006); American Cinema of the 1940s: Themes and Variations (Rutgers University Press, 2006); and Lost in the Fifties: Recovering Phantom Hollywood (Southern Illinois UP, 2005). In 2003, Dixon was honored with a retrospective of his films at The Museum of Modern Art in New York, and his films were acquired for the permanent collection of the Museum, in both print and original format.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Probably the best 'short' overview on film, September 11, 2011

By 

Martijn13Maart1970 (Husavik Iceland) - See all my reviews

This review is from: A Short History of Film (Paperback)

I was wonderfully surprised by A Short History Of Film - it is concise, and yet full of information : probably almost each important fact in the movie timeline is included. The book also not forgets the world outside Hollywood, as it also focuses on worldwide cinema.
As often with broad subjects; the question is which book, or books, to pick. Often reference books can be quite boring to read, since encyclopedic information does not lend itself to be interwoven in a story. This is not the case with A Short History Of Film. Written in sophisticated but clear language, every chapter it is always very interesting to read as a story in itself. The only other book I could compare it with, on a different scale, is the standard university reference Film Theory & Criticism. That book, Film Theory, might claim to go into more detail on diverse film subjects than any other book, but far too many articles (from experts in the history of film) are utterly academic (like Freudian theory that explains movies are mainly meant for male voyeurs etc. - catch my drift?) and far too often simply unreadable - and I am an academic myself! Although still THE reference, Film Theory seems to forget that learning, and acquiring knowledge and information, could, or should, also be just fun! So in my opinion, A Short History Of Film wins.I felt I had learnt a lot more about film in general than any other book I have read yet and I enjoyed it the most of all.

3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Terrible film history book., November 16, 2011

By 

Amazon Woman (Los Angeles, CA United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: A Short History of Film (Paperback)

This book is used in schools that don't want their students to have to buy the more expensive, but far superior film history book by David A. Cook entitled "A History of Narrative Film."

Having taught a class using this text, I'm intimately aware of its contents. The only redeeming quality about this book is the timeline offered at the front, which chronicles important events in history alongside important milestones in cinema. Otherwise the book is 80%-90% a mere laundry list of directors and film titles. Many paragraphs are just sentences constructed by naming a director and then a list of films that person has directed, requiring students to memorize long lists of films (many of them irrelevant) instead of learning about social context, film analysis and trends.

The book is also terribly politically correct. Elia Kazan (yes, a controversial figure) is barely mentioned, while Leni Riefenstahl gets 3 full pages. Two of the 3 brief references to Kazan are just short mentions of "Pinky". A Streetcar Named Desire and the fact that he broke numerous film stars like Brando, Karl Malden, Marilyn Monroe etc. is/are not mentioned at all. Likewise female filmmakers who are largely forgotten by the public like Ida Lupino and Alice Guy get special treatment but other minority filmmakers do not get equal treatment. It seems the author(s) is trying to re-write film history based on their own agenda. The author also states that "On the Waterfront" is a thinly disguised anti-union film, which every film scholar I know disagrees with.

Also sorely absent is any film analysis. While the fabulous film book by Cook goes into detailed analysis of important films like Psycho and Citizen Kane, "A Short History of Film" can't seem to muster up the same type of inquiry.

Unless you have to buy this book for a class, you're better off buying "A History of Narrative Film" by Cook (the text that's used at USC, UCLA and other prominent schools) or just reading Wikipedia articles.

4 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars New, supplement book, November 2, 2009

By 

Serabily "Serabily" (Saint Albans) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: A Short History of Film (Paperback)

I bought this book as a supplement to my Film Appreciation Class in College. I found it informative, especially if you are a movie buff.