Customer Reviews

The Story of Cinema: A Complete Narrative History from the Beginnings to the Present

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

 

 

Let me put it this way - I don't like Shipman's tastes. He knocks just about every great film from the 60s and 70s in a way that definitely sounds like a generational difference in tastes. He knocks Hal Ashby, he knocks Godard, he knocks Truffaut, he knocks Coppola, he knocks Altman. Basically, he attacks any who differed from the traditions in classical studio cinema up till that time.

Okay, it's subjective you say. It's opinion. Yes. But his reasons for dismissing these filmmakers feels like rationalization, not sound reasoning. Shipman comes off as someone resistant to change, to evolution, and it makes his book a somewhat annoying endeavor.

That said, any book this big on cinema is not bad to have around the house, if only to flip through for fun now and then.

Bravo ! Whether you agree with all the writing in this often opinionated movie survey book, you cannot help by being struck with the accomlishments of Shipmans work. Shipman has his critical eye out for posterity and he takes an historical perspective in his descriptions of movies from the early days till the mid 80's.You may not agree with all of his opinions- he doesn't seem to like critical darlings like Raging Bull or Fassbinder much- but any reader will appreciate Shipmans love -or should I say devotion to the "popular" art of cinema.Unlike the writings of another talented Britisher-David Thompson, Shipman is neither anti Hollywood nor is he a snide about popular tastes. In fact, Shipman rightly commends the public for their rejection of the pretentious and the phony. Shipman is himself an unabashed movie lover and that is what makes the book such a treat. I find myself dipping into it every now and again to see what Shipman has said about something, and then before I look up, at least one hour has gone by! There are a few minor errors I discovered, but in all a remakably, readable tour de force. M. Lamb

David Shipman turns in a colassal work, filled with facts concerning almost every film ever made (up until the printing of the book, that is). Though his opinions are often controversial, they are not without foundation, and any serious student of film would benefit from being exposed to differing viewpoints (i.e., that Truffault is somewhat overrated, that Cahiers du cinema has had a disproportionate influence on film studies -- these opinions may bristle those who have grown up canonizing the Nouvelle Vague, but Shipman is not alone in his assessment). I often find myself surprised and even offended by some of his statements (the silent "Ben-Hur" is "infinitely superior" to the 1950's version???), but never bored. Shipman is a true movie lover, and his book will resonate with many others who share his passion.

This huge book isn't really the story of cinema -- it's Mr. Shipman pouring old wine (his years of movie-watching, already distilled into the capsule reviews of "The Great Movie Stars") into a new jug. It's comprised almost entirely of short comments (from a sentence to a paragraph) on each of about a gazillion individual films, arranged in handy sections. Shipman seems to have seen everything, although that was the case with the first edition of "Great Movie Stars" and yet he later recanted and rewrote after actually seeing the films he wrote about. And some of his personal obsessions -- the Garbo and Judy Garland worship, the attempt to rewrite film history by harping on the faults of Griffith and Chaplin -- get very old. Sample weird opinion: On Frank Capra, who made entertaining adventure-and-sex movies before he became a self-important windbag... "it was he who taught movies to think." This book has value for its research into some obscure areas, but 2,000 pages of snotty and sometimes ill-informed opinion don't make a history of cinema... sorry.