Customer Reviews

Understanding Movies (10th Edition)

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

 

 

Hey, wanna make a bunch of money? Let's write a college text book! We've got a captive audience that has no choice but to buy our book. Then every two or three years we can release a new edition and eliminate that nasty habit students have of reselling used text books they no longer need. Too much work, you say? Okay, let's just slap a different picture on the cover and release the old edition again! Can't quite picture it? Need an example to emulate? Try this one:

I've been using Louis Giannetti's Understanding Movies since the second or third edition. Over the years I've occasionally been pleased to see a new edition which boasts some major improvements. But in my opinion, there haven't been any since the seventh edition. Now here's the tenth edition and every film student in the country has to fork out for it rather than getting their roommate's 9th edition for a buck or two.

So what do you get for that extra money? A new cover certainly. I don't know about you but I wouldn't be caught dead with a text book with Gladiator on the cover - that would be SO three years ago! And there's an entirely new chapter! That's worth paying an extra fifty bucks - no, wait. Same chapter that's been there since Clinton was president. They just renamed it.

Did some technological revolution change the face of cinema, warranting a new version of the book to address it? Giannetti has added a new section on special effects to the chapter on photography. It's less than one page of text. I haven't read the entire book yet, but I've yet to see any reference to the fact that some films have been shot entirely on hi-def video rather than celluloid, or that this might be a significant trend in the future. The closest thing to a landmark film in the last ten years has been Peter Jackson's The Lord of the Rings trilogy. But the only reason Giannetti even mentions it is to point out that Ian McKellen is gay.

But while we ignore or slight what could have made this edition fresh and vital, we keep that which makes it antiquated. Yes, I'm talking about the shot by shot reproductions of important films seen in Understanding Movies as far back as I can remember. We have SIXTY images from The Battleship Potemkin's justly famous Odessa Steps sequence. There's TWENTY-FOUR PAGES of story-board images from Hitchcock's North by Northwest. Giannetti's not alone here - lots of film textbook authors do this. Come on! If anyone wants to do a shot-by-shot analysis of a film like Potemkin or North by Northwest, they can get the DVD. If a film instructor thinks it's that important for students to have this level of exposure to those scenes, they can be screened in class. In the 21st century I consider it just book padding to add thirty pages of superfluous material to a text like this.

Okay, I've calmed down a bit. There's really nothing terribly wrong with Giannetti's book. It's interesting. It covers the subject material quite well. It's just that it did that ten years ago and it offends me when every two or three years students discover at the end of their courses that their books can't be resold and the following semester every student will discover there are no used editions to purchase. Sweet racket.

So enjoy that photo of Sean Penn on the cover - it cost you an extra fifty bucks!

And put it back together again.
There are many good books on the market that specialize one or two aspects if films and/or the film industry. However this book "Understanding Movies" by Louis Giannnetti, takes you from near ground zero to a good understanding of such aspects as:
Photography
Mise en Scène (pronounced meez on sen, with the second syllable nasalized)
Movement
Editing
Sound
Acting
Drama
Story
Literature
Ideology
Theory
The films used for examples range from classics to contemporary. You will have seen most if not all of them. The author did not go off in some mission to describe some weird out of the way movie. This helps you focus on the subject being discussed.

A side benefit is that this book is a great picture book to remember your favorite movie and occasionally the one you missed.

Gianetti continues to produce the ultimate in introductory film texts. He seemlessly introduces us to the history of cinema while teaching us everything we need to know to fully understand film. After finishing this text you will no longer look at films the same way.
The end of the book was by far the most intriguing. Gianetti devotes a whole chapter to what is arguably the greatest film in history, Citizen Kane. His synopsis allows the reader to truly understand the beauty of the movie as well as cinema as a whole.
A must buy for anyone truly interested film.

I'm with reviewer Robert Jordan on this one. I've taught film courses and used Giannetti's book. It is strongest on film analysis -- mise en scene, lighting, movement, etc. It is less strong in other areas, like the sociology (ideology?) of film. I haven't seen the current edition, but have been annoyed in the past by the general lack of real revision in new editions of the book. Indeed, most of the text stays the same, only the film examples are updated. Maybe this appeals to students who like to see their recent faves in a textbook but -- as the other review notes -- this hardly warrants the expense of a new book (now over $70!). In past editions, I have also been especially disappointed in Giannetti's section on lesbians and gays in film. This is an exploding field -- from Randy Shilts' book The Celluloid Closet (which Gianetti cites but gives little evidence of having read) to queer cinema and theory. For several editions running, Giannetti's attention to this area carried the long-outmoded title "Gay Liberation" (not used among gay people for decades) and never ventured much in the way of cultural deconstruction. I'm scheduled to teach a film course next term and will undoubtedly refer to my old copy of Giannetti's text for lecture notes, but will not -- can not -- ask my students to buy it.

VERY inexpensive and decent quality for what I paid. I didn't really use it for the class I bought it for, but I'm glad I didn't waste a lot of money on another book. Shipped fast.

So now when I watch
PLANES, TRAINS AND AUTOMOBILES,
I "get it" . . . and laugh.

~ Stephen T. McCarthy
[This goofy review is dedicated to the goofy MARTIN BRUMER (Feb. 15, 1960 to July 18, 1989),
a doggoned good actor and even better friend whose copy of this fine book was presented to me
by his Mother after he left for "That Great Sound Stage In The Sky."
Thanks, Marty & Miriam!]