For cinephiles, reading a list of film books recommended by other cinephiles rates among life’s best little pleasures. Beginning with R. Emmet Sweeney’s post early last week, the Morlocks have been sharing the books, histories, bios, and references that proved to be the most influential in enhancing our love of movies. The idea originated at The Dancing Image, and it was heartily embraced by the Movie Morlocks. Perusing suggested lists of books not only offers an opportunity to discover an unknown tome that could become a new favorite but it is fun to see if someone else mentions familiar titles that are also on your list.  

                My list consists of books used as references, texts that helped me teach film courses, and bios read for pleasure and personal enrichment. I have not included those books that proved useful but were written in an academic style, which makes them a difficult read. These books often sacrifice clarity for a dense academic style and scholarly jargon. In my opinion, if readers spend too much time decoding the jargon in order to get the key points, then how can they take pleasure in learning about film. I used to work in publishing, and this approach to writing offends my sensibilities as an editor. Therefore, these books could never be on my list of favorites. The titles mentioned below do not make up a definitive list, which is probably impossible, because I am always finding new film books that inform and entertain.  

                Robin Wood is probably my favorite film historian. His interpretation of Hitchcock’s themes, plots, motifs, and visual style inHitchcock’s Films Revisited has formed the basis of my own ideas on the Master of Suspense, while Hollywood from Vietnam to Reagan … and Beyond is an excellent perspective on the Film School Generation and their movies. But, it was Wood’s writing on horror in American Nightmare: Essays on the Horror Film that really made a difference in my understanding of this critically underappreciated genre. Especially in his “Introduction,” in which he discusses the role of repression in contemporary horror, Wood helped me comprehend what a subtext is and how to ferret it out in popular films. In truth, I don’t own a book version of American Nightmare. Long ago, when the only copy I could find was in a library, I photocopied the whole thing. I still use this photocopy of the 1979 edition, which has yellowed with age and is filled with color highlighted text and comments written in the margins. To me, no one has written a deeper interpretation of the genre than Wood, and few can match his writing style in which difficult concepts and complex film readings are explained with clarity and organization.

                Not only is Wood one of the world’s leading film historians, he is also a gracious person. Long ago, when I was an assistant editor on a four-volume film encyclopedia, The Dictionary of Films and Filmmakers, I edited his essays for the series. That I was just a kid fresh out of graduate school, and he was already a renowned scholar, made no difference to him as he patiently took my phone calls, listened to my requests, and made no protests when I asked for changes. I will never forget his kindness and helpfulness, which is much more than I can say for other contributors to the project.

                Another ground-breaking film scholar who influenced me was Richard Dyer, and I was lucky enough to meet him at a cocktail party when he was in Chicago for a lecture. Again, he was incredibly gracious to all the young instructors and film enthusiasts who were just starting out, treating us like peers instead of acolytes. Dyer was one of the first scholars to treat the phenomenon of movie stardom seriously, understanding that a star’s image has meaning beyond the surface and that our attraction to them is based on more than charisma. In Heavenly Bodies: Film Stars and Society, Dyer dissects Marilyn Monroe, Judy Garland, and Paul Robeson to explain the ideals and values behind their star images, especially to fans from certain subgroups and classes. His work helped me figure out my own interpretation of Elvis Presley, whose Southern heritage made a profound impact on his career and image. To this day, Elvis holds a positive connotation to Southerners and working class people but means something completely different — and often negative — to mainstream audiences of the North. And, to complicate the iconic image of Presley further, “Elvis” has come to be construed and consumed differently by young people who were not yet born when he died. Dyer’s work in Heavenly Bodies and his earlier book, Stars, explores movie stardom in a way that makes you appreciate and understand its unique properties.

                Of the many books that I have purchased over the years on film noir —  perhaps my favorite genre — the best is Foster Hirsch’s The Dark Side of the Screen.  Written in a clear-cut, reader friendly style, Hirsch chronicles the development of the genre from its origins in hard-boiled fiction and German Expressionism through its heyday in the 1950s to the second wave of noir in the 1970s. The book has a larger trim size than usual to accommodate lots of film stills, which is one of the book’s strengths. Noir is such a visual genre, it makes so much sense to include a predominance of photographs large enough to showcase the noir style.  I have actually used the book as a text in a course I taught on noir, and many of the students commented positively on the book, which is a rarity for students!

                I like to read in-depth histories of specific eras of cinema, and two favorites include The Genius of the System by Thomas Schatz and Easy Riders, Raging Bulls by Peter Biskind.  To me, no one has described how the Hollywood studios worked in the Golden Age better than Schatz. He not only explains how the era in general resulted in some of the best movies ever made but he also describes the house styles of the major and minor studios. And, though the focus is on the studios, Schatz also details the contributions of key individuals, offering insights into such great producers as Irving Thalberg, Hal Wallis, and Darryl F. Zanuck. Easy Riders, Raging Bulls is a true expose rather than an analysis of an era, but its description of the parties, drugs, and deals paints a portrait that “explains” the Film School Generation. Like German Expressionism, the era of the “New Hollywood” of the 1960s and 1970s created great art out of great chaos. Reading the behind-the-scenes high jinks of the films that I came of age with was both familiar and eye-opening. Speaking of German Expressionism, Lotte Eisner’s 1952 history of the movement titled The Haunted Screen has never been surpassed.  I don’t refer to it as often as I used to, but her explanation of the influence of Max Reinhardt and his lighting techniques on Expressionism was enormously helpful to me when I was a film student trying to understand the meaning of visual techniques.

                Any fan of the Golden Age knows the impact of the Production Code on Hollywood movies. As soon as the Code was enforced in 1934 (not introduced, but enforced), movies changed drastically because of their depiction of manners and mores. When I was a film student and taught the impact of the Code, the tendency at the time was to make fun of it — to see it as the result of small, provincial minds twisting the arms of talented Hollywood moviemakers. In the years since, I have learned that the story of the Code, the Hollywood studios, and their films is much more complicated. Many have touted Pre-Code Hollywood by Thomas Doherty as an excellent book on the subject, but I prefer Censored Hollywood by Frank Miller, partly because it not only covers the Code but also the decline of the Code in the 1950s and the change-over to the letter-ratings system in the 1960s.

                I prefer career biographies to personal memoirs by famous directors or stars. Nothing gets old faster than reading about a male star or director’s endless conquests or a female star’s endless struggles over being a conquest, unless it is a memoir with the same content by someone who knew the star or celebrity. I think the endless memoirs by members of Elvis Presley’s entourage have cured me of those types of bios, though I will admit a fondness for Mommie Dearest and Detour by the daughters of Joan Crawford and Lana Turner. I like Richard Schickel’s D.W. Griffith: An American Life because of the historical context he provides on the development of the film industry, and as I mentioned in a previous post, I love the book A Cast of Killers by Sidney Kirkpatrick, who chronicles the efforts of King Vidor to track down the truth behind the scandalous murder of William Desmond Taylor. Though I learned a lot about Vidor’s life and career, the inside look into the dark side of 1920s Hollywood was irresistible. Recently, I used a different kind of “biography” when researching a project, and I mentioned it a couple of week s ago in my post on Evelyn Varden. Jeffrey Couchman’s The Night of the Hunter: A Biography of a Film chronicled the production of one my favorite movies in loving detail, including background information as well as critical commentary in a reader-friendly style.

                I think I was already in love with the movies when I bought my first book, so I can’t really credit it with introducing me to my lifelong passion. I was a teenager when I bought this book on sale for $2.98 at the Mentor Mall in Northeastern Ohio. A pictorial overview of Hollywood’s biggest stars, Immortals of the Screen, edited by Ray Stuart in 1965, showed me that I was not the only one interested in learning more about the movies, past and present. Most of all, the title with the word “Immortals” made me realize that movies and their stars last forever, if not on the screen then in the hearts of fans. Immortals of the Screen still has a prominent place on my bookshelves. I wonder if others remember the first film book they ever bought, and if they are as sentimental about it as I am.