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Carregando... Moments That Made the Moviesde David Thomson
   Nenhum(a) Ainda não há conversas na Discussão sobre este livro.  hardlyhardy | Jan 22, 2020 | 
 The initial premise of Thomson’s book might have been that a key moment in a movie is the moment you have to remember, but he seems to find something repellent about the compulsory nature of that idea; so he soon becomes engaged in sabotaging his own plan. When he occasionally overcomes his reluctance to state the obvious, he is strangely unforthcoming with the details that might have made the choice of the obvious interesting... Just as old men ought to be explorers, old critics ought to write strange things. It’s a requirement easily met, because the ageing critical brain will probably go haywire anyway, from having too much in it. I speak as an old critic of poetry who is currently working on a book devoted to the necessarily fragmented nature of memory. Some critics of poetry can recite Paradise Lost on their death beds but most of them merely recall fragments of poetry from all over the place, with perhaps a few poems got by heart from very early on. One hopes that seniority can be a rich phase.
Film scholar David Thomson focuses in on a series of moments-- which his readers will also experience in beautifully reproduced imagery-- from 72 films across a 100-year-plus span. Moments takes readers on an unprecedented visual tour, where the specifics of the imagery the reader is seeing are inextricably tied to the text. Thomson's moments range from a set of Eadweard Muybridge's pioneering photographs to sequences in films from the classic-- Citizen Kane, Sunset Boulevard, The Red Shoes-- to the unexpected-- The Piano Teacher, Burn After Reading. The excitement of the book's dynamic visuals will be matched only by the discussion it incites in film circles, as readers revisit their own list of memorable moments and then re-experience the films-- both those included on Thomson's list and from their own life-- as never before.--From publisher description. Não foram encontradas descrições de bibliotecas. |
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 Google Books — Carregando...GênerosClassificação decimal de Dewey (CDD)791.4375The arts Recreational and performing arts Public performances Film, Radio, and Television Film Films, screenplays Multiple films, collections of film reviewsClassificação da Biblioteca do Congresso dos E.U.A. (LCC)AvaliaçãoMédia: (3.21)
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We don't, of course, necessarily remember the same moments, or even moments from the same movies. And so Thomson's choices are very personal: his movies, his moments. We can choose are own.
His book is generously illustrated with stills from the chosen films, which go from a movement study of two nude women by Eadward Muybridge in 1887 to “Burn After Reading,” a Coen brothers film from 2008. Actually his last "film" is a still photograph taken during a violent Stanley Cup victory celebration in Vancouver in 2011, chosen because to him it seems like a moment from a movie.
Readers are likely to most appreciate Thomson's commentary on familiar scenes from familiar movies, whether or not they represent the moments we most remember. These might include Michael Corleone's (Al Pacino) restaurant shooting of a police captain and the man responsible for the attempt on his father's life in “The Godfather;” the meal Norman Bates (Anthony Perkins) shares with Marion Crane (Janet Leigh) before she is slaughtered in the shower in “Psycho” (the moment other viewers might remember best); David Huxley (Cary Grant) ripping Susan Vance's (Katherine Hepburn) dress in “Bringing Up Baby;” and the fake sexual bliss demonstrated by Sally (Meg Ryan) to Harry (Billy Crystal) in “When Harry Met Sally.”
Most of Thomson's choices are more obscure. He has a fondness for Japanese films of the 1950s and French films of the 1960s that few readers of his book are likely to have seen (although sometimes his commentary may make us want to see these films). Even his English-language choices tend to be rarely viewed films. Regarding “Mickey One,” a Warren Beatty movie from 1965, he says, "This a real film -- you can look it up." One film is unavailable on DVD in the United States. The moment he chooses from “Pat Garrett & Billy the Kid” does not appear on most DVDs.
So there's a lot of showing off in “Moments That Made the Movies.” "I've seen this, and you haven't," he seems to suggest. Still, we are free to write our own accounts of the movie moments we most remember. Chances are they would not be as readable as his. (