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Andrew Sarris has long been one of America's most celebrated writers on film, author of the seminal work The American Cinema, and for decades a highly regarded critic, first for The Village Voice and more recently for The New York Observer. Now comes Sarris's definitive statement on film, in a ...

Andrew Sarris has long been one of America's most celebrated writers on film, author of the seminal work The American Cinema, and for decades a highly regarded critic, first for The Village Voice and more recently for The New York Observer. Now comes Sarris's definitive statement on film, in a masterwork that has taken 25 years to complete. Here is a sweeping--and highly personal--history of American film, from the birth of the talkies (beginning with The Jazz Singer and Al Jolson's memorable line "You ain't heard nothin' yet") to the decline of the studio system. By far the largest section of the book celebrates the work of the great American film directors, with giants such as John Ford, Alfred Hitchcock, Charlie Chaplin, Orson Welles, and Howard Hawks examined film by film. Sarris also offers glowing portraits of major stars, from Garbo and Bogart to Ingrid Bergman, Margaret Sullavan, Spencer Tracy, Katharine Hepburn, Clark Gable, and Carole Lombard. There is a tour of the studios--Metro, Paramount, RKO, Warner Brothers, 20th Century Fox, Universal--revealing how each left its own particular stamp on film. And in perhaps the most interesting and original section, we are treated to an informative look at film genres--the musical, the screwball comedy, the horror picture, the gangster film, and the western. A lifetime of watching and thinking about cinema has gone into this book. It is the history that film buffs have been waiting for.

"More genres, 19 in fact, are discussed than in other standard works. The 14 genres considered here by film scholar contributors other than Gehring include the adventure film, the western, the gangster film, film noir, the WW II combat film, the horror film, science fiction, fantasy, the musical ...

"More genres, 19 in fact, are discussed than in other standard works. The 14 genres considered here by film scholar contributors other than Gehring include the adventure film, the western, the gangster film, film noir, the WW II combat film, the horror film, science fiction, fantasy, the musical, melodrama, the social problem film, the biographical film, and the art film. The discussion of fine comedy genres by Gehring himself is far more extensive than in other genre studies, embracing screwball comedy, populist comedy, parody, black humor, and clown comedy. . . . Recommended for both undergraduate and graduate collections." Choice

In this book, a leading authority on film music examines scores of the silent film era. The first of three projected volumes investigating music written for films, this thoughtful and pathbreaking study demonstrates the richness of silent film music as it details the way in which scores were often ...

In this book, a leading authority on film music examines scores of the silent film era. The first of three projected volumes investigating music written for films, this thoughtful and pathbreaking study demonstrates the richness of silent film music as it details the way in which scores were often planned from the start as an integral part of the whole cinematic experience. Following an introductory chapter that outlines several key theoretical questions and surveys eight decades of writing on film music, Martin Miller Marks focuses on those scores created between 1895 and 1924. He begins by considering two early examples, one German (written by persons unknown for Skladanowsky's Bioskop exhibitions in 1895 and 1896) and one French (scored by Camille Saint-Saens for the 1908 film L'Assassinat du Duc de Guise). Subsequent chapters fully discuss Walter Cleveland Simon's music for the American film An Arabian Tragedy (1912) as well as the Joseph Breil accompaniment to D. W. Griffith's Birth of a Nation (1915). As described in this book, Breil's memorable score--though a compilation derived from many sources--was played by an orchestra as Griffith's sweeping images filled the screen, thus contributing significantly to the great film's success while also achieving remarkable power in its own right. Marks then concludes with a look at Erik Satie's witty and innovative music for the French film Entr'acte (1924), which was the first film score of consequence by an avant-garde composer. Giving unprecedented attention to a vibrant, important, and oft-neglected facet of twentieth-century music, Music and the Silent Film will interest scholars of film theory, film history, modern music, and modern aesthetics.