For a director who has made only four feature films over three decades; Terrence Malick has sustained an extraordinary critical reputation as one of Americarsquo;s most original and independent filmmakers. In this book; Lloyd Michaels analyzes each of Malickrsquo;s four features in depth; emphasizing both repetitive formal techniques such as voiceover and long lens cinematography as well as recurrent themes drawn from the directorrsquo;s academic training in modern philosophy and American literature. Michaels explores Malickrsquo;s synthesis of the romance of mythic American experience and the aesthetics of European art film. He performs close cinematic analysis of paradigmatic moments in Malickrsquo;s films: the billboard sequence in Badlands; the opening credits in Days of Heaven; the philosophical colloquies between Witt and Welsh in The Thin Red Line; and the epilogue in The New World. This richly detailed study also includes the only two published interviews with Malick; both in 1975 following the release of his first feature film.
#3388291 in eBooks 2014-01-01 2014-01-01File Name: B00IJ365TU
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0 of 1 people found the following review helpful. sources and development of post-War Australian documentary filmBy Henry BerryWilliams cites the Englishman John Grierson as a seminal; though ambivalent and in some ways controversial; figure for the post-War Australian documentary film. Though called by some "the father of the British documentary film;" Grierson was received coolly during a 1940 visit to Australia. The author does not delve into Griersons varied; ill-defined; and ultimately ambivalent influences; but rather for purposes of this film study hones in on his "stylistic influences emanat[ing] from what was understood to be the social needs of a country like Australia" for Australias assimilation and variations of such influences.With Australia "envisaged as needing reconstruction as a nation" after World War II; documentary film was looked to to play a major role in this "nation-building." Documentary film was particularly suited to covering social problems and how these were being dealt with by the government and parts of society. But to be effective; documentaries had to forgo the traditional "kangaroos; koala bears and fields of waving wheat" for marginalized groups; sparsely populated areas; aspects of Australias history; and individual settings and individuals exemplifying the social problems. From such grounds in the 1940s; Australian filmmakers developed a distinctive neo-realistic style; counterbalanced and sometimes integrated various parts of Australian society; and dramatized elements of the nations history. Williams explores these paths taken by the Australian film.The documentary film is particularly important in Australian film as seen in the internationally-popular; critically-acclaimed films Picnic at Hanging Rock; Walkabout; and Rabbit-Proof Fence which; though not documentaries; are in the style of Australian documentaries Williams traces back to Grierson. Such films and others show a polished development of the basics of Australian documentary; notably the desolation of much of the continent; marginalized social situations; relationships between the white settlers and aborigines; and the realist subjects and visual style.Examining particular directors and films and with frequent; often multiline quotes from film historians; critics; and academics; Williams discloses the origins of post-War Australian film and charts its development. He lays out the expanse of the particular field more than fashions a perspective or theory. In so doing; he also perhaps inadvertently; exposes the limitations of Australian film growing out of the documentary aim. For Australian film seems mostly left out of the globalized filmmaking now being done most notably by China and India in Australias sphere of the world and the United States too. As one can surmise from Williams; Australias films were of interest in bringing the "real Australia" to a growing globalized world. But in working to accomplish this and in so doing making a number of classic Australian and world-class films; Australian filmmakers and screenwriters have left themselves stuck in a sort of no-mans land between the films with violence; gaudiness; and romance appealing to the global masses on the one hand and on the other; the ethnic; somewhat "arty;" movies (e. g.; Iranian) also of interest to a worthwhile segment of this audience.
