Does the big screen take us out into the world, or merely mesmerize us? That is Thomson's question in this great adventure of a book. A passionate feat of storytelling that is vital to anyone trying to make sense of the age of screens - the age that, more than ever, we are living in.
David Thomson was born in India in 1914 to Scottish parents, but grew up in Scotland and Derbyshire. After the period described in Woodbrook he developed a career in writing and at the BBC. He died in 1988.
Probably the best overview of the cinema ever written. It sparkles
with insight, is packed with anecdote, and pulses with passion ...
a glorious celebration of one of humankind's great inventions
*Guardian BOOKS OF THE YEAR*
A devilish, dazzling, out-there divination ... Criticism is rarely
this passionate and brilliant. You come away wanting to watch it
all
*Empire*
David Thomson is a giant in the world of film criticism, and his
book is the chest-crusher you might expect: erudite, delightfully
tangential and surprisingly polemical
*The Times*
Thomson has composed a grand aesthetic, spiritual, and moral
account of cinema history assembled around the movies and artists
that have meant the most to him. As Thomson reconstructs film
history, movies bring us close to reality and deliver us into
ecstatic dreams. A pungently written, brilliant book
*David Denby (author of SNARK)*
The theme of The Big Screen is the weirdness of desire ... Drawing
on his vast stock of knowledge, Thomson takes us on a meander
through Nouvelle Vague and Italian neorealism; Coppola and
Scorsese; MGM musicals and film noir. He always comes back in the
end to the kind of fun it is possible to have only at the movies,
sitting in the dark, staring at the light ... Line by line, Thomson
is still the greatest biographical writer about film of all time
... to read him on his favourite films is to be sent back with
renewed yearning to that land of Californian light and
loveliness
*Sunday Times*
Subtle, erudite and entertaining
*Economist*
Fascinating ... a loose-limbed, conversational narrative, moving
fitfully through time, dawdling over directors and films that
interest ... crackling with ideas and vivid impressionisms ...
Thomson's stylish prose, simultaneously erudite and entertaining,
captivates as it informs ... Buffs and casual fans alike will enjoy
this extra-large serving of popcorn for thought
*Publishers Weekly*
The greatest living writer on the movies ... The Big Screen is
surely his magnum opus
*New Statesman BOOKS OF THE YEAR*
Rigorous and rewarding, and a page rarely passes without
insight
*Independent BOOKS OF THE YEAR*
Nobody else would match its sweep, its erudition, its discernment
or its warmth
*Guardian BOOKS OF THE YEAR*
There are always irreverent arguments about the status of
filmmaking in David Thomson's writing: "Story ideas hang around in
Hollywood longer than some marriages or buildings." Or "It would be
said of British cinema that it was nothing until a band of
Hungarians took it over." This goes alongside his real passion for
the art: On Sweet Smell of Success - "The film was shot in a
glittering harsh black and white by James Wong Howe and looked like
the hide of a crocodile in the moonlight." On Colonel Blimp -
"There is one scene of Deborah Kerr with auburn hair and in a
cornflower blue dress, in shadow and firelight, that must be among
the most romantic shots made during the war. No one in Britain
before had seen that you could make a film because you were crazy
about a girl."
David Thomson is, I think, the best writer on film in our time. If
Have you Seen? was his most succinct and entertaining book, The Big
Screen is a large and vivacious map on the history of 'the screen':
beginning with Muybridge and then tracing careers ranging from
Korda to Renoir to Hawkes to Mizoguchi, to David Lynch and
Tarentino, then swerving over to television shows such as I love
Lucy and The Sopranos. He has found and created a marvellous plot
for the history of film with insights and revelations on every
page, as well as a few mcguffins. He is our most argumentative and
trustworthy historian of the screen
*Michael Ondaatje*
A great critic cuts both ways - he nudges you into reconsidering
the films you love, as well as the ones you dislike. David
Thomson's sensual prose has always amplified the imagination of a
great critic. In broad outline, The Big Screen is a history of the
movies, a wide-ranging task which usually carries with it a certain
amount of connect-the-dots tedium. But Thomson's emphases are
typically fresh and often ecstatic, even when he's disparaging a
film you love. Nobody does it better
*Scott Eyman (author of EMPIRE OF DREAMS and LION OF
HOLLYWOOD)*
Of the medium's many distinguished critics, none is better informed
or more authoritative than David Thomson ... [The Big Screen is]
part film history, part thesis, part love letter and lament ...
genuine insights abound ... Like any great work of criticism, the
book is essentially an education in good taste, and crucially it
sends us back to the movies. Thomson's montage of ecstasies and
laments re-awakens in us the thrill and wonder of moving images and
the need to know what happens next. In that, it is as close to
definitive as any book on film can be. Just as we look at the
movies, we should listen to him
*Spectator Life*
David Thomson is a metaphysician of the movies ... Thomson's brain
is the ultimate repertory theatre, perpetually rerunning our
favourites and allowing us to wonder at them all over again. The
highest praise I can give him is to say that the images he
treasures are just as alive on his pages as they were on the big
screen
*Guardian*
A love letter to a dying art, [The Big Screen] is also a scathing
indictment of its legacy. In over 500 pages of breathtaking
criticism, [Thomson] seeks to understand the impact of the screen
upon our collective consciousness
*Sunday Telegraph*
A cultural overview of the past, present and future of the
movies
*Sunday Times BOOKS OF THE YEAR*
This is a wildly seductive love letter to what Thomson concludes is
a 'lost love' ... he rapturously recalls a lifetime's enchantment
with the big screen
*Metro*
A startling analysis of what happens to us in the darkness as we
dream with eyes open
*Observer BOOKS OF THE YEAR*
There's one standout in this year's slew of film literature, The
Big Screen written by David Thomson, a giant in the world of film
criticism. His book is erudite but readable, delightfully
tangential, and surprisingly polemical. He provides a fascinating
ride through the past century of mostly American cinema and posits
a theory that 'the shining light and the huddled masses' of yore
will be replaced by digital anomie, as the big screen is replaced
by YouTube on an iPhone
*The Times BOOKS OF THE YEAR*
[The Big Screen] works both as an engaging primer on film history
and as a map for more numinous shifts in the path of popular art
... Thomson offers a nuanced portrait ... the details of his
narrative glimmer with offbeat insight
*New York Times Book Review*
 |
Ask a Question About this Product More... |
|
