BFI Filmové klasikySéria

Táto edícia skúma a oslavuje míľniky svetovej kinematografie. Každá kniha podáva argument pre status daného filmu ako klasiky, dopĺňa ho o informácie o jeho vzniku a prijatí a zasadzuje ho do kontextu žánru či národnej kinematografie. Pozornosť je venovaná jeho technickému a estetickému významu a často aj osobnému pohľadu autora. Ide o cenný zdroj pre pochopenie kľúčových diel filmovej histórie.

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"Ethan and Joel Coen's The Big Lebowski was released in 1998 to general bafflement. A decade on, it had become a cult classic and remains so over 20 years later, inspiring a thriving circuit of 'Lebowski Fests' during which costumed devotees gather at bowling alleys and guzzle White Russians. Beyond its superabundance of deliciously quotable lines, how has the movie inspired such remarkable affection? And why does its critical stock continue to rise? The film's unlikely anchor is Jeff Bridges' career-best performance as Jeffrey Lebowski, a fully-baked 1960s radical turned Venice Beach drop-out known to his friends as 'the Dude'. Mistaken for an identically-named grandee whose young trophy wife is in trouble, the Dude finds himself embroiled in an impossibly convoluted kidnap plot involving pornographers, nihilists and threats to his 'johnson'. Worst of all, it conflicts with his bowling commitments." --From publisher's description
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Jean Renoir's 1937 film La Grande Illusion is set during the First World War, but its themes of Franco-German conflict, divided loyalties in a time of war and the rise of anti-Semitism made it compelling and controversial viewing. Julian Jackson traces the film's historical context and its reception history.
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Die Buchse der Pandora (Pandora's Box, 1929), starring Hollywood icon Louise Brooks, is an established classic of the silent era. Pamela Hutchinson revisits and challenges many assumptions made about the film, its lead character and its star.
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G.W. Pabst's 1929 silent classic Pandora's Box (Die Büchse der Pandora), stars Hollywood icon Louise Brooks as the enigmatic heroine whose erotic charms lead to disaster for the men drawn into her web. Despite failing commercially upon release, it has evolved into a cult film long after it should have been forgotten. Pandora's Box captivates audiences with its libidinous, violent story, and its mysterious heroine whose motivations, as well as whose guilt or innocence, are difficult to determine. It is a sophisticated adaptation of Frank Wedekind's Lulu plays, and indisputably Louise Brooks' finest performance on film.In her compelling study, Pamela Hutchinson traces Pandora's production history and the many contexts of its creation and afterlife, revisiting and challenging many assumptions made about the film, its lead character and its star. Analysing the film act by act, she explores the conflicted relationship between Brooks and the director G.W. Pabst, the film's historical contexts in Weimar Berlin, and its changing fortunes since its release.
Pulp Fiction
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Dana Polan sets out to unlock the style and technique of Pulp Fiction. He shows how broad Tarantino's points of reference are, and analyzes the narrative accomplishment and complexity. In addition, Polan argues that macho attitudes celebrated in film are much more complex than they seem. schovat popis
Bringing Up Baby
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Jaws divides critics into those who dismiss it as infantile and sensational, and those who see the shark as freighted with political and psychosexual meaning. The author argues that both interpretations obscure the film's success as a work of art. číst celé
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Salman Rushdie reflects on "The Wizard of Oz" as his first literary influence, emphasizing its themes of adult inadequacy and children's empowerment. He argues it transcends mere fantasy, addressing exile and the creation of one's own home. This edition includes Rushdie's new short story, "At the Auction of the Ruby Slippers," alongside a new foreword and cover design.
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Brief Encounter (1945), adapted from Noel Coward's play Still Life, is a classic of British cinema – a tale of impossible love between a married woman and a man she meets while waiting for a train. Though it's a film made by men, it is the woman's voice we hear recounting the story of a small-town love affair and her renunciation of it. In his lucid analysis of the film, Richard Dyer explores how its depiction of powerful feelings kept under wraps is a definitive example of a particularly English style of emotional restraint, but also how it spoke to a gay audience for whom this subject – forbidden love between ordinary people – had a special resonance. This reissued edition features original cover artwork by Rania Moudaress and a substantial new foreword that revisits the film and recent readings of it, covering its enduring legacy and adaptation for theatre and television.
Dr. Strangelove or: How I learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb
Peter Krämer
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Stanley Kubrick's Dr. Strangelove, or: How I learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964) is the definitive film about the nuclear age. Peter Kramer analyses its key scenes and complex production history, highlighting major themes such as Strangelove's Nazi past and the film's close relationship with real-world nuclear strategy and politics.
The Blue Angel
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This comprehensive study reconstructs the production history of The Blue Angel , showing how Sternberg's virtuoso visual style was amply supported by an immensely talented team of actors and technicians. The book also analyzes the film's aesthetics.
Olympia
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4 hodiny čítania
3,7(11)Ohodnotiť
Leni Riefenstahl's Olympia is one of the most controversial films ever made. Capitalizing on the success of Triumph of the Will , her propaganda film for the Nazi Party, Riefenstahl secured Hitler's approval for her grandiose plans to film the 1936 Berlin Olympics. The result was a work as notorious for its politics as celebrated for its aesthetic power. Taylor Downing provides an indispensable guide to this major work of film documentary. He gives the full story of how Riefenstahl negotiated relative independence from the Nazi authorities by pitting Hitler against Goebbels, the propaganda minister, who wanted complete control. Downing also gives a filmmaker's insights into the logistical and technical problems thrown up by managing a production which employed nearly forty cameramen to shoot 400,000 metres of film. He concludes that though its political effect was to glorify Nazi achievements, the film undeniably set the standard for Olympic filmmaking for the next five decades.
The Birth of a Nation
Paul McEwan
96 stránok
4 hodiny čítania
4,0(9)Ohodnotiť
Portraying the Ku Klux Klan as heroic underdogs, silent epic The Birth of a Nation (1915) is widely considered to be the most controversial film of all time.
The Exorcist
Mark Kermode
136 stránok
5 hodin čítania
4,2(40)Ohodnotiť
First published in 1997 by the British Film Institute. Second edition published in 1998; revised second edition published in 2003. This edition published in 2020 by Bloomsbury on behalf of the British Film Institute.
Metropolis
Thomas Elsaesser
3,7(90)Ohodnotiť
This volume explores the cultural phenomenon of Metropolis , its different versions, its changing meanings, and its role as a database of the twentieth century.
The Man Who Knew Too Much
Murray Pomerance
96 stránok
4 hodiny čítania
3,1(8)Ohodnotiť
Eminent Hitchcock specialist Murray Pomerance offers an illuminating account of one of Hitchcock's most successful films, The Man Who Knew Too Much (1956), starring James Stewart and Doris Day.
Performance
Colin MacCabe
96 stránok
4 hodiny čítania
5,0(3)Ohodnotiť
Directed by Donald Cammell and Nicolas Roeg, and starring James Fox, Mick Jagger and Anita Pallenberg, Performance was filmed in 1968, but not released until 1970. When its studio backers saw the director's cut, they were so shocked by the film's sexual explicitness and formal radicalism that attempts were made to destroy the negative. In his study of the film, Colin MacCabe draws on extensive interviews with surviving participants to present the definitive history of the making of Performance, as well as a new interpretation of its consummate artistry. This edition includes an afterword reflecting on the film 50 years on, and the reasons for its continuing classic status. Performance's extraordinary power, suggests MacCabe, comes partly from its entrancing portrayal of London in the late 1960s, but primarily from its full scale assault on any notion of normality, not simply at the level of content but also of form. The remarkable ending, when the thriller and the psychodrama merge into one, means that there is no comfortable resolution to the film's meanings. Performance is one of those rare narrative film which takes us into the complexity of sound and image without the comforting guarantee of a safe exit.
The Shining
Roger Luckhurst
98 stránok
4 hodiny čítania
3,8(202)Ohodnotiť
Stanley Kubrick hailed The Shining as 'the scariest horror film of all time' before its release in 1980.
When Harry Met Sally ...
Tamar Jeffers McDonald
96 stránok
4 hodiny čítania
"When Harry Met Sally" (1989) revolutionized romantic comedy with its innovative use of structure, filmic devices, and music. Tamar Jeffers-McDonald examines the film's historical and social contexts, highlighting its lasting impact on the genre and popular culture, and offering insights into its enduring legacy.
Citizen Kane
Laura Mulveyová
104 stránok
4 hodiny čítania
3,6(15)Ohodnotiť
Laura Mulvey offers a fresh and original reading of one of the greatest films in all cinema. This new edition of Mulvey's study is published in the Film Classics 20th anniversary series of special editions, with a new foreword by the author, and a stunning new jacket design by Eric Skillman.
Star Wars
Will Brooker
96 stránok
4 hodiny čítania
4,0(135)Ohodnotiť
Will Brooker's illuminating study takes issue with many commonly held ideas about Star Wars. He provides a close cinematic analysis, carefully examining its shots, its editing, its sound design, cinematography and performances. Brooker argues that Star Wars is not, as Lucas himself has claimed, a departure from his previous work, but a continuation of his experiments with sound and image. He reveals Lucas’ contradictory desires for the total order and control of the Empire, and, on the other hand, for the raw energy and creative improvisation of the Rebels. Though at first Star Wars seems a simple fairy-tale, it becomes far more complex when we realize that the director is rooting for both sides, creating a tension unsettles the saga as a whole and illuminates new sides of Lucas' masterpiece.
Distant Voices, Still Lives
Paul Farley
96 stránok
4 hodiny čítania
4,0(9)Ohodnotiť
Set in a world before Elvis, in a Liverpool before the Beatles, Terence Davies' film Distant Voices, Still Lives is an elegiac and intensely autobiographical meditation on a post-war working-class childhood. This study of the film is both a personal response, as a Liverpudlian and as a poet, and an exploration of Davies' unique visual style.
Solaris
Mark Bould
96 stránok
4 hodiny čítania
3,4(10)Ohodnotiť
In this illuminating exploration of Andrei Tarkovsky's Solaris (1972), Mark Bould considers Tarkovsky not as a transcendent artist but as a filmmaker working within a genre. He situates Solaris within the Russian and global cultures of the fantastic, to which Tarkovsky contributed three major science fiction films.
Eyes Wide Shut
Michel Chion
96 stránok
4 hodiny čítania
3,6(123)Ohodnotiť
Michel Chion's study of this film makes the case that it is one of Kubrick's masterpieces and a fitting testament. To appreciate this, though it is necessary to look at what happens on the screen without bringing preconceptions to bear.
Bicycle Thieves
Robert Gordon
122 stránok
5 hodin čítania
3,6(42)Ohodnotiť
One of a cluster of extraordinary films to come out of post-war, post-Fascist Italy - loosely labelled 'neorealist' - Bicycle Thieves won an Oscar in 1949, topped the first Sight and Sound poll of the best films of all time in 1952 and has been hugely influential throughout world cinema ever since.
The Thing
Anne Billson
3,8(28)Ohodnotiť
"An extra-terrestrial alien, capable of replicating any living form it touches, infiltrates an isolated research base in the Antarctic, and sows suspicion and terror among the men trapped there. Which of them is still human, and which a perfect alien facsimile? John Carpenter's The Thing, the second adaptation of John W. Campbell's 1938 novella Who Goes There?, received overwhelmingly negative reviews on its release in 1982, but has since been acknowledged as a classic fusion of the science fiction and horror genres. Now a regular fixture in lists of the greatest movies of all time, it is acclaimed for its inspired and still shocking practical special effects, its deftly sketched characters brought to life by a superb cast, elegant widescreen cinematography, ominous score, and a uniquely tense narrative packed with appropriately ever-changing metaphors about the human condition.Anne Billson's elegant and trenchant study, first published in 1997, was one of the first publications to give the film its due as a modern classic, hailing it as a landmark movie that brilliantly redefined horror and science fiction conventions, and combined them with sly humour, Lewis Carroll logic and disturbingly prescient metaphors for many of the sociopolitical, scientific and medical upheavals of the past three decades.In her foreword to this new edition, Anne Billson reflects upon The Thing's changing fortunes in the years since its release, its influence on film-makers including Tarantino and del Toro, and its topicality in an era of melting ice caps and with humanity besieged by a deadly organism." -- Page 4 de la couverture
Once Upon a Time in America
Adrian Martin
96 stránok
4 hodiny čítania
3,9(75)Ohodnotiť
Focusing on the genesis and production history of 'Once Upon a Time in America,' this study explores Sergio Leone's development as a cinematic stylist. It delves into his thematic elements, directorial methods, and distinctive aesthetic, while also assessing his influence on future filmmakers. The analysis provides a comprehensive understanding of the film's significance within Leone's body of work and its lasting impact on the film industry.
Lawrence of Arabia
Kevin Jackson
127 stránok
5 hodin čítania
3,9(44)Ohodnotiť
Lawrence of Arabia is widely considered one of the ten greatest films ever made - though more often by film-goers and film-makers than by critics. This monograph argues that popular wisdom is correct, and that Lean's film is a unique blend of visionary image-making, narrative power, mythopoetic charm and psychological acuteness.
Groundhog Day
Ryan Gilbey
96 stránok
4 hodiny čítania
4,1(111)Ohodnotiť
One of the first films to use a science-fiction premise as the basis for romantic comedy, it tells the story of a splenetic TV weatherman, Phil Connors (Bill Murray at his disreputable best), who finds himself repeating indefinitely one drab day in the milk-and-cookies town of Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania.
The Innocents
Christopher Frayling
119 stránok
5 hodin čítania
4,1(23)Ohodnotiť
Sir Christopher Frayling explores the journey from Henry James's original novella, The Turn of the Screw, via critical debates and the stage version of The Innocents, to the screenplay by Archibald, Capote and Mortimer. Making full use of the unpublished Jack Clayton archive, the book also includes interviews with Deborah Kerr and Freddie Francis.
Pan's Labyrinth
Mar Diestro-Dopido
104 stránok
4 hodiny čítania
4,1(178)Ohodnotiť
Guillermo del Toro's cult masterpiece, Pan's Labyrinth (2006), won a total of 76 awards and is one of the most commercially successful Spanish-language films ever made.
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
Andrew Butler-Wheelhouse
104 stránok
4 hodiny čítania
Also examining its production processes, Butler explores the against-type casting of Jim Carrey and Kate Winslet in lead roles and the intertwined careers of Kaufman and director Michel Gondry. This special edition features original cover artwork by Patricia Derks.
The Shawshank Redemption
Mark Kermode
4,5(834)Ohodnotiť
Traces the history of The Shawshank Redemption, originally a low-key prison movie, from the pages of Stephen King's novella Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption to the screens on which it became a phenomenon, as well as exploring the near-religious fervour that the film inspires in its devoted fans. schovat popis
Unforgiven
NA NA
96 stránok
4 hodiny čítania
4,1(57)Ohodnotiť
In this work, Edward Buscombe explores the ways in which 'Unforgiven', sticking surprisingly close to the original script by David Webb Peoples, moves between the requirements of the traditional Western, with its generic conventions of revenge and male bravado, and more modern sensitivities.
Rio Bravo
Robin Wood
88 stránok
4 hodiny čítania
4,2(75)Ohodnotiť
Focusing on the classic western film 'Rio Bravo', the author presents an analysis that transcends political discourse, arguing for its enduring message about the value of life. The study delves into the film's themes and significance, highlighting its appeal and the reasons it resonates with audiences. Through this exploration, the author aims to uncover the deeper philosophical implications of the film, suggesting that it serves as a compelling reminder of the human experience and the will to live.
Spirited Away
Andrew Osmond
128 stránok
5 hodin čítania
3,8(102)Ohodnotiť
Spirited Away, directed by the veteran anime film-maker Hayao Miyazaki, is Japan's most successful film, and one of the top-grossing 'foreign language' films ever released. Set in modern Japan, the film is a wildly imaginative fantasy, at once personal and universal. It tells the story of a listless little girl, Chihiro, who stumbles into a magical world where gods relax in a palatial bathhouse, where there are giant babies and hard-working soot sprites, and where a train runs across the sea. Andrew Osmond's insightful study describes how Miyazaki directed Spirited Away with a degree of creative control undreamt of in most popular cinema, using the film's delightful, freewheeling visual ideas to explore issues ranging from personal agency and responsibility to what Miyazaki sees as the lamentable state of modern Japan. Osmond unpacks the film's visual language, which many Western (and some Japanese) audiences find both beautiful and bewildering. He traces connections between Spirited Away and Miyazaki's prior body of work, arguing that Spirited Away uses the cartoon medium to create a compellingly immersive drawn world. This edition includes a new foreword by the author in which he considers the world of animated cinema post-Spirited Away, considering its influence on films ranging from del Toro's Pan's Labyrinth to Pixar's Inside Out.
The Silence of the Lambs
Yvonne Tasker
3,7(9)Ohodnotiť
Released in 1990, The Silence of the Lambs is one of the defining films of late twentieth century American cinema. Adapted from the Thomas Harris novel and directed by the late Jonathan Demme, its central characters are now iconic. Jodie Foster is Clarice Starling, an FBI trainee investigating 'Buffalo Bill', a serial killer who flays his victims. Anthony Hopkins plays Hannibal Lecter, a serial killer and former psychiatrist who assists Starling in exchange for personal details. With its pairing of a perverse, invasive anti-hero and a questing, proto-action heroine, The Silence of the Lambs unfolds as a layered narrative of pursuit. In this study, Yvonne Tasker explores the film's weaving together of gothic, horror and thriller elements in its portrayal of insanity and crime, drawing out the centrality of ideas about gender to the storytelling. She identifies the film as a key genre reference point for tracking late twentieth century interests in police procedural, profiling and serial murder, analysing its key themes of reason and madness, identity and belonging, aspiration and transformation. A new afterword explores the legacies of The Silence of the Lambs and its figuring of crime and investigation in terms of gender disruption and spectacular violence.
Throne of Blood
Pooran Wynarczyk
98 stránok
4 hodiny čítania
4,0(15)Ohodnotiť
Throne of Blood (1957), Akira Kurosawa's reworking of Macbeth, is widely considered the greatest film adaptation of Shakespeare ever made. In a detailed account of the film, Robert N. Watson explores how Kurosawa draws key philosophical and psychological arguments from Shakespeare, translates them into striking visual metaphors, and inflects them through the history of post-World War II Japan. Watson places particular emphasis on the contexts that underlie the film's central tension between individual aspiration and the stability of broader social and ecological collectives - and therefore between free will and determinism. In his foreword to this new edition, Robert Watson considers the central characters' Washizu and his wife Asaji's blunder in viewing life as a ruthless competition in which only the most brutal can thrive in the context of an era of neoliberal economics, resurgent 'strongman' political leaders, and myopic views of the environmenal crisis, with nothing valued that cannot be monetized.
Vampyr
David Rudkin
96 stránok
4 hodiny čítania
3,0(1)Ohodnotiť
Vampyr is a problematic film, partly because some of it is lost. But in what remains, there are problems too. In a reading as passionate as it is analytic, a veteran dramatist and film-author reveals how, image by image, this difficult film systematically binds the spectator - spatially, and morally - into its unique world of the Undead.
Trainspotting
Thorold Murray-Smith
128 stránok
5 hodin čítania
3,4(3)Ohodnotiť
Previous edition: London: British Film Institute, 2002.
Crash
Iain Sinclair
3,5(62)Ohodnotiť
In this book, which includes a new interview with Ballard who wrote the book on which the film was based, Sinclair explores the temporal loop which connects film and novel, and asks questions such as to what extent is Crash a premonition of some of the more remarkable media events of recent times. In the BFI MODERN CLASSICS series.
It's a Gift
Simon Louvish
3,9(15)Ohodnotiť
It's a Gift is Norman McLeod's classic comedy of disasters, in which W.C. Fields plays a general-store proprietor who buys an orange-ranch by mail and transports his family to California. This study features a brief production history and detailed filmography.
The Big Sleep
David Thomson
80 stránok
3 hodiny čítania
3,9(6)Ohodnotiť
The Big Sleep: Marlowe and Vivian practising kissing; General Sternwood shivering in a hothouse full of orchids; a screenplay, co-written by Faulkner, famously mysterious and difficult to solve. Released in 1946, Howard Hawks' adaptation of Raymond Chandler reunited Bogart and Bacall and gave them two of their most famous roles. The mercurial but ever-manipulative Hawks dredged humour and happiness out of film noir. 'Give him a story about more murders than anyone can keep up with, or explain,' David Thomson writes in his compelling study of the film, 'and somehow he made a paradise.' When it was first shown to a military audience The Big Sleep was coldly received. So, as Thomson reveals, Hawks shot extra scenes, 'fun' scenes, to replace one in which the film's murders had been explained, and in so doing left the plot unresolved. Thomson argues that, if this was accidental, it also signalled a change in the nature of Hollywood cinema: 'The Big Sleep inaugurates a post-modern, camp, satirical view of movies being about other movies that extends to the New Wave and Pulp Fiction.'
The Bigamist
Amelie Hastie
96 stránok
4 hodiny čítania
3,8(10)Ohodnotiť
Directed by Ida Lupino, The Bigamist (1953) follows Harry Graham, a salesman leading a double life with two wives. This film blends genres, showcasing male melodrama while exploring post-War masculinity. Amelie Hastie analyzes its significance in Hollywood's evolution and Lupino's unique role as a female director and actor.