Masters of the American Cinema

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466 pp. Louis Giannetti has given us a book this is indispensible for film fans and should be mandatory reading in film schools. "Masters of the American Cinema" provides analyses of the directing styles of 18 of the most famous names in film history - DW Griffith- Charlie Chaplin- Buster Keaton- Ernst Lubitsch- Frank Capra- John Ford- Howard Hawks- William Wyler- Fritz Lang- John Huston- Orson Welles- Alfred Hitchcock- Billy Wilder- Elia Kazan- Fred Zinneman- Arthur Penn- Stanley Kubrik- Robert Altman One might quibble with some of his selections, but surely he has 10 to 12 of the directors that would appear on everyone's list. In this 400+ page book, Giannetti spends about 20 pages on each of the directors, giving us incisive commentary about their films, their strengths and weaknesses, and their place in filmdom. His bibliography at the end of each chapter conatins some of the seminal papers and books on the subject matter. Any film fan would do well to read this book. Show more