A collection of Bruce F. Kawin’s most engaging and important essays on film, accompanied by his interviews with Lillian Gish and Howard Hawks.

This engaging collection of Bruce F. Kawin’s most important film essays (1977–2011) is accompanied by his interviews with Lillian Gish (1978) and Howard Hawks (1976). The Hawks interview is particularly concerned with his work with William Faulkner and their friendship. The Gish interview emphasizes her role as a producer in the 1920s. The essays take up such topics as violence and sexual politics in film, the relations between horror and science fiction, the growth of video and digital cinema and their effects on both film and film scholarship, the politics of film theory, narration in film, and the relations between film and literature.

Kawin’s film essays and reviews have appeared in “Take One,” “Film Quarterly,” “American Book Review” and elsewhere. Until the publication of this volume, most of them were out of print and unavailable online. Among the most significant articles reprinted here are “Me Tarzan, You Junk,” “The Montage Element in Faulkner’s Fiction,” “The Mummy’s Pool,” “The Whole World Is Watching,” and “Late Show on the Telescreen:  Film Studies and the Bottom Line.” The book includes close readings of films from “La Jetée” to “The Wizard of Oz” and reviews of films from “Full Metal Jacket” to “The Fury.”

The essays take up some of the most interesting aspects of film, from the effect of film violence on viewers to the changes brought by digital cinema, while remaining readable and free of jargon. As critic Howie Movshovitz says in the Foreword, “his writing is utterly, utterly clear.” Original and independent, the book is free of attachment to any school of criticism or theory, and is dedicated to the fresh and open-minded appreciation of movies.

Foreword by Howie Movshovitz; Preface; 1. VIOLENCE AND POLITICS: Me Tarzan, You Junk; The Whole World Is Watching; Violent Genres; Wild Blueberry Muffins; 2. HORROR AND SCIENCE FICTION: The Mummy’s Pool; Time and Stasis in “La Jetée”; “Carnival of Souls”; 3. REVIEWS: “Welcome to L.A.”; “The Fury”; “Piranha”; “The Elephant Man”; 4. INTERVIEWS: Lillian Gish; Howard Hawks; 5. LITERATURE AND NARRATION: The Montage Element in Faulkner’s Fiction; Horton Foote; An Outline of Film Voices; Dorothy’s Dream: Mindscreen in “The Wizard of Oz”; 6. GETTING IT RIGHT: Creative Remembering and Other Perils of Film Study; Late Show on the Telescreen: Film Studies and the Bottom Line; Video Frame Enlargements; Three Endings; Acknowledgments; Index of Names and Titles

This engaging collection of Bruce F. Kawin’s most important film essays (1977–2011) is accompanied by his interviews with Lillian Gish (1978) and Howard Hawks (1976). The Hawks interview is particularly concerned with his work with William Faulkner and their friendship. The Gish interview emphasizes her role as a producer in the 1920s. The essays take up such topics as violence and sexual politics in film, the relations between horror and science fiction, the growth of video and digital cinema and their effects on both film and film scholarship, the politics of film theory, narration in film, and the relations between film and literature.

Kawin’s film essays and reviews have appeared in “Take One,” “Film Quarterly,” “American Book Review” and elsewhere. Until the publication of this volume, most of them were out of print and unavailable online. Among the most significant articles reprinted here are “Me Tarzan, You Junk,” “The Montage Element in Faulkner’s Fiction,” “The Mummy’s Pool,” “The Whole World Is Watching,” and “Late Show on the Telescreen:  Film Studies and the Bottom Line.” The book includes close readings of films from “La Jetée” to “The Wizard of Oz” and reviews of films from “Full Metal Jacket” to “The Fury.”

The essays take up some of the most interesting aspects of film, from the effect of film violence on viewers to the changes brought by digital cinema, while remaining readable and free of jargon. As critic Howie Movshovitz says in the Foreword, “his writing is utterly, utterly clear.” Original and independent, the book is free of attachment to any school of criticism or theory, and is dedicated to the fresh and open-minded appreciation of movies.