...ISMS: Understanding Film

This engaging guide sorts the great classic films and directors according to the significant "isms" that have shaped the development of cinema. Beginning with the early classics of the silent era, the book spans the entire range of cinematic history from the golden age of Hollywood and the French New Wave to the present-day rise of Asian Minimalism.

Each spread is devoted to a distinct movement in film history and explains when it first emerged, the historical period to which it applies, and the principal directors and representative films, and illustrates important masterpieces, actors, key words, and distinctive features. Also highlighted are the important achievements in film in the world's main filmmaking nations, as well as the careers of international auteurs such as Akira Kurosawa, Federico Fellini, and Pedro Almodovar.

From prewar Expressionism and Screwballism to twenty-first century Teenagism and Dystopianism, with many stops along the way, these wellillustrated and clearly defined "isms" help put all of cinema history into context