The 'I' of the Camera: Essays in Film Criticism, History, and Aesthetics (Cambridge Studies in Film)

Originally published in 1988, The "I" of the Camera has become a classic in the literature of film. This second edition includes fourteen new essays, as well as a new foreword. Offering alternatives to the viewing and criticism of film, William Rothman challenges readers to think about film in adventurous ways that are more open to our experience of movies. In explaining the "American" quality of American film, Rothman argues compellingly that movies have inherited the philosophical perspective of American transcendentalism. First Edition Hb (1988): 0-521-36048-X First Edition Pb (1988): 0-521-36828-6 Frontmatter Foreword to the Second Edition (page ix) Preface to the First Edition (page xix) Acknowledgments (page xxvii) Notes on the Essays (page xxix) 1 Hollywood Reconsidered: Reflections on the Classical American Cinema (page 1) 2 D. W. Griffith and the Birth of the Movies (page 11) 3 Judith of Bethulia (page 17) 4 True Heart Griffith (page 29) 5 The Ending of City Lights (page 44) 6 The Goddess: Reflections on Melodrama East and West (page 55) 7 Red Dust: The Erotic Screen Image (page 67) 8 Virtue and Villainy in the Face of the Camera (page 74) 9 Pathos and Transfiguration in the Face of the Camera: A Reading of Stella Dallas (page 87) 10 Viewing the World in Black and White: Race and the Melodrama of the Unknown Woman (page 96) 11 Howard Hawks and Bringing Up Baby (page 110) 12 The Filmmaker in the Film: Octave and the Rules of Renoir's Game (page 122) 13 Stagecoach and the Quest for Selfhood (page 139) 14 To Have and Have Not Adapted a Film from a Novel (page 158) 15 Hollywood and the Rise of Suburbia (page 167) 16 Nobody's Perfect: Billy Wilder and the Postwar American Cinema (page 177) 17 The River (page 206) 18 Vertigo: The Unknown Woman in Hitchcock (page 221) 19 North by Northwest: Hitchcock's Monument to the Hitchcock Film (page 241) 20 The Villain in Hitchcock: "Does He Look Like a 'Wrong One' to You?" (page 254) 21 Thoughts on Hitchcock's Authorship (page 263) 22 Eternal Vérités: Cinema-Vérité and Classical Cinema (page 281) 23 Visconti's Death in Venice (page 298) 24 Alfred Guzzetti's Family Portrait Sittings (page 304) 25 The Taste for Beauty: Eric Rohmer's Writings on Film (page 321) 26 Tale of Winter: Philosophical Thought in the Films of Eric Rohmer (page 325) 27 The "New Latin American Cinema" (page 340) 28 Violence and Film (page 348) 29 What Is American about American Film Study? (page 358) Index (page 381) Originally published in 1988, The 'I' of the Camera has become a classic in the literature of film. Offering alternatives to the viewing and criticism of film, William Rothman challenges readers to think about film in adventurous ways that are more open to movies and our experience of them. In a series of eloquent essays examining particular films, filmmakers, genres and movements, and the 'Americanness' of American film, Rothman argues compellingly that movies have inherited the philosophical perspective of American transcendentalism. This second edition contains all of the essays that made the book a benchmark of film criticism. It also includes fourteen essays, written subsequent to the book's original publication, as well as a new foreword. The new chapters further broaden the scope of the volume, fleshing out its vision of film history and illuminating the author's critical method and the philosophical perspective that informs it.--Publisher description America's experience of film is virtually unique in that in almost every other country, the impact of film cannot be separated from the process or at least the specter of Americanization.

This second edition of William Rothman's classic includes fourteen new essays and a new foreword.