From a legendary film critic and movie fan extraordinaire, the highlights reel of a life spent at the movies Richard Schickel has seen, by his own estimate, more than twenty thousand films. He has been a reviewer since 1965 (long for Time magazine), has written almost forty books on the subject, and has produced and directed thirty documentaries. He has counted as personal friends many of the leading filmmakers of the twentieth century. Call it “obsession,” “lunacy,” or a “grand passion” (Schickel grants all three), but there’s simply no one who knows film better. Now Schickel gives us the ultimate summing up: a history of film as he’s seen—and lived—it, a tour of his favorites, a master class in what makes a film soar or flop. Schickel’s no-holds-barred, often raucously irreverent opinions can range from panning classics, to spotlighting forgotten treasures, to defending the art of “popular” genres such as horror, westerns, screwball comedy, and noir. Beyond his picks and pans, Schickel offers a wealth of behind-the-scenes anecdotes (a love note from Marlene Dietrich, Frank Capra’s unlikely path to success, Annie Hall’s original title), career studies of our greatest performers and auteurs, and candidly intimate glimpses of his own life in pictures (an evening with Greta Garbo, John Ford’s advice on directing, a “dust-up” in defense of Monty Python). Above all, Schickel gives us a collection of the true gems, the immortal moments that have stuck with him over a lifetime of movie watching—the transcendent scenes, characters, lines, shots, scores, even lighting cues that offer, each in their way, pure “movie magic.” Buster Keaton, His Girl Friday, Ingrid Bergman, Taxi Driver, Star Wars, Stanley Kubrick, Pulp Fiction—Schickel reveals all the films and the forces behind them that have kept him coming back for more. An essential addition to any cinephile’s library, Keepers is the curation of a brilliant connoisseur and critic, but more than that, it’s a love letter to film from one of its most dedicated devotees.

Product Description: "[...]with its short square fingers, ‘the mountain of the moon is not developed. The line of life, however, is excellent. Kindly bend the wrist. Thank you. Three distinct lines on the rascette! You will live to a great age, Duchess, and be extremely happy...read more

In order to be able to protect human rights, it is first necessary to see the denial of those rights. Aside from experiencing human rights violations directly, either as a victim or as an eyewitness, more than any other medium film is able to bring us closer to this aspect of the human experience. Yet, notwithstanding its importance to human rights, film has received virtually no scholarly attention and thus one of the primary goals of this book is to begin to fill this gap. From an historical perspective, human rights were not at all self-evident by reason alone, but had to gain standing through an appeal to human emotions found in novels as well as in works of moral philosophy and legal theory. Although literature continues to play an important role in the human rights project, film is able to take us that much further, by universalizing the particular experience of others different from ourselves, the viewers. Watching Human Rights analyzes more than 100 of the finest human rights films ever made-documentaries, feature films, faux documentaries, animations, and even cartoons. It will introduce the reader to a wealth of films that might otherwise remain unknown, but it also shows the human rights themes in films that all of us are familiar with.

Product Description: This volume gets to the heart of what films mean to people on personal, political and commercial levels. Exploring value judgements that underpin social, academic and institutional practices, it examines the diverse forms of worth attributed to a range of international films in relation to taste, passion, morality and aesthetics...read more

Product Description: Perfect for the student who wants to learn to be a more active, intelligent film viewer, this supplement encourages critically thinking about films and also explains how to write a film review. The booklet also includes two helpful appendices, one with a list of essential films that serious movie watchers should see and the other with additional readings to help students keep learning...read more