The Film Books On My Desk

I decided to stack up some of my favorite film books and keep them right next to my computer.  Reference material, but I don't know, there's something about them that makes me happy, too.

Here's what currently makes up the stack.  What's on yours?

Qu'est-ce que le cinema?  - Andre Bazin (French version)
Pariscope
Hawks on Hawks - Joseph McBride
Movie of the Week - Peter Bogdanovich
The Films in My Life - Francois Truffaut
Who The Devil Made It - Peter Bogdanovich
Kiss Kiss Bang Bang - Pauline Kael
A Biographical Dictionary of Film - David Thomson
Essential Cinema - Jonathan Rosenbaum
"Have You Seen...?" - David Thomson
Le film noir american (wonderful French noir compendium)
La Politique Des Auteurs (great French book, compiling Cahiers interviews with Dreyer, Hawks, Bunuel, Hitchcock, Bresson, Antonioni, Lang, Rossellini, and Welles)
2 Copies of Cahiers du Cinema from the early 60s
Hitchcock/Truffaut
Brian De Palma (French interview book) - Samuel Blumenfeld/Laurent Vachaud
French New Wave - Jean Douchet

Coppola, Zoetrope, and The Black Stallion

I'm sure there are many of us.  But I'm definitely one of those that wishes Francis Ford Coppola made more movies and (maybe even more important) that his dreams for his Zoetrope Studios were still very much alive and well.  He desperately wanted to bottle that potent seventies concoction -- personal filmmmaking with Hollywood-size budgets.  But instead, after a few budget overruns and box office disappointments, One from the Heart being the worst, his dreams fizzled out pretty quickly.

Yet, at least we're still left with a few signs of what Coppola might have produced if someone had reigned him in a bit more.  And one of the best examples of this, I think, is The Black Stallion.  I saw the film as a kid and could clearly remember sections here and there.  But this is the first time I've watched it again in twenty-five years, owing the re-visit to David Thomson and his excellent book "Have You Seen...?"

The Black Stallion is everything you probably remember -- a feel-good fable with a beautiful horse and a kid you wish you could be.  But there are also some things you might not remember.  It sports some very brave cinematography by Caleb Deschanel.  He's not afraid to go deep into the blacks (for instance, the scene when they show off the horse hoping to land a spot in the big race).  And, as a result, Deschanel pulls off this unusually hazy, magic quality that I would imagine is exactly what he was hoping to achieve.  Also backing Stallion is one of the greatest sound technicians in the history of the medium, Alan Splet.  Splet was David Lynch's regular collaborator before passing away in the early nineties.  All you have to do is listen to the symphony of sounds he creates in the final race to get a sense of Splet's special talent. 

I even felt a part of Coppola here.  He's produced many films throughout his career.  But this is the first one where I could really feel his directorial hand, too (in a good way).  I'm not even sure what it is exactly.  But in the final race, once the flashbacks kick in, I entered that Apocalypse Now trance-like state that Coppola pulls off so well in his own 1979 film.

Zoetrope might not have lasted.  But I have to give it to Coppola.  He bet it all more than once in his career.  And our 114 year-old medium is so much better because of it.