Cinema: The Whole Story Paperback – 19 Sept. 2011

There’s certainly a lot of information in here, and the book does a good job of moving beyond the canon of “important” cinema history. However, the book’s title, ‘Cinema: The Whole Story’, is a misnomer; ‘Cinema Without a Story’ would be better.In fact, the book makes little attempt to turn the information into any kind of story of cinema, let alone the ‘whole’ story.I have provided 3 examples to illustrate my point. Each example is one of cinema’s most important periods.(1) German Expressionism - A terrifically important period the development of cinema is barely mentioned (though a couple of its films are). It is instead subsumed into a larger trend named ‘cinema of the fantastic’ which the authors have basically made up for their convenience. The legacy of this era of filmmaking is not made clear to the reader.2. The rise and fall of the Hollywood studio system - Hollywood cinema between the silent era and the 1960s is basically treated as a series of distinct, unconnected genres. It is, of course, true that each genre has its own history, but not to place the genres of this period in the context of the studio system is baffling. This is because the artistic, aesthetic, and narrative conventions of the time were to a very large extent dictated by the ways in which the studio system operated. It is impossible to understand the story of cinema without knowing this.3. The French New Wave (or Nouvelle Vague) - Cinema’s most well known—and almost certainly most important—movement is placed in the 1950s. While it’s true that the movement has its roots in the 1950s, the movement is generally thought to begin in 1959 with the release of ‘Hiroshima Mon Amore’ and ‘The 400 Blows’ and run until around 1967. It seems perverse to place this movement as a 1950s phenomenon. Indeed, when discussing golden ages of cinema, the book’s own introduction speaks of ‘France’s Nouvelle Vague of the 1960s!’In a book with this scope, there will always be quibbles as to the inclusion of X or the omission of Y. But the examples cited above are not quibbles. Rather they are huge swathes of cinema history that are either glossed over, missing, or wrong. There are of course many other examples of such things throughout the book. I imagine these problems are due largely to the difficultly of having to structuring a book of such huge scope (the book is mostly presented in decade by decade format), but that doesn’t mean you can play fast and loose with history or re-mould it for your own convenience.In conclusion, this book doesn’t give the basic story of cinema, let alone the whole story. Anyone who is unfamiliar with the story of cinema will have to construct it for themselves, discovering what led to what, which movements were more or less important, and who influenced who etc.

Very useful for teaching OCR AS level film studies.

Good overview, but not a lot of depth on any particular film or genre. This perhaps to be expected for a 'whole story' book, but it makes you feel like you are only skimming the surface.

The book is great. The condition was poor however.

This is an excellent studio and covers the whole story in a clever way. The book is a typical example of Thames and Hudson quality and I would not hesitate to tell my friends about it.

Cheap and realiable

Seems to be a very good reference book on the history of Cinema and well illustrated.

Bought for a present. Great photos and looks great too. My daughter was very happy with it she is a media student..