"Have You Seen . . . ?": A Personal Introduction to 1,000 Films
by David Thomson
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Book Summary Information
Author: David ThomsonEdition: Hardcover
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Format: Deckle Edge
Published: 2008-10-14
ISBN: 0307264610
Number of pages: 1024
Publisher: Knopf
Book Reviews of "Have You Seen . . . ?": A Personal Introduction to 1,000 Films
Book Review: ". . . when it was easy to be in love with cinema"
Summary: 5 Stars
I always used to recommend David Thomson's The New Biographical Dictionary of Film as the most important book on movies for anyone to have. Now I have to recommend two books--the Biographical Dictionary and this one, "Have You Seen . . . ?" A Personal Introduction to 1,000 Films.
Like Thomson's Biographical Dictionary, "Have You Seen . . . ?" is as valuable to simply read and learn about movies from as it is as a reference book. I don't know of anyone who knows as much about the art and history of movies as David Thomson. (Another book by Thomson you should read is Suspects but that's for another time.)
These one thousand films certainly aren't all on Thomson's "Best of" list. On The Sound of Music: "[P]roducer-director Robert Wise and screenwriter Ernest Lehman . . . had killed West Side Story a few years earlier, which was a more serious crime than making The Sound of Music, because the latter had always been brain-dead."
Thomson's interest and knowledge is deepest concerning the 1930s through the 1970s. That's an amazing amount of knowledge, but he's spent his whole life studying film in the way lovers of 1960s "film culture" did--by watching good and/or interesting (not always the same thing) films over and over again.
Thomson is American now, but he grew up in England and he has the perspective of the outsider to shape his view of this country and its movies. On The Truman Show as a 1990s phenomenon:
"No other American film was clearer that the greatest threat to our existence was . . . above all our decision to be cheerful, amiable, and pleasant. . . . It was as if someone at last had realized that the most . . . frightening thing about America was not the menace, . . . but the bonhomie, the salesman oil . . ."
I don't know if it's what Thomson intended, but this makes me think of us charging off into the rest of the world, bringing "freedom" and our friendship whether it's welcome or not.
What I like most about Thomson's writing is that, in making me decide whether I agree with him or not, it makes me realize what I think.
Thomson has his strengths (or prejudices): he takes westerns and especially comedies very seriously. He knows all about film noir and the Europeans who invented this "American" style. I don't think he cares for horror movies much. But he does write about the films that transcend the genre--Psycho, Rosemary's Baby, even John Carpenter's Halloween, which echoes Hitchcock by using suspense, not gore.
So it's interesting that Thomson starts "Have You Seen . . . ?" off with Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein. Talk about a trivial story. But the relationship between Bud and Lou isn't trivial. Thomson gets right to the horror that I sensed when I saw the Abbot and Costello movies on TV when I was ten:
". . . Bud Abbott manages to be the most forbidding figure in sight. Deep down, we know that Bud has abused Lou--it is the secret in their films never quite arrived at."
Reading David Thomson helps me see things in the movies I didn't before, and his writing and thinking about film has helped me train myself to see strange things on the screen too.
Summary of "Have You Seen . . . ?": A Personal Introduction to 1,000 Films
In 1975, David Thomson published his Biographical Dictionary of Film, and few film books have enjoyed better press or such steady sales.Now, thirty-three years later, we have the companion volume, a second book of more than 1,000 pages in one voice?that of our most provocative contemporary film critic and historian.
Juxtaposing the fanciful and the fabulous, the old favorites and the forgotten, this sweeping collection presents the films that Thomson offers in response to the question he gets asked most often??What should I see?? This new book is a generous history of film and an enticing critical appraisal written with as much humor and passion as historical knowledge. Not content to choose his own top films (though they are here), Thomson has created a list that will surprise and delight you?and send you to your best movie rental service.
But he also probes the question: after one hundred years of film, which ones are the best, and why?
?Have You Seen . . . ?? suggests a true canon of cinema and one that?s almost completely accessible now, thanks to DVDs. This book is a must for anyone who loves the silver screen: the perfect confection to dip into at any point for a taste of controversy, little-known facts, and ideas about what to see. This is a volume you?ll want to return to again and again, like a dear but argumentative friend in the dark at the movies.
Amazon Best of the Month, October 2008: Having already written (and twice revised) the greatest bathroom book of all time, The New Biographical Dictionary of Film, David Thomson has refreshed his encyclopedic and idiosyncratic understanding of movie history to confect another giant slab of candy for anyone who loves movies or just likes to watch a great mind at work. "Have You Seen...?": A Personal Introduction to 1,000 Films is no cobbled collection of old reviews: written fresh from start to finish, Thomson's page-long profiles often ignore plot to focus instead on the people behind the film or the slippery, personal question of what the movie is actually like to watch. And writing about a thousand films pushes him beyond his favorites into more interesting territory: flaws and failures are often his best subjects. You'll want to discover movies you've never heard of before, and rediscover others you thought you knew well. --Tom Nissley
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