The Big Screen: The Story of the Movies and What They Did to Us

(Paperback)

---

Publishing Details

Classifications

Physical Properties

Description

Does the big screen take us out into the world, or merely mesmerize us That is Thomson's question in this great adventure of a book. A passionate feat of storytelling that is vital to anyone trying to make sense of the age of screens - the age that, more than ever, we are living in. In this triumphant work David Thomson, one of film's greatest living experts and author of The New Biographical Dictionary of Film, tells the enthralling story of the movies and how they have shaped us. Sunday Times, New Statesman, The Times, Guardian, Observer and Independent BOOKS OF THE YEAR Taking us around the globe, through time and across multiple media, Thomson tracks the ways in which we were initially enchanted by this mesmerizing imitation of life and let movies - the stories, the stars, the look - show us how to live. But at the same time he shows us how movies, offering a seductive escape from the everyday reality and its responsibilities, have made it possible for us to evade life altogether. The entranced audience has become a model for powerless citizens trying to pursue happiness by sitting quietly in a dark room. Does the big screen take us out into the world, or merely mesmerize us That is Thomson's question in this great adventure of a book. A passionate feat of storytelling that is vital to anyone trying to make sense of the age of screens - the age that, more than ever, we are living in.

Reviews

Probably the best overview of the cinema ever written. It sparkles with insight, is packed with anecdote, and pulses with passion ... a glorious celebration of one of humankind's great inventions -- John Banville * Guardian BOOKS OF THE YEAR *
A devilish, dazzling, out-there divination ... Criticism is rarely this passionate and brilliant. You come away wanting to watch it all * Empire *
David Thomson is a giant in the world of film criticism, and his book is the chest-crusher you might expect: erudite, delightfully tangential and surprisingly polemical -- Kate Muir * The Times *
Thomson has composed a grand aesthetic, spiritual, and moral account of cinema history assembled around the movies and artists that have meant the most to him. As Thomson reconstructs film history, movies bring us close to reality and deliver us into ecstatic dreams. A pungently written, brilliant book -- David Denby (author of SNARK)
The theme of The Big Screen is the weirdness of desire ... Drawing on his vast stock of knowledge, Thomson takes us on a meander through Nouvelle Vague and Italian neorealism; Coppola and Scorsese; MGM musicals and film noir. He always comes back in the end to the kind of fun it is possible to have only at the movies, sitting in the dark, staring at the light ... Line by line, Thomson is still the greatest biographical writer about film of all time ... to read him on his favourite films is to be sent back with renewed yearning to that land of Californian light and loveliness * Sunday Times *
Subtle, erudite and entertaining * Economist *
Fascinating ... a loose-limbed, conversational narrative, moving fitfully through time, dawdling over directors and films that interest ... crackling with ideas and vivid impressionisms ... Thomson's stylish prose, simultaneously erudite and entertaining, captivates as it informs ... Buffs and casual fans alike will enjoy this extra-large serving of popcorn for thought * Publishers Weekly *
The greatest living writer on the movies ... The Big Screen is surely his magnum opus -- John Banville * New Statesman BOOKS OF THE YEAR *
Rigorous and rewarding, and a page rarely passes without insight * Independent BOOKS OF THE YEAR *
Nobody else would match its sweep, its erudition, its discernment or its warmth -- David Hare * Guardian BOOKS OF THE YEAR *

There are always irreverent arguments about the status of filmmaking in David Thomson's writing: "Story ideas hang around in Hollywood longer than some marriages or buildings." Or "It would be said of British cinema that it was nothing until a band of Hungarians took it over." This goes alongside his real passion for the art: On Sweet Smell of Success - "The film was shot in a glittering harsh black and white by James Wong Howe and looked like the hide of a crocodile in the moonlight." On Colonel Blimp - "There is one scene of Deborah Kerr with auburn hair and in a cornflower blue dress, in shadow and firelight, that must be among the most romantic shots made during the war. No one in Britain before had seen that you could make a film because you were crazy about a girl."

David Thomson is, I think, the best writer on film in our time. If Have you Seen was his most succinct and entertaining book, The Big Screen is a large and vivacious map on the history of 'the screen': beginning with Muybridge and then tracing careers ranging from Korda to Renoir to Hawkes to Mizoguchi, to David Lynch and Tarentino, then swerving over to television shows such as I love Lucy and The Sopranos. He has found and created a marvellous plot for the history of film with insights and revelations on every page, as well as a few mcguffins. He is our most argumentative and trustworthy historian of the screen

-- Michael Ondaatje
A great critic cuts both ways - he nudges you into reconsidering the films you love, as well as the ones you dislike. David Thomson's sensual prose has always amplified the imagination of a great critic. In broad outline, The Big Screen is a history of the movies, a wide-ranging task which usually carries with it a certain amount of connect-the-dots tedium. But Thomson's emphases are typically fresh and often ecstatic, even when he's disparaging a film you love. Nobody does it better -- Scott Eyman (author of EMPIRE OF DREAMS and LION OF HOLLYWOOD)
Of the medium's many distinguished critics, none is better informed or more authoritative than David Thomson ... [The Big Screen is] part film history, part thesis, part love letter and lament ... genuine insights abound ... Like any great work of criticism, the book is essentially an education in good taste, and crucially it sends us back to the movies. Thomson's montage of ecstasies and laments re-awakens in us the thrill and wonder of moving images and the need to know what happens next. In that, it is as close to definitive as any book on film can be. Just as we look at the movies, we should listen to him * Spectator Life *
David Thomson is a metaphysician of the movies ... Thomson's brain is the ultimate repertory theatre, perpetually rerunning our favourites and allowing us to wonder at them all over again. The highest praise I can give him is to say that the images he treasures are just as alive on his pages as they were on the big screen -- Peter Conrad * Guardian *
A love letter to a dying art, [The Big Screen] is also a scathing indictment of its legacy. In over 500 pages of breathtaking criticism, [Thomson] seeks to understand the impact of the screen upon our collective consciousness * Sunday Telegraph *
A cultural overview of the past, present and future of the movies * Sunday Times BOOKS OF THE YEAR *
This is a wildly seductive love letter to what Thomson concludes is a 'lost love' ... he rapturously recalls a lifetime's enchantment with the big screen * Metro *
A startling analysis of what happens to us in the darkness as we dream with eyes open * Observer BOOKS OF THE YEAR *
There's one standout in this year's slew of film literature, The Big Screen written by David Thomson, a giant in the world of film criticism. His book is erudite but readable, delightfully tangential, and surprisingly polemical. He provides a fascinating ride through the past century of mostly American cinema and posits a theory that 'the shining light and the huddled masses' of yore will be replaced by digital anomie, as the big screen is replaced by YouTube on an iPhone -- Kate Muir * The Times BOOKS OF THE YEAR *
[The Big Screen] works both as an engaging primer on film history and as a map for more numinous shifts in the path of popular art ... Thomson offers a nuanced portrait ... the details of his narrative glimmer with offbeat insight -- Nathan Heller * New York Times Book Review *

Author Bio

David Thomson was born in India in 1914 to Scottish parents, but grew up in Scotland and Derbyshire. After the period described in Woodbrook he developed a career in writing and at the BBC. He died in 1988.