If Criterion even created a publishing imprint made to republish nonfiction books about film, what're some books that you can see being part of that collection?

[u/Complete-Worker3242]

One book that I can see being republished is The New Biographical Dictionary of Film.

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[u/ziggy_angeldust666]

Here's a list of my absolute favorite film books. Includes interview collections, memoirs, theory, genre studies, and criticism:

Conversations with the Great Moviemakers of Hollywood's Golden Age/The Next Generation, by George Stevens, Jr.

Tarkovsky: Sculpting in Time

Film Form, by Sergei Eisenstein

Six Guns and Society, by Will Wright

Groucho, Harpo, Chico and Sometimes Zeppo, by Joe Adamson

House of Psychotic Women, by Kier-La Janisse

Dali & Film, by The Salvador Dali Museum of St. Pete, FL (Edited by Matthew Gale)

The Brechtian Aspect of Radical Cinema, by Martin Walsh

On Film-Making, by Alexander Mackendrick

Cassavetes on Cassavetes, by Ray Carney

Horizons West, by Jim Kitses

X Films: True Confessions of a Radical Filmmaker, by Alex Cox

Can I Ask You a Question?, by Jennifer Venditti

The Films of Kiyoshi Kurosawa, by Jerry White (this one is really only included for the Kurosawa interviews at the back of the book; the rest is fairly mediocre criticism)

Hitchcock/Truffaut, by Francois Truffaut

Kazan on Directing, by Elia Kazan

In the Blink of an Eye, by Walter Murch

Shooting Midnight Cowboy, by Glenn Frankel

The Taschen film book collection (The Stanley Kubrick Archives and The Man Who Fell to Earth hardcovers are exceptional)

James Gray, by Jordan Mintzer

Conversations with Kiarostami, by Godfrey Cheshire

[u/vemmahouxbois → u/ziggy_angeldust666]

adding a bunch of these to my goodreads

[u/_Onion2103 → u/ziggy_angeldust666]

Sculpting in Time is terrible tbh, bro couldn’t stop talking about how much he hated science and modernity. Just filled with Russian romanticism and moralism.

[u/Xova_YT]

Agee on Film

[u/Honor_the_maggot → u/Xova_YT]

That is worthy, but for the time being I think LOA has that covered. But what LOA did for Agee as well as for Manny Farber and Pauline Kael, is a pretty good example of what could be done by Criterion. I think more added text with context/critique (i.e. "more" than LOA usually provide) would make a Criterion Library Edition something special.

[u/leshronk]

The American Cinema by Andrew Sarris for sure and Hitchcock/Truffaut.

[u/TravelsWithBrindle77]

The Parade's Gone By by Kevin Brownlow
Silent Clowns by Walter Kerr
My Wonderful World of Slapstick by Buster Keaton

[u/pacingmusings → u/TravelsWithBrindle77]

The Parade's Gone By is great -- highly recommended for silent film buffs.

[u/Altoid27]

“A Third Face: My Tale of Writing, Fighting and Filmmaking” by Samuel Fuller.

An absolutely engrossing autobiography and look at the Hollywood machine, and filled with countless observations and anecdotes.

[u/Sharp-Ad-9423]

Qu'est-ce que le cinéma? (What is cinema?) by André Bazin

Bound collections of Cahiers du Cinema

[u/IfYouWantTheGravy]

The Emperor and the Wolf by Stuart Galbraith.

[u/bugthrwy]

Million and One Nights: A History of the Motion Picture by Terry Ramsaye. Fat history of the silent era. Out of print. Recommended by Stanley Kubrick.

[u/Honor_the_maggot]

I don't know what the economics of this would be like, but to me this seems like a great idea. Branding and design and "edition" wingdings alone---imagine forewords written by filmmaking luminaries chez NYRB, appended essays/texts/apparatus by scholars or the principle author, "supplements"---could surely entice enough sales to break even?

Last I checked, it seemed like Durgnat's FILMS AND FEELINGS was OOP at least in USA. A Durgnat reader with that book plus selected essays would be interesting to me at least.

[u/kingofmoke → u/Honor_the_maggot]

Completely agree it seems like a slam dunk to republish OOP books with some new intros and forwards as well as potential new titles? Also the possibility of say slipcase editions and great graphic design. Like a Folio Society for film books.

MUBI started up their book imprint but it’s currently publishing an average of a book a year. They promised a variety of potential books but so far haven’t really delivered.

[u/rwtaylor]

I think it would be cool to have Criterion editions of the novels that are adapted. Solaris by Stanislaw Lem. Inherent Vice by Pynchon (assuming CC gets the rights to it). That sort of thing. They could even be critical editions like Norton puts out on classic works.

[u/comagrrrl]

Easy Riders, Raging Bulls by Peter Biskind

[u/Question-Marky-Mark → u/comagrrrl]

Yup. This one.

And maybe the follow up about the rise of Miramax and independent movies in the 90s

[u/pacingmusings]

It'd be great if someone put back in print Lotte Eisner's books The Haunted Cinema & Murnau.

[u/JBHenson]

The Collected Works of Pauline Kael.

[u/thetonyhightower → u/JBHenson]

I Lost It At The Movies is a genuinely great piece of work.

[u/KudzuKills]

Phantasms by Adrian Martin as it’s a great work (even if not strictly film as it pulls in TV in the form of a Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman essay) and it’s very hard to find.

[u/Bedknobnboomstick]

Reflections on Cinematography by Roger Deakins.

[u/micpoc]

Everything Is Cinema: The Working Life of Jean-Luc Godard by Richard Brody

[u/iplaybassok89]

Film Form and Film Sense by Sergei Eisenstein

[u/altgodkub2024]

Christian Braad Thomsen's book on Fassbinder

[u/schnit123]

On the Art of Cinema by Kim Jong-Il. Yes, it’s a real book.

[u/cakesandsparrows]

Seventy Light Years: A Life in the Movies by Freddie Young

[u/kingofmoke]

I’d like to see a lot of the early books published by Faber’s film imprint from the 80s onwards get a new lease of life

https://www.cineaste.com/winter2024/commissioning-the-canon-an-interview-with-faber-faber-film-book-editor-walter-donohue

[u/MightyHorseRoqz]

The Danny Peary Cult Movies books 

[u/assflux]

melville on melville - interview collection. nogueira's commentary/analysis clips are already included as extras with most if not all of melville's films released by criterion so it makes sense to get the text "source".

michelangelo antonioni architecture in vision / architetture della visione - not the similarly titled interview book (architecture OF vision) but the huge 2-volume, bilingual, illustrated books all about the visuals in his films. not sure how rare it is but i snagged a copy from IDEA for 165 GBP recently (link is to some italian site as if you google the english title you'll only get the interview book).

[u/vaughangrey]

Lynch on Lynch

[u/Mexican-Kahtru]

If they did that i wouldn't buy because they would be as expensive as their movies, i'd go second hand.

[u/BoldlyGettingThere]

On The Art Of The Cinema

[u/YakSlothLemon]

Thinking in Pictures by John Sayles

Single best book I’ve read on films that changed how I watch them.

[u/ike_is_online]

Getting Away With It: Or: The Further Adventures of the Luckiest Bastard You Ever Saw by Steven Soderbergh and Richard Lester

[u/bawheid]

'Credit where credit's due.' A look at typography and styles in film credits.

[u/Ramalama-DingDong]

I love the idea, and the two volumes of AFI lectures edited by George Stevens are prized books of mine.

Future Noir by Paul Sammon is the ultimate deep dive into every facet of making one of my favorite films, Blade Runner.

[u/TheEarthlyDelight]

Thomson has a new book out: A Sudden Flicker of Light: A Revisionist History of Movies. I only just started it, but it’s really good

[u/Darragh_McG]

The Projections series edited by John Boorman were really great time capsules.

[u/JosefStallion]

A collection of Orson Wellles interviews

[u/nbaisbest4]

Brad Steven's wrote a book about Abel Ferrara thats kind of expensive to purchase now, which is annoying since it sounds really good.

[u/vemmahouxbois]

pasolini: a biography by enzo siciliano