What do you think?
Rate this book
Cinema Today
Cinema Today is a survey of world cinema and the films that have dominated our screens over the last thirty years. Written by Edward Buscombe, academic and leading authority on Western films, Cinema Today marks the key turning points in the film industry, identifies important trends and assesses the work of film-makers who have made a significant contribution to the medium since 1970. Fully illustrated, Cinema Today is informative, comprehensive and up to date, and provides a unique resource for academics, students and anyone with an interest in the moving image and the film industry.
About the Author:
Edward Buscombe is a leading authority on cinema having lectured and written on film for over thirty years. Formerly Head of Publishing at the British Film Institute, Buscombe has taught film studies in several American universities, including New York, Iowa and Texas, and was recently Visiting Professor in the Faculty of Media Arts at Southampton Institute. A regular reviewer for Sight and Sound magazine, he has also written articles and reviews for film journals such as Screen, Jump Cut and Cinema Journal. An expert on the Western movie, Edward Buscombe has written extensively on this subject, including books on John Ford`s Stagecoach (BFI, 1992) and The Searchers (BFI, 2000). He also contributed to The Movie Book (Phaidon, 1999) and edited The BFI Companion to the Western (Andre Deutsch, 1988).
512 pages, Paperback
First published September 1, 2003
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 of 1 review
May 8, 2023
The passage of time waits for no man. Cinema Today should now read Cinema Yesterday. Having bought this book back in 2003, it sat on my bookshelf for 20 years before I decided it was time to read it!
This gigantic coffee book is a very good appraisal of films released between the 1970s to the very early 2000s but there is little in the way of actual insight. The book is broken into chapters that explores Hollywood films by genre (like “Crime and Action Spectaculars” or “Horror”) or by world territory (like “National Identities in Western Europe” or “African Voices”). It then becomes a case of diminishing returns as a barrage of films get named. After a while it becomes a tad exhausting. Some of the films are so esoteric that if you were to look them up on IMDB there would have fewer than 20 user comments. Some of the films in the book have IMDB ratings of mediocre, prompting you to think – why are they so important. Edward Buscombe is also ready to tell you what he likes or dislikes, which is fine, if a little nasal grazing.
On the positive, the pictures are great, and it is invaluable for someone studying film or wants to expand their film education. After 20 years sitting on my bookshelf, it was time to give it away for someone else to discover it.
This gigantic coffee book is a very good appraisal of films released between the 1970s to the very early 2000s but there is little in the way of actual insight. The book is broken into chapters that explores Hollywood films by genre (like “Crime and Action Spectaculars” or “Horror”) or by world territory (like “National Identities in Western Europe” or “African Voices”). It then becomes a case of diminishing returns as a barrage of films get named. After a while it becomes a tad exhausting. Some of the films are so esoteric that if you were to look them up on IMDB there would have fewer than 20 user comments. Some of the films in the book have IMDB ratings of mediocre, prompting you to think – why are they so important. Edward Buscombe is also ready to tell you what he likes or dislikes, which is fine, if a little nasal grazing.
On the positive, the pictures are great, and it is invaluable for someone studying film or wants to expand their film education. After 20 years sitting on my bookshelf, it was time to give it away for someone else to discover it.
Displaying 1 of 1 review