A completely revised and udpated edition of the classic film reference which has sold nearly 150,000 copies in its previous editions.
Ephraim Katz's The Film Encyclopedia is the most comprehensive one-volume encyclopedia on film and is considered the undisputed Bible of the movie industry. With up-to-date additions, this fifth edition features more than 7,000 A-Z entries on the artistic, technical, and commercial aspects of moviemaking, including:
- Directors, producers, stars, screenwriters, and cinematographers
- Styles, genres, and schools of filmmaking
- Motion picture studios and film centers
- Film-related organizations and events
- Industry jargon and technical terms
- Inventions, inventors, and equipment
- Plus, an index of Academy Award winning films and artists, top grossing films, and much more.
This is the basic reference guide to the international cinema. Put it next to your TV and VCR and you'll be able to answer the questions that inevitably arise when you watch a movie: "What other films has she been in?"; "Haven't I heard that director's name before?"; and "What in tarnation is a gaffer?" The Film Encyclopedia contains biographies and filmographies of actors, directors, producers, and cinematographers, as well as screenwriters, editors, musical directors, production designers, and critics. You can look up films by nationality and find a history of a given country's contribution to the art. Technical data is also indexed, so you can read not only about film stock and the apparatus of the camera, but also about the duties of the gaffer, the key grip, and the best boy. The book's introduction states that Ephraim Katz, who died in 1992, set out to write "the most comprehensive one-volume encyclopedia of world cinema ever published in the English language." The Film Encyclopedia contains more information than any other single-volume film reference and is also the best written movie guide of its kind. Because most of the entries were written by Katz himself, reading this book is like talking to a witty and learned film historian who has devoted his life to understanding--and loving--the cinema.
