Film Studies: Reference Sources

American Film Institute Catalog, covering filmographic information from 1893 to 1973.

American National Biography is the first new comprehensive biographical dicionary focused on American history to be published in seventy years. Produced under the auspices of the American Council of Learned Societies, the ANB contains over 17,500 profiles on historical figures written by anexpert in the field and completed with a bibliography. The scope of the work is enormous--from the earlest recorded European explorations to the very recent past.

Indexes biographies in books and magazines, published 1946-2011.

Covering an impressive range of key genres, movements, theories and production terms, this third edition includes a fully updated bibliography, and has been revised and expanded to include new topical entries such as: female masquerade silent cinema exploitation cinema art direction national cinema political cinema.

Print bio-bibliographical resource with information on the credits, awards, and ongoing work of contemporary figures in the performing arts.

This dictionary provides readers with the conceptual apparatus to understand the often daunting language and terminology of screen studies.

This is an authoritative and accessible guide to modern ideas in the broad interdisciplinary fields of cultural and critical theory that have developed from interactions among different modern traditions of thought.

The Encyclopedia presents information on the basic trajectory of early cinema history, with coverage of film production, filmmakers, film genres, and individual films; in addition, a major task of the work is to present information from the revisionist history of early cinema, with its focus on the changing nature of film exhibition and the changing patterns of reception. The Encyclopedia reveals that early cinema was inextricably bound up with other forms and practices of mass culture, that it emerged as a combination of existing and innovative elements, and that it was an unusually hybrid medium that only gradually coalesced into something more or less distinct.

This work represents decades of research and spans the entire history of television. All the traditional genres are here along with show genres not well covered elsewhere--including children's programming, talk and advice shows, game shows, opera, stage plays, women's programming, dance, documentary television, and more.

Critics, filmmakers, and audiences have classified films into groupings for critical appraisal, easy identification of the subject, or a quick clue to the film's nature. From abstract through erotic, from new Chinese cinema or zombie films, 775 genres are included in this comprehensive reference work.

Slide's blockbuster effort fills a gap in this area and is essential for all libraries supporting popular culture or film studies. Library Journal

Thomson has added key figures from film history—lively anatomies of Graham Greene, Eddie Cantor, Pauline Kael, Abbott and Costello, Noël Coward, Hoagy Carmichael, Dorothy Gish, Rin Tin Tin, and more. Here is a great, rare book, one that encompasses the chaos of art, entertainment, money, vulgarity, and nonsense that we call the movies.

A unique reference work, a what's what of the history of filmmaking not only in Hollywood but throughout the United States. More than 750 entries document the history of studios, production companies and distributors, and provide complete information on technical innovations, genres, industry terms, and organizations.

This reference provides a comprehensive and accessible introduction to film and film studies, covering such aspects as production, national traditions, studios, genres, critical theory and film history. Approximately 200 entries cover specific topics, including acting, censorship, editing, lighting and others. Also included are more than 230 career profiles, placing individual achievements in the context of specific topics.

Documents the historical contributions of African Americans to broadcasting in the United States over a period beginning with the birth of commercial radio in the 1920s and ending in 1955.

The newest AFI Catalog volume contains over 2500 feature-length films with an emphasis on racial and national ethnic experience in the United States. It includes full production credits, cast, plot summaries, notes, subject headings, song titles, and bibliographic citations are provided.

World Film Directors covers many directors with a detailed, often film-by-film biography, filmography, and bibliography

Covering a wide variety of classics as well as recent films, Sklar's highly informative and entertaining history of motion pictures covers the technological and stylistic developments of movies in the rich context of culture, politics, and other arts.