Making Pictures: A Century of European Cinematography

Filmmaker Jean-Luc Godard once said,""Cinema is the truth, twenty-four times a second."" From that brief quote springs this weighty, almost academic work on the history and importance of European film, starting from the optical entertainments in the 19th century and ending with 21st-century technical innovations. In between is packed a wealth of visual imagery, information and analysis. Although it features gorgeously produced stills from a multitude of movies, this doorstopper shouldn't be mistaken for a coffee-table book. It's a cinematographer's handbook and a cinephile's summer reading, so those who don't wish to crawl through detailed information about every technical aspect of European filmmaking are best directed elsewhere. But for the devoted film lover, there's much satisfying material here, including analyses about lighting night setups, the cinematographer's role and in-depth explorations of 100 films including The Battleship Potemkin, The Blue Angel and The Umbrellas of Cherbourg. Rather than provide movie information in standard review or flat description formats, the authors choose to jam-pack one page per movie with intricate detail about the film's director of photography, notable technical aspects and commentary about the use of light, backgrounds and mood, with comments from the likes of Ingmar Bergman's frequent collaborator, cinematographer Nykvist, among many others. The result is a stunning look at the way in which movies are made, both technically and creatively, and how European cinema in particular has influenced global filmmaking.