Film scholar Buscombe (The Searchers
) analyzes world cinema since 1970 with welcome intelligence and thorough knowledge in a lavishly produced book that should satisfy oglers and thinkers alike. Not surprisingly, he begins his take on modern cinema in 1970, after studio-made extravaganzas like Hello, Dolly!
had disappointed an increasingly young audience while the low-budget, youth-oriented road movie Easy Rider
became a hit and changed Hollywood's thinking about what makes a successful film. Owing to the commanding influence of American movies across the world, Buscombe devotes half of the book to American films. Genre chapters are solid, with some surprises, like his dark view that horror films are being consumed by their self-reflexiveness. Most enlightening are Buscombe's surveys of international cinema, as he examines various countries' film industries in terms of their financial health, interaction with their governments and their role as cultural representatives. A visual delight, the book presents stills ranging from the iconic (e.g., Pierce Brosnan as Bond cruising on a motorcycle with a gorgeous Michelle Yeoh clutching onto him in Tomorrow Never Dies
) to the lesser-known (including a moving shot of Dirk Bogarde examining the wound on the arm of Charlotte Rampling in 1974's The Night Porter
). Any book that ignites fresh thoughts about old movies and also presents photos of gory monsters and half-naked women does justice to the universal art form of sight and sound. (Dec.)
