What are some books that'll improve my cinematic taste

Recommend some good easy to watch directors then

I see what you mean but there are more constructive ways of reading Stalker than through an ideological lens

Kubrick, scorsaise, PTA, Kurusawa, Lang. The list goes on.

>It reminds me of what Zizek says about anti-capitalist films/books
Aren't you trying hard to match your idols ideas with a movie? Or just neoliberal?

It was hardly his means of production, rather an obsession, drug, escape.

Any rebelling exist only within the system.

>Scorsaise
>Kurusawa

Are you trying to be ironic here?

>Godard is student film tier trash

Early 60s stuff yeah but it's clearly where the person who asked is at so what's the probz?

If you check your elitism at the door you can come inside and watch the real Kino with me.

I've actually shunned my pretentious film grad stage. It's much more fun watching contemporary non-Hollywood movies.

This right here is the Holy Grail of pretentious 19 year-olds who think they're smart for torrenting foreign movies. Use it wisely

Seriously, every time a film thread comes up on on Veeky Forums somebody mentions that book. It basically sits alongside the meme trilogy at this point.

...

>Godard is student film tier trash.
spoken like a pleb who's only seen his nouvelle vague films and not his more daring and esoteric material of the 80s and onwards

I've only read the shitpost extracts where he denigrates lesser artists. My favourite is,

>Did he die really not knowing he a hack?

I find most Tarkovsky pictures, deeply anti-intellectual - I like what Jameson has to say about him. It's worrisome that so many on here have found themselves being taken along under his wing.

It's also surprising how "popular" he's gotten in the past few years. You had to really put some effort in to see Stalker back in the day when I saw it.

As for the OP question, don't improve your taste, watch everything, enjoy what you enjoy. Use whatever film you're viewing as a conduit to form your own ideas - don't merely act as a mirror, reflecting the thoughts of someone else.

That's a basic technical book user, not much to do with film from a creative stand point.

t. animator

That's from a book that contains excerpts of his diary. Sculpting in Time is solely about his own work and how he approaches the medium. Tarkovsky certainly isn't bad, but Bresson is much more of a "literary" director and much better in my opinion.

who the fuck really appreciate tarkovsky?. what is Deep about stalker?.
i say with sincerity.
when i watch stalker i feel watching a B movie absurdly inflating.

/ourguy/

This "interpretation" makes me feel sincere and utter disgust.

If you really see a B movie while watching Stalker the only thing I can tell you is that you should gouge your useless eyes out.

He directs poetry where others direct prose. The visuals, diolouge and themes are all beautiful.

>It basically sits alongside the meme trilogy at this point.

I'm so fucking sick of this dumb Veeky Forums contranianism, once something in mentioned a few times on image boards it become a "meme" and is instantly discredited as if something can only be valuable if not a lot of people know about it. Just fuck off, you sound like a poser newfag trying to sound cool in front of his online buddies

>who the fuck really appreciate tarkovsky?

this fucking board. You can have disagreements but this is just ignorant

>On the Art of the Cinema
By Kim Jong Il

Pauline Kael - Kiss Kiss Bang Bang
Armond White - The Resistance: 10 Years of Pop Culture That Shook the World

Bresson

>tfw Tarkovsky has better taste than anyone on this board

> Favorite Russian prose work
> Crime and Punishment

Did he really die not knowing he was a hack?

It's very good though you idiot

t. embryo

>Russian prose work: Crime and Punishment
>Poet: Pushkin
>Colour of Woman's hair: Red

Tarkovsky confirmed for patrician taste

>green
pleb

>I'm so fucking sick of this dumb Veeky Forums contranianism

Things get repeated a lot on Veeky Forums. It's an obvious irony to anybody who's been here for more than two weeks so any claims of newfaggotry are laughable.

Movies are useless and make you stupid. (Not memeing: I realized this a while ago).

Filmmaking faggot here.

Watch more films outside of your comfort zone, user. Look into films and filmmakers that inspired your favourites, and then discover what inspired them. This can be done easily by just googling "[insert film director's name here]'s favourite films". Criterion usually puts up lists of filmmakers they've recently interviewed on their website with a list of their favourite Criterion releases too which can be interesting (Criterion is a good source for fantastic filmmaking but don't pick up all of their films blindly because they have put out self-indulgent trash too. However, it's probably the best edition of that self-indulgent trash available as it'll include a booklet full of essays and/or plenty of special features).

Also it doesn't hurt to start with early filmmaking from silent films, early animation, early sound films, etc. Lotte Reiniger (fantastic early cut-up animation for everyone), Jean Cocteau (his Bete Et La Belle is still the best adaptation of Beauty and the Beast imo - it's cinematic gothic romance at it's most haunting), Jacques Demy (Umbrellas of Cherbourg will break your heart), Fritz Lang (get on his Die Nibelungen duo of films and Dr Mabuse trilogy, then follow it up with M. Metropolis is great, albeit a huge simplification of class struggle, but the sheer scale of the drama and production is always appreciated) are all my niggas.

For books, if you're interested in the act of filmmaking:

Film Directing: Shot by Shot by Steven D Katz teaches a lot of the techniques used in films as well as the theoretical reasoning why they're used.

Tarkovsky's Sculpting In Time offers the best companion piece to his own work.

The Films of Akira Kurosawa by Donald Richie offers an authoritative overview and analysis of the complete Kurosawa filmography (also recommended for Kurosawa fans, Kurosawa's Something Like an Autobiography, although it's not just about filmmaking. However, he details which films he watched from which eras and his taste in silent film is magnificent).

Kraucauer's From Caligari to Hitler highlights the historical importance of early German cinema and how it reflected the ideology at the time of their filmmakers and the citizens. It's pretty dry but fascinating nonetheless.

Jonathan Clement's Anime: A History offers a historical look at early Japanese animation, how it grew to be more distinctively stylised after WW2 and how the phenomenon grew into international obsession.

John Yorke's Into The Woods offers insight into the structuring of screenplays for television and film taking examples from British television and independent films.

Hitchcock/Truffaut is essential if you're interested in digging deeper into Hitchcock's filmography but also to have these two wonderful filmmakers share ideas on how a film should be made.

Some of these books should offer understanding of filmmaking, as well as fantastic viewing lists of films you may and/or may not have encountered before.

Good post.

I'd definitely recommend opting to pick up books that cover directors/genres/styles you already dig. I think it's also important to watch widely and closely. If you want to know more about a film watch it two or three times, or something like that.

One of the strongest feelings I have about film is that it largely doesn't translate into written work very well. You can, of course, read/write about a film's influences and its broader systematic ideas but it's difficult to convey film (mood and tone really) through writing.

It's a major reason why I think academia does many things wrong. Writing papers on films doesn't always work - there should be far more emphasis on video essays. Consequently, it's probably definitely worth scouring YT or Vimeo for those.

To further your point on YT and Vimeo, channels like Every Frame a Painting, Nerdwriter, Now You See It, etc do some very enjoyable and accessible video essays on films they love. Every Frame a Painting is probably my favourite.

For light lunchtime procrastination, CineFix have some entertaining video Top10s which detail nicely why they included a certain film into it. Although it's not always spot-on, they rationalise well enough as to why they wanted to include it. WatchMojo for the movie fan.