Making A Scene: This year's four best books on film
Paul Dale picks the cream of the cinematic crop as he rounds up this year’s best books about film
‘The moving image is all well and lovely, but the cuts teach us we may be crazy.’ So ends the first chapter of A Sudden Flicker Of The Light (Allen Lane), David Thomson’s revisionist history of the movies. Through one glorious chapter after another of twisted history, prevarication and dissection, Thomson attempts to hold onto the reins of those golden age beasts of cinema as they drag him towards the end of an illustrious career. The passion he has harboured and nurtured for half a century has also hidden a bending of reality, one filled with a rise of delusion, voyeurism and the promotion of a detachment from life’s wonders. This is Thomson in full flight, melding the register he found in his best non-fiction book (The Whole Equation) and fictional one (Suspects). Like an aged philosopher he gasps, laughs, twirls and recants the story of film that no one else could tell.
If you love the films of Jean-Pierre Melville (Le Samourai) or Jacques Deray (Le Piscine) or anything Alain Delon was in during the 60s and 70s (Plein Soleil, L’Eclisse), then Edward Chisholm’s smoky, evocative work of non-fiction Murder in Paris 68 (Monoray) is a must. It details the sex and politics scandal that emanated from the Markovic Affair, when Delon’s Yugoslavian bodyguard and fixer was found dead in mysterious circumstances. Chisholm’s bold storytelling nicely balances the contrarian heart of any Gallic cineaste’s obsessions with the heady steam of Parisian anarchy in those cold-blooded old times.
For those with deeper pockets and big coffee tables, Roger Deakins’ Reflections: On Cinematography (Cassell) has got to be the film art book of the year. Lovingly but unusually curated by Deakins (don’t expect chronology), it’s full of the images and magic he brought to the films of Mendes, Scorsese and the Coens, to name a few. The gifted and prolific lens man is a reliable and generous messenger. Finally, beloved influencer, photographer and interviewer Thomas Duke’s debut The Film Lovers Guide To London (Sphere) showcases his unique take on his favourite film locations in the capital, which he manages to convey through awe and reinterpretation. Unlike Thomson, he is blissfully, youthfully unaware that watching 4000-plus films can only lead to a distortion of reality.