Books: A Light In The Dark - A History Of Movie Directors

(Drivebycuriosity) -   I love cinema. I enjoy to watch movies, but I also want to learn how they were created. So sometimes I read books about movies and their production. "Light in the Dark" by David Thomson portraits some of the movie directors who influenced cinema in the recent 100 years ( amazon).

The early chapters are chronological and portrait some directors who defined cinema in the first half of the 20th century - like Sternberg, Hawks, Hitchcock, Godard & Wells. Later the author changes the structure and he touches topics like the role of women in the cinema business.

The relatively small format - just around 300 pages - doesn`t allow a comprehensive view but Thomson, who is in his late seventies, distills a lot of the experience he had accumulated as a lifelong movie gourmet & critic. "Light in the Dark" is fund to read. I learned something and enjoyed Thomson´s elegant and analytical writing. This book is a kind of appetizer, waking my appetite for movies of some portrayed movie makers, especially Leni Riefenstahl, who is usually ignored. I also find his recomendations of books about cinema & movie creators very helpful.