Being a film fanatic, I want to express my appreciation of The Hub’s numerous books on cinema. Each time I wander back there, I see a new book on film. A few weeks ago I sat down and read
Akira Kurosawa: master of cinema, compiled by the film historian
Peter Cowie, and today I skimmed through a scholarly book on portrayals of immigration in World Cinema. I also was glad to see that David Thomson’s
The Moment of Psycho is available, which allowed me to include it in the summer reading exhibit I recently put together with Krissy. There is a large book on Fellini’s films called
Fellini: The Films, which is similar to the Kurosawa book in size, reliance on pictures and biographical structure. There are certainly more.
I found these books mainly because I was looking for them. (The
Kurosawa and
Fellini books noticeably tower above the dinky paperbacks, though.) But at the same time, they are so well-organized they are unmissable. Most of the film books seem to be placed in the middle row of the Hub’s shelves. This makes them much easier to find than the section on the third floor for books on films, because in that section they are mixed in with VHS’s and DVD’s.
Whenever I look at a book on movies, with only a few exceptions, I feel as if I am one of the last people to be doing such a thing. I feel as though nobody takes criticism seriously anymore, and even movies are not taken seriously in the traditional sense. These sentiments can be backed up with other data and observation, but that’s for a different piece. This motivates me to find out more about them. But I don’t feel this way in the Hub; I figure, if this is a newly created space, popular with students, then perhaps students wanted more film books? Or maybe just the professors? Whatever the case, it is a pleasant surprise. But I might still be the only one who actually reads them for pleasure.