BFI Film Classics

BFI Film Classics comprises titles from the award-winning BFI Film Classics book series which introduces, interprets and celebrates landmarks of world cinema from the silent era to the 21^st century. Each title offers a sophisticated but accessible argument for the film's 'classic' status, together with discussion of its production and reception history, its place within a genre or national cinema, an account of its technical and aesthetic importance, and in many cases, the author's personal response to the film.

Discover a selection of highlights from this peerless compendium:

• Some Like it Hot: Steven Cohan's study of the film disentangles its production history and subsequent notoriety from the film itself, reconsidering the ways in which it playfully challenged generic and gender conventions of the 1950s.
• Kaagaz Ke Phool (Paper Flowers): Lalitha Gopalan explores the film's innovative visual style, being the first Indian film shot in CinemaScope, analyses the iconic soundtrack, and reconstructs the original contexts of the film's production and reception drawing on interviews with practitioners and people close to its director.
• Do the Right Thing: This text discusses how the film epitomises Spike Lee's powerful impact on the representation of race and difference in America, the progress of black film-making and the rise of multicultural voices in the media, and how it confronts institutional discrimination head on.
• Rebel Without a Cause: Glyn Davis foregrounds the concept of rebellion, exploring what it meant to be a rebel in the 1950s, the role that cinema has played in articulating rebellion, and why James Dean's archetypal depiction of a teenage rebel has endured.
• Jeanne Dielman, 23, quai du commerce, 1080 Bruxelles: Fowler draws on original footage, scripts, unmade and unseen projects, interviews and other documents to painstakingly piece together the making of the film, discovering an alternative origin story which centres upon female alliances, forged through a combination of shared film culture and lived sexism.
• Spirited Away: Andrew Osmond’s insightful study describes how Miyazaki directed Spirited Away with a degree of creative control undreamt of in most popular cinema, using the film’s delightful, freewheeling visual ideas to explore issues ranging from personal agency and responsibility to what Miyazaki sees as the lamentable state of modern Japan.

Praise for the Film Classics series

‘A formidable body of work collectively generating some fascinating insights into the evolution of cinema.’ - Times Higher Education Supplement

‘The series is a landmark in film criticism.’ - Quarterly Review of Film and Video

‘Possibly the most bountiful book series in the history of film criticism.’ - Jonathan Rosenbaum, Film Comment

The BFI is a cultural charity, a National Lottery distributor, and the UK‘s lead organisation for film and the moving image. The BFI believes society needs stories. Film, television and the moving image bring them to life, helping us to connect and understand each other better. The BFI shares the stories of yesterday, searches for the stories of today, and shapes the stories of tomorrow.

Find out more at www.bfi.org.uk

About BFI Publishing

The BFI’s publishing imprint features an unrivalled range of books for film enthusiasts, scholars, students and practitioners, written by leading scholars and critics of cinema history and culture.

Screen Studies offers digitised, searchable access to an acclaimed body of content from the BFI Publishing list, with two dedicated collections available for separate purchase.