For followers of the Movie-verse, Charles Barr has a new book. Titled The Call of the Heart: John M. Stahl and Hollywood Melodrama, it is co-edited by Bruce Babington (John Libbey Publishing, 250 pages, ISBN 9.7808.6196736.0). The book is enthusiastically reviewed by David Cairns in the current January-February issue of Sight and Sound. Incidentally, a double issue bodes ill. Has the magazine gone bi-monthly?
Also, Murray Pomerance has no less than two new books coming early in the new year. An academic sociologist associated with Ryerson in Canada, Professor Pomerance has made movies a major area of contemplation, and is one of the best of the “Third Wave” of movie scholars after the Movie years. Others include Robert Ray, Jon Lewis, Thomas Doherty, Gaylyn Studlar, Deborah Thomas, James Naremore, Ed Gallafent, Susan Smith, among so many others.
Professor Pomerance’s two new books includes Cinema, If You Please: The Memory of Taste, the Taste of Memory, due out on 31 December, 2018 (Edinburgh University Press, 192 pages, ISBN 9.78147.442868.2), and covers such films and favorite filmmakers as Vertigo, Antonioni’s The Passenger and Blow-Up, Powell and Pressburger’s A Matter of Life and Death, Assayas’s Clouds of Sils Maria and Personal Shopper (perhaps an analysis of Kristin Stewart?), and Call Me By Your Name.
Following fast behind in early January is A Dream of Hitchcock (State University of New York Press, 274 pages, ISBN-13: 978.1.4384.7207.2), with thoughts on Strangers on a Train, Rebecca, Saboteur, Rear Window, To Catch a Thief, and Family Plot.
He’s a prolific writer and editor. From Edinburgh University Press alone he also has books on Cukor, Hamlet in Hollywood, and the two-volume actor anthology Close-Ups. And coming shortly is an anthology on Michael Curtiz, which might go along nicely with Michael Curtiz: A Life in Film, Alan K. Rode’s recent biography of the director from the Press of the University of Kentucky (I’m currently about a third into Mr. Rode’s book).
For a survey of his many titles, one can look at his Wikipedia page or the Ryerson profile. What you don’t want to view if you like Professor Pomerance's written work is his Yelp-like reviews at Rate My Professor https://www.ratemyprofessors.com/ShowRatings.jsp?tid=33825
https://ryerson.academia.edu/MurrayPomerance
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