Upon its original publication in 1962, Edward Wagenknecht's The Movies in the Age of Innocence immediately earned recognition as a classic in the history of early cinema. A tribute to American silent film from the first-person perspective of one who grew up with the medium, the volume surveys the pre-feature and feature era of silent films from a distinctly literary standpoint and considers the careers of directors like D. W. Griffith and Erich von Stroheim, and actors such as Charlie Chaplin, Mary Pickford and Lillian Gish. With nearly 90 illustrations from early films, fan magazines and brochures, indices of film titles and names, and an appendix containing Wagenknecht's otherwise unavailable 1927 pamphlet Lillian Gish: An Interpretation, this third edition retains its significance today.

This exploration of the ways in which pregnancy affects narrative begins with two canonical American texts, Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter (1848) and Harriet Jacobs's Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl (1861). Relying on such diverse works as Frankenstein, Peyton Place, Beloved, and I Love Lucy, the book chronicles how pregnancy evolves from a conventional plot device into a mature narrative form. Especially in the 20th and 21st centuries, the pregnancy narrative in fiction and film acts as a lightning rod with the power to electrify all genres of fiction and film, from early melodrama (Way Down East) to noir (Leave Her to Heaven); from horror (Rosemary's Baby) to science fiction and dystopia (Alien, The Handmaid's Tale); and from iconic (Lolita) to independent (Juno, Precious). Ultimately, the pregnancy narrative in popular film and fiction provides a remarkably clear lens by which we can gauge how popular American film and fiction express our most profound--and most private--fears, values and hopes.

Upon its original publication in 1962, Edward Wagenknecht's The Movies in the Age of Innocence immediately earned recognition as a classic in the history of early cinema. A tribute to American silent film from the first-person perspective of one who grew up with the medium, the volume surveys the pre-feature and feature era of silent films from a distinctly literary standpoint and considers the careers of directors like D. W. Griffith and Erich von Stroheim, and actors such as Charlie Chaplin, Mary Pickford and Lillian Gish. With nearly 90 illustrations from early films, fan magazines and brochures, indices of film titles and names, and an appendix containing Wagenknecht's otherwise unavailable 1927 pamphlet Lillian Gish: An Interpretation, this third edition retains its significance today.

Martin Scorsese's current position in the international film community is unrivaled, and his name has become synonymous with the highest standards of filmmaking excellence. He is widely considered America's best living film director, and his Taxi Driver and Raging Bull appear frequently on worldwide surveys of the best films of all time. Here, in the first biographical account of this artist's life, Vincent LoBrutto traces Scorsese's Italian-American heritage, his strict Catholic upbringing, the continuing role of religion in his life and art, his obsessive love of cinema history, and the powerful impact that the streets of New York City had on his personal life and his professional career. Meanwhile, the filmmaker's humble, soft-spoken public persona tells only part of the story, and LoBrutto will delve into the other side of a complex and often tortured personality. Scorsese's intense passion, his private relationships, his stormy marriages, and his battles with drugs and depression are all chronicled here, and, in many cases, for the first time. In addition, the book includes an interview with the director, as well as filmographies cataloging his work as a director, producer, actor, and presenter. As his Best Director award at the 2007 Oscars clearly demonstrated, Scorsese has become something like Hollywood royalty in recent years, finally enjoying the insider status and favor that eluded him for most of his career. But these recent developments aside, Scorsese is also notable as a distinctly American type of artist, one whose work-created in a medium largely controlled by commercialism and marketing-has always been unmistakably his own, and who thus remains a touchstone of artistic integrity in American cinema. In Martin Scorsese: A Biography, readers can examine not only the work of one of the form's genuine artists, but also the forces that have propelled the man behind it.

From his earliest shorts to his recent feature films The Departed and Shutter Island, this book offers an in-depth analysis of the deepest archetypal themes, symbols, and structures in Martin Scorsese's entire body of work. It examines each of Scorsese's films as a mythological journey through which the main character is offered an opportunity for psychological and spiritual enlightenment, focusing especially on how each character is led to recognize, accept, and embrace his or her flawed traits. The book also explores the ways in which Scorsese's films incite extreme reactions and strike deep chords within his viewers, particularly by speaking the language of the unconscious and forcing readers to examine their own hidden flaws.