Kamera Books imprint: 34 books

In 1983 visionary director John Cassavetes asked journalist Michael Ventura to write a unique film study—an on-set diary of the making of his film Love Streams. Cassavetes laid out his expectations. He wanted "a daring book, a tough book". In Ventura’s words, "All I had to do for...

From his hands-on filmmaking style to his writing and his composing—an indispensable guide to the ultimate cult auteur One of the most iconic directors of American cinema, John Carpenter has astonished audiences the world over with his tightly crafted horror, thriller, and science-fiction films....

The stylistic and bloody excesses of the films of Dario Argento are instantly recognizable—his films lock violent deaths in a twisted embrace with an almost sexual beauty. Narrative and logic are often lost in a constant bombardment of atmosphere, technical mastery, and provocative imagery. Setting...

A concise study of the work of the most celebrated Russian filmmaker since Eisenstein, and one of the most important directors to have emerged during the 1960s and 1970s Considering the whole of Tarkovsky's oeuvre, this book covers everything from the classic student film The Steamroller and the Violin,...

From Nanook of the North to Exit Through the Gift Shop, an overview of nonfiction film history from the early pioneers to the directors dominating the field todayAs one of the most fascinating areas of filmmaking, documentaries have broken down societal taboos, changed legislation, strengthened and...

Internationally renowned, David Lynch is America's premier purveyor of the surreal; an artist whose work in cinema and television has exposed the world to his highly personalized view of society. Examining Lynch's entire body of work—from the cult surrealism of his debut feature Eraserhead to his...

Emerging filmmakers need to know the basics of their art form: the language of the camera, and lenses, the different crew roles, the formats, the aspect ratios. They also need to know some bare-bones theory: what an auteur is, what montage is, what genres are. But, even more urgently, young filmmakers...

"40 years ago as a graduate student I wrote a book about Spaghetti Westerns, called 10,000 Ways to Die. It’s an embarrassing tome when I look at it now: full of half-assed semiotics and other attenuated academic nonsense. In the intervening period I have had the interesting experience of being...

The enormously puzzling TV series The Prisoner has developed a rapt cult following, and has often been described as "surreal" or "Kafkaesque." In I Am (Not) a Number, Cox takes an opposing view. While the series has surreal elements, he believes it provides the answers to all the...

From the very beginnings of American cinema the Western has been a central genre, as the hazardous lives of the settlers, their conflict with Native Americans, the lawless frontier towns, outlaws, and cattle rustlers all found their way into the new medium of film. This book provides a basic work...

Often subject to more cuts at the hands of the censor than a serial killer's razor, the horror film has a fascinating history, not only as film study but also as a look at what has been considered acceptable for the public to view, and what the state will allow its citizens to see. But for the most...

Directors discussed include the Coen Brothers, David Lynch, Michael Mann, Christopher Nolan, Steven Soderbergh, and Quentin Tarantino A world-weary detective, a seductive femme fatale, a mysterious murder—these elements of classic film noir live again in more recent hardboiled detective films from...

The term New Wave conjures up images of Paris in the early 1960s from the films of French filmmakers Jean-Luc Godard and François Truffaut. The impact of the French New Wave continues to be felt, and its ethos of shooting in real places with nonprofessional actors and small crews would influence...

From Last Tango in Paris to American Pie to Brokeback Mountain—a look at more than 100 erotic films, with in-depth analysis and fascinating behind-the-scenes anecdotesThe first book to look at truly contemporary erotic cinema, this publication gives in-depth analyses of sex scenes from more than 100...