I thought that readers of Screen-L might be interested in these books from MIT Press. I've included links where more information can be found on each book. Thanks! David The Cinema Effect Sean Cubitt http://mitpress.mit.edu/promotions/books/SP20040262033127 It has been said that all cinema is a special effect. In this highly original examination of time in film Sean Cubitt tries to get at the root of the uncanny effect produced by images and sounds that don't quite align with reality. What is it that cinema does? Cubitt proposes a history of images in motion from a digital perspective, for a digital audience. He begins with a discussion of "pioneer cinema," focusing on the contributions of French cinematic pioneers in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. He then examines the sound cinema of the 1930s, examining film effects in works by Eisenstein, Jean Renoir, and Hollywood's RKO studio. Finally he considers what he calls "post cinema," examining the postwar development of the "spatialization" of time through slow motion, freeze-frame, and steadi-cam techniques. Students of film will find Cubitt's analyses of non-canonical films like Sam Peckinpah's Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid as enlightening as his fresh takes on such classics as Renoir's Rules of the Game. Sean Cubitt is Professor of Screen and Media Studies at the University of Waikato, New Zealand. 7 x 9, 464 pp., 48 illus., cloth, ISBN 0-262-03312-7 Future Cinema The Cinematic Imaginary After Film edited by Jeffrey Shaw and Peter Weibel http://mitpress.mit.edu/promotions/books/FL20030262692864 This book, which accompanies an exhibition organized by the ZKM Institute for Visual Media, explores the history and significance of pre-cinema and of early experimental cinema, as well as the development of the unique theaters in which "immersion" evolved. Drawing on a broad range of scholarship, it examines the shift from monolithic Hollywood spectacles to works probing the possibilities of interactive, performative, and net-based cinemas. The post-cinematic condition, the book shows, has long roots in artistic practice and influences every channel of communication. Jeffrey Shaw is Director of the Institute for Visual Media at the ZKM Center for Art and Media, Karlsruhe. Peter Weibel is CEO of the ZKM and the coauthor of net_condition (MIT Press, 2001). 8 x 11, 600 pp., 1000 illus., color throughout, paper, ISBN 0-262-69286-4 Electronic Culture series David Weininger Associate Publicist MIT Press 5 Cambridge Center, 4th Floor Cambridge, MA 02142 617.253.2079 617.253.1709 fax [log in to unmask] ---- Screen-L is sponsored by the Telecommunication & Film Dept., the University of Alabama: http://www.tcf.ua.edu