BFI Film Classics

The Godfather Part II

Jon Lewis, Oregon State University, USA Jon Lewis's study of Coppola's masterpiece provides a close analysis of the film and a discussion of its cinematic and political contexts. It is structured in three sections: “The Sequel,” “The Dissolve,” and “The Sicilian Thing” – accommodating three avenues of inquiry, respectively: the film’s importance in and to Hollywood history, its unique, auteur style and form; and its cultural significance. Of interest, then, is New Hollywood history, mise-en-scene, and a view of the Corleone saga as a cautionary capitalist parable, as a metaphor of the corruption of American power, post-Vietnam, post-Watergate.

UK October 2022 • US October 2022 • 104 pages • 50 colour illus PB 9781839023262 • £11.99 / $15.95 ePub 9781839023286 • £10.79 / $15.10 ePdf 9781839023279 • £10.79 / $15.10 Series: BFI Film Classics • British Film Institute

From Russia With Love

Llewella Chapman, University of East Anglia, UK Llewella Chapman's study of From Russia With Love (1963) pinpoints its place within the James Bond film franchise, as the second film to feature Sean Connery in the 007 role. Drawing on a broad range of archival sources, Chapman explores the film's political, social and cultural significance at the time of its release, its place within the genre of spy films and British cinema, and its lasting impact on later films. In doing so, she asserts the film's lasting cultural legacy, not only as a series film, but also as a stand-alone film in its own right.

UK October 2022 • US October 2022 • 112 pages • 60 colour illus PB 9781839024535 • £11.99 / $15.95 ePub 9781839024542 • £10.79 / $15.10 ePdf 9781839024559 • £10.79 / $15.10 Series: BFI Film Classics • British Film Institute

Tokyo Story

Alastair Phillips, University of Warwick, UK The first single-authored study of Yasujiro Ozu’s moving family drama, Tokyo Story (1953), universally acknowledged as one of the most significant Japanese films ever made, and regularly cited as one of the greatest films of all time in polls of world-leading critics and filmmakers. Alastair Phillips combines a close analysis of the film and its key locations - the city of Tokyo, the coastal resort of Otami and the train station at Osaka - with a discussion of its representation of Japanese society at a time of great change.

UK November 2022 • US November 2022 • 96 pages • 60 bw illus PB 9781911239239 • £11.99 / $15.95 ePub 9781911239246 • £10.79 / $15.10 ePdf 9781911239253 • £10.79 / $15.10 Series: BFI Film Classics • British Film Institute

Withnail and I

Kevin Jackson, late writer, broadcaster and filmmaker Kevin Jackson's in-depth study gives a full account of Withnail and I's origins and production history. But his main focus is the mood and magic of the film, its aesthetics and sensibility, seeking to show, without ever detracting from the film's comic brilliance, just how much more there is to Withnail than drunkenness and swearing. In his new foreword to this edition, the writer Nicholas Lezard pays his own tribute to both Withnail's peculiar genius and enduring appeal and to his close friend Kevin Jackson.

UK November 2022 • US November 2022 • 104 pages • 60 colour illus PB 9781839025457 • £11.99 / $15.95 ePub 9781839025464 • £10.79 / $15.10 ePdf 9781839025471 • £10.79 / $15.10 Series: BFI Film Classics • British Film Institute

Picnic at Hanging Rock

Anna Backman Rogers, University of Gothenburg, Sweden Peter Weir's haunting and allusive Picnic at Hanging Rock (1975), is widely hailed as a classic of new Australian cinema, seen as exemplary of a peculiarly Australian style of heritage filmmaking. Anna Backman Rogers considers Picnic from feminist, psychoanalytic and decolonialising perspectives, exploring its setting in a colonised bushland in which the Aboriginal people are a spectral presence in a landscape stolen from them in pursuit of the white man's 'terra nullius'. She delves into the film's production history, addressing director Weir's influences and preoccupations at the time of its making, its reception and its lasting impact on visual culture more broadly.

UK October 2022 • US October 2022 • 104 pages • 50 colour illus PB 9781839023354 • £11.99 / $15.95 ePub 9781839023361 • £10.79 / $15.10 ePdf 9781839023378 • £10.79 / $15.10 Series: BFI Film Classics • British Film Institute

Y Tu Mamá También

Paul Julian Smith, University of Cambridge, UK Paul Julian Smith's study of Alfonso Cuarón's sensual 2001 road movie argues that Y Tu Mamá También not only addresses major issues of gender, race, class, and space, but that the film’s apparently casual aesthetic masks a sophisticated audiovisual style. Combining production and distribution history, based on unexplored material held in Mexico City archives, with close textual analysis, Smith makes an argument for Cuarón’s film as an enduring masterpiece that hides in plain sight as an ephemeral teen movie.

UK September 2022 • US September 2022 • 104 pages • 60 colour illus PB 9781839025204 • £11.99 / $15.95 ePub 9781839025211 • £10.79 / $15.10 ePdf 9781839025228 • £10.79 / $15.10 Series: BFI Film Classics • British Film Institute

The Lives of Others

(Das Leben der Anderen)

Annie Ring, University of Cambridge, UK Annie Ring's study offers a fresh approach to the remarkable German film The Lives of Others (2006), known for its compelling representation of a Stasi surveillance officer and the moral and ethical turmoil that results when he is ordered to spy on a playwright and his actress lover. Ring explores the film’s formal and aesthetic qualities, sets it in its historical and intertextual contexts, and evaluates the heated politics surrounding its reception.

UK October 2022 • US October 2022 • 104 pages • 50 colour illus PB 9781839025303 • £11.99 / $15.95 ePub 9781839025310 • £10.79 / $15.10 ePdf 9781839025327 • £10.79 / $15.10 Series: BFI Film Classics • British Film Institute