THE RENAISSANCE OF PUBLISHING?
New lexicon
1001 FILM you must see before you die, 2004, English edition ed. Steven Jay Schneid
In the lexicon of films 1001 Films the editor Schneider gathered a great number of esteemed contributors who interpret works made in the period from the silent film era to latest hits by Quentin Tarantino. The analysis includes numerous classics of film art (Nosferatu, Psycho, A bout de souffle...) and popular productions of smaller artistic value. Occasionally, in some segments of the book, namely in the foreword and articles of particular too, we encounter contributors populist claims, however, the overall impression of Schneider’s concept is positive; it presents a useful introduction to film art encompassing not only fictional film, but also the classics of documentary and experimental film, as well as a selection of animated films. Focus on Anglophone films is not as obvious as we might have expected based on our previous experiences, although Croatian cinema is omitted (moreover, there are not many films from our region). Articles about films such as Lang’s M and Metropolis, Bunuel’s Golden age, Wilder’s Lost Weekend, or Hitchcock’s Blackmail and Marnie are exemplary, while others (for example, about The Birth of a Nation or The Lord of the Rings) are extremely weak. It is a pity that films in color are illustrated with black and white photographs, and vice versa, however, the main weakness of the book lays in poor editing of the translation. Some, not so unusual words were not translated (walrus, Nemesis, widescreen, voice-over...) while many other expressions have rather clumsy translations, far from the acquired norms of Croatian translation and film terminology. The general impression remains positive because such popular publications are the necessity of every culture, and if 1001 film in Croatia gets to the second edition, many of these mistakes can easily be corrected.
Nikica Giliæ |
