Alex Cox's Introduction to Film ─ A Director's Perspective

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 need answers to their questions—What lens was used? How did they do that effect? Who paid for that picture? How did they get it past the censor? Most important, Alex Cox believes that all filmmakers require serious grounding in film. You cannot be a great artist if you aren't versed in great art. And this doesn't just apply to the cinema. This book is for aspiring filmmakers, but also for students, and for people generally interested in grounding themselves in this particular art form—from a filmmaker's perspective. According to Coz, "I believe 100% that a reasonably educated and intelligent person in any country of the world should be able to have a conversation about Luis Buñuel, about Akira Kurosawa, about Stanley Kubrick, about Fellini or Bergman, and talk knowledgeably about at least one of their films. Read this book, watch the films, and you can!"

Maverick director Alex Cox has directed such acclaimed films as Repo Man, Sid & Nancy, Straight to Hell, Death and the Compass, Walker, and Searchers 2.0. He’s also the author of 10,000 Ways to Die and X Films: True Confessions of a Radical Filmmaker, and has written on film for publications including Film Comment, Guardian, Independent, and Sight and Sound.