THE CLASSICAL HOLLYWOOD CINEMA

Film Style and Mode of Production to 1960

by David Bordwell, Janet Staiger and Kristin Thompson

652 pp. Routledge. (1985)

Dargis said this book is “essential for any movie lover,” “at once a history of classical Hollywood and, as the authors put it, ‘an attempt to articulate a theoretical approach to film history.’”

BRIGHT BOULEVARDS, BOLD DREAMS

The Story of Black Hollywood

by Donald Bogle

432 pp. One World/ Ballantine. (2005)

In this book, said Dargis, Bogle “charts the underknown, essential, often fascinating, at times heartbreaking story of the African-Americans who helped build the movie industry (and keep it running) both in front of the camera and behind it.”