Books of My Life: Reclams Filmführer

Reclams Filmführer Dieter Krusche/Jürgen Labenski Stuttgart: Philipp Reclam jun., 2nd ed. 1973 

 

I've always loved movies, to this day cinema has been an essential part of my life. Even as a kid I'd study the movie section of the TV Guide and mark the ones I wanted to see, mostly monster movies and science fiction, of course, but a lot of classics as well. I just wasn't aware that they were classics then. I'm still searching for a few titles I saw as a kid, but can't figure out what they were. And my dad took me to the movies a lot, 2001: A Space Odyssey in 1968 was a very memorable experience. (My theory is that you should show that movie to kids, they can appreciate it much better). It was only later - having moved to Germany in the mean time - that I realized that movies were something that could be called art. The Godfather, Part 2 in 1974 kind of blew my mind, I became seriously interested in 'studying' movies. This means that I started reading reviews and books on cinema and systematically chose what I wanted to see. I'm still doing that even today... The Reclams Filmführer might have been the first book on cinema that I bought, and I've read it dozens of times and used it for work many times since. Basically it is a dictionary of the most important movies in cinema history. It is subdivided in a section for the silent era and one for movies with sound, but includes a large section presenting the most important directors, what their work meant for cinema history and a list of their essential films (unfortunately incomplete). The new editions have no subsections aynmore, and the directors part was deleted, but published separately as a book. By and by I worked on seeing every title in the book (which I still haven't managed yet). When I was older and joined the local film club and its cinema I used this book as a source to organize retrospectives. Each movie is introduced with short credits, a full synopsis and an appreciation why this specific work has any relevance within cinema history. This information proved to be important, if I wanted to have a title on our program, and it gave me the elements with which I could argue. Naturally the selection is biased by the author's preferences, and Hollywood pics are lined up in equal measure with world cinema. Even though it's supposed to include the main works of cinema, some IMHO are missing and there are quite a few obscure titles listed, often barely known. I'm still urging to see Vilgot Sjöman's 491, the description was quite shocking to me in the mid 70s. Neverthless, this single book introduced me to cinema as art and to the names of all the great directors. In a few years after buying the book I had managed to see the major works of Pier-Paolo Pasolini, Ingmar Bergman, Roberto Rossellini, Federico Fellini, Andrej Tarkovsky, etc., and re-introduced to the more important Hollywood directors. I also have a more recent updated edition of this book, but my old one is still dear to me. 

Werner Herzog's Auch Zwerge haben klein angefangen (1969) 

Pier-Paolo Pasolini's Teorema (1968) 

 

Luis Bunuel's La vida criminal de Archibaldo de la Cruz (1955) 

 

A page from my edition (director's section)