THOMSON, DAVID
n his first fully illustrated work, David Thomson breaks new ground by focusing in on a series of momentswhich his readers will also experience in beautifully reproduced imageryfrom seventy-two films across a 100-year-plus span. An indispensable counterpart to both his classic Biographical Dictionary of Film (called a miracle by Sight and Sound) and his lauded recent history, The Big Screen (a pungently written, brilliant book according to David Denby), Moments takes readers on an unprecedented visual tour, where the specifics of the imagery the reader is seeing are inextricably tied to the text. Thomsons moments range from a set of Eadweard Muybridges pioneering photographs to sequences in films from the classicCitizen Kane, Sunset Boulevard, The Red Shoesto the unexpectedThe Piano Teacher, Burn After Reading.
The excitement of Momentss dynamic visuals will be matched only by the discussion it incites in film circles, as readers revisit their own list of memorable moments and then re-experience the filmsboth those included on Thomson's list and from their own lifeas never before. Moments That Made the Movies will undoubtedly reaffirm Thomson's place asaccording to John Banvillethe greatest living writer on the movies.
