The Oscar Project
In my second monthly installment of the film book spotlight, I am highlighting a book I just got last month that is a great addition to any cinephile's library.
Cinemaps: An Atlas of 35 Great Movies
This month I am highlighting the 2017 book Cinemaps: An Atlas of 35 Great Movies by Andrew DeGraff and A.D. Jameson. I picked this book up with a gift card I received for my birthday last month (thanks to my brother for that!) and absolutely love this book.
The concept of the book is simple. The maps of each film plot the main action that occurs throughout the film (or films in the case of the Lord of the Rings trilogy). Each character (or in some cases vehicle) is represented by a different colored line on the map and you can see where different characters' lines intersect and sometimes even travel together. The maps themselves are not drawn to any real scale and often bring together parts of the films that are not geographically close, in the interest of fitting the entire map on one page. The perfect example of this comes early in the book with King Kong (the original 1933 version). Kong's map features an enormous Skull Island in the foreground, dominating and dwarfing the island of Manhattan that fills the rest of the map, and showing the relative importance of Kong's home in the film. My favorite thing about some of these maps is how creatively they address some oddities in the films they capture. The map for The Wizard of Oz features a dull brown corner which covers Dorothy's home in Kansas while most of the rest of the map is in the vibrant colors that make up Oz. The Alien map is one of the simplest in that 90% of the action of the film is contained within the Nostromo. Two of my favorites are for The Breakfast Club and Back to the Future. In the former, all the action takes place in the Shermer High School, but there are so many little nuances that are captured in the map, it's fun to find the little details. From all five detentionees (is that a word?) running the halls trying to stay away from Principal Vernon to Bender's famous exit across the football field, each little piece of the film is there. When it comes to another 1980s favorite, Back to the Future, there is the added complexity of time travel. The film takes place in the same town, but it could be two completely different locales for how different they look. The art here is handled well by creating two separate maps, one for 1985 and one for 1955, connected by Marty's travel from one to the other. This is also once instance where an inanimate object (the Delorean) get a separate line. Again, subtle details make all the difference here from the time (1:19) displayed on the Twin Pines Mall sign to Biff's car sideways against the manure truck in 1955. My one and only criticism of this book is that some of the maps are so detailed that it's hard to fully see all the hidden gems they contain while some of the line colors blend together and make it a little tough to figure out who's who. This is a small complaint, but one I hope will be remedied if and when the authors create another volume
If you missed last month's book post, check out my article on Best. Movie. Year. Ever.: How 1999 Blew Up the Big Screen and grab your copy today!
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AuthorI'm just a film buff who wants to watch great movies. Where else to find the best, than the list of those nominated by the Academy each year? Archives
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