[Deep Focus]
THE FILM ENCYCLOPEDIA
By Ephraim Katz
HarperPerennial
ISBN 0-06-273089-4
Paperback

GRADE: A

In many cases, Leonard Maltin's Movie and Video Guide is the genesis of a film reference collection. I won't quibble with that.

But if you're thinking "library," let your second purchase be the 1994 edition of Ephraim Katz's The Film Encyclopedia. It's a general reference tome, to be sure, and its entries on individual artists are often unbearably brief. But for a broad-based guide to the history of film so far, you're not likely to find more bang for your buck than what waits for you within these 1,496 pages.

The more than 7,000 entries are mostly the names of film directors, producers, actors, composers, and other creative personnel. Those biographical notes are peppered with film terminology (know what a cinemobile is? how about a cinex strip?), the names of studios and related companies (Dolby Laboratories, Industrial Light and Magic), and even mini-essays on the output of specific countries. The entry on United States, for example, is a 15-page whirlwind tour of film history according to Hollywood. And while you could argue that particular task is best left up to authors who can fill an entire book with a study of the Hollywood studio system then and now, it's awfully nice to have the Cliff's Notes version here in one place.

When I bought the first edition of The Film Encyclopedia (I was in high school), I dipped into it a little here, a little there, reading about the few filmmakers whose names I recognized. By the time the second edition was released, I was starting to nudge the boundaries of the original work -- where's Maya Deren? where's Tom Savini? -- and snapped up the new book at my first opportunity. (Deren is here. Savini, alas, is not.)

It's daunting to think that this whole book was the work of just one man (anyone who's impressed by the size of Maltin's annual book should be floored by the erudition on display here), and indeed Katz was finally daunted by the task -- he died in 1992, three-quarters of the way through this mammoth revision. But a pair of able researchers were able to finish the job, and the result is a truly invaluable text. It's tempting to quibble with some of the glib opinions that pop up on a few pages, or with the few conspicuous omissions, but Katz's only real competition in the overwhelming resource department is Leslie Halliwell, whose guides to film have seemed a little, well, prissy to these eyes. What's that, you say? Ah, yes. Use the Internet Movie Database, by all means. But use this, too.


A completely subjective archive
DEEP FOCUS: Movie Reviews by Bryant Frazer
http://www.deep-focus.com/flicker/
bryant@deep-focus.com