A Sudden Flicker of Light - David Thomson (hardback)

'A Sudden Flicker of Light: A Revisionist History of The Movies' by David Thomson (Allen Lane 368-page Hardback) 

The always interesting and engaging critic returns with a personal assessment of cinema's history. Every flicker of light has its shadow. Thomson  shows us how cinema has entranced and transported us, but also profoundly changed us.

From the earliest days of the first picture shows to the screens of today, Thomson glories in the great movies. Sharp, arresting readings of films from Metropolis to Rear Window, The Godfather to Anora can be found in these pages. Yet there is unease, too, at how cinema suckered us into a fantasy neverland that only looks like life. Hungry for spectacle and happy endings, submitting to voyeurism and villainy, we have let films change the way we experience reality; a habit of passivity that may have even betrayed our culture and our politics.