Olaf Möller mit Filmbuchkolumne

In der neuen Online-Ausgabe von Cinema-Scope kündigt Olaf Möller - dessen Bemühungen um eine vitale, abenteuerlustige Filmkultur nicht genügend zu preisen sind - eine Filmbuch-Kolumne an. Ist ja ohnehin ein Berich, der viel zu halbherzig angegangen wird. Und Möller wäre nicht Möller, wenn er nicht auch hier wieder mit voller Lust in die Vollen greifen würde. Seine Ankündigung liest sich jedenfalls schon wieder aufregend genug, dass sie hier in voller Länge präsentiert werden soll:

A few months ago I proposed the idea of a regular column on film books, with one condition: I didn’t want any limits regarding the languages in which the books were written. I read around a dozen languages—admittedly, some less fluent than others—occasionally I like to put that to some use. In my hometown’s (Köln) finest foreign-language bookshop (called “Books Around”) I help out in times of consumerist frenzies, and consult whenever customers ask for some really obscure stuff (“I go to Tuva and I’m looking for a Tuvinian novel in English…”). I also travel around covering or working for film festivals, so over the years I’ve got a pretty decent idea about what’s out there, film books-wise. Just one example: Most people probably wouldn’t guess that Italy is the home of one of the biggest film-book cultures in the world. They even publish books on their third-tier directors (I’ve got auteur studies of Italian crossing guards like Mario Mattoli).

So, the point of this column is: There are a lot of interesting books published in many different languages, and, thanks to the internet, it’s by now pretty easy to get them. And if you don’t know the languages, that’s your problem. A certain polyglotism is pretty ordinary for me, as it is for a huge amount of people in this world—so consider this column also a reminder of the diversity and richness of our lives. All that being said, most of the books reviewed here will probably be in English, French, or Italian— but be prepared to suddenly stumble over a book in Spanish, Swedish, or Japanese: You might not be able to read it, but somebody else will, so you’ll have to leave some fun for the others.

There’s one more thing: I’m not one of the hit-the-shops-just-yesterday guys. I’m more interested in contexts, therefore I’ll usually try to package the books—which in some cases may already be (gasp!) a year old—according to some subject which, again, could be a country (like in this column) or a publishing house (the French publishing house Éditions Léo Scheer is just begging for an appraisal) or, why not, a language. A future column might be devoted solely to Italian publications— say, a round-up of 2003-4 publications—as I’m going to do some serious film-book shopping when I’m in Italy in the final weeks of June.

Gut. Und jetzt klicken Sie bitte kurz weiter, um selbst zu erkunden, was er zum Thema "Bücher zum japanischen Kino" alles zu sagen hat.