Sudden Flicker of Light

About the book

From cinema's most distinguished and 'The best writer on film in our time' (Michael Ondaatje) comes a masterful assessment of the whole sweep of movie history

'The movies traded on the liberation of secret desires-drive that car as fast as you can; turn your humble abode into a palace; conquer all the mean spirits in the world; be as free and winsome as the Tramp yet as rich as Charlie ... Every lowlife can be a Corleone.'

Every flicker of light has its shadow. In this masterful reassessment of the whole arc of movie history, David Thomson, film's wisest and most penetrating critic, 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...