Note: Some of these items may also be listed under other resource categories.
 

Little Nemo 1905-1914
(Hardcover)
by Winsor McCay

Most books take a year or more to produce so that the author can present a distillation of the best offerings. This book took ten years of constant work by one of history's greatest comic artists. Winsor McCay's talent for pageantry and grandeur, his taste (notwithstanding racial stereotypes) and style in architecture, costumes and composition, his stunning draftsmanship... it's all here in one book of glorious imagery. And for forty bucks! I spent $120 on this same collection in six volumes previous to this printing. I've spent countless hours poring over the pages and drinking in the wonders, and I feel like I've just begun. If it goes out of print, it's one of the first books I'll go for in a fire. —mv

Little Nemo in Slumberland — So Many Splendid Sundays
(Hardcover)
by Winsor McCay & Peter Maresca

This book reprints LITTLE NEMO IN SLUMBERLAND pages at the size they appeared in newspapers, before movies became popular, and before color movies existed for the public. They are splendid in this large format, but the book is not cheap. And it's certainly not complete. So if you're trying to save money, go for the Dover "Palace of Ice" edition. And if you want to read them all in the order they appeared, go for the 1905-1914 edition. But if you can afford it, this is the big window into McCay's world. —mv

Little Nemo in the Palace of Ice and Further Adventures
(Paperback)
by Winsor McCay

This cheap version of Little Nemo Adventures may not compare to the big 1905-1914 collection, or the Really Big SPLENDID SUNDAYS edition, but it was the first collection I had, and it got me hooked, and it's well-enough reproduced to be worth the $10 or so that it costs on Amazon. So if you're skeptical, start here.—mv

Visions of Light: The Art of Cinematography (1993)
(DVD)
Director: Todd McCarthy 

These interviews with cinematographers were just before the digital revolution, so they focus on the priority of the image. Not how it's made, but how it looks. And why. It's 90 minutes of photographer's wisdom, and it's filled with probably a hundred clips and shots from movies throughout the 20th century. Seeing so many different styles and visual moods paraded end-to-end it shatters any presumption we've had that the world really looks like what we see on film. Artists design pictures for emotion. This film gives insight into how cinematographers choose subjects and lenses and light to evoke emotion. —mv

Koyaanisqatsi — Life Out of Balance (1982)
(DVD)
Director: Godfrey Reggio 

Einstein supposedly read FLATLAND every year to expand his mind. If he had lived beyond 1982, he might have watched Koyaanisqatsi every year. It's about the same price as an acid trip, but safer, and it can be re-used. It has no dialogue and no overt story. It's simply music and imagery. And it's intense. But contrary to the objection that it's an "art-house" film or an "intellectual's film" or that it's only for filmmakers and musicians, it was the first film that my two-year old son sat all the way through, riveted and utterly involved. And why not? It works on the primitive level of a two-year old. Waves, water, clouds at high speed, explosions, slow-motion humans, fast-motion cars, time-lapse shots of weather over cities... it opens your mind to the rhythms and patterns of life like nothing I've seen, and I've seen it about 27 times since 1983.

But here's my warning. If you watch this movie casually, you won't like it. It wants complete attention. And it takes patience. The first half-hour is slow, but it's foreplay. It pays off for those who relax and submit. It's at the top of my list of movies to expand the mind. —mv

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