Science Fiction
About two thirds through The Spacesuit Film and I’m oddly enjoying how much of it is history and criticism, not just “here are films with spacesuits in them.”
That sounds like a small distinction, but it isn’t. The novelty hook gets you in the door. The actual book is doing the better job of mapping how space travel on screen has changed over time, and why certain films bother with the suit at all. Much more useful than a simple list would be.
It’s the kind of book I’d put in front of anyone who likes film history that doesn’t pat itself on the back too hard.
That sounds like a small distinction, but it isn’t. The novelty hook gets you in the door. The actual book is doing the better job of mapping how space travel on screen has changed over time, and why certain films bother with the suit at all. Much more useful than a simple list would be.
It’s the kind of book I’d put in front of anyone who likes film history that doesn’t pat itself on the back too hard.
That sort of book lives or dies on whether the criticism earns the title. A simple checklist of spacesuits would be dead on arrival after ten pages. The more interesting question is whether the suit is treated as costume, technology, or a story problem. That’s usually where film history gets useful, and where it stops being a museum label.
That’s the part that makes it sound worth reading. A straight list of films with spacesuits would be trivia with better packaging.
The history and criticism angle is where these things usually get interesting, especially if it’s paying attention to why filmmakers choose realism in one era and ignore it in another. That shift says more about the period than the suit does.
The history and criticism angle is where these things usually get interesting, especially if it’s paying attention to why filmmakers choose realism in one era and ignore it in another. That shift says more about the period than the suit does.