The Enchanted Screen

"Jack Zipes takes us beyond Disney and DreamWorks to the many films that draw on fairy-tale sorcery for their cinematic power. With fierce analytic energy, encyclopedic inclusiveness, and imaginative verve, he enlivens an expansive history that reaches back to Georges Melies's enchantments and ends with the complex grotesqueries of Pan's Labyrinth and Little Otik." --Maria Tatar, Harvard University "The Enchanted Screen is a labor of love and a major work of scholarship, encyclopedic in reach and rich in sustained and detailed thinking. The 'unknown history' of fairy-tale film is lucky to have found such a skilled and dedicated narrator." --Stephen Benson, University of East Anglia Norwich "Last year, Zipes (emer., Univ. of Minnesota) contributed a foreword for Fairy Tale Films: Visions of Ambiguity (CH, Mar'11, 48-3760), a delightful collection edited by Pauline Greenhill and Sidney Eve Matrix. This year, Zipes presents an extensive, well-organized study of fairy tales in the film genre. Zipes's knowledge of films from a wide variety of cultures is admirable. In the silent era, fairy tales provided filmmakers worthy material free of copyright expense. From the 1930s on, the film industry was able to put old wine into new bottles with both color and sound, a la Walt Disney and filmmakers in other parts of the world. Taking a fresh approach to major films, Zipes avoides the heavy use of jargon and instead offers clear, direct commentary on the films themselves and their oral and literary sources ... Zipes gives the reader 10 pages of endnotes, 12 pages of bibliography, 38 pages of filmography, and a thorough index--all in fine print. The influence of this book will extend for decades. Summing Up: Essential. All readers." --CHOICE, June 2011 (R. Blackwood, City Colleges of Chicago)