Paper dreams

Film stills are a blind spot in the history of twentieth-century photography. Largely collected and appreciated simply for their documentary value, only recently have private and public collectors started to discover their seductive and original artistic qualities. In the 1920s and 1930s, during Hollywood's golden age, film-still photography reached an unmatched level of technical sophistication and mastery and developed an aesthetic style of its own. This book assembles a selection of vintage film stills from the Hollywood of that glamorous era--masterpieces from a large collection of film photography. Reproducing them in their original format and in high-quality tritone printing, the book conveys the unique creative and narrative qualities of these pictures from a forgotten chapter of black-and-white photography.