Film Art
0072975687 7 ed.
Film is an art form with a language and an aesthetic all its own. Since 1979, David Bordwell's and Kristin Thompson's Film Art has been the most respected introduction to the analysis of cinema. While continuing to provide the best introduction to the fundamentals of serious film study, the seventh edition has been extensively re-designed in full color greatly enhancing the text's visual appeal and overall accessibility to today's students. Throughout the text, all images presented are frame enlargements as opposed to production stills or advertising photos. Supported by a text-specific CD-ROM with video clips, an Instructor's Manual, and text-specific website, Film Art can also be packaged with the award-winning Film, Form, and Culture CD-ROM.
... "Film Art" is divided into five main sections: (I) Types of Filmmaking, Types of Films" covers how films are produced and the basic types/genres of films. (II) "Film Form" examines both narrative and nonnarrative formal systems in film, using "Citizen Kane" as a case study for narrative form. (III) "Film Style" is the main section of the textbook, dealing with the shot in terms of both mise-en-scene and cinematography, how editing relates shot to shot, and the function of sound. This section concludes with an analysis of film style in five diverse films. (IV) "Critical Analysis of Film" provides four distinct critical frames of reference and analysis of various films: Classical Narrative Cinema in "His Girl Friday," "North by Northwest" and "Do The Right Thing"; Narrative Alternatives to Classical Filmmaking in "Breathless" and "Tokyo Story"; Documentary Form in "High School" and "Man with a Movie Camera"; and From, Style and Ideology in "Meet Me in St. Louis" and "Raging Bull" (and if that last combination does not give you an indication of the breadth of the examples used by Bordwell and Thompson, nothing will). The textbook concludes with a bibliography, glossary and list of helpful websites.
There are two major strengths to this textbook. First, its complete coverage of cinematic concepts. I think that everyone learns how to "read" a film, but the vast majority of people would not know that the baptism sequence in "The Godfather" is a prime example of "American montage." You read this textbook and you will become aware of things you already understood on a more abstract level. Additionally, they do not stop at first or second level terms, but get into the absolute nuts and bolts of cinema. Second, the use of specific examples from numerous films to demonstrate these concepts. Unless you have a film textbook that has a CD-Rom with miniature film clips, you cannot find one superior to what Bordwell and Thompson offer up here. Furthermore, their use of examples clearly demonstrates their formidable knowledge of the field. The only downside to using this textbook in your film class is that you might have a problem convincing your students you know half as much as this pair."
... System of my madness:
First, it's not just me. Film is a new and very strange language. According to Monaco (textbook), a language without grammar!
Bookmark FILM-NORTH
Connect the textbook with the films we watch in class (segments) + 3 parts in film directory: movies, film, theory.
Feb. 10: Nostalgia, Hamlet, Man with the Camera
Summary
Review Part I (bring "Amadeus" in class?)Language of pix and visual narrative. The syntax of film -- its systematic arrangement -- orders of these rules and indicates relationships among them. (172)
Questions
What do we call "exposition"? What do we need to establish during the exposition? Hamlet and Chaplin examples.Genre and style (use semio pages).
Homework
Must submit 200 words on Hamlet and Chaplin.First Test in Part I subdirectory.
Notes
"Film is what you can't imagine." How do you understand this statement?Most of the time I have to spend on Part 3 and 4 in the textbook (2005)!
Film Analysis: A Norton Reader
Jeffrey Geiger, University of Essex (Ed.)
R. L. Rutsky, San Francisco State University (Ed.)
0-393-97983-0 • paper • 750 pages • 2005
Film Analysis: A Norton Reader offers concise analyses—each written exclusively for this text by a leading scholar—of forty-four diverse, historically significant films. Written with undergraduate readers in mind, these essays cover the central issues raised in today’s cinema courses and provide students with practical models to help them improve their own writing and film-analysis skills. Film Analysis also includes a helpful introduction and an extensive glossary.
Film Analysis Visual Style
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2007 : Film Art
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