This book introduce the history of film as it is presently conceived, written, and taught by its most accomplished scholars. However, this book is not a distillation of everything that is known about film history.
This comprehensive survey not only acknowledges the contributions of Hollywood and films from other US sources, but broadens its scope to examine film-making internationally.
In this study, David Bordwell offers a comprehensive account of how movies use fundamental principles of narrative representation, unique features of the film medium, and diverse story-telling patterns to construct their fictional narratives.
Film is an art form with a language and an aesthetic all its own, and since 1979 David Bordwell and Kristin Thompson's Film Art has been the most repected introduction to the art and analysis of cinema. In the new seventh edition, Film Art continues its commitment to providing the best introduction to the fundamentals of serious film study - images throughout the book are collected from actual film frames, not from production stills or advertising photos - but the book has been extensively re-designed to improve readability and teachability. Additionally, the text can be packaged with the award-winning Film, Form, and Culture CD-ROM, and is supported by an extensive Instructor's Manual and text-specific website.
Film Analysis offers concise analyses of fifty diverse and historically significant films—each written exclusively for the text by a leading scholar. Written with the undergraduate in mind, the essays are clear, readable, and great models for students to follow in helping them to hone their own writing. The Second Edition includes six new essays, a new, detailed guide to writing film analysis, and an extensive, up-to-date glossary of critical film terms.
"Through McGraw-Hill Education's Create, a chapter on film adaptations, written by Jeff Smith of the University of Wisconsin, is available for instructors to better customize and personalize their film appreciation course. In addition, an appendix, "Writing a Critical Analysis of a Film," is available for instructors who require written film critiques, and "DVD Recommendations" provide particularly effective resources related to key topics"--
Bringing together twenty-five years of work on what he has called the "historical poetics of cinema," David Bordwell presents an extended analysis of a key question for film studies: how are films made, in particular historical contexts, in order to achieve certain effects? For Bordwell, films are made things, existing within historical contexts, and aim to create determinate effects. Beginning with this central thesis, Bordwell works out a full understanding of how films channel and recast cultural influences for their cinematic purposes. With more than five hundred film stills, Poetics of Cinema is a must-have for any student of cinema.