Film Art: An Introduction w/ Film Viewer's Guide and Tutorial CD-ROM - David Bordwell,Kristin Thompson

About the book

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.

Key features

4-color printing throughout the text-a first for this course.

A text-specific tutorial CD-ROM will help clarify and reinforce specific concepts addressed in the text with the use of film clips (1-2 per chapter), a corresponding commentary for each film clip, and a quiz for students to take to test their understanding of the material. Available in time for January classes, this CD-ROM will be packaged FREE with all new copies of Film Art, 7/e.

New ?Cut-In? boxes that take a closer look at issues of importance in contemporary cinema. For example, computer generated imagery (CGI) is addressed in a discussion of The Lord of the Rings.

A new sample analysis of ChungKing Express

An entirely new section on Hong Kong cinema

Frame enlargements used instead of "production stills." All film images presented in the text are frame enlargements-magnified photographs taken from images on the actual strip of film. This enables students to view images that directly correspond to images in the finished films.

Notes and Queries Section: At the end of most chapters, this section attempts to raise issues and provoke discussion. It also suggests further reading and research, acting as a bibliographic source for specific issues in the chapter.

The McGraw-Hill Film Viewer?s Guide (a booklet with important tips on film viewing and analysis) is packaged free with new copies of the text

Whole film study. Bordwell and Thompson emphasize the study of complete films, rather than excerpts, with an approach that examines how a film is created, how an entire film functions, and how the art of film has developed through time.

Skills-centered approach. The authors strive to help students develop a core set of analytical skills that will deepen their understanding of any film, in any genre.

The unique Film, Form, and Culture CD-ROM now available at a discount when packaged with Film Art

Bibliography, Glossary, and Internet Sites: A list of the most basic and current introductions to the main periods and movements in film history is provided to accompany Chapter 12. A glossary of terms can be found at the end of the book as well as a list of many of the best Internet sites related to cinema.

About the author

Kristin Thompson
Kristin Thompson is an Honorary Fellow at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. She holds a master?s degree in film from the University of Iowa and a doctorate in film from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. She has published Eisenstein's Ivan the Terrible: A Neoformalist Analysis (Princeton University Press, 1981), Exporting Entertainment: America in the World Film Market 1907-1934 (British Film Institute, 1985), Breaking the Glass Armor: Neoformalist Film Analysis (Princeton University Press, 1988), Wooster Proposes, Jeeves Disposes, or, Le Mot Juste (James H. Heineman, 1992), Storytelling in the New Hollywood: Understanding Classical Narrative Technique (Harvard University Press, 1999), Storytelling in Film and Television (Harvard University Press, 2003), Herr Lubitsch Goes to Hollywood: German and American Film after World War I (Amsterdam University Press, 2005), and The Frodo Franchise: The Lord of the Rings and Modern Hollywood (University of California Press, 2007). She blogs with David at www.davidbordwell.net/blog. She maintains her own blog, "The Frodo Franchise," at www.kristinthompson.net/blog. In her spare time she studies Egyptology.

David Bordwell
David Bordwell is Jacques Ledoux Professor Emeritus of Film Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He holds a master's degree and a doctorate in film from the University of Iowa. His books include The Films of Carl Theodor Dreyer (University of California Press, 1981), Narration in the Fiction Film (University of Wisconsin Press, 1985), Ozu and the Poetics of Cinema (Princeton University Press, 1988), Making Meaning: Inference and Rhetoric in the Interpretation of Cinema (Harvard University Press, 1989), The Cinema of Eisenstein (Harvard University Press, 1993), On the History of Film Style (Harvard University Press, 1997), Planet Hong Kong: Popular Cinema and the Art of Entertainment (Harvard University Press, 2000), Figures Traced in Light: On Cinematic Staging (University of California Press, 2005), The Way Hollywood Tells It: Story and Style in Modern Movies (University of California Press, 2006), and The Poetics of Cinema (Routledge, 2008). He has won a University Distinguished Teaching Award and was awarded an honorary degree by the University of Copenhagen. His we site is www.davidbordwell.net.

Table of contents

Part One: Film Production, Distribution, and Exhibition
Chapter One ? Film Production, Distribution, and Exhibition
Mechanics of the Movies
Bringing the Film to the Spectator
Independent Production and Mainstream Hollywood: The Case of Good Machine
Making the Movie: Film Production
Modes of Production
Notes and Queries
Part Two: Film Form
Chapter Two ? The Significance of Film Form
The Concept of Form in Film
Principles of Film Form
Summary
Notes and Queries
Chapter Three ? Narrative as a Formal System
Principles of Narrative Construction
Playing Games with Story Time
Narration: The Flow of Story Information
The Classical Hollywood Cinema
Narrative Form in Citizen Kane
Summary
Notes and Queries
Part Three: Types of Films
Chapter Four ? Film Genres
Understanding Genre
Three Genres
A Contemporary Genre: The Crime Thriller
Summary
Notes and Queries
Chapter Five ? Documentary, Experimental, and Animated Films
Documentary
Experimental Film
The Animated Film
Summary
Notes and Queries
Part Four: Film Style
Chapter Six ? The Shot: Mise-en-Scene
What is Mise-en-Scene
Realism
The Film Actor?s Tool Kit
The Power of Mise-en-Scene
Aspects of Mise-en-Scene
Putting It All Together: Mise-en-Scene in Space and Time
Narrative Function of Mise-en-Scene: Our Hospitality
Summary
Notes and Queries
Chapter Seven ? The Shot: Cinematography
The Photographic Image
From Monsters to the Mundane: Computer-generated Imagery in The Lord of the Rings
Framing
Duration of the Image: The Long Take
Summary
Notes and Queries
Chapter Eight ? The Relation of Shot to Shot: Editing
What Editing Is
Dimensions of Film Editing
Continuity Editing
Intensified Continuity: L.A. Confidential and Contemporary Editing
Alternatives to Continuity Editing
Notes and Queries
Chapter Nine ? Sound in the Cinema
The Powers of Sound
Rhythm on Two Tracks: A Dance of Death in The Last of the Mohicans
Fundamentals of Film Sound
Dimensions of Film Sound
Functions of Film Sound: A Man Escaped
Summary
Notes and Queries
Chapter Ten ? Style as a Formal System
The Concept of Style
Analyzing Film Style
Style in Citizen Kane
Style in Gap-Toothed Women
Style in The River
Style in Ballet Mecanique
Style in A Movie
Notes and Queries
Part Five: Critical Analysis of Films
Chapter Eleven ? Film Criticism: Sample Analyses
The Classical Narrative Cinema
Narrative Alternatives to Classical Filmaking
Documentary Form and Style
Form, Style, and Ideology
Notes and Queries
Part Six: Film History
Chapter Twelve - Film Form and Film History
Early Cinema (1893-1903)
The Development of the Classical Hollywood Cinema (1908-1927)
German Expressionism (1919-1926)
French Impressionism and Surrealism (1918-1930)
Soviet Montage (1924-1930)
The Classical Hollywood Cinema after the Coming of Sound
Italian Neorealism (1942-1951)
The French New Wave (1959-1964)
The New Hollywood and Independent Filmmaking
Contemporary Hong Kong Cinema
Bibliography for Chapter Twelve
Glossary
Internet Resources: Selected Reference Sites in Film from the World Wide Web
Credits
Index