Film Art David Bordwell & Kristin Thompson

ISBN Film Art: An Introduction. Genre: TV & radio, Taalversie: Engels, Aantal pagina's: 512 pagina's. Breedte: 199 mm, Diepte: 9,9 mm, Hoogte: 249,9 mm Genre: TV & radio 512 pagina's Taalversie: Engels Aanbevolen leeftijdscategorie: Volwassene Voorgesteld geslacht: Elk geslacht ABOUT THE AUTHORS David Bordwell and Kristin Thompson are married and live in Madison, Wisconsìn. David Bordwell is Jacques Ledoux Professor of Film Studies at the University of Wisconsin—Madison. He holds a master’s degree and a doctorate ìn film from the University of Iowa. His books include The Films of CarlTheodor Dreyer (University of California Press, 1981), Narration in the Fiction Film (University of Wisconsin Press, 1985), Ozu and the Poetics of Cinema (British Film Institute/Princeton University Press, 1988), and Making Meaning: Inference and Rhetoric in the Interpretation of Cinema (Harvard University Press, 1989). He has won a University Distinguished Teaching Award. Kristin Thompson is an Honorary Fellow at the University of WisconsinMadison. 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 van the Terrible (Princeton University Press, 1981), Exporting Entertainment: America's Place in World Film Markets, 1907-1934 (British Film Institute, 1985), Breaking the Glass Armor: Neoformalist Film Analysis (Princeton University Press, 1988), and numerous articles on film. She is currently at work on a history of European avant garde film styles of the 1920s. In her spare time she does research on the work of P. G. Wodehouse. The authors have previously collaborated, with Janet Staiger, on The Classical Hollywood Cinema: Film Style and Mode of Production to 1960 (Columbia University Press, 1985). This book seeks to introduce the reader to the aesthetics of film. It assumes that the reader has no knowledge of cinema beyond the experience of moviegoìng. Although some aspects of the book may prove useful for people with considerable knowledge of film, our aim is to survey the fundamental aspects of cinema as an art form. Bv stressing film as art, we necessarily ignore certain aspects of the medium. Industrial doeumentaries, instructional filmmaking, the social history of cinema or its impact as a mass medium—all these are important dimensions of cinema, and each would require a separate book for adequate treatment. Instead, this book seeks to isolate those basic features of film which can constitute it as an art. The book therefore directs itself at the person interested in how the film medium may give us experiences akin to those offered by painting, sculpture, music, literature, theater, architecture, or dance. Ás we wrote this book, we envisioned readers of three particular sorts. First is the interested general reader, who wants to know a little more about the movies. Second is the student in a course in film appreciation, introduction to film, film criticism, or film aesthetics; for this reader, the book can function as a textbook. Third is the more advanced student of film, who may find here a convenient outline of principal issues and concepts and a set of suggestions for more specialized work. Organizationally, Film Art: An Introduction offers a distinct approach to studying its topic. It might be possible to survey, willy-nilly, all contemporary approaches to film aesthetics, but we judged this to be too eclectic. Instead, we have sought an approach that would lead the reader in logical steps through various aspects of film aesthetics. Crucial to this approach is an emphasis on the whole film. Audiences experience entire films, not snippets. If the particular film is the irreducible center of our inquiry, we need an approach that will help us understand it. The approach we have On sober reflection, we readily admit that films are like buildings, books, and symphonies—artifacts made by humans for human purposes. Yet, as part of an audience watching an enthralling movie, we may find it difficult to remember that what we are seeing is not a natural object, like a flower or an asteroìd. Cinema is so captivating that we tend to forget that movies are made. An understanding of the art of cinema depends initially on a recognition that a film is produced by both machines and human labor. ee) TECHNICAL FACTORS IN FILM PRODUCTION — Watching a film differs from viewing a painting, a stage performance, or even a slide show. A film presents us with images in illusory motion. What creates this specific effect, this sense of “moving pictures”? For cinema to exist, a series of images must be displayed to a viewer in certain ways. Most basically, a mechanism presents each image for a very short period and inserts a brief interval of blackness between the images. If a series of slightly different images of the same object is displayed under these conditions, physiological and psychological processes in the viewer will create the illusion of seeing a moving image. What are these processes? Since the nineteenth century, a prime candidate has been the process of “persistence of vision,’ the phenomenon by which an image lingers on the retina for a fraction of a second after the source has vanished. But this does not in itself explain why we would see movement rather than a succession of still images. Twentieth-century re