Treating readers as avid film fans, this book combines beautiful design and an easy to navigate structure with all the key concepts and theory that students need for successful analysis of film. In "Focus and Concepts at Work" sections for deeper understanding of crucial film concepts and issues are presented. This book offers clear and accessible writing style with thorough explanation of concepts. Key terms are highlighted. It features over 900 images, including a special 4 colour plates section about cinematography.The second edition of this accessible book continues to examine how we can extract a broad range of meanings from the films we watch. With an improved structure, better pedagogy and more examples from popular film, this new edition continues to give students of film the vocabulary, context and critical tools they need for serious film study.

Table of Contents

Preface PART I: FILM CONTEXTS: MAKING, WATCHING AND STUDYING MOVIES Introduction to the Film Experience Preparing Viewers and Views: Distribution, Production, Promotion, and Exhibition PART II : COMPOSITIONS: FILM SCENES, SHOTS, CUTS AND SOUNDS Exploring a Material World: Mise-en-Scene Seeing through the Image: Cinematography Relating Images: Editing Listening to the Cinema: Film Sound PART III: ORGANIZATIONAL STRUCTURES: FROM STORIES TO GENRES Telling Stories about Time: Narrative Film Representing Reality: Documentary Films Experimental Screens: Avant-garde Film, Video Art, and New Media Rituals, Conventions, Archetypes, and Formulas: Movie Genres PART IV: HISTORIES: HOLLYWOOD AND BEYOND Conventional Film History: Evolutions, Masterpieces, and Periodization Global and Local: Inclusive Histories of the Movies PART V: REACTIONS: READING AND WRITING ABOUT FILM Reading about Film: Critical Methods and Theories Writing a Film Essay: Observations, Arguments, Research, and Analysis Glossary Index

About the Author

TIMOTHY CORRIGAN is Professor of Cinema Studies, English, and History of Art at the University of Pennsylvania, USA. His numerous books include New German Film: The Displaced Image, A Cinema without Walls: Movies and Culture after Vietnam, The Films of Werner Herzog: Between Mirage and History, A Short Guide to Writing about Film 4e, and Film and Literature: An Introduction and Reader. He is also one of the three editors of the journal Adaptation: The Journal of Literature on Screen Studies and serves on the editorial board of Cinema Journal. He has taught film at the University of Amsterdam, Temple University, University of Iowa, and at campuses in Tokyo, Rome, Paris, and London. PATRICIA WHITE is Associate Professor and Chair of the Program in Film and Media Studies at Swarthmore College. She is the author of Uninvited: Classical Hollywood Cinema and Lesbian Representability and numerous articles and chapters on film theory and culture.

Reviews

'Rather than the often dry or unwelcoming books on the history of cinema which occasionally appear to daunt the budding film scholar, this book recognises that not everyone goes to watch French arthouse films in darkened cinemas with just a handful of others...With chapters covering editing, sound, genre, critical theories and how to write a film essay, this is a fantastic starting point for anyone who perhaps wants to take their love of film a step further to take a course on the subject or even become a critic.' - Jonathan Melville, Edinburgh Evening News