ABSTRACT
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.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
chapter |8 pages
Introduction
part |73 pages
Questions of Theory
chapter |46 pages
Poetics of Cinema
chapter |26 pages
Convention, Construction, and Cinematic Vision
part |167 pages
Studies in Narrative
chapter |50 pages
Three Dimensions of Film Narrative
chapter |20 pages
The Art Cinema as a Mode of Film Practice
chapter |18 pages
Film Futures
chapter |62 pages
Mutual Friends and Chronologies of Chance
part |179 pages
Studies in Style