Film Studies

Updated in a new 6th edition, Movies and Meaning is a comprehensive introduction to the film industry that focuses on three topics: how movies express meanings, how viewers understand those meanings, and how cinema functions globally as both an art and a business. It examines both how filmmakers create images and sounds and the mechanisms and processes by which viewers make sense of images and stories on screen.

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Thinking About Movies, Third Edition is a comprehensiveguide for students and movie lovers who want to learn how to watchmovies critically and analytically. Intended for the beginner, thetext offers the critical building blocks required to understandfilm as an important narrative and cultural form. Guides readers through basic approaches to film analysis suchas authorship, genre, race, class, gender, film theory, audience,and reception Updated to include discussion of a diverse selection of classicand recent films, from Citizen Kane and Murder, My Sweet to Crashand King Kong Features new coverage of important current trends in theindustry, and recent developments in film theory andcriticism Accompanied by a website at www.blackwellpublishing.com/lehmanfeaturing resources for both academics and students

This unique reference work is designed to bridge the gap between guides and dictionaries that are primarily academic and theoretical and those that deal mainly in technical jargon. Above all, it is aimed at students of film and media who are likely to encounter a wide range of specialist language in a variety of places--in film reviews, critical essays, interviews with filmmakers and stars, and academic and Internet publications. The Film Studies Dictionary contains around 1,000 entries ranging from terms that have always puzzled audiences such as "best boy" and "gaffer" to those required by specialist students of film such as "post-colonial theory" and "third cinema." It uses a system of careful cross-referencing and concise and up-to-date references to further reading for exploration.

For twenty-five years, David Thomson’sBiographical Dictionary of Filmhas been not merely “the finest reference book ever written about movies” (Graham Fuller,Interview), not merely the “desert island book” of art critic David Sylvester, not merely “a great, crazy masterpiece” (Geoff Dyer,The Guardian), but also “fiendishly seductive” (Greil Marcus,Rolling Stone). Now it returns, with its old entries updated and 300 new ones—from Luc Besson to Reese Witherspoon—making more than 1300 in all, some of them just a pungent paragraph, some of them several thousand words long. In addition to the new “musts,” Thomson has added key figures from film history—lively anatomies of Graham Greene, Eddie Cantor, Pauline Kael, Abbott and Costello, Noël Coward, Hoagy Carmichael, Dorothy Gish, Rin Tin Tin, and more. Here is a great, rare book, one that encompasses the chaos of art, entertainment, money, vulgarity, and nonsense that we call the movies. Personal, opinionated, funny, daring, provocative, and passionate, it is the one book that every filmmaker and film buff must own. Time Out named it one of the ten best books of the 1990s. Gavin Lambert recognized it as “a work of imagination in its own right.” Now better than ever—a masterwork by the man playwright David Hare called “the most stimulating and thoughtful film critic now writing.” From the Hardcover edition.

The most comprehensive and accessible text of its kind, Film: An Introduction combines the universal appeal of movies with the academic rigor instructors require. It includes a wider array of films, more help for students, and a broader selection of images than any other introductory book. Combining up-to-date examples and over 500 images with numerous classroom-tested learning tools and study aids, Film: An introduction helps beginning students develop the critical skills they need to analyze films and understand the medium in all its variety.

How do we study a film? What is meant by "mise en scene" or "genre" and how can we use these terms to develop a deeper understanding of films? This book takes the study of film seriously without forgetting that it is an entertainment medium. Assuming no previous knowledge of film theory, it provides an introduction to the methods and terminology used in the study of films. It covers the main topics encountered on film courses, such as narrative, cinematography, stardom, the auteur, spectatorship, the film industry and much else. Drawing on examples ranging from Stagecoach and Casablanca to Raiders of the Lost Ark and Pulp Fiction, it encourages the reader to start actively studying films from the outset and to develop an understanding not only of the text but also of the institutional and social context within which it is situated.

A celebration of maverick directors and the offbeat, quirky, innovative, enigmatic, and outrageous movies we call cult films. From films like Young Einstein to Annie Hall to Vampyros Lesbos, and including such directors as Woody Allen, Tim Burton, and David Zucker, this compelling compendium features more than 300 of the greatest triumphs of cult movie history. Each entry includes a comprehensive film review, with plot synopsis, cast and credits; details of its cult following and the reasons for its cult status; trivia and memorable dialogue, along with notable soundtrack information; video and DVD availability; and illustrations of key scenes. All this, plus its profiles of renowned cult directors, make this encyclopedic treasury a must for all movie lovers.

Since publication of the first edition in 1974, Film Theory and Criticism has been the most widely used and cited anthology of critical writings about film. Extensively revised and updated, this sixth edition highlights both classic texts and cutting edge essays from more than a century ofthought and writing about the movies. Editors Leo Braudy and Marshall Cohen have reformulated the book's sections and their introductions in order to lead students into a rich understanding of what the movies have accomplished, both as individual works and as contributions to what has been called"the art form of the twentieth [and now twenty-first] century." Building upon the wide range of selections and the extensive historical coverage that marked previous editions, this new compilation stretches from the earliest attempts to define the cinema to the most recent efforts to place film inthe contexts of psychology, sociology, and philosophy, and to explore issues of gender and race.The sixth edition features several new essays that discuss the impact of digital technology on the traditional conceptions of what films do and how they manage to do it. Additional selections from the important works of Gilles Deleuze round out sections dealing with the theories of such writers asSergei Eisenstein, Andre Bazin, and Christian Metz, among others. New essays also strengthen sections dealing with the idea of "excess" in film, film spectatorship, the horror genre, and feminist criticism. Film Theory and Criticism, 6/e, is ideal for undergraduate and graduate courses in filmtheory and criticism.

Written with undergraduate readers in mind, these essays cover the central issues raised in today's cinema courses and provide students with practical models to help them improve their own writing and film-analysis skills. Film Analysis also includes a helpful introduction and an extensive glossary. Already half the price of competing texts when purchased alone, Film Analysis can be packaged at 50 percent off with either A History of Narrative Film or Looking at Movies.

In a unique and perceptive look at the future of cinema, Wheeler Winston Dixon explores the possible effects of the digital age on the production and exhibition of films. Although Hollywood will seek to retain its dominance over the global presentation of entertainment, Dixon argues, a new vision of international access a democracy of images will finally inform the future structure of cinema in the twenty-first century. What I like most about this book is the author s wide-ranging knowledge of cinema, both past and present, plus glimpses into its possible future. Against the background of a consideration of how new video and digital technologies are changing the nature of film as a medium, the book surveys a wide variety of alternative film-making practices: marginal enterprises that, in various ways, provide choices and perspectives that depart from the norms of the Hollywood culture industry. These alternative practices are discussed from the points of view of funding, production, and distribution, as well as those of content and technique. Dixon looks at all aspects of film-making in order to excavate and display ways in which other voices and other viewpoints can be realized artistically and made accessible to viewers. Steven Shaviro, author of The Cinematic Body