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by James Cateridge
Film Studies For Dummies
Introduction
Introduction
About This Book
Foolish Assumptions
Icons Used in This Book
Beyond the Book
Where to Go from Here
Part I: Getting Started with Film Studies
Chapter 1: Becoming a Fantastic Film Student
Upping Your Cinematic Game
Going beyond merely watching films
Connecting film studies to other stuff you can study
Focusing on creativity, industry and technology
Writing about films: Reviews, criticism and academic style
Studying Pictures, Moving and Otherwise
Reading a painting or drawing
Reading a photograph
Capturing movement in film
Expressing Why Film Matters to the World
Probing into politics
Reviewing race and nationality
Exploring gender
Chapter 2: Putting Words and Pictures into Motion: The Film-Making Team
Helming a Film: Directors and Their Collaborators
Thickening the Plot: Screenwriters
‘Authoring’ a film
Studying screenwriting
Writing action
Writing dialogue
Showing Them the Money: Film Producers
Giving producers their due
Producing the studio goods
Going it alone: Independent producers
Painting with Light: Cinematographers
Directing the photography
Achieving ‘the look’
Harnessing technology
Getting the Film in the Can: Production
Setting the scene: Art directors
Turning the creative vision into a reality: Technical crew
Putting the Footage on the Screen: Post-Production
Cutting and constructing: Editors
Amplifying the images: Sound designers and composers
Visualising the impossible: Special-effects artists
Chapter 3: Watching the Stars Come Out: Film Stars, and Why We Love Them
Surveying Stars, in All Their Extraordinary Ordinariness
Distinguishing stars from actors
Analysing star image
Seeing stars as commodities
Identifying with stars
Sexing up the screen
Working like a star: Acting, performing, inhabiting
Exploring a World of Stars
Pondering European stardom
Seeing the new Hollywood in Bollywood
Separating Stardom and Celebrity
Living private lives in the public gaze
Star-making in the 21st century
Chapter 4: Building Movie Stories
Uncovering Mise-en-Scène
Analysing a scene
Looking deeply at all that stuff
Presenting the world as you know it (sort of)
Creating emotional pictures: Melodramatic mise-en-scène
Speaking the Language and Grammar of Film
Making a scene (and a sequence)
Selecting shots
Solving the Puzzle: Editing Film
Getting the story moving
Piecing together a film: Continuity editing
Considering alternatives to the classical model
Charting the Roles of Characters in Narrative
Causing an effect with an event
Characterising heroes and villains
Meeting sidekicks and helpers
Listening and Understanding Film Sound
Playing with emotions
Distinguishing between diegetic and non-diegetic sound
Listening to unheard melodies: Film music
Part II: Taking All Types: Genres, Modes and Style
Chapter 5: Distinguishing Films by Type: Genres and Style
Defining Genre
Banking on genre: The Hollywood Machine
Enjoying repetition – up to a point
Bending genres
Appreciating What a Man’s Got to Do: Westerns
Linking westerns and the birth of Hollywood
Seeing why westerns are westerns
Pitting two sides against each other
Letting Yourself Go: Musicals
Showcasing fantastic performers
Integrating numbers with plot
Feeling better through musicals
Lurking in the Shadows: Horror
Drawing first blood
Facing your inner demons
Having nightmares on Elm Street and elsewhere
Voyaging Beyond: Sci-Fi
Rocketing to the moon
Exploring imaginary worlds
Dreaming of electric sheep and mechanical men
Peering Through the Darkness: Film Noir
Testing the limits of genre
Seeing noir as a style
Detecting spider women and their prey
Watching Boy Meet Girl, Time and Again: Romantic Comedy
Romancing the same old story
Digging deeper into chick flicks
Feeling bromantic
Chapter 6: Getting Animated about Animation
Considering Much More than Kids’ Stuff
Bringing images to life
Making kids (and grown-ups) laugh
Animating counterculture
Going full circle: Cinema gets animated
Touring the Great Cartoon Factories
Disney: The mouse shall inherit the Earth
The Fleischer brothers: Betty pops out of the inkwell
Warner Bros.: Daffy Duck, Porky Pig and related anarchists
Pixar: Not just a Toy Story
Spanning the Globe: A World of Cartoons
Taking over, one toon at a time
Playing it straight? European animation
Drawing a history of violence: Animation from the Middle East
Chapter 7: Leading from the Front: Avant-Garde Film
Advance! Attempting to Pin Down the Avant-Garde
Standing against the mainstream
Sampling the many facets of the avant-garde
Determining when a cartoon isn’t just a cartoon
Exploring Three Important Avant-Garde Ideas
Playing around with time
Not worrying about the story
Embracing abstract images
Drifting Off into a World of Dreams
Dissecting cows and priests in chains
Going into a cinematic trance
Mixing with the Mainstream: Avant-garde Everywhere
Chapter 8: Getting Real: The Truth about Documentary
Shaping Reality with Documentary Films
Comparing the documentary to fiction and to real life
Sorting documentaries: Six modes
Weighing documentary ethics
Capturing the 20th Century on Camera
Meeting plain-speaking Russians
Exploring the world and its people
Filming poetry or propaganda? World War II on film
Reclaiming objectivity: Direct cinema and cinéma vérité
Blending the Real and the Unreal: Documentary Today
Questioning America the beautiful
Marching with penguins and other creatures
Documenting digitally
Part III: Travelling a World of Wonders: Global Cinema
Chapter 9: Bringing Hollywood into Focus
Running the Dream Factory
Mass producing movies
Controlling the supply chain
Dominating international markets
Appealing to everyone, offending no one
Re-viewing Hollywood History
Laying foundations for the Golden Age
Breaking up the studio system: The United States versus Paramount Pictures
Rolling with the changes: New Hollywood
Heading Back to the Future: Blockbusters, Franchises and Indiewood
Eating Hollywood: Jaws
Deciphering agent-speak: Packaging, high concept and synergy
Acting like kids: Family franchise fun
Behaving like grown-ups: Indiewood
Chapter 10: Enjoying the British Invasion: From Brit-Grit to Frock Flicks
Getting Real: Brit-Grit
Paying for Free Cinema
Breaking the New (British) Wave
Finding poetry in common places
Meeting of the Screens: Big and Small
Assessing British television’s influence on film
Coming to the British film industry’s rescue: Channel 4
Leaping from TV to cinema screen
Adapting Great Works: ‘Oh, Mr Darcy!’
Reviving the classics, over and over
The past today: Heritage films
Beating Hollywood at Its Own Game
Producing local films for local people
Bonding with Bond, James Bond
Casting a spell: Harry Potter and the magical franchise
Chapter 11: Admiring European Films: Culture and Commerce
Answering a Not-So-Simple Question: What Is European Cinema, Anyway?
Making a Rendezvous with French Cinema
Travelling from poetic realism to new extremism
Making an exception for French cinema
Appreciating a glamorous business: The Cannes Film Festival
Stepping Out of the Darkness: German Cinema
Lurking in the shadows: German Expressionism
Recreating (New) German Cinema
Melding Style and Substance: Italian Cinema
Finding heroes on the street: Neorealism
Featuring swords, sandals and naughty nuns: Italian genre and exploitation films
Meeting the prince of laughter: Totò
Watching Freedom Explode: Spanish Cinema
Considering Fascism and Catholicism
Returning of the repressed: Pedro Almódovar
Chapter 12: Mixing Monsters, Musicals and Melodrama: World Cinema
Expanding Vision: World Cinema and Third Cinema
Journeying into Japanese Cinema: Godzilla, Anime and More
Reaching back to classical cinema, Japanese style
Facing an incredible, unstoppable titan of terror!
Agreeing that anime rules, okay
Investigating Indian Cinema: Bollywood and Beyond
Making a song and dance of Bollywood
Pondering Bengali film: World or parallel cinema?
Taking Bollywood global
Looking to Latin America Cinema
Brazil: Hollywood in the tropics?
Cuba: Small cinema, big ideas
Mexico’s modern auteurs
Part IV: Bringing In the Big Ideas: Theories and Beyond
Chapter 13: Theorising about Film: How Movies Work
Building a Foundation of Film Theory: Text, Context and Spectator
Formalism: What is a film?
Realism: Does film reflect reality?
Reception: What is a spectator?
Shaping Society with Film: Marxism
Meeting Marx (Karl, not Groucho)
Spending time with the Frankfurt School: Fun is bad
Negotiating between culture and behaviour: Ideology
Taking Films to Bits: Structuralism
Linking linguistics and film: Saussure
Sampling film semiotics: Metz
Meeting mythic structures: Lévi-Strauss
Getting into Your Head: Psychoanalysis and Film
Delving into dreams: Freud and film
Leaping through the looking glass: Lacan
Rejecting the male gaze: Mulvey
Chapter 14: Praising Great Directors: Auteur Theory
Seeing the Director as God
Digging to the roots of auteur theory
Linking auteur, theme and genre
Seeing the auteur in mise-en-scène
Debunking auteur theory
Encountering Old-School Auteurs (1930s to 1950s)
John Ford: The American landscape
Howard Hawks: Screwball and highballs
Alfred Hitchcock: The master of suspense
Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger: Two for the price of one
Orson Welles: The self-styled genius
Meeting the Essential Modern Auteurs (1960s to 1990s)
Stanley Kubrick: An epic perfectionist
Martin Scorsese: Storyteller of the streets
Steven Spielberg: The kid who never grew up
Quentin Tarantino: Uber-movie-geek
David Lynch: The American nightmare
Turning Attention to 21st Century Auteurs (1999 to today)
Ang Lee: The hidden dragon
Christopher Nolan: Worlds within worlds
Kathryn Bigelow: Boys and their guns
Guillermo del Toro: Monster moviemaker
Chapter 15: Exploring New Approaches to Film Theory – and Beyond
Multiplying Meaning: Post-Structuralism
Discerning the difference between structuralism and post-structuralism
Deconstructing texts and discourses
Dismantling empires: Post-colonialism
Realising Nothing Matters Anymore: Postmodernism
Narrating the end of history
Getting super-excited about hyper-realism
Going for girl power! Post-feminism
Moving beyond gender: Queer theory
Reaching the End of Everything: Post-Theory?
Smashing the SLAB: Bordwell takes aim
Striking back at Bordwell
Thinking about thinking: Cognitive theory
Chapter 16: Outliving Celluloid: Cinema in the 21st Century
Revising Rumours of Cinema’s Death: Still Watching, Just Differently
Cinema-going over the decades
Shifting from celluloid strips to hard disk drives
Transitioning to digital, holding onto analogue
Changing Where, How and When You Watch
Experiencing cinema nowadays
Watching films amid the comforts of home
Collapsing the release window
Converging on the Next Phase: Film and Everything Else
Reassessing event movies
Elevating everyone to film-maker status (sort of)
Raising the bar: TV catches up with cinema
Stealing pleasure
Part V: The Part of Tens
Chapter 17: Ten Film Writers You Need to Read
VF Perkins: Analysing Film Style
Richard Dyer: Watching Stars and Developing Queer Theory
Tom Gunning: Reassessing Early Cinema
Molly Haskell: Engaging with Feminism and Film
Yvonne Tasker: Analysing Action Cinema
Michel Chion: Speaking Up for Film Sound
Richard Maltby: Investigating Cinema History
Nicholas Rombes: Discovering Digital Cinema
Hamid Naficy: Exploring Accented Cinema
Charles Barr: Battling for British Cinema
Chapter 18: Ten Must-Watch Movies
Sherlock, Jr. (1924)
Casablanca (1942)
Singin’ in the Rain (1952)
Rear Window (1954)
À Bout de Souffle (Breathless) (1960)
Don’t Look Now (1973)
Blade Runner (1982)
Pulp Fiction (1994)
Spirited Away (2001)
Cidade de Deus (City of God) (2002)
Chapter 19: Ten Film-Makers You Need to Know Better
Feng Xiaogang
Alice Guy-Blaché
Ousmane Sembène
Roger Corman
Lynne Ramsay
Abbas Kiarostami
John Waters
Christine Vachon
Andrei Tarkovsky
Wong Kar-wai
Chapter 20: Ten Tips for Becoming a Film Student
Going to the Pictures Often
Making Sure You See the Classics
Watching and Re-watching
Reading about Film in Your Free Time
Thinking about What Films Mean to You
Joining a Film Studies Tribe
Not Taking Awards Too Seriously
Attending Film Festivals and Events
Developing a Love for Subtitles
Being Proud of Your Knowledge
About the Author
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