Synopses & Reviews
This best-selling text is a succinct guide to thinking critically and writing precisely about film.
Both an introduction to film study and a practical writing guide, this brief text introduces students to major film theories as well as film terminology, enabling them to write more thoughtfully and critically. With numerous student and professional examples, this engaging and practical guide progresses from taking notes and writing first drafts to creating polished essays and comprehensive research projects. Moving from movie reviews to theoretical and critical essays, the text demonstrates how an analysis of a film can become more subtle and rigorous as part of a compositional process.
Table of Contents
Preface
I. Writing about the Movies
Why Write about the Movies?
Your Audience and the Aims of Film Criticism
The Screening Report
The Movie Review
The Theoretical Essay
The Critical Essay
Opinion and Evaluation
Exercises
2–Beginning to Think, Preparing to Watch, and Starting to Write
Subject Matter and Meaning
Silent Dialogue: Talking Back to the Movies
Taking Notes
Visual Memory and Reflection
Exercises
3–Film Terms and Topics for Film Analysis and Writing
Themes
Film and the Other Arts
Narrative
Characters
Point of View
Comparative Essays
Mise-en-Scène and Realism
Realism
Elements of Mise-en-Scène
Composition and the Image
The Shot
The Edited Image
Sound
Sample Essay
Exercises
4–Six Approaches to Writing about Film
Film History
National Cinemas
Genres
Auteurs
Kinds of Formalism
Ideology
Sample Essays
Exercises
5–Style and Structure in Writing
The Right Words
Concrete Language
Denotation and Connotation
Tone
Repetitions and Clichés
Effective Sentences
Economy
Varied Sentence Structures
Coherent Paragraphs
Introductory Paragraphs
Concluding Paragraphs
Revisions and Proofreading
Checklist for Writing an Effective Essay
Exercises
6–Researching the Movies
How to Begin Research
The Materials of Research
Primary Sources
Video, DVDs, and Digital Downloads
Scripts
Secondary Sources: Books, Indexes, Journals, and Electronic Sources
Film Research on the Internet
Taking Notes on Secondary Sources
Writing the Paper
Sample Essays
Exercises
7–Manuscript Form
Manuscript Copy
Last-Minute Corrections
Quotations
Acknowledging Sources
Common Knowledge
Documenting Sources
Notes for Documentation
Works Cited
Notes Supplying Additional Commentary
Common Conventions of Usage
Names
Titles
Foreign Words and Quotation Marks
Sexist Language
Spelling
Last Words
Appendix: Symbols Commonly Used In Marking Papers
Glossary of Film Terms
Works Cited
Credits
Index