Synopses & Reviews
"This book is simply first-rate and exhaustive in terms of its scholarship and research, and is well-written, insightful, accessible, and engaging. Bordwell throws a wrench into the ways that Hollywood cinema since the 1960s is frequently taught and theorized, presenting a complex but clear picture that will stand as one of the most important books on American film from the 1960s to the present."and#151;John Caldwell, Professor of Film and Television, UCLA
"In The Way Hollywood Tells It, David Bordwell treats us to an analytic account and history of the craft of modern Hollywood filmmaking which is at once concise and detailed. There is no shortage of scholarly literature on contemporary Hollywood, but none of it lives up to the standards set by Bordwell here. No one else has this range, depth, sophistication or authority. More remarkable still, Bordwell pulls this off with remarkable lightness of touch."and#151;Murray Smith, University of Kent
"David Bordwell is our best writer on the cinema. He is deeply informed about films, he loves them, and he writes about them with a clarity and perception that makes the prose itself a joy to read. Because he sees movies so freshly and deeply he isn't deceived by the usual categories and finds excellence and experiment in unexpected places. For him it's no simple matter of the mainstream vs. the indies. By showing, often in shot-by-shot detail, how films communicate through style as much as subject and story, his book is liberating, allowing us to see precisely what films are doing, and why. I find David Bordwell's book to be simply astonishing."and#151;Roger Ebert
"David Bordwell applies the descriptive techniques he's brought to the study of Ozu and Dreyer to recent American narrative cinema with his usual passionate rigor. The resulting study is clear-eyed and comprehensive, easily the best book on the subject so far. Bordwell is particularly insightful about how new technologies serve both to enhance AND limit the expressive range of current movie story-telling."and#151;Larry Gross
"Alternatingly analytical and informative, but always entertaining, David Bordwell's The Way Hollywood Tells It makes sense of the art and business of recent American cinema like nothing else out there. This book should be required reading for all of us!"and#151;Mark Johnson
"There is nobody writing about film with the wisdom and insight of David Bordwell. His work makes me feel as though the creative process I know and live through writing and shooting films is being thoughtfully examined and put in a context. I recognize my journeys in his work and I learn about many other ways to journey as well. Bordwell shares and unfolds the meaningful linguistic/craft/syntactical choices all filmmakers make, from all cultures, choices besides the mere political, literary, symbolic and sexual which have been so saturated with attention. He finds the meaning in movies, instead of putting it there."and#151;James Mangold, director of Walk the Line
Synopsis
Hollywood moviemaking is one of the constants of American life, but how much has it changed since the glory days of the big studios? David Bordwell argues that the principles of visual storytelling created in the studio era are alive and well, even in todayand#8217;s bloated blockbusters. American filmmakers have created a durable traditionand#151;one that we should not be ashamed to call artistic, and one that survives in both mainstream entertainment and niche-marketed indie cinema. Bordwell traces the continuity of this tradition in a wide array of films made since 1960, from romantic comedies like Jerry Maguire and Love Actually to more imposing efforts like A Beautiful Mind. He also draws upon testimony from writers, directors, and editors who are acutely conscious of employing proven principles of plot and visual style. Within the limits of the and#147;classicaland#8221; approach, innovation can flourish. Bordwell examines how imaginative filmmakers have pushed the premises of the system in films such as JFK, Memento, and Magnolia. He discusses generational, technological, and economic factors leading to stability and change in Hollywood cinema and includes close analyses of selected shots and sequences. As it ranges across four decades, examining classics like American Graffiti and The Godfather as well as recent success like The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers, this book provides a vivid and engaging interpretation of how Hollywood moviemakers have created a vigorous, resourceful tradition of cinematic storytelling that continues to engage audiences around the world.
Synopsis
When Roger Ebert died in April, 2013, it marked the end of an era--he was the last of the superstar movie critics who emerged in the 1960s in the wake of the success of Pauline Kael and Andrew Sarris. In and#147;The Rhapsodesand#8221; David Bordwell traces this phenomenon back to four important writers: Otis Ferguson, James Agee, Manny Farber, and Parker Tyler. Each defended an idea of the artistic worth of Hollywood cinema. Ferguson saw in Hollywood an adept, engaging mode of popular storytelling. Agee sought in cinema the lyrical epiphanies found in Romantic poetry. Farber, trained as a painter, brought a pictorial intelligence to bear on Hollywood; he saw movies as a narrative art operating through striking visual expression. Tyler, of Surrealist inclinations, treated Hollywood films as a collective hallucination that invited both audience and critic to find moments of subversive pleasure. Why and#147;Rhapsodesand#8221;? As Bordwell explains, itand#8217;s and#147;by analogy with the ancient reciters of verse who, inspired by the gods, became carried away. The tag aims to emphasize the offbeat, passionate nature of their vernacular prose.and#8221; Bordwelland#8217;s own prose displays his customary erudition, clarity, and brio, demonstrating both his critical acuity and his skill as a cultural historian. He lays the groundwork for his analysis in an introduction and two general chapters concerning the writersand#8217; cultural and critical milieu and then devotes a single chapter to each of them. In and#147;Afterlivesand#8221; he considers their legacy, particularly their importance in helping initiate the change in taste that occurred in film culture in the the 1950s and 1960s. In brief, what Bordwell provides in his essayistic exploration is both an appreciation of these four writers and an explanation of how they reflected and expanded the ways in which films were understood and discussed.
Synopsis
Pauline Kael, Andrew Sarris, and Roger Ebert were three of Americaandrsquo;s most revered and widely read film critics, more famous than many of the movies they wrote about. But their remarkable contributions to the burgeoning American film criticism of the 1960s and beyond were deeply influenced by four earlier critics: Otis Ferguson, James Agee, Manny Farber, and Parker Tyler. Throughout the 1930s and andrsquo;40s, Ferguson, Agee, Farber, and Tyler scrutinized what was on the screen with an intensity not previously seen in popular reviewing. Although largely ignored by the arts media of the day, they honed the sort of serious discussion of films that would be made popular decades later by Kael, Sarris, Ebert and their contemporaries.
and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;
With The Rhapsodes, renowned film scholar and critic David Bordwellandmdash;an heir to both those legaciesandmdash;restores to a wider audience the work of Ferguson, Agee, Farber, and Tyler, critics he calls the andldquo;Rhapsodesandrdquo; for the passionate and deliberately offbeat nature of their vernacular prose. Each broke with prevailing currents in criticism in order to find new ways to talk about the popular films that contemporaries often saw at best as trivial, at worst as a betrayal of art. Ferguson saw in Hollywood an engaging, adroit mode of popular storytelling. Agee sought in cinema the lyrical epiphanies found in romantic poetry. Farber, trained as a painter, brought a pictorial intelligence to bear on film. A surrealist, Tyler treated classic Hollywood as a collective hallucination that invited both audience and critic to find moments of subversive pleasure. With his customary clarity and brio, Bordwell takes readers through the relevant cultural and critical landscape and considers the criticsandrsquo; writing styles, their conceptions of films, and their quarrels. He concludes by examining the profound impact of Ferguson, Agee, Farber, and Tyler on later generations of film writers.
The Rhapsodes allows readers to rediscover these remarkable critics who broke with convention to capture what they found moving, artful, or disappointing in classic Hollywood cinema and explores their robustandmdash;and continuingandmdash;influence.
About the Author
David Bordwell is Jacques Ledoux Professor of Film Studies and Hilldale Professor of Humanities at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Among his books are Figures Traced in Light: On Cinematic Staging (California, 2004), Film History: An Introduction (with Kristin Thompson, 2002), Planet Hong Kong: Popular Cinema and the Art of Entertainment (2000), and On the History of Film Style (1997).
Table of Contents
Introduction: The Film Critic as Superstar
1and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160; The Rhapsodes
2and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160; A Newer Criticism
3and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160; Otis Ferguson: The Way of the Camera
4and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160; James Agee: All There and Primed to Go Off
5and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160; Manny Farber: Space Man
6and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160; Parker Tyler: A Suave and Wary Guest
7and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160; Afterlives
Acknowledgments
Sources
Index