Film as Social Practice

by Turner, Graeme

• ISBN13: 9780415375146
• ISBN10: 0415375142
• Edition: 4th
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2006-08-18
• Publisher: Routledge

Summary

This fourth edition of a best selling classic text has been comprehensively updated and revised to bring it up to date with contemporary film analysis and new material published. Film as Social Practicefollows on the heels of the still wide-selling third edition, and presents an introduction to cinema as an industry and entertainment form. Primarily focusing on contemporary popular cinema with examples from Classical Hollywood cinema too, Graeme examines the social and cultural aspects of film culture such as audiences, exhibition (where people watch films), technology (how they watch them), and issues including race and gender. This fourth edition now includes: * an expanded treatment of special effects and spectacle * inclusion of film theories discussion of the representation of race and ethnicity * a thorough updating of individual film references * a revised applications chapter that includes new contemporary examples * added new illustrations from contemporary popularcinema.

Table of Contents

List of illustrations	xi
Acknowledgements	xiii
Preface	xv
Introduction	1	(6)
1 The feature film industry	7	(36)
The feature film today	8	(6)
The establishment of the feature film	14	(5)
American domination of the feature film industry	19	(5)
New competitors, new strategies, 'new Hollywood'	24	(11)
Spectacle versus narrative	35	(4)
Suggestions for further work	39	(4)
2 From seventh art to social practice - a history of film studies	43	(22)
Early aesthetic approaches	44	(4)
Realist approaches	48	(4)
Bazin	52	(1)
Auteurs and genres	53	(4)
The institutionalization of film studies	57	(2)
Film as social practice	59	(3)
Suggestions for further work	62	(3)
3 Film languages	65	(32)
Culture and language	66	(6)
Film as a signifying practice	72	(1)
The signifying systems	73	(19)
Reading the film	92	(2)
Suggestions for further work	94	(3)
4 Film narrative	97	(32)
The universality of story	98	(4)
The function of narrative	102	(3)
Structuralism and narrative	105	(4)
Codes and conventions	109	(10)
Genre	119	(6)
Narrative and narration	125	(2)
Suggestions for further work	127	(2)
5 Film audiences	129	(48)
Specifying the audience	134	(5)
Stars	139	(7)
The film experience	146	(3)
The film spectator and psychoanalysis	149	(2)
Audience identification	151	(9)
Desire and the image	160	(3)
Audiences, texts, and meanings	163	(7)
Cultural identities	170	(5)
Suggestions for further work	175	(2)
6 Film, culture, and ideology	177	(40)
Film and national culture	182	(5)
A national cinema: the Australian revival	187	(10)
Ideology in the text	197	(7)
Issues in ideological analysis	204	(9)
Suggestions for further work	213	(4)
7 Applications	217	(22)
Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid	218	(7)
Desperately Seeking Susan	225	(11)
Conclusion	236	(3)
References	239	(10)
Index	249