Introduction To Film

by Lacey, Nick

• ISBN13: 9781403916273
• ISBN10: 1403916276
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2005-07-08
• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan

Summary

This concise introduction to the study of film offers an integrated and carefully paced overview of the issues and perspectives that contribute to a full understanding of the medium. It starts simply with a range of filmic examples, theoretical terms and analytical strategies chosen to reflect students' likely motivations for studing film in the first place. Its unified narrative line and student-centered philosophy create a layered approach, where greater complexity is built in stage by stage. It is enriched by a fund of diverse examples, handled as extended case studies or briefer vignettes, that offer a sensitive mix of the familiar, classic and more unusual.

Author Biography

Nick Lacey is Head of Media Studies at Benton Park School in West Yorkshire.

Table of Contents

List of figures	x
List of film stills	xi
List of tables	xiii
Acknowledgements	xiv
Preface	xv
Introduction	1	(4)
Film language	5	(41)
Introduction	5	(1)
Introduction to mise en scene	5	(2)
Production design: sets, props and costumes	7	(3)
Lighting	10	(2)
Performance	12	(4)
Sound (and music)	16	(6)
Framing: position; depth of field; aspect ratio; height and angle (but not movement)	22	(6)
Camera movement	28	(3)
Editing	31	(10)
Film stars as texts	41	(5)
Film genre and narrative	46	(53)
Introduction	46	(1)
Defining genre	46	(2)
The repertoire of elements	48	(5)
Generic evolution	53	(4)
Approaches to genre	57	(2)
Twelve uses of genre	59	(17)
Genre and audiences	76	(1)
Introduction to narrative	77	(1)
Todorov and Propp	78	(6)
Story and plot	84	(4)
Roland Barthes' narrative codes	88	(2)
Other approaches	90	(3)
Postmodern narratives	93	(6)
Film as industry	99	(48)
Introduction	99	(1)
The beginning of cinema	99	(1)
Hollywood -- the formation of the major studios	100	(4)
Hollywood and censorship	104	(2)
Hollywood -- the coming of sound	106	(2)
Hollywood decline: the Paramount decrees and the baby boom	108	(1)
New Hollywood? The early 1970s	109	(2)
Package Hollywood	111	(2)
Hollywood: conglomeration to media corporation	113	(3)
The importance of Jaws	116	(3)
Hollywood and the high concept	119	(4)
The independent sector in North America	123	(2)
The arthouse sector	125	(4)
Selling cinema	129	(2)
Genre and industry	131	(4)
How new is contemporary Hollywood?	135	(1)
Stars	136	(3)
The publicity circus	139	(3)
The DVD revolution	142	(1)
Film festivals	143	(1)
Conclusion: the shadow of Hollywood	144	(3)
Film and theory	147	(61)
Introduction	147	(1)
Film and realism	147	(8)
The auteur theory	155	(1)
Structuralism and auteurism	156	(5)
Screen theory -- ideology	161	(13)
Screen theory -- psychoanalysis	174	(3)
Screen theory -- feminist analysis	177	(3)
Spectatorship	180	(9)
Third cinema and post-colonialism	189	(8)
Postmodernism and poststructuralism	197	(6)
Audience pleasures	203	(5)
Film and history	208	(45)
Introduction	208	(1)
German Expressionism	209	(5)
Avant-garde	214	(5)
Soviet cinema in the 1920s	219	(3)
The British documentary movement	222	(1)
Italian neo-realism	223	(4)
The French New Wave (nouvelle vague)	227	(4)
The British New Wave (1959--63) and the `Swinging Sixties'	231	(6)
Other 1960s new waves	237	(3)
May '68	240	(2)
New German cinema	242	(3)
Chinese cinema: fifth and sixth generation	245	(3)
Iranian cinema	248	(2)
Denmark's Dogme	250	(3)
Appendices	253	(55)
Australia and New Zealand -- the role of the aboriginal	253	(2)
The Balkans -- civil strife	255	(1)
Canada -- engulfed by America?	256	(2)
Hong Kong -- (not) a national cinema?	258	(1)
Mexican Cinema -- renaissance on America's doorstep	259	(4)
Film and representation	263	(32)
Introduction	263	(1)
Representation and types	263	(3)
African-Americans and Hollywood	266	(6)
National cinema	272	(2)
British cinema	274	(19)
State-of-the-nation films	293	(2)
Film and technology	295	(13)
Introduction	295	(1)
Precursors	295	(1)
Projecting frames	296	(1)
Aspect ratio	297	(2)
Lenses and filmstock	299	(1)
Sound and colour	300	(1)
Animation	301	(1)
Special effects	302	(3)
Digital distribution	305	(1)
Conclusion	306	(2)
Bibliography	308	(21)
Film index	329	(3)
Subject index	332