Engaging Cinema: An Introduction to Film Studies

Description

Engaging Cinema emphasizes the interactions between society and cinema and introduces students to film studies as it is actually done by scholars and critics. In what ways do films influence and interact with society? What social forces determine the kinds of movies that get made? How do movies reinforce—and sometimes overturn—social norms? As societies evolve, do the films that were once considered ‘great’ slip into obscurity? Which ones? Why? These questions, and many others like them, represent the mainstream of scholarly film studies today. In Engaging Cinema, Bill Nichols offers the first book for introductory film students that tackles these topics head-on. Engaging Cinema offers a brisk and helpful one-chapter overview of the basic principles of film form (and a thorough glossary that includes formal terms and concepts), three chapters on the three major categories of film form (avant-garde, documentary, and narrative fiction film, in that order), and seven chapters on various social aspects of cinema—such as stereotyping, ethnicity, masculinity, feminism, and ideology. No other book devotes this amount of space or attention to the subject. Published in a handy 'trade paperback' format, Engaging Cinema is inexpensive and utterly unique in the field—a perfect complement to or replacement for standard film texts. To the Instructor (and the curious student) Acknowledgments Introduction: Some Basic Issues and Concepts PART I: THE FORMAL CONTEXT Chapter 1: Film as a Language Chapter 2: Forms of Cinematic Engagement and the Avant-Garde Film Chapter 3: Documentary Film Chapter 4: Story Telling and Narrative Fiction Film PART II: THE SOCIAL CONTEXT FOR THE STUDY OF FILM Chapter 5: Three Fundamental Styles: Realism, Modernism, and Postmodernism Chapter 6: The Institutional and National Contexts: Hollywood and Beyond Chapter 7: Genre Films Chapter 8: Ideology and the Cinema Chapter 9: Race and Ethnicity in Film Chapter 10: Gender and Masculinity Chapter 11: Feminism and Film Part III: THE VIEWER RESPONDS: DOING RESEARCH AND RESPONDING TO FILMS Chapter 12: Writing and Speaking about Film FURTHER READING GLOSSARY INDEX