Film Art: An Introduction

Film is an art form with a language and an aesthetic all its own. Since 1979, David Bordwell and Kristin Thompson's Film Art has been the best-selling and widely respected introduction to the analysis of cinema.

Taking a skills-centered approach supported by a wide range of examples from various periods and countries, the authors strive to help students develop a core set of analytical skills that will deepen their understanding of any film, in any genre. Frame enlargements throughout the text enable students to view images taken directly from completed films, while an optional, text-specific tutorial CD-ROM helps clarify and reinforce specific concepts addressed in the text with the use of film clips. Building on these strengths, the ninth edition adds coverage of new technologies, updated examples, and references to the authors' acclaimed weblog to provide unparalleled currency and connect students with the world of cinema today.

David Bordwell is Jacques Ledoux Professor Emeritus of Film Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He holds a master's degree and a doctorate in film from the University of Iowa. His books include The Films of Carl Theodor Dreyer (University of California Press, 1981), Narration in the Fiction Film (University of Wisconsin Press, 1985), Ozu and the Poetics of Cinema (Princeton University Press, 1988), Making Meaning: Inference and Rhetoric in the Interpretation of Cinema (Harvard University Press, 1989), The Cinema of Eisenstein (Harvard University Press, 1993), On the History of Film Style (Harvard University Press, 1997), Planet Hong Kong: Popular Cinema and the Art of Entertainment (Harvard University Press, 2000), Figures Traced in Light: On Cinematic Staging (University of California Press, 2005), The Way Hollywood Tells It: Story and Style in Modern Movies (University of California Press, 2006), and The Poetics of Cinema (Routledge, 2008). He has won a University Distinguished Teaching Award and was awarded an honorary degree by the University of Copenhagen. His we site is www.davidbordwell.net.

Kristin Thompson is an Honorary Fellow at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. She holds a master’s degree in film from the University of Iowa and a doctorate in film from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. She has published Eisenstein's Ivan the Terrible: A Neoformalist Analysis (Princeton University Press, 1981), Exporting Entertainment: America in the World Film Market 1907-1934 (British Film Institute, 1985), Breaking the Glass Armor: Neoformalist Film Analysis (Princeton University Press, 1988), Wooster Proposes, Jeeves Disposes, or, Le Mot Juste (James H. Heineman, 1992), Storytelling in the New Hollywood: Understanding Classical Narrative Technique (Harvard University Press, 1999), Storytelling in Film and Television (Harvard University Press, 2003), Herr Lubitsch Goes to Hollywood: German and American Film after World War I (Amsterdam University Press, 2005), and The Frodo Franchise: The Lord of the Rings and Modern Hollywood (University of California Press, 2007). She blogs with David at www.davidbordwell.net/blog. She maintains her own blog, "The Frodo Franchise," at www.kristinthompson.net/blog. In her spare time she studies Egyptology.

The authors have also collaborated on Film History: An Introduction (McGraw-Hill, 3rd. ed., 2010) and, with Janet Staiger, on The Classical Hollywood Cinema: Film Style and Mode of Production to 1960 (Columbia University Press, 1985).