Routledge
The Classical Hollywood Cinema: Film Style and Mode of Production to 1960
Key Metrics
- David Bordwell
- Routledge
- Hardcover
- 9781138126671
- -
- 3.01 pounds
- Performing Arts > Film - General
- English
Secure TransactionBook Description
'A dense, challenging and important book.' Philip French Observer
'At the very least, this blockbuster is probably the best single volume history of Hollywood we're likely to get for a very long time.' Paul Kerr City Limits
'Persuasively argued, the book is also packed with facts, figures and photographs.' Nigel Andrews Financial Times
Acclaimed for their breakthrough approach, Bordwell, Staiger and Thompson analyze the basic conditions of American film-making as a historical institution and consider to what extent Hollywood film production constitutes a systematic enterprise, in both its style and its business operations.
Despite differences of director, genre or studio, most Hollywood films operate within a set of shared assumptions about how a film should look and sound. Such assumptions are neither natural nor inevitable; but because classical-style films have been the type most widely seen, they have come to be accepted as the 'norm' of film-making and viewing.
The authors show how these classical conventions were formulated and standardized, and how they responded to the arrival of sound, colour, widescreen ratios and stereophonic sound. They argue that each new technological development has served a function within an existing narrational system.
The authors also examine how the Hollywood cinema standardized the film-making process itself. They describe how, over the course of its history, Hollywood developed distinct modes of production in a constant search for maximum efficiency, predictability and novelty.
Set apart by its combination of theoretical analysis and empirical evidence, this book is the standard work on the classical Hollywood cinema style of film-making from the silent era to the 1960s. Now available in paperback, it is a 'must' for film students, lecturers and all those seriously interested in the development of the film industry.
Author Bio
David Bordwell is Jacques Ledoux Professor of Film Studies, Department of Communication Arts, University of Wisconsin–Madison. Professor Bordwell has written several books focusing on the history of film style, film narration, and the poetics of cinema.
In 2013, film historian and theorist David Bordwell deposited approximately 125 film prints at the Academy Film Archive, all in 35mm. The David Bordwell Collection is particularly noteworthy for the strength of its Hong Kong holdings, some of which are unavailable in any other English-translated format. The collection includes such titles as “Crippled Avengers” (1979), “Once Upon a Time in China I-V” (1991-1994), “Iron Monkey” (1993), “Green Snake” (1994), and “Naked Killer” (1995), as well as non-Hong Kong titles such as “Desperately Seeking Susan” (1985), “Prospero’s Books” (1991), and “The Long Day Closes” (1992).
Research Interests
Introduction to Graduate Study in Film
Seminar in Film Analysis
Seminar in Contemporary Film Theory
Seminar in Contemporary Film Criticism
Narrative Theory and Film
Japanese Cinema
Japanese Cinema of the 1930s
Technology and Technique in American Cinema
Space and Narration in the Fiction Film
The Films of Jean-Luc Godard
Cognitive Poetics of Cinema
Stylistic Analysis of Film
The Film Spectator
Contemporary Asian Cinema
Comparative Film Analysis
Education
- B.A. (English) State University of New York at Albany, 1969
- M.A. (Speech and Dramatic Arts, concentration in Film) University of Iowa, 1972
- Ph.D. (Speech and Dramatic Arts, concentration in Film) University of Iowa, 1974.
- Honorary degree: Doctora philosophiæ honoris causa, University of Copenhagen. Awarded 13 November 1997.
Source: davidbordwell.net and Oscars.org
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