Closely Watched Films: An Introduction to the Art of Narrative Film TechniqueHow do films work? How do they tell a story? How do they move us and make us think? Through detailed examinations of passages from classic films, Marilyn Fabe supplies the analytic tools and background in film history and theory to enable us to see more in every film we watch. Ranging from D. W. Griffith's The Birth of a Nation to Spike Lee's Do the Right Thing, and ending with an epilogue on digital media, Closely Watched Films focuses on exemplary works of fourteen film directors whose careers together span the history of the narrative film. Lively and down-to-earth, this concise introduction provides a broad, complete, and yet specific picture of visual narrative techniques that will increase readers' excitement about and knowledge of the possibilities of the film medium. Shot-by-shot analyses of short passages from each film ground theory in concrete examples. Fabe includes original and well-informed discussions of Soviet montage, realism and expressionism in film form, classical and modern sound theory, the classic Hollywood film, Italian neorealism, the French New Wave, auteur theory, modernism and postmodernism in film, political cinema, feminist film theory and practice, and narrative experiments in new digital media. Encompassing the earliest silent films as well as those that exploit the most recent technological innovations, this book gives us the particulars of how film—arguably the most influential of contemporary forms of representation—constitutes our pleasure, influences our thoughts, and informs our daily reality. |
Contents
DW Griffiths The Birth of a Nation | 1 |
Sergei Eisensteins The Battleship Potemkin | 19 |
FW Murnaus The Last Laugh and Charles Chaplins The Adventurer | 37 |
Howard Hawkss His Girl Friday | 59 |
Orson Welless Citizen Kane | 78 |
Vittorio De Sicas The Bicycle Thief | 99 |
François Truffauts The 400 Blows | 120 |
Alfred Hitchcocks Notorious | 135 |
Woody Allens Annie Hall | 173 |
Spike Lees Do the Right Thing | 191 |
Patricia Rozemas Ive Heard the Mermaids Singing | 207 |
Digital Video and New Forms of Narrative in Mike Figgiss Timecode | 228 |
Notes | 243 |
Glossary | 259 |
Bibliography | 267 |
273 | |
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action actors Alicia Alvy André Bazin angle Annie Hall appears artist audience auteur auteur theory Battleship Potemkin Bicycle Thief Bruce Bruno Chaplin character cinema Citizen Kane classical Hollywood close-up conventional create critics D. W. Griffith director dramatic editing effect Eisenstein Fellini fiction Figgis figure film art Film Form film medium Film Theory film’s filmmakers Flora focus frame French New Wave Girl Friday Griffith Guido Heard the Mermaids Hildy Hitchcock Hollywood film illusion Italian neorealism Kane's Last Laugh long shot long takes look match Mermaids Singing mise-en-scène montage Mookie mother movie Murnau narrative film neorealism neorealist Odessa Steps photographed play plot Polly quadrant Radio Raheem realist Ricci Right Thing Rozema Sal's Saraghina scene screen sequence Sergei Eisenstein shooting sound spectator Spike Lee style techniques theater Timecode tion Truffaut viewer visual watching woman women Woody Allen York