PN1995.9.E9F17

Includes bibliographical references (p. 267-272) and index

Contents List of Illustrations Acknowledgments Introduction Chapter 1. The Beginnings of Film Narrative: D.W. Griffith's The Birth of a Nation Chapter 2. The Art of Montage: Sergei Eisenstein's The Battleship Potemkin Chapter 3. Expressionism and Realism in Film Form: F.W. Murnau's The Last Laugh and Charles Chaplin's "The Adventurer" Chapter 4. The Conversion to Sound and the Classical Hollywood Film: Howard Hawks' His Girl Friday Chapter 5. Expressive Realism: Orson Welles' Citizen Kane Chapter 6. Italian Neorealism: Vittorio De Sica's Bicycle Thief Chapter 7. Auteur Theory and the French New Wave: François Truffaut's The 400 Blows Chapter 8. Hollywood Auteur: Alfred Hitchcock's Notorious Chapter 9. The European Art Film: Federico Fellini's 8 1/2 Chapter 10. Film and Postmodernism: Woody Allen's Annie Hall Chapter 11. Political Cinema: Spike Lee's Do The Right Thing Chapter 12. Feminism and Film Form: Patricia Rozema's I've Heard the Mermaids Singing Chapter 13. Epilogue: Digital Video and New Forms of Narrative: Mike Figgis's Time Code Glossary Bibliography Index

How 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.