What Cinema Is! offers an engaging answer to Andre Bazin's
famous question, exploring his 'idea of cinema' with a sweeping
look back at the near century of Cinema's phenomenal ascendancy.
* Written by one of the foremost film scholars of our time
* Establishes cinema's distinction from the current enthusiasm
over audio-visual entertainment, without relegating cinema to a
single, older mode
* Examines cinema's institutions and its social force through the
qualities of key films
* Traces the history of an idea that has made cinema supremely
alive to (and in) our times
Autorentext
Dudley Andrew is the R. Selden Rose Professor of Film and Comparative Literature at Yale University. The author of many books, including Mists of Regret (1995) and Popular Front Paris (2005), he is an Officier de l'ordre des arts et des lettres and a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
Klappentext
What Cinema Is! offers an engaging answer to Andre Bazin's famous question through a sweeping look back over the phenomenal ascendancy of a certain idea of cinema. Written by one of the foremost film scholars of our time, this provocative volume proclaims cinema's distinct value not just for the last century but for our current audio-visual culture. Whatever cinema may yet become, this unique idea should orient and guide it.
Examining cinema's institutions and its social force but always through the qualities of key films What Cinema Is! testifies to the power of something that didn't even exist before 1895. From the art films cherished by cinephiles after World War II through the banner years of the New Wave to a technologically expanded cinema, Andrew traces the long nerve of this idea that has made cinema supremely alive to (and in) our times.
Zusammenfassung
What Cinema Is! offers an engaging answer to Andre Bazin's famous question, exploring his 'idea of cinema' with a sweeping look back at the near century of Cinema's phenomenal ascendancy.
- Written by one of the foremost film scholars of our time
- Establishes cinema's distinction from the current enthusiasm over audio-visual entertainment, without relegating cinema to a single, older mode
- Examines cinema's institutions and its social force through the qualities of key films
- Traces the history of an idea that has made cinema supremely alive to (and in) our times
Inhalt
Acknowledgments ix
Prologue: The Target of Film Theory xiii
1 The Camera Searching in the World 1
Is a Camera Essential? 1
The Cahiers Axiom 4
Tracing Bazin's Trace 11
Images Contested Today 17
2 The Editor's Discovery of Form 29
Bazin's Forerunners 31
Documentaries in the Cauldron of History 37
The Cahiers Line 42
Pursuing Cinema in the Twenty-First Century 48
3 The Projector as Spectator's Searchlight 66
The Power of Projection 69
Opening the Screen's Dimensions 74
Frame as Threshold 79
Writing out of the Frame 90
4 The Evolution of the Subjects of Cinema 98
Modern Film: Between Classic and Avant-Garde 99
The Ontogeny of Cinema 110
Credits and Auteurs: An Ecology of Adaptation 123
Fidelity: The Economy of Adaptation 129
Index 147