What Cinema Is!
Bazin's Quest and its Charge
Published on 28. January 2010
184 pages
978-1-4443-2057-2 (ISBN)
Description
What Cinema Is! offers an engaging answer to Andre Bazin'sfamous question, exploring his 'idea of cinema' with a sweepinglook 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 enthusiasmover audio-visual entertainment, without relegating cinema to asingle, older mode
* Examines cinema's institutions and its social force through thequalities of key films
* Traces the history of an idea that has made cinema supremelyalive to (and in) our times
Reviews / Votes
"With this elegant volume, Dudley Andrew brilliantly continues hisextended project of producing a historiography of film theory andof French cinema. He has given us a book worthy of AndréBazin's intelligence, originality, curiosity, andspirit." Eric Smoodin, University of California at Davis "A new slant on Bazin with fresh disclosures for our era ofdigital media is always welcome, especially from Dudley Andrew,Bazin's foremost expositor. Andrew's graceful and analyticprose is peppered with timely provocations of his own, startingwith the Preface. Made manifest throughout is the continuingrelevance of Bazin's devotion to cinema and compassion forhumanity." Edward Branigan, University of California at SantaBarbaraMore details
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Person
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.
Content
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
