Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

First Published in 1987. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

Reviews provided by Syndetics

CHOICE Review

Bordwell presents a theory of how films, ``in their formal and stylistic operations, solicit story-constructing and story-comprehending activities from spectators.'' Taking into account many of the most fruitful recent critical theories, he first spells out the theoretical concepts necessary to explain the process he is examining. Bordwell then examines what he takes to be four of the major narrational modes: classical narration, art cinema narration, historical-materialist narration, and parametric narration. He shows that each has ``its own relatively stable compositional `dominants' and its fundamental choices about how viewing activity will occur.'' After establishing the conventions of each narrative mode, Bordwell points out how each tries to complicate its conventions to avoid stereotyping, while still maintaining conventional stability. Some filmmakers, however, like Godard, who is treated at some length, go so far as to make the conventions themselves problematical. This is a well-illustrated, well-documented book, up to date in a time of rapidly changing theories. It also opens up important new questions to explore: how, for example, do the different narrational modes specifically express their ideological perspectives? Highly recommended for graduate students and upper-division undergraduates.-I. Deer, University of South Florida