Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

This concise introduction to the study of film offers an integrated and carefully paced overview of the issues and perspectives that contribute to a full understanding of the medium. It starts simply with a range of filmic examples, theoretical terms and analytical strategies chosen to reflect students' likely motivations for studing film in the first place. Its unified narrative line and student-centered philosophy create a layered approach, where greater complexity is built in stage by stage. It is enriched by a fund of diverse examples, handled as extended case studies or briefer vignettes, that offer a sensitive mix of the familiar, classic and more unusual.

Table of contents provided by Syndetics

• List of figures (p. x)
• List of film stills (p. xi)
• List of tables (p. xiii)
• Acknowledgements (p. xiv)
• Preface (p. xv)
• Introduction (p. 1)
• Chapter 1 Film language (p. 5)
• 1.1 Introduction (p. 5)
• 1.2 Introduction to mise en scene (p. 5)
• 1.3 Production design: sets, props and costumes (p. 7)
• 1.4 Lighting (p. 10)
• 1.5 Performance (p. 12)
• 1.6 Sound (and music) (p. 16)
• 1.7 Framing: position; depth of field; aspect ratio; height and angle (but not movement) (p. 22)
• 1.8 Camera movement (p. 28)
• 1.9 Editing (p. 31)
• 1.10 Film stars as texts (p. 41)
• Chapter 2 Film genre and narrative (p. 46)
• 2.1 Introduction (p. 46)
• 2.2 Defining genre (p. 46)
• 2.3 The repertoire of elements (p. 48)
• 2.4 Generic evolution (p. 53)
• 2.5 Approaches to genre (p. 57)
• 2.6 Twelve uses of genre (p. 59)
• 2.7 Genre and audiences (p. 76)
• 2.8 Introduction to narrative (p. 77)
• 2.9 Todorov and Propp (p. 78)
• 2.10 Story and plot (p. 84)
• 2.11 Roland Barthes' narrative codes (p. 88)
• 2.12 Other approaches (p. 90)
• 2.13 Postmodern narratives (p. 93)
• Chapter 3 Film as industry (p. 99)
• 3.1 Introduction (p. 99)
• 3.2 The beginning of cinema (p. 99)
• 3.3 Hollywood - the formation of the major studios (p. 100)
• 3.4 Hollywood and censorship (p. 104)
• 3.5 Hollywood - the coming of sound (p. 106)
• 3.6 Hollywood decline: the Paramount decrees and the baby boom (p. 108)
• 3.7 New Hollywood? The early 1970s (p. 109)
• 3.8 Package Hollywood (p. 111)
• 3.9 Hollywood: conglomeration to media corporation (p. 113)
• 3.10 The importance of Jaws (p. 116)
• 3.11 Hollywood and the high concept (p. 119)
• 3.12 The independent sector in North America (p. 123)
• 3.13 The arthouse sector (p. 125)
• 3.14 Selling cinema (p. 129)
• 3.15 Genre and industry (p. 131)
• 3.16 How new is contemporary Hollywood? (p. 135)
• 3.17 Stars (p. 136)
• 3.18 The publicity circus (p. 139)
• 3.19 The DVD revolution (p. 142)
• 3.20 Film festivals (p. 143)
• 3.21 Conclusion: the shadow of Hollywood (p. 144)
• Chapter 4 Film and theory (p. 147)
• 4.1 Introduction (p. 147)
• 4.2 Film and realism (p. 147)
• 4.3 The auteur theory (p. 155)
• 4.4 Structuralism and auteurism (p. 156)
• 4.5 Screen theory - ideology (p. 161)
• 4.6 Screen theory - psychoanalysis (p. 174)
• 4.7 Screen theory - feminist analysis (p. 177)
• 4.8 Spectatorship (p. 180)
• 4.9 Third cinema and post-colonialism (p. 189)
• 4.10 Postmodernism and poststructuralism (p. 197)
• 4.11 Audience pleasures (p. 203)
• Chapter 5 Film and history (p. 208)
• 5.1 Introduction (p. 208)
• 5.2 German Expressionism (p. 209)
• 5.3 Avant-garde (p. 214)
• 5.4 Soviet cinema in the 1920s (p. 219)
• 5.5 The British documentary movement (p. 222)
• 5.6 Italian neo-realism (p. 223)
• 5.7 The French New Wave (nouvelle vague) (p. 227)
• 5.8 The British New Wave (1959-63) and the 'Swinging Sixties' (p. 231)
• 5.9 Other 1960s new waves (p. 237)
• 5.10 May '68 (p. 240)
• 5.11 New German cinema (p. 242)
• 5.12 Chinese cinema: fifth and sixth generation (p. 245)
• 5.13 Iranian cinema (p. 248)
• 5.14 Denmark's Dogme (p. 250)
• Appendices (p. 253)
• A5.1 Australia and New Zealand - the role of the aboriginal (p. 253)
• A5.2 The Balkans - civil strife (p. 255)
• A5.3 Canada - engulfed by America? (p. 256)
• A5.4 Hong Kong - (not) a national cinema? (p. 258)
• A5.5 Mexican Cinema - renaissance on America's doorstep (p. 259)
• Chapter 6 Film and representation (p. 263)
• 6.1 Introduction (p. 263)
• 6.2 Representation and types (p. 263)
• 6.3 African-Americans and Hollywood (p. 266)
• 6.4 National cinema (p. 272)
• 6.5 British cinema (p. 274)
• 6.6 State-of-the-nation films (p. 293)
• Chapter 7 Film and technology (p. 295)
• 7.1 Introduction (p. 295)
• 7.2 Precursors (p. 295)
• 7.3 Projecting frames (p. 296)
• 7.4 Aspect ratio (p. 297)
• 7.5 Lenses and filmstock (p. 299)
• 7.6 Sound and colour (p. 300)
• 7.7 Animation (p. 301)
• 7.8 Special effects (p. 302)
• 7.9 Digital distribution (p. 305)
• 7.10 Conclusion (p. 306)
• Bibliography (p. 308)
• Film index (p. 329)
• Subject index (p. 332)