How Movies Work [Paperback]

Bruce Kawin (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 17, 1992 | ISBN-10: 0520076966 | ISBN-13: 978-0520076969

How Movies Work, offers the filmgoer an engaging and informative guide to the appreciation and evaluation of films. It provides a comprehensive consideration of movies from idea to script, casting, financing, shooting and distribution. Bruce Kawin addresses the book not just to students of film but to any filmgoer curious to know more about the process of the conception and creation of our favorite entertainment and art form.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"Covers all aspects of the film medium in a highly readable, informative, and scholarly fashion." -- George L . George, American Cinematographer

"The stylistic and intellectual energy of this book are astonishing. . . . It maintains for 557 large-format pages a contagious enthusiasm for the art: for its structural strategies, its ideological power, its emotional effects, its endless ingenuity, its beauty and its mysterious grace." -- Ernest Callenbach, Film Quarterly

About the Author

Bruce Kawin is Professor of English and Film Studies, University of Colorado, and author of Mindscreen: Bergman, Godard, and First-Person Films and editor of Faulkner's MGM Screenplays.

Product Details

• Paperback: 590 pages
• Publisher: University of California Press (January 17, 1992)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0520076966
• ISBN-13: 978-0520076969
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 7.9 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #509,573 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

18 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Standard work about making and "reading" movies, June 28, 1997

By A Customer

This review is from: How Movies Work (Paperback)

The title says it all: not only does this book tell you what a movie technically is made of (differences between film stocks, sound recording techniques, etc), it also tells you how the movie is shot (lighting, lenses, special effects, etc) but finally it also tells the deeper meaning of certain shots or sequences. Especially that last part is very interesting: with examples from Citizen Kane, Close Encounters Of The Third Kind and many others, the author explains how the composition of the picture, movements and sound can communicate concepts like mood, emotion and relationships.

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars You Must Buy This Book, April 20, 2001

By 

Gadgester "No Time, No Money" (Mother Earth) - See all my reviews
(HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: How Movies Work (Paperback)

You must buy this book if you want to find out how movies work, i.e., how they enrich our cultural experience and how they are made. Kawin's textbook is pleasantly readable by anyone interested in the cinema. It contains a wealth of information from film appreciation to film production (including explanations of various special effects!) to film studies. Every aspect of the cinema is clearly explained and illustrated with examples, and the book contains many still photographs, 96 of which are in color.

I think this is exactly how a "how-to" book should be written. I only wish it had been updated to reflect advances in the 1990s -- this book was first published in 1987 and reprinted in 1992.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars My Film History Teacher In College, May 17, 2010

By 

C. D. Chapra "Rumer O. Cook" (Anytown, USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: How Movies Work (Paperback)

The author of this book, Bruce F. Kawin, taught my film history class at the University of Colorado at Boulder. One of my favorite professors in college, he used his own textbook in the class. I recommend pairing Mr. Kawin's excellent book with Short History of the Movies, A (11th Edition), written by Gerald Mast and edited by Mr. Kawin]]. When he needed to illustrate a technical innovation of film, he used his own book. When he needed to make a historical point, he used "A Short History". We met twice a week for fifteen weeks, three hours per class, where he talked for up to 30 minutes and let the films do the rest. It would be difficult to duplicate the screenings for the class. The first semester featured silent films exclusively. The first film we saw was the first film anyone paid to see in a theatre, "Workers Leaving the Factory", by the Lumiere Brothers(See Landmarks of Early Film, Vol. 1 for more). I saw Abel Gance's La Roue in 1992, years before the official DVD release. Mr. Kawin had carte blanche to borrow the only existing print in the world, at that time, from the Modern Museum of Art in New York City. We ended the first semester with F. W. Murnau's masterpiece Sunrise [Blu-ray]. The second semester covered sound film from Don Juan (Silent) [VHS], the first film with a recorded sound track, to John Carpenter's They Live, the film I wrote about on my final exam; comparing Roddy Piper's character Nada to Chaplin's Little Tramp. I have read many Film theory and technical books since my college days and, even though I may sound biased, I believe Mr. Kawin and Mr. Mast combined provide the best film history education money can buy.