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Poetics of Cinema

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I will begin my review by mentioning the most basic problem with this book, namely it's price that may prevent it obtaining the wider circulation that it deserves. However, as the author has stated on several occasions, writers, especially those of academic texts, usually have no control concerning the prices publishers charge for their works. Hopefully, this collection of new and past essays may be available in a much more accessible form some time in the future but until then many of us must be content by obtaining it via libraries.

Having said this, I will now begin by saying that this collection represents one of the most worthwhile texts of film criticism current today and even those who may disagree with the approach taken will find it challenging and learn much from it - assuming we study it with unbiased perceptions and be ready to debate with its findings. The introductory essay defining historical poetics represents one of the best informed example of a certain type of practical criticism of its type. Among the other excellent essays, those of cinematic construction and vision, cognition and comprehension in MILDRED PIERCE, the three dimensions of film narrative, and the extraordinary investigation of how several classical Hollywood cinematic craft practices informed 1950s cinemascope films are extraourdinary in their lucid presentation of arguments. Vistually all of the essays are informed by frames from scenes within the various films discussed.

Like all of his books, POETICS OF CINEMA is not an easy read. It is demanding but not in the realm of obsurantist film theory of several decades before. Bordwell covers European, Hollywood, Hong Kong and Japanese Cienma in several learned essays in a cogent and disciplined manner based upon the type of logical and reasoned argument very difficult to find in most journals today. Again, I will conclude by saying that despite the different paths we may follow and various disagreements we may have with the methodology, his arguments can not be ignored or avoided. In fact, if we engage with them seriously, we may end up being better makers of meaning than before.

This book is highly recommended to all serious readers whether inside or outside the academy.

Introduction

Questions of Theory

1. Poetics of Cinema

2. Convention, Construction, and Cinematic Vision

Studies in Narrative

3. Three Dimensions of Film Narrative

4. Cognition and Comprehension: Viewing and Forgetting in Mildred Pierce

5. The Art Cinema as a Mode of Film Practice

6. Film Futures

7. Mutual Friends and Chronologies of Chance

Studies in Style

8. Cinecerity

9. Taking Things to Extremes: Hallucinations Courtesy of Robert Reinert

10. CinemaScope, The Modern Miracle You See Without Glasses

11. Who Blinked First?

12. Visual Style in Japanese Cinema, 1925-1945

13. A Cinema of Flourishes

14. Aesthetics in Action: Kung Fu, Gunplay, and Cinematic Expression

15. Richness through Imperfection: King Hu and the Glimpse

It's always a pleasure to learn from this Master os Arts.

Lázaro Silva

Terceira, Azores

Portugal

The book includes lots of articles from the past thirty-year career.

It does include chapters on Japanese cinema; however, some of them seem to lack convincing discussions, like in a part on Ishida Tamizo, a Japanese director in 1930s.

The author claims that Ishida' use of a decorative method is characteristic to the period, although I do claim that the method has been used since 30s by many global filmmakers.

I cannot help but doubt that the author claims objective opinions with convincing evidences.