About book Film Art: An Introduction (Seventh Edition) (2003)
Film Art was my first book on film studies. I was not yet an avid film students by then, but this book captured my interest so deep as then it made me impatiently waiting for my future film-study classes. It's not a manual book of film techniques. Yet it does encompass that issues from an artsy point of view. This book discusses elements of films (e.g., shots, lighting, color, mood, tone, narrative, plots, acts, genres, hollywood era, and many more), precisely on how they constitue the overall look as well as meaning of a film. The vast explanations on every chapters are very informative for freshies in film study as they can understand film and the elements deeper than common viewers. I think, after readers dwell on this book, they won't see the film as they were. Their mind will questioned and analyzed the effectiveness and the appropriateness of the elements on films. In short, when I was a film student I found this book helped me a lot in shaping my film's critical skills. It was a great companion while I worked trough my weekly film journals.
I have been reading this book out loud to my freshman in college, who as a result of the introductory course in film analysis that this book is the reading for has decided that film study is not for him--but I have to say that there is a lot to be learned from this book, and one of the great things about it is that it gives specific examples of various film techniques from movies that you can watch, and then read the explanation. The book includes examples from over 200 movies, so watching them all would be a challenge, but it does have two advantages. One is that several chapters have a 2-4 page analysis based on a single film (one of which is 'Citizen Kane', another is a Buster Keaton movie available in full on YouTube, so you are getting a glimpse at some classic material), so you do not necessarily have to be in a class room to learn how to approach film study. It is pretty well written, as text books go, and I am surprised to say that I would recommend it to anyone wanting to think a bit more deeply about the movies that they are watching.
Do You like book Film Art: An Introduction (Seventh Edition) (2003)?
This book may be a text book but its really easy to read and I learned a lot from doing so. I am an arts student at university and this semester we are studying video art, this was the first book on our reading list and I almost read it cover to cover! I found it incredibly helpful to understand the basics on film art and how video is made. It was also a fantastic resource to look back on when I completed my assignments. If you are studying video or would like to gain a basic understanding for the art I would highly recommend this book!
—Montana
