Figures Traced in Light

On Cinematic Staging

By: David Bordwell

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Paperback | 7 March 2005 | Edition Number 1

At a Glance

Paperback
327 Pages

Dimensions(cm)
25.4 x 17.8 x 1.5

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A film tells its story not only through dialogue and actors' performances but also through the director's control of movement and shot design. Figures Traced in Light is a detailed consideration of how cinematic staging carries the story, expresses emotion, and beguiles the audience through pictorial composition. Ranging over the entire history of cinema, David Bordwell focuses on four filmmakers' unique contributions to the technique. In-depth chapters examine Louis Feuillade, master of the 1910s serial; Kenji Mizoguchi, the great Japanese director who worked from the 1920s to the 1950s; Theo Angelopoulos, who began his career as a political modernist in the late 1960s; and Hou Hsiao-hsien, the Taiwanese filmmaker who in the 1980s became the preeminent Asian director. For comparison, Bordwell draws on films by Howard Hawks, Michelangelo Antonioni, Yasujiro Ozu, Takeshi Kitano, and many other directors. Superbly illustrated with more than 500 frame enlargements and 16 color illustrations, Figures Traced in Light situates its close analysis of model sequences in the context of the technological, industrial, and cultural trends that shaped the directors' approaches to staging.

Industry Reviews

"The choreography of cinematic creation is stunningly revealed in this learned and lively book. Finely historical with meticulous descriptions of directors, actors, and cameras in motion, Figures Traced in Light registers for the first time the abiding patterns of cinematic staging around the world and through the years." - Janet Walker, author of Trauma Cinema; "David Bordwell is undoubtedly the most productive and influential film historian at work today. His magisterial Figures Traced in Light combines incisive close analyses of compelling filmic artifacts with a painstaking attention to all pertinent research materials. Eschewing any abstract notion of Film, he stresses the labor, thought, and creativity which goes into the staging of individual films." - Eric Rentschler, Harvard University"

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You Can Find This Book In

Non-Fiction Arts & Entertainment Film, TV & Radio Specific Films Technical & Background Skills in Film Production Film Theory & Criticism Acting & Theatre Studies Society & Culture Dance & Other Performing Arts

Acknowledgments
Staging and Style
Feuillade, or Storytelling
Mizoguchi, or Modulation
Angelopoulos, or Melancholy
Hou, or Constraints
Staging and Stylistics
Notes
Index
Table of Contents provided by Publisher. All Rights Reserved.

Figures Traced in Light

On Cinematic Staging

At a Glance

Paperback

Industry Reviews

Shipping

How to return your order

Defective items

You Can Find This Book In

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