Description: Reinventing Hollywood by David Bordwell In the 1940s, American movies changed. Flashbacks began to be used in outrageous, unpredictable ways. Soundtracks flaunted voice-over commentary, and characters might pivot from a scene to address the viewer. Incidents were replayed from different characters viewpoints, and sometimes those versions proved to be false. Films now plunged viewers into characters memories, dreams, and hallucinations. Some films didnt have protagonists, while others centered on anti-heroes or psychopaths. Women might be on the verge of madness, and neurotic heroes lurched into violent confrontations. Combining many of these ingredients, a new genre emerged—the psychological thriller, populated by women in peril and innocent bystanders targeted for death. If this sounds like todays cinema, thats because it is. In Reinventing Hollywood, David Bordwell examines the full range and depth of trends that crystallized into traditions. He shows how the Christopher Nolans and Quentin Tarantinos of today owe an immense debt to the dynamic, occasionally delirious narrative experiments of the Forties. Through in-depth analyses of films both famous and virtually unknown, from Our Town and All About Eve to Swell Guy and The Guilt of Janet Ames, Bordwell assesses the eras unique achievements and its legacy for future filmmakers. Reinventing Hollywood is a groundbreaking study of how Hollywood storytelling became a more complex art and essential reading for lovers of popular cinema. FORMAT Paperback LANGUAGE English CONDITION Brand New Author Biography David Bordwell is the Jacques Ledoux Professor Emeritus of Film Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. With Kristin Thompson, he is coauthor of Film Art: An Introduction and Film History: An Introduction and the blog Observations on Film Art, which can be found at Table of Contents Introduction The Way Hollywood Told It Chapter 1 The Frenzy of Five Fat Years Interlude: Spring 1940: Lessons from Our Town Chapter 2 Time and Time Again Interlude: Kitty and Lydia, Julia and Nancy Chapter 3 Plots: The Menu Interlude: Schema and Revision, between Rounds Chapter 4 Slices, Strands, and Chunks Interlude: Mankiewicz: Modularity and Polyphony Chapter 5 What They Didnt Know Was Interlude: Identity Thieves and Tangled Networks Chapter 6 Voices out of the Dark Interlude: Remaking Middlebrow Modernism Chapter 7 Into the Depths Chapter 8 Call It Psychology Interlude: Innovation by Misadventure Chapter 9 From the Naked City to Bedford Falls Chapter 10 I Love a Mystery Interlude: Sturges, or Showing the Puppet Strings Chapter 11 Artifice in Excelsis Interlude: Hitchcock and Welles: The Lessons of the Masters Conclusion The Way Hollywood Keeps Telling It Acknowledgments Notes Index Review "In addition to the almost unparalleled breadth and depth of his research, Bordwells love of and admiration for the periods experimentation and risk-taking comes through on every page. His exuberance is infectious, and again and again I found myself writing down titles of films--many of which I had not heard of before--I now want to see due to his impassioned account of their innovations. This is a singularly important book that powerfully brings to life a rich period of experimentation in Hollywoods history."--Malcolm Turvey, Tufts University "A new book from David Bordwell is always a welcome event in the field of film studies, particularly for the cinephilic academic who appreciates his wide-ranging corpus and the close attention with which he analyses individual moments. . . . It is a hugely engaging account of the fertility of this period and a convincing collection of invigorating storytelling innovations. . . . A fresh contribution to scholarship on Hollywood cinema and an aficionados joy."--Times Higher Education "As our premier analyst of cinematic storytelling, Bordwell plunges us into Hollywood movies in the 1940s, brilliantly opening up the eras productive innovations in narrative and narration. Along the way, he explains experiments with devices such as amnesia, cine-portraiture, converging-fates and episode plots, focused space, ghost-movie rules, hooks, impression management, interruptive flashbacks, the omnibus format, polyphonic voice-overs, rhythms of replacement, the switcheroo, and the traveling object. What a treasure for lovers of cinema."--Janet Staiger, University of Texas at Austin "Bordwell effectively argues that the change in the era of bold, different, sometimes difficult films from the 40s made a permanent mark of cinematic storytelling that resonates to this day."--PopMatters (11/06/2017) "An exhaustive, meticulous study of a decade when cinematic storytelling exploded with fresh creative options."--Noir City, Film Noir Foundation "Rather than focusing on the colorful stars and studio bosses of 1940s Hollywood, prolific film historian Bordwell . . . zooms in on the films themselves, and more specifically, how they were made." --Library Journal "Deeply impressive."--Times Literary Supplement "Few exceed David Bordwell at the job of looking at cinematic technique and describing how, exactly, the trick is done. . . . The book lays out a remarkable curriculum of 1940s American films before reaching a conclusion that traces their legacy to the present day, arguing that well before young American filmmakers of the 1970s discovered modernism from the European art film, the Europeans had been learning from the experimentation of Hollywoood in the 1940s--a seemingly inexhaustible creative wellspring, here drunk from deeply."--Film Comment "a two-fisted approach to rethinking Hollywoods evolution"--Sight & Sound "Reinventing Hollywood shows how risk-taking screenwriters and directors of the 1940s introduced storytelling strategies taken from modernist novels and avant-garde theater, enriching movies with their use of unreliable narrators and flashbacks within flashbacks. . . . No dry encyclopedia of cinematic tropes, this is a delectable menu of narrative techniques that maximize the complexity and depth of a plot. . . . As invaluable to storytellers as to cinephiles and scholars interested in the narrative architecture of Hollywood efforts, both the well-known and less so."--Film Quarterly "No other critic or historian comes close to the sort of comprehensive discussion of the period that Bordwell gives in Reinventing Hollywood. With an encyclopedic knowledge of movie history, he seems to have seen everything. His research is prodigious, filled with fascinating details about how specific scripts were written and revised. Despite this, there isnt a whiff of pretention in his writing, which is not only lucid but also witty and engaging."--James Naremore, Indiana University Bloomington "Situating Hollywood film among other popular arts of the times, such as theater or the novel or radio drama, Bordwell convincingly shows how movies were key cases of what he terms moderate modernism and explored and expanded storytelling possibilities. Having seen everything, read everything, and thought brilliantly about everything, Bordwell delivers the definitive poetics of American cinema as narrative act and narrative art."--Dana Polan, New York University "Bordwell is our soldier of the cinema, the guy up on the wall telling us whats out there and, in this case, how and why it got there. Reinventing Hollywood is a deep and wide look into a period of creative fervor and storytelling innovation in the movies that hasnt been matched by any other art form since. This book is bracing and encyclopedic and has real heft, but its still a breezy read. Its not just that you can read it, you can see it. And if modern filmmakers cant find any inspiring ideas in here, theyre just not trying."--David Koepp, screenwriter, Jurassic Park and War of the Worlds; director, Ghost Town and Premium Rush "With Reinventing Hollywood, Bordwell pulls off the near impossible. His book, which is meticulously researched, somehow has the ability to inform, to contextualize, and to entertain in equal measures. He is able to demystify arguably the most mature decade of American films in a way that explains patterns and influences but also recognizes those unique, inexplicable masterpieces that somehow came from out of nowhere."--Mark Johnson, producer, Rain Man, Galaxy Quest, and Breaking Bad Review Quote "With Reinventing Hollywood , Bordwell pulls off the near impossible. His book, which is meticulously researched, somehow has the ability to inform, to contextualize, and to entertain in equal measures. He is able to demystify arguably the most mature decade of American films in a way that explains patterns and influences but also recognizes those unique, inexplicable masterpieces that somehow came from out of nowhere." Details ISBN022663955X Year 2019 ISBN-10 022663955X ISBN-13 9780226639550 Format Paperback Publication Date 2019-02-21 Author David Bordwell Pages 592 Language English Imprint University of Chicago Press Subtitle How 1940s Filmmakers Changed Movie Storytelling Country of Publication United States DEWEY 384.80979494 Short Title Reinventing Hollywood UK Release Date 2019-02-21 AU Release Date 2019-02-21 NZ Release Date 2019-02-21 US Release Date 2019-02-21 Publisher The University of Chicago Press Audience General We've got this At The Nile, if you're looking for it, we've got it. With fast shipping, low prices, friendly service and well over a million items - you're bound to find what you want, at a price you'll love! TheNile_Item_ID:161790086;
Price: 88.85 AUD
Location: Melbourne
End Time: 2025-01-23T03:39:41.000Z
Shipping Cost: 5.78 AUD
Product Images
Item Specifics
Restocking fee: No
Return shipping will be paid by: Buyer
Returns Accepted: Returns Accepted
Item must be returned within: 30 Days
ISBN-13: 9780226639550
Type: Does not apply
Book Title: Reinventing Hollywood: How 1940s Filmmakers Changed Movie Storytelling
Item Height: 229mm
Item Width: 152mm
Author: David Bordwell
Format: Paperback
Language: English
Publisher: The University of Chicago Press
Publication Year: 2019
Number of Pages: 592 Pages
