Style and meaning - Susan Williams

Approaches
to the detailed analysis of film and related questions about
interpretations and value are once again being widely debated in film
studies. Style and meaning is the first edited collection for many years
to focus on these matters. The essays - which include contributions by
established film scholars (such as George M. Wilson, V. F. Perkins and
Laura Mulvey) and by younger writers in the field - centre on methods of
close analysis and ground their discussion in the detail of individual
films.With a common focus on the choices made by filmmakers, the
writers explores different aspects of the relationship between textual
detail and broader conceptual frameworks. Some chapters examine
individual aspects of filmmaking - the long take, cinematography, space
and point of view, unreliable narration. Others take up different kinds
of questions which are equally crucial to textual analysis and
interpretation, including: meaning and value; emotional response; the
concept of 'the fictional world'; new technologies and film analysis.
The selection of films has been made to reflect not only those areas of
film history which traditionally been explored through mise-en-scne
criticism, but also areas such as the avant-garde and television drama
which have not tended to receives such detailed investigation. In these
ways the book conducts a series of dialogues with issues in film study
which are specifically provoked by close analysis.Style and
meaning is an important new initiative in the varied literature of film
studies. its highly readable collection of analyses and variety of
approaches will prove popular on undergraduate courses while providing
an invaluable resource for graduate students and teachers of film and
media.