The Routledge Companion to Film History
Edited by William Guynn
Average rating:
0 | rating | ![]() |
0 | rating | ![]() |
0 | rating | ![]() |
0 | rating | ![]() |
Your rating: -
Book Presentation:
The Routledge Companion to Film History is an indispensable guide for anyone studying film history for the first time. The approach taken presents a substantial and readable overview of the field and provides students with a tool of reference that will be valuable throughout their studies.
The volume is divided into two parts. The first is a set of eleven essays that approaches film history around the following themes:
History of the moving image
Film as art and popular culture
Production process
Evolution of sound
Alternative modes: experimental, documentary, animation
Cultural difference
Film’s relationship to history
The second is a critical dictionary that explains concepts, summarizes debates in film studies, defines technical terms, describes major periods and movements, and discusses historical situations and the film industry. The volume as a whole is designed as an active system of cross-references: readers of the essays are referred to dictionary entries (and vice versa) and both provide short bibliographies that encourage readers to investigate topics.
About the Author:
William Guynn is Emeritus Professor of Art (Cinema) at Sonoma State University, California. His previous publications include Writing History in Film (Routledge, 2006)
Press Reviews:
'This guide provides a stimulating insight into fifty directors working today' - Tanya Jones, The Media Education Association
'The Routledge Companion to Film History has both breadth and enough depth to move beyond a more generalised and popularist approach to the topics within each chapter... An impressive addition to the film history 'library'.' - POV
See the publisher website: Routledge
> From the same author:
> On a related topic:
A Short History of Film (2025)
by Wheeler Winston Dixon and Gwendolyn Audrey Foster
Subject: History of Cinema
The Enchanting Kinora (2025)
Domesticating Moving Images in Edwardian Britain
by Elizabeth Evans and Llewella Chapman
Subject: History of Cinema
The Routledge Companion to American Film History (2025)
Dir. Pamela Robertson Wojcik and Paula J. Massood
Subject: History of Cinema
Rethinking the Cinematic Cold War (2025)
The Struggle for Hearts and Minds Goes Global
Dir. Stefano Pisu, Francesco Pitassio and Maurizio Zinni
Subject: History of Cinema
Popular Visual Shows 1800–1914 (2025)
Picturegoing from Peep Shows to Film
by Joe Kember and John Plunkett
Subject: History of Cinema
Histoires d'appareils / Tales from the Vaults (2023)
La technologie du cinéma à travers les années et les continents
Dir. Louis Pelletier and Rachael Stoeltje
(in French and English)
Subject: History of Cinema
Accidental Archivism (2023)
Shaping Cinema’s Futures with Remnants of the Past
Dir. Stefanie Schulte Strathaus and Vinzenz Hediger
Subject: History of Cinema
How Film Histories Were Made (2023)
Materials, Methods, Discourses
Dir. Malte Hagener and Yvonne Zimmermann
Subject: History of Cinema