Interpretation and Film Studies

Movie Made Meanings

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by Phillip Novak

Type

Essays

Subject

Film Analysis

Keywords

analysis, David W. Griffith, Marcel Carné, Mike Nichols, Michelangelo Antonioni

Publishing date

2021

Publisher

Palgrave MacMillan

1st publishing

2020

Language

English

Relative size

Physical desc.

Paperback • 264 pages
6 x 8 ¼ inches (15 x 21 cm)

ISBN

978-3-030-44741-0

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Book Presentation:
This book argues that the sustained interpretation of individual movies has, contrary to conventional wisdom, never been a major preoccupation of film studies—that, indeed, the field is marked by a dearth of effective, engaging, and enlightening critical analyses of single films. The book makes this case by surveying what has been written about four historically important and well-known movies (D. W. Griffith’s Way Down East, Marcel Carné’s Port of Shadows, Mike Nichols’s The Graduate, and Michelangelo Antonioni’s Red Desert), none of which has been the focus of sustained critical attention, and by exhaustively examining the kinds of work published in four influential film journals (Cinema Journal, Screen, Wide Angle, and Movie). The book goes on to argue for the value of the work of interpretation, illustrating this value through extended analyses of Roman Polanski’s Chinatown and Christopher Nolan’s Memento, both of which thematize interpretation. Novak demonstrates the causes and consequences of reading poorly and the importance of reading well.

About the Author:
Phillip Novak is Associate Professor in the English department and the Department of Communication and Film Studies at Le Moyne College, Syracuse, New York. He has published articles on both film and literature in PMLA, Criticism, Journal of Film and Video, and elsewhere.

See the publisher website: Palgrave MacMillan