The New York Times has a great article on David Bordwell, a film historian who used to teach at UW-Madison. Now I didn’t know the latter factoid until I read this article, though I do know about Bordwell because when I used to study and write about film, I found Bordwell to be a refreshing blast of fresh air. Although I read my share of Lacanian, semiotics and post-modernist theory, it was all just . . . gobbledygook: turgid academic-speak designed, primarily, for other academics. I think I even said so in a paper once, or maybe that’s only wishful thinking. (I didn’t have a death wish and saying something negative about a theory or theorist in a roomful of, say, Lacanians is begging for bloodshed.)
Anyway, I remember when Bordwell’s book on Classical Hollywood cinema came out–and boy, did I love that because it made so much SENSE. To me, the whole point of studying film is to figure out why a certain film appeals to people or makes me cry . . . whatever. Films are meant to be seen and experienced, not reduced to arid blather, and Bordwell went into the mechanics of how films work. Me, I tended to focus on the more unconscious and/or developmental levels of film–that is, the psychological reasons why The Wizard of Oz is structured the way it is, or why Star Trek follows a certain pattern. But Bordwell did a fabulous service to film academe (and me) by reminding us that form and content mirror one another. If you want to reach an audience, you have to understand the mechanics of presenting your material in a way that will appeal to your audience. Think of how different Oz would be, as a narrative, if there wasn’t that shift from black-and-white to color, or if Dorothy’s friends weren’t, essentially, talking animals (and an extension of Toto, when you get right down to it) but regular adults or other, older kids. If the shoes had been silver instead of red. Oz would’ve been a very different movie.
Anyway, I enjoyed that little side-trip down memory lane. Check out Bordwell’s blog, too, if you’ve a mind.
Interesting.
By the way, Draw the Dark looks badass.