Here’s one of our rare textbook reviews. This one,
however, isn’t about the hard sciences as most are,
although it should still appeal to a fair portion of our
readership.
General Information
Title: Movies and Meaning
Author: Stephen Prince
Original Publication Date: May 14, 2003
ISBN: 020538112X
Cover Price: None; around $50 US
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Subject Matter
This is an introduction to film from a technical perspective.
It
discusses editing, camera work, sound design and so forth
in addition
to interpreting the content on screen. It also discusses
various
filmmakers and movements from around the world, and
some of the more
prominent film theories. Additionally, with Lord of the
Rings:
Fellowship of the Ring on the cover, you know it
won’t be overly
pompous, ignoring the Hollywood standard (well
constructed, if
sometimes shallow) type of filmmaking that some of my
other texts have
practically ignored.
High Point
There are minor redundancies in most of the chapters.
Our class isn’t
following the textbook in order, so this made later chapters
very
readable, even when they dealt with material from an
earlier chapter
we hadn’t covered yet.
Low Point
In order to provide enough details to discuss examples,
the author has
to give away some major plot points. If you have any
desire to see
movies like The French Connection (and you
should) or The
Searchers (which I would only recommend to fans
of westerns) you
should see them once before reading the text. Be aware
that
discussions of movies you haven’t seen will be prone to
revealing
information that you may not want to know.
The Scores
The clarity of the textbook was excellent. The
most
fundamental ideas are explained at length, with frames
from films when
appropriate. The explanations of the really important stuff
doesn’t
depend on having seen any particular film, to make sure
you’ll be able
to sort them out regardless of your viewing background.
Some of the
later chapters have more subjective subjects discussing
particular
filmmakers, and those can become dependent upon
seeing a particular
film. I give it 5 out of 6.
The structure was very well laid out. Each
chapter has
clearly stated objectives, a list of major terms, content
divided
clearly by sections, subsections, and so forth, and a
summary at the
end with suggestions for further reading. The need to
cross-reference
was minimized by the redundancy I mentioned above. The
sequence of
chapters is very logical, moving from the most basic and
easily
noticed elements of film construction, through the technical
aspects,
and then out into the economic aspects, followed by the
theoretical
aspects and the ideas of various filmmakers. I give it 5 out
of 6.
The text is loaded with applicable examples.
They are very
well chosen, too; Prince seems to actively seek out the
most popular
movies available to demonstrate the techniques in
question, which
makes it that much more likely that the reader is already
familiar
with the work being discussed. I give it 6 out of 6.
The exercises category is one which may
need modification
when we’re dealing with textbooks for non-quantitative
subjects.
There is no attempt made to ask students to reproduce
these tricks on
their own, nor are there any specific exercises for students
to work
on. An insecure reader would have a difficult time
discerning how
much learning is actually going on while reading the text. I
give it
2 out of 6, saved from a 1 only because the text seems
aimed at the
film viewer rather than the filmmaker, in which case Prince
may not
expect his readers to be able to reproduce these
techniques when they
have finished the text.
The completeness was very high. In some
cases, particular
examples I would have liked to see weren’t there (such as
sci-fi,
fantasy, and/or film noir in the “genre” discussions, or
Kubrick in
the “auteur” discussions) but I will have to let that slide, as
it is
unreasonable to expect a truly exhaustive list of these
areas. (The
book would be considerably longer than the roughly 400
pages it is
now.) I give it 5 out of 6.
The editing was very good through much of
the book. One
problem I noted was in the “genre” section, in which sci-fi
and film
noir are both listed as major genres in the introduction, but
are
replaced by horror in the extended discussions of the
major genres. I
suspect that this is merely some oversight in the editing
process, and
that an earlier edition discussed sci-fi and film noir in place
of
horror. Still, people like the ones who read a site like this
one
would likely be disappointed to see the promise of a
science fiction
discussion go unkept. The other moment worthy of note
was the use of
a figure from 1990 when discussing how the box office
dollar gets
divided. That division has changed since the introduction
of digital
sound. Assuming the theater I worked at was typical, the
local
theaters don’t often get the 20% indicated here, and 10%
of that box
office dollar is no longer enough to cover operating
expenses.
I give it 5 out of 6.
Overall, it’s a solid and useful book for
introducing oneself
to film. The major elements of a film’s construction are
clearly laid
out in a manner that doesn’t require examples, and then
examples are
provided anyway to help cement the learning. I’m hoping
that I’ll
have assimilated enough material from this text to improve
the reviews
I write of older material (which I won’t be seeing in
theaters, and
will therefore have a chance to watch more than once
before the
review.) I give it 5 out of 6.
In total, Movies and Meaning receives 33 out
of 42.
Additional Notes and Comments
As always, you can check out the
of
forthcoming reviews and make any requests for
heightened priority
of an item either in the comment space here or in