On the History of Film Style

337 Pages·1997·20.89 MB·English

by  David Bordwell

ON THE HISTORY OF FILM STYLE •

ON THE HISTORY
OF FILM STYLE
DAVID BORDWELL
HARVARD UNIVERSITY PRESS
Cambridge, Massachusetts, and London, England
1997
Copyright © 1997 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College
All rights reserved
Printed in the United States of America
Designed by Annamarie McMahon
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Bordwell, David.
On the history of film style I David Bordwell.
p. em.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0-674-63428-4 (cloth : alk. paper).-ISBN 0-674-63429-2
(pbk. : alk. paper)
1. Motion pictures-Aesthetics. 2. Motion pictures
Historiography. I. Title.
PN1995.B6174 1997
791.43'01-dc21
97-4016
CIP
Ala combriccola di Pordenone

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
This book was begun with the aid of a fellowship from the John Simon
Guggenheim Memorial Foundation. I am grateful to the Foundation for its
support. Most of the manuscript was written while I was a Senior Fellow at the
Institute for Research in the Humanities at the University ofWisconsin-Madi
son. I very much appreciate the scholarly camaraderie provided by my Insti
tute colleagues, particularly the energetic and good-humored director, Paul
Boyer. The book was completed with the help of funding from the University
of Wisconsin-Madison Graduate School Research Committee under the aus
pices of the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation.
This book owes its existence to many archivists who have provided access to
films and printed documents. These include Mary Corliss and Charles Silver
of the Museum of Modern Art (my oldest archivist friends); Enno Patalas,
Klaus Volkmer, and Gerhardt Ullmann at the Munich Film Museum;
Masaioshi Ohba and particularly Hisashi Okajima at the Film Center of To
kyo; Elaine Burrows of the National Film and Television Archive of the British
Film Institute; the irrepressible Chris Horak and Paolo Cherchi U sai, both
then presiding over the Motion Picture Collection of the George Eastman
International Museum of Photography; and archivist extraordinaire Maxine
Fleckner-Ducey of the Wisconsin Center for Film and Theater Research. I am
especially grateful to Gabrielle Claes, director of the Cinematheque Royale de
Belgique, who has loyally supported my work for many years. The
Cinematheque's cheerful staff-Clementine, Liliane, Alain, Jean-Victor, Axel,
and all the rest-have made it a wonderful place to conduct research.
I must also thank Michael Campi, Jerry Carlson, Seymour Chatman, Char
lie Keil, Alison Kent, Hiroshi Komatsu, Richard Koszarski, Graziella Me
nechella, Mike Pogorzelski, Tony Rayns, Donald Richie, Andreas Rost, Patrick
Rumble, Ben Singer, Meier Sternberg, and Lindsay Waters for assisting this
project in various ways. Two among the revered old guard of film studies died
while I was revising the manuscript. Both John Gillett of the British Film
Institute and William K. Everson of New York University shared their love of
cinema with all who came in touch with them, and books like this have
benefited greatly from their spontaneous generosity. I also want to recall the
friendship of Jeanne Allen and David Allen; on Thanksgiving 1976 they pre
sented me with Hegel's Aesthetics, the gift that keeps on giving.
Several students in my 1994 seminar on film style offered me new insights.
Tino Balio, Don Crafton, Vance Kepley, J. J. Murphy, and other Wisconsin
colleagues regularly enrich my understanding of film. A manuscript draft was
criticized in detail by Kristin Thompson, Yuri Tsivian, Ed Branigan, and Dana
Polan, reader for Harvard University Press. Kristin also supplied some of the
frame enlargements and printed up all the illustrations, proving once more
that love forgives folly.
I must single out four more friends. Noel Carroll's extensive and probing
comments on the manuscript fundamentally reshaped my arguments. Noel
offered me so many good criticisms that I have had to save some of them for
another book. Lea Jacobs and Ben Brewster let me sit in on their seminar on
early film, permitted me to interject the occasional monosyllable, and listened
patiently to my remarks on matters they know far more about than I. Ben also
read this book and corrected important matters of fact. Finally, Tom Gunning
gave me dozens of thoughtful suggestions on the manuscript. He was at his
most generous when I was criticizing arguments he has made.
This book originated in an article written for Film History in 1994. Portions
of the book were presented as lectures at MIT and the University of Hong
Kong, and I thank the people who invited me, Henry Jenkins and Patricia
Erens respectively, along with the listeners who offered comments.
Paolo Cherchi Usai, Lorenzo Codelli, Piero Colussi, Andrea Crozzofi, Livio
Jacob, Carlo Montanaro, Piera Patat, Davide Turconi, and the rest of the
Pordenone crew are largely responsible for opening my eyes to the splendors
of early film. Perhaps this volume will partly repay them for all the acts of
kindness they have bestowed on so many cinephiles.
viii • ACKNOWLEDGMENTS