Observing Film Art

When David Bordwell died in 2024, he left behind a legacy of film scholarship and criticism whose influence is unmatched. Co-author of a pair of textbooks adopted across the globe and the main force behind a blog read by thousands, Bordwell has influenced generations of film students, filmmakers, and film critics. Observing Film Art examines the breadth of Bordwell's work through the perspectives of those who knew him best, collaborators, former students, and critics among them. This is the first collection devoted to the work of Bordwell, and it gives equal attention to each facet of his prodigious scholarship, structured to highlight his interest in theory, history, and analysis and criticism. The cornerstones of his approach to film study, including formalism, cognitivism, and historical poetics, are all examined in detail, as are key works, including The Classical Hollywood Cinema (coauthored with Kristin Thompson and Janet Staiger) and Narration in the Fiction Film.

Charlie Keil is a professor in the Cinema Studies Institute and the Department of History at the University of Toronto in Canada, where he also serves as Principal of Innis College. He has published eight books, the most recent being The Oxford Handbook of Silent Cinema, coedited with Rob King.Murray Smith is a professor of philosophy, art, and film and Director of the Aesthetics Research Centre at the University of Kent in the UK. He has published widely on film, art, and aesthetics, including most recently Film, Art, and the Third Culture: A Naturalized Aesthetics of Film, Trainspotting, and Engaging Characters: Fiction, Emotion, and the Cinema.