Movies and Meaning is a comprehensive introduction to the film industry that focuses on three topics: how movies express meanings, how viewers understand those meanings, and how cinema functions globally as both an art and a business. It examines both how filmmakers create images and sounds and the mechanisms and processes by which viewers make sense of images and stories on screen.

"The meaning of life is the most urgent of questions," said the existentiallist thinker Albert Camus. And no less a philosopher than Woody Allen has wondered:"How is it possible to find meaning in a finite world, given my waist and shirt size?" "Movies and the Meaning of Life" looks at popular and cult movies, examining their assumptions and insights on meaning-of-life questions: What is reality and how can I know it? (The Truman Show, Contact, Waking Life); How do I find myself and my true identity? (Fight Club, Being John Malkovich, Boys Don't Cry, Memento); How do I find meaning from my interactions with others? (Pulp Fiction, Shadowlands, Chasing Amy); What is the chief purpose in life? (American Beauty, Life is Beautiful, The Shawshank Redemption); and How ought I live my life? (Pleasantville, Spiderman, Minority Report, Groundhog Day).

David Bordwell's new book is at once a history of film criticism, an analysis of how critics interpret film, and a proposal for an alternative program for film studies. It is an anatomy of film criticism meant to reset the agenda for film scholarship. As such Making Meaning should be a landmark book, a focus for debate from which future film study will evolve. Bordwell systematically maps different strategies for interpreting films and making meaning, illustrating his points with a vast array of examples from Western film criticism. Following an introductory chapter that sets out the terms and scope of the argument, Bordwell goes on to show how critical institutions constrain and contain the very practices they promote, and how the interpretation of texts has become a central preoccupation of the humanities. He gives lucid accounts of the development of film criticism in France, Britain, and the United States since World War II; analyzes this development through two important types of criticism, thematic-explicatory and symptomatic; and shows that both types, usually seen as antithetical, in fact have much in common. These diverse and even warring schools of criticism share conventional, rhetorical, and problem-solving techniques--a point that has broad-ranging implications for the way critics practice their art. The book concludes with a survey of the alternatives to criticism based on interpretation and, finally, with the proposal that a historical poetics of cinema offers the most fruitful framework for film analysis.

Movies mirror our desires and dreams, but they also shape them, as we struggle to understand ourselves and our world in relation to God. Finding Meaning at the Movies is a guide for groups and indivuduals who wish to explore - through movies - major themes, issues, and questions that we all have in common. Sara Ansen Vaux takes the reader on a cinematic journey, showing how to look for messages of value and meaning by examining not only the content of a film, but also the ways (cinematography, color, sound) that a movie tells a story.

A director reveals the original inspirations for his films, their history, his methods of work, and the problems of visual creativity

A tribute to and exploration of the magic behind one of Hollywood's most legendary and unknowable stars, Keanu Reeves, and the profound lessons we can learn from his success There can be no doubt: Keanu Reeves is a phenomenon. He’s at once a badass action star, a hunky dreamboat who People magazine has called “the Internet’s boyfriend,” a vintage motorcycle enthusiast, a niche art book publisher, a living meme, and a legend. He seems to upend every rule governing celebrity in the 21st century. But how? In Keanu Reeves: Most Triumphant, cultural critic Alex Pappademas attempts to address Keanu’s unmatched eternality and the other big questions raised by his career arc. Sharp, funny, deeply researched, and fully celebratory of the enigmatic actor, this is the first book to take Keanu’s whole deal as seriously as it deserves. Yes, even Johnny Mnemonic, where Keanu mind melds with a dolphin. Along the way, Pappademas reveals the lessons we can learn from Keanu about Hollywood, our broader culture, and even life itself.

An Introduction to Film Analysis is designed to introduce students to filmmaking techniques while also providing an invaluable guide to film interpretation. It takes readers step by step through: -the basic technical terms -shot-by-shot analyses of film sequences -set design, composition, editing, camera work, post-production, art direction and more -each chapter provides clear examples and full colour images from classic as well as contemporary films Ryan and Lenos's updated edition introduces students to the different kinds of lenses and their effects, the multiple possibilities of lighting, and the way post-production modifies images through such processes as saturation and desaturation. Students will learn to ask why the camera is placed where it is, why an edit occurs where it does, or why the set is designed in a certain way. The second section of the book focuses on critical analysis, introducing students to the various approaches to film, from psychology to history, with new analysis on postcolonial, transnational and Affect Theory. New to this edition is a third section featuring several in-depth analyses of films to put into practice what comes before: The Birds, The Shining, Vagabond, In the Mood for Love, Before the Devil Knows You're Dead.

Melodrama and Meaning is a major addition to the new historical approach to film studies. Barbara Klinger shows how institutions most associated with Hollywood cinema—academia, the film industry, review journalism, star publicity, and the mass media—create meaning and ideological identity for films. Chapters focus on Sirk's place in the development of film studies from the 1950s through the 1980s, as well as the history of the critical reception (both academic and popular) of Sirk's films, a history that outlines journalism's role in public tastemaking. Other chapters are devoted to Universal's selling of Written on the Wind, the machinery of star publicity and the changing image of Rock Hudson, and the contemporary "institutionalized" camp response to Sirk that has resulted from developments in mass culture.

By exploring the relationship between music and the moving image in film narrative, David Neumeyer shows that film music is not conceptually separate from sound or dialogue, but that all three are manipulated and continually interact in the larger acoustical world of the sound track. In a medium in which the image has traditionally trumped sound, Neumeyer turns our attention to the voice as the mechanism through which narrative (dialog, speech) and sound (sound effects, music) come together. Complemented by music examples, illustrations, and contributions by James Buhler, Meaning and Interpretation of Music in Cinema is the capstone of Neumeyer's 25-year project in the analysis and interpretation of music in film.

Exploring Movie Construction & Production contains eight chapters of the major areas of film construction and production. The discussion covers theme, genre, narrative structure, character portrayal, story, plot, directing style, cinematography, and editing. Important terminology is defined and types of analysis are discussed and demonstrated. An extended example of how a movie description reflects the setting, narrative structure, or directing style is used throughout the book to illustrate building blocks of each theme. This approach to film instruction and analysis has proved beneficial to increasing students¿ learning, while enhancing the creativity and critical thinking of the student.