Bordwell & Thompson — Film Art
The standard textbook. Where this wiki's definitions default to when nothing fancier is needed.
- book
- textbook
- reference
David Bordwell, Kristin Thompson (with Jeff Smith in recent editions), Film Art: An Introduction (McGraw-Hill, 1979; many editions since). Book overview ↗ · Companion material on the authors' site: davidbordwell.net ↗
Good for
Clean, neutral definitions with worked examples: the editing taxonomy behind Montage, the diegetic/non-diegetic distinction behind Non-diegetic sound, the mise-en-scène checklist behind Mise en scène. When a note here needs an uncontroversial definition, it defaults to Film Art and links out from there.
Handle with care
Deliberately formalist — codes and conventions are its home ground, but for contexts (industry, censorship, reception) go to the dedicated context notes and their sources instead.