Bringing together twenty-five years of work on what he has called the "historical poetics of cinema," David Bordwell presents an extended analysis of a key question for film studies: how are films made, in particular historical contexts, in order to achieve certain effects? For Bordwell, films are made things, existing within historical contexts, and aim to create determinate effects. Beginning with this central thesis, Bordwell works out a full understanding of how films channel and recast cultural influences for their cinematic purposes. With more than five hundred film stills, Poetics of Cinema is a must-have for any student of cinema.

Table of Contents

Questions of Theory

1. Poetics of Cinema

2. Convention, Construction, and Cinematic Vision

Studies in Narrative

3. Three Dimensions of Film Narrative

4. Cognition and Comprehension: Viewing and Forgetting in Mildred Pierce

5. The Art Cinema as a Mode of Film Practice

6. Film Futures

7. Mutual Friends and Chronologies of Chance

Studies in Style

8. Cinecerity

9. Taking Things to Extremes: Hallucinations Courtesy of Robert Reinert

10. CinemaScope, The Modern Miracle You See Without Glasses

11. Who Blinked First?

12. Visual Style in Japanese Cinema, 1925-1945

13. A Cinema of Flourishes

14. Aesthetics in Action: Kung Fu, Gunplay, and Cinematic Expression

15. Richness through Imperfection: King Hu and the Glimpse

大衛•波德維爾（David Bordwell），生於1947年7月23日，美國傑齣的電影理論傢及作者，威斯康星大學麥迪遜分校傳播藝術係名譽退休教授，電影研究雅剋•勒杜教授，法國電影資料館顧問。波德維爾是“認知電影理論”的創始人，並以其對小津安二郎、愛森斯坦等人的作者研究，電影敘事學，香港電影研究，電影風格史的研究而廣受尊敬。並著有廣受歡迎的《電影藝術》《世界電影史》《古典好萊塢電影》等。

張錦，四川大學文學學士，中國人民大學管理學碩士，北京電影學院文學碩士，英國布裏斯托爾大學文學碩士、國傢公派訪問學者。現為中國電影藝術研究中心副研究員，中國電影傢協會會員。