ISBN 10: 0132140705 ISBN 13: 9780132140706

Publisher: Pearson Education Canada, 2010

This introductory text is based on the conviction that understanding movies requires, first of all, an awareness of how film differs from other media, the specific ways in which movies communicate, as well as what they can do and what they have done historically. As Marshall McLuhan once declared, “any understanding of social and cultural change is impossible without a knowledge of the way media work as environments.”  Therefore,  the goal of this introductory text is not to teach students to change their viewing habits, but to make them more aware of the reasons why people respond to movies as they do. The author’s aim has been to make students more aware of their own national cinema and to suggest some of the reasons why people respond to Canadian movies in particular ways.

About the Author:

Louis Giannetti  is a Professor of English and Film at Case Western Reserve University inn Cleveland. In addition to being a professional movie reviewer for several years, he has written many scholarly articles for such journals as Literature Film Quarterly, The Western Humanities Review, and Film Criticism. Dr. Giannetti is also the author of the popular textbook, UNDERTANDING MOVIES, (Prentice Hall). Other books include a collection of theoretical essays, GODARD AND OTHERS: ESSAY ON FILM FORM (Fairleigh Dickinson University Press and Tantivy Press, 1975), and MASTERS OF THE AMERICAN CINEMA (Prentice Hall, 1981), a history of American fiction films from the perspective of eighteen major figures.

 

Jim Leach is a Professor in the Department of Communications, Popular Culture, and Film at Brock University. His research and teaching interests include Canadian, British, and popular cinema, as well as film and cultural theory. He has recently published the first book-length study of the films of Claude Jutra. Current projects include a book on British cinema and an edited book on classic National Film Board documentaries. He helped to design the film studies program at Brock, one of the first at a Canadian university and, more recently, was active in the development of the Communications Studies program and an interdisciplinary M.A. program in Popular Culture.

Review:

“Understanding Movies provides numerous Canadian examples while still fulfilling its mandate as a general introductory text, The Canadian examples do not come at the expense of an understanding of film by replacing other content, Instead, they enhance the textbook by making it relevant to Canadian students (and teachers)”.

-Scott Henderson, Brock University