Becoming Film Literate ─ The Art And Craft Of Motion Pictures

Though movies have remained our foremost cultural pastime for over 100 years, many of us still know very little about the tools used to create them. In this groundbreaking new book, Vincent LoBrutto provides an enjoyable and accessible education in the art of cinema: using 50 landmark films spanning the history of the medium, LoBrutto illustrates such important concepts as editing, production design, cinematography, sound, screen acting, narrative structure, and various genres, nationalities, and film eras. Each concept is illustrated by the selection of a film that epitomizes its use, so that readers will learn about film authorship in "Citizen Kane," multiplot narrative in "Nashville," widescreen filmmaking in "Rebel without a Cause," and screen violence in "The Wild Bunch." Explaining the various tricks of the moviemaking trade, "Becoming Film Literate" offers a crash course in cinema, one designed to give even the novice reader a solid introduction to this complex and multifaceted medium.

Though movies have remained our foremost cultural pastime for over 100 years, many of us still know very little about the tools used to create them. In this groundbreaking new book, Vincent LoBrutto provides an enjoyable and accessible education in the art of cinema: using 50 landmark films spanning the history of the medium, LoBrutto illustrates such important concepts as editing, production design, cinematography, sound, screen acting, narrative structure, and various genres, nationalities, and film eras. Each concept is illustrated by the selection of a film that epitomizes its use, so that readers will learn about film authorship in "Citizen Kane," multiplot narrative in "Nashville," widescreen filmmaking in "Rebel without a Cause," and screen violence in "The Wild Bunch."

Providing a unique opportunity to become acquainted with important movies and the elements of their greatness, "Becoming Film Literate" offers a crash course in cinema, one designed to give even the novice reader a solid introduction to this complex and multifaceted medium.

Vincent LoBrutto is an instructor of editing, production design, and cinema studies at the School of Visual Arts in New York City. He is the author ofStanley Kubrick: A Biography, as well as such books as Selected Takes: Film Editors on Editing (Praeger, 1991),By Design: Interviews with Film Production Designers (Praeger, 1992), and The Encyclopedia of American Independent Filmmaking (Greenwood, 2002). A member of American Cinema Editors, LoBrutto is the assistant editor ofCinemaEditor and a contributing author to American Cinematographer andFilms in Review.