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On the History of Film Style
The study of cinematic style has profoundly shaped our attitude toward movies. Style assigns films to a tradition, distinguishes a classic, and signals the arrival of a pathbreaking innovation. David Bordwell now shows how film scholars have attempted to explain stylistic continuity and change across the history of cinema.
Bordwell scrutinizes the theories of style launched by André Bazin, Noël Burch, and other film historians. In the process he celebrates a century of cinema, integrating discussions of film classics such as The Birth of a Nation and Citizen Kane with analyses of more current box-office successes such as Jaws and The Hunt for Red October. Examining the contributions of both noted and neglected directors, he considers the earliest filmmaking, the accomplishments of the silent era, the development of Hollywood, and the strides taken by European and Asian cinema in recent years.
On the History of Film Style proposes that stylistic developments often arise from filmmakers’ search for engaging and efficient solutions to production problems. Bordwell traces this activity across history through a detailed discussion of cinematic staging. Illustrated with more than 400 frame enlargements, this wide-ranging study provides a new lens for viewing cinema.
Bordwell scrutinizes the theories of style launched by André Bazin, Noël Burch, and other film historians. In the process he celebrates a century of cinema, integrating discussions of film classics such as The Birth of a Nation and Citizen Kane with analyses of more current box-office successes such as Jaws and The Hunt for Red October. Examining the contributions of both noted and neglected directors, he considers the earliest filmmaking, the accomplishments of the silent era, the development of Hollywood, and the strides taken by European and Asian cinema in recent years.
On the History of Film Style proposes that stylistic developments often arise from filmmakers’ search for engaging and efficient solutions to production problems. Bordwell traces this activity across history through a detailed discussion of cinematic staging. Illustrated with more than 400 frame enlargements, this wide-ranging study provides a new lens for viewing cinema.
353 pages, ebook
First published January 1, 1979
22 people are currently reading
873 people want to read
About the author
David Bordwell
62 books220 followersDavid Bordwell, Jacques Ledoux Professor at the University of Wisconsin, is arguably the most influential scholar of film in the United States. The author, with his wife Kristin Thompson, of the standard textbook Film Art and a series of influential studies of directors (Eisenstein, Ozu, Dreyer) as well as periods and styles (Hong Kong cinema, Classical Hollywood cinema, among others), he has also trained a generation of professors of cinema studies, extending his influence throughout the world. His books have been translated into fifteen languages.
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Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews
March 29, 2011
This is a somewhat difficult book to explain, as well as a brilliantly dense and layered meditation on the evolution of film art. In a very literal sense, it is the culmination of Bordwell's historiographical research project on the history of, not only the way films look, but the development of the theories and technologies behind these styles. Bordwell is likely the most coherent film academic currently writing, and this particular book is a testament to his erudition and clarity.
Bordwell begins with three schools of thought that attempt to explain the evolution of style throughout the history of cinema, the first being the Standard Version History, which is Hegelian and teleological, arguing that cinema has a linear evolution starting from crude and primitive techniques to more advanced and developed styles. Standard Version historians feel that particular techniques were elaborated on in the early part of the twentieth-century in a way that made cinema "less a pure recording medium than a distinct means of artistic expression". He immediately argues that this historiographical perspective is methodologically bankrupt because, at the time of its theoretical popularity, the cinema had only been around as an artistic medium for about thirty years. This says a lot about neo-Hegelian art theory in general, and the cinema is a perfect medium with which to reveal how a teleological approach to explaining style is too rigid, not to mention how it anticipates contradictions as much as supporting examples.
Andre Bazin and the dialectical program occupy the next chapter. Undoubtedly, one of the most important film theorists (and critics), Bazin wrote at length about such concepts as Profondeur de Champs (depth-of-field photography), decoupage (basically, what is commonly referred to as editing, when images are cut together to form a continuous sequence, or form a narrative), auteur theory (director as individualistic visionary), Mise en Scene (production design), and cinematic realism. Bazin's writings are important as the first true alternative to the Standard Version of film history. Through the designation of these different techniques, he shows just how paradigmatic film style can be in the context of the history of the medium. He also introduced the idea that cinema as an art form, was a way of depicting or documenting reality. Cinema created its own reality through the filming of fictional stories. This sounds lofty, but film theory tends to be unavoidably hyperbolic, given the nature of the medium. While Bazin's dialectical program isn't theoretically impenetrable, his contributions to the thought behind style and film aesthetics are priceless.
A more politically motivated phase of the theory of film style is discussed in the third chapter entitled The Return of Modernism: Noel Burch and the Oppositional Program. Bordwell explains how directors such as Alain Resnais, Michaelangelo Antonioni, Jean-Luc Godard, Ingmar Bergman, and Frederico Fellini helped launch a wave of films that came to be recognized as modernist cinema. In departing from Bazin's realism and classical decoupage, as well as returning to techniques used in silent-era montage, these directors redefined both the look and the possibilities of film style. Burch's oppositional program attempts to explain how and why avant-garde cinema differs from mainstream hollywood cinema. As much as he praises Burch's writings, Bordwell still feels that avant-garde or experimental filmmaking cannot be adequately defined as being created with the intention of opposing or going against the grain of mainstream cinema. He argues that certain filmmakers in the 60's merely directed films this way. It didn't always have everything to do with a radical opposition, or a political rebellion. This is partially true, but then again directors such as Antonioni and Godard, clearly had their leftist sympathies, and most of their films address ideas of cultural hegemony, alienation, bourgeois complacency, etc. Godard may be an extreme example; his films could almost be described as solely oppositional. And Antonioni tended to frustrate many critics through his willingness to abandon several conventional approaches to storytelling. Then again, a director such as Jacques Tati, who was almost apolitical, could merely be described as a quirky director who made incidentally oppositional films.
After establishing these three major schools of thought on film style, Bordwell focuses on the importance of staging in depth. Also known as deep-focus photography, this technique was most famously utilized with stylistic perfection in Orson Welle's Citizen Kane. Of course, Welles himself confessed an influence by D.W Griffith's use of deep-focus in Intolerance. Deep-focus photography could be called one of the most important stylistic innovations in the history of cinema. The significance of its use is a detail to consider in almost every film made over the past century. Thankfully, Mr. Bordwell contributes one of the most elaborate studies of its use in the history of film theory.
While Bordwell's book doesn't really contribute any particular theory, he does take all previous explanations of the stylistic continuity of the medium's history into account. If anything, he wants to remind viewers and readers, that film style is, if anything, more paradigmatic. While technology, politics, theory, and cultural environment all contribute to the way films look, these influences and their resulting stylistic appearance is not a linear development or evolution. And while he questions many of the claims and theories of past writers, not just those vying for the teleological angle, he does pay homage to the significant effect that they have had on an international perspective of style.
Bordwell begins with three schools of thought that attempt to explain the evolution of style throughout the history of cinema, the first being the Standard Version History, which is Hegelian and teleological, arguing that cinema has a linear evolution starting from crude and primitive techniques to more advanced and developed styles. Standard Version historians feel that particular techniques were elaborated on in the early part of the twentieth-century in a way that made cinema "less a pure recording medium than a distinct means of artistic expression". He immediately argues that this historiographical perspective is methodologically bankrupt because, at the time of its theoretical popularity, the cinema had only been around as an artistic medium for about thirty years. This says a lot about neo-Hegelian art theory in general, and the cinema is a perfect medium with which to reveal how a teleological approach to explaining style is too rigid, not to mention how it anticipates contradictions as much as supporting examples.
Andre Bazin and the dialectical program occupy the next chapter. Undoubtedly, one of the most important film theorists (and critics), Bazin wrote at length about such concepts as Profondeur de Champs (depth-of-field photography), decoupage (basically, what is commonly referred to as editing, when images are cut together to form a continuous sequence, or form a narrative), auteur theory (director as individualistic visionary), Mise en Scene (production design), and cinematic realism. Bazin's writings are important as the first true alternative to the Standard Version of film history. Through the designation of these different techniques, he shows just how paradigmatic film style can be in the context of the history of the medium. He also introduced the idea that cinema as an art form, was a way of depicting or documenting reality. Cinema created its own reality through the filming of fictional stories. This sounds lofty, but film theory tends to be unavoidably hyperbolic, given the nature of the medium. While Bazin's dialectical program isn't theoretically impenetrable, his contributions to the thought behind style and film aesthetics are priceless.
A more politically motivated phase of the theory of film style is discussed in the third chapter entitled The Return of Modernism: Noel Burch and the Oppositional Program. Bordwell explains how directors such as Alain Resnais, Michaelangelo Antonioni, Jean-Luc Godard, Ingmar Bergman, and Frederico Fellini helped launch a wave of films that came to be recognized as modernist cinema. In departing from Bazin's realism and classical decoupage, as well as returning to techniques used in silent-era montage, these directors redefined both the look and the possibilities of film style. Burch's oppositional program attempts to explain how and why avant-garde cinema differs from mainstream hollywood cinema. As much as he praises Burch's writings, Bordwell still feels that avant-garde or experimental filmmaking cannot be adequately defined as being created with the intention of opposing or going against the grain of mainstream cinema. He argues that certain filmmakers in the 60's merely directed films this way. It didn't always have everything to do with a radical opposition, or a political rebellion. This is partially true, but then again directors such as Antonioni and Godard, clearly had their leftist sympathies, and most of their films address ideas of cultural hegemony, alienation, bourgeois complacency, etc. Godard may be an extreme example; his films could almost be described as solely oppositional. And Antonioni tended to frustrate many critics through his willingness to abandon several conventional approaches to storytelling. Then again, a director such as Jacques Tati, who was almost apolitical, could merely be described as a quirky director who made incidentally oppositional films.
After establishing these three major schools of thought on film style, Bordwell focuses on the importance of staging in depth. Also known as deep-focus photography, this technique was most famously utilized with stylistic perfection in Orson Welle's Citizen Kane. Of course, Welles himself confessed an influence by D.W Griffith's use of deep-focus in Intolerance. Deep-focus photography could be called one of the most important stylistic innovations in the history of cinema. The significance of its use is a detail to consider in almost every film made over the past century. Thankfully, Mr. Bordwell contributes one of the most elaborate studies of its use in the history of film theory.
While Bordwell's book doesn't really contribute any particular theory, he does take all previous explanations of the stylistic continuity of the medium's history into account. If anything, he wants to remind viewers and readers, that film style is, if anything, more paradigmatic. While technology, politics, theory, and cultural environment all contribute to the way films look, these influences and their resulting stylistic appearance is not a linear development or evolution. And while he questions many of the claims and theories of past writers, not just those vying for the teleological angle, he does pay homage to the significant effect that they have had on an international perspective of style.
February 10, 2010
I believed, based on the title, that this book would be a history of film style. Instead, it is a historiographical account of various approaches to the history of film style, taking a thorouhgly debunking tack to each account addressed. The final chapter though is a history, of sorts, of one particular aspect of film stlye (depth of staging and focus), and Bordwell does an excellent job of using this history to explicate his own account of film style, which is that film style have not "evolved" or "progressed" in any meaningful sense, nor have they been developed along specific ideological lines. Rather, Bordwell argues, film style is essentially heuristic - it arises, as it were, by accident. That is the accidents of having to solve various problems of film making (how do I make clear what the narrative is, who the main characters are, etc.) explain much more about film style than any specific ideological program, for the simple reason that there are far too many unknowns on a film set for a director (or producer) to ever be able to do much more than preside over accidents (as Orson Welles put it).
June 10, 2017
تجربهٔ خوندنش برای کسی که تا حدی با مطالعات سینمایی آشناست و چیزهایی خونده و دیده، مثل مواجههٔ یک آدم متدین با پژوهشهای تاریخی-زبانشناختی در حوزهٔ ادیانه، یا مثلاً بحثهای تکاملی و علمی که بنیاد بسیاری از باورهاتو بر باد میده :))
March 20, 2021
Bordwell does that additional systematization that hardly ever crosses anyone's mind intuitively as a necessary task. The mere approach to something he designates as film style is carried out in a unique way here (he wants to treat those elements like mise en scène, cutting, framing, lighting, etc. - basically, the matters of cinematography, the sensorial in film in a broad sense). In addition, Bordwell wants to examine the subject historically and traces three distinctive approaches to film style history. He points out the differences between the Standard Version that won the authority in the 1920s and early 1930s (the goal was to determine in what ways cinema represents a distinct art form), Bazin's dialectical variant of the 1940s and 1950s (a certain Hegelian mode of thinking about the subject), and Burch's oppositional program of the 1960s and 1970s (the idea of "counter-cinema" with all the presumed ideological effects present in the film medium).
While criticizing the entire idea of any such thing as a postmodern understanding of the development of film style, Bordwell wants to point out that its arguments stay loose and too broad. Postmodern theories do little to explain either stylistic continuity or its change. Changes in technology are also, according to Bordwell, a rather general basis to understand any stylistic development.
Apart from explaining his distaste for a lot of contemporary accounts of film style, as well as of what film represents in the first place, Bordwell offers solid alternative solutions to these thought challenges. There are many other things to get back to in the book apart from the aformentioned ones (in the second half of it, Bordwell examines the patterns in technical aspects of filmmaking, such as the use of color, depth, camera movement, etc.). He's also concise, full of examples, situationally amusing, and writes very engagingly.
While criticizing the entire idea of any such thing as a postmodern understanding of the development of film style, Bordwell wants to point out that its arguments stay loose and too broad. Postmodern theories do little to explain either stylistic continuity or its change. Changes in technology are also, according to Bordwell, a rather general basis to understand any stylistic development.
Apart from explaining his distaste for a lot of contemporary accounts of film style, as well as of what film represents in the first place, Bordwell offers solid alternative solutions to these thought challenges. There are many other things to get back to in the book apart from the aformentioned ones (in the second half of it, Bordwell examines the patterns in technical aspects of filmmaking, such as the use of color, depth, camera movement, etc.). He's also concise, full of examples, situationally amusing, and writes very engagingly.
Read
June 2, 2023An essential book, if finally exhausting. This survey of major histories/historians of film style should be read by anyone seeking to understand the mechanics of why films look as they do: staging, editing, lighting, camera lenses and focal lengths, strategies of camera movement and positioning, set design, the optical pyramid of cinematic perspective...it's all here, explained in great, commonsense detail, reified with generous frame-grabs from the 100 years of movies under discussion. I have been inching through it for several months, partly attributable, no doubt, to its being an ebook rather than a physical book, with all the attendant distractions that format invites. There is also the matter that this reads like a textbook (which it may be? His similarly rigorous Film History was assigned to me in college.), every argument and divergence from the Standard Version carefully backed up and wrung of import. It is not a light or frivolous read, and by the Afterword I was begging him to wrap it up. Still, this is the rare film book that I think just about anybody could learn something useful from. Bordwell's range of knowledge and rhetorical cogency are hard to top. Rating it is kind of superfluous: this is a reference companion to keep close at hand if casting about for the name of a technique or trying to figure out how a filmmaker achieved an effect, or as a reminder that the present in any art form is not an endpoint or culmination but part of a larger unfolding in time, explicable only in hindsight, whose next steps may depend as much on an embrace of tradition as its repudiation. In our time of streaming inanities, erratic access, and budget-busting monstrosities, I find that prospect comforting.
* * *
You can download the book here.
Read David Bordwell's invaluable film blog here.
* * *
You can download the book here.
Read David Bordwell's invaluable film blog here.
May 22, 2023
A very hefty and dense volume, immensely fascinating and enlightening. It really made me revise the way I viewed certain film styles and film styles from different periods, thanks to a more indepth understanding of the factors that influenced the filmmakers' choices of the time. Bordwell's sober and impartial language serve to make his case intelligible and sensible without being dictative. It's also interesting to see how the history of film styles has played out since the publishing of this book back in 1997, from which I personally draw the conclusion that can only be drawn in hindsight, there was and is never a grand narrative. The devices employed in a film ultimately boils down to the individual filmmaker.
May 3, 2007
This is a very good book on the evolution of film composition, staging, and editing. Bordwell is a very good writer.
March 21, 2017
One of the very best film books I've read.
August 26, 2017
Great book about film where you can learn a lot of stuff. Such a professional literature.
August 11, 2025
Bordwell details an interesting thing about the Institutional Mode of Representation where the bourgeois looks for and demands more realistic representational media to affirm their illusion of the world; of the status quo, which puts mainstream cinema into sharper context, as well as sharpening my appreciation of the Matrix’s critique of movies themselves; the most vivid representation of reality that’s locked a certain worldview into the masses.
But for the most part, as a filmMAKER, you can really skip the first 150 pages and go right to Chapter Six because that’s where all the juicy things are. Bordwell explains his historiography as a pattern of problems being solved which create new problems ! It’s really wonderful—all of it ! It took me months of commitment to drag myself through the 150 pages and then read the next 150 in less than a week ! It all ties in so brilliantly with all his blog entries which have little snippets of this book and I’m really spoilt by his formalist analysis because none of the other critics seem to be interested in expounding upon, in great detail, how the meaning is being created ! Beyond excited to start “Figures Traced in Light”
But for the most part, as a filmMAKER, you can really skip the first 150 pages and go right to Chapter Six because that’s where all the juicy things are. Bordwell explains his historiography as a pattern of problems being solved which create new problems ! It’s really wonderful—all of it ! It took me months of commitment to drag myself through the 150 pages and then read the next 150 in less than a week ! It all ties in so brilliantly with all his blog entries which have little snippets of this book and I’m really spoilt by his formalist analysis because none of the other critics seem to be interested in expounding upon, in great detail, how the meaning is being created ! Beyond excited to start “Figures Traced in Light”
August 2, 2020
I can't think of a more complete, clear and enjoyable guide about the subject of how film style has been thought about and studied. While exploring three big moments on historiographic research (plus the professionalized, piecemeal, revisionist history), Bordwell exposes the basic assumptions on which they rest and the, sometimes shared, problems they have to face (for instance, the belief on a teleological development towards the medium's essence, or the coexistence of two or more stylistic trends, and the interplay between them).
All this leads us to Bordwell's own account on the history of depth staging, whose method is mostly taken from the revisionist historians, and where he tries to reconciliate assumptions made by the research programs previously described. He goes for a "common-sense", case-specific way of understanding film's stylistic changes and continuities, balancing the importance of individuals and institutions, and making problem-solving the leitmotif of the history of style.
All this leads us to Bordwell's own account on the history of depth staging, whose method is mostly taken from the revisionist historians, and where he tries to reconciliate assumptions made by the research programs previously described. He goes for a "common-sense", case-specific way of understanding film's stylistic changes and continuities, balancing the importance of individuals and institutions, and making problem-solving the leitmotif of the history of style.
May 8, 2020
Bordwell’s history of film style fights to prove against “presentism” and “Post-pessimism” (two phrases on the conclusive final pages that I liked) to show that film history is full of innovation from its very beginnings. This innovation was used going forward, with techniques amplified and tweaked and improved, but not totally newly invented—it is a convincing, studious case. I think I understood it. Bordwell is accessible and academic. God bless him for it.
Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews