Way Hollywood Tells It: Story and Style in Modern Movies

by David Bordwell

Hollywood moviemaking is one of the constants of American life, but how much has it changed since the glory days of the big studios? David Bordwell argues that the principles of visual storytelling created in the studio era are alive and well, even in today’s bloated blockbusters. American filmmakers have created a durable tradition—one that we should not be ashamed to call artistic, and one that survives in both mainstream entertainment and niche-marketed indie cinema. Bordwell traces the continuity of this tradition in a wide array of films made since 1960, from romantic comedies like Jerry Maguire and Love Actually to more imposing efforts like A Beautiful Mind. He also draws upon testimony from writers, directors, and editors who are acutely conscious of employing proven principles of plot and visual style. Within the limits of the “classical” approach, innovation can flourish. Bordwell examines how imaginative filmmakers have pushed the premises of the system in films such as JFK, Memento, and Magnolia. He discusses generational, technological, and economic factors leading to stability and change in Hollywood cinema and includes close analyses of selected shots and sequences. As it ranges across four decades, examining classics like American Graffiti and The Godfather as well as recent success like The Lord of the The Two Towers, this book provides a vivid and engaging interpretation of how Hollywood moviemakers have created a vigorous, resourceful tradition of cinematic storytelling that continues to engage audiences around the world.

Genres: Film, Nonfiction, Media Tie In, Art, Audiobook, Writing, Academic

309 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2006

About the author

David 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.

Reviews

[Erinn · Rating 4 out of 5]

I've said it before and I'll say it again: David Bordwell writes the textbooks I actually enjoy reading. Bless this man for his clarity and his concise analyses.

[Jonathan Kim · Rating 4 out of 5]

I probably should have read a bit more about this book before I embarked on reading it. I didn't realize it would be quite so academic in its style, not that I minded, but it was unexpected.

I have read a few of David Bordwell's essays, and I found his ability to explain his view on cinema to be succinct and insightful, his book is no different.

He explains and illustrates throughout his book that while many things have changed in Hollywood films from 1960's onward, much of the fundamental language of film has remained entrenched in innovations and styles developed at the advent of filmmaking.

Reading this book helped me understand what's changed most about movies is ultimately in how they're constructed. Previously, the limitations really were around the film itself. The limited ways to capture film, to cut it, and then construct it again. Now, everything is practically unlimited - unlimited coverage, unlimited cutting and unlimited versions, not to say that this is what's happening in actuality. Cost is still a factor even with hundreds of millions in budget, but the style of filmmaking is not the same as it once was - no more deep focus, no more complex blocking, no more long cuts. Hollywood favors shallow focus, two-shots with close-ups and average shot lengths of a few seconds.

Hollywood really doesn't make them the way they used to anymore, but the language hasn't really changed. It's just gotten faster, filled with new slang and relaxed its regional dialects.

[Aurelio Guerra · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'm glad I read this book. Like most people (I guess), I've watched hundreds of films, and yet, I remain appallingly ignorant about movies.
This book explores the idea of continuity of genres, techniques, styles in movies going back to the early 1900's. Bordwell offers examples of how many of the features that movie viewers would consider novelties were present very early in cinema history; that the history of cinema is marked by this continuity, particularly how the feeling of belatedness, encourages newer generations of directors to respond, adapt, improve, change, deliberately break with, etc., with what their predecessors had done (thus maintaining this tradition). This topic (which is the central topic) was very revelatory to me.
Another idea that stuck me was the fallacy of "artistic" loss in cinema compared with previous epochs. The author makes a convincing case that spectacle is not antithetical to narrative or plot, or character in movies and that, in fact, even action movies, even hero action movies, retain the elements of classic cinema and the triumphs of this continuity.

[Rafael Jovine · Rating 3 out of 5]

A really good film about cinema, the style, got to learn some of the jargon I had no idea about, the way different styles came from and like the difference between modern and classic through editing, for example. The prose and writing style as a whole were great, very eloquent and engrossing. Maybe I wasn't in the right mindset during my reading so that could have definitely hurt my experience.

[Matt K · Rating 5 out of 5]

Three act structures, scene composition, average shot length, and Jerry Magurie. He covers it all.

[Kate Wise · Rating 4 out of 5]

Read this for my American Cinema since 1961 class and I can now see why Bordwell is one of the eminent film scholars. A very insightful read!

[Nikola Theodore Lindenberg · Rating 1 out of 5]

Horrible. Drier than dry. It is sad that Bordwell is one of the most prolific academics on the topics of film. I wish someone else had written so much of film, and on as many different topics, but with more style and vision. Bordwell's writing style is tedious, uninspired, and arguments and theories too simplistic.

Much like in the case of The Classical Hollywood Cinema: Film Style and Mode of Production to 1960
The Classical Hollywood Cinema by the same author, if I wanted to read an encyclopedia of dry film facts, I would have found a different book.

[Knigel Holmes · Rating 5 out of 5]

David Bordwell gives a great analysis of how films have crystallised the older techniques while keeping much of the same visual grammar. He challenges many common assumptions of how films are getting worse. I found this to be insightful, yet although it's not a bad thing, it can be hard to keep up if one does not know some of the film titles to which he is referring. If one has seen the films Bordwell talks about, they can get a better understand and perspective. If, however, one hasn't seen such films, one can get many great recommendations for films to see.

[Elliot T. · Rating 4 out of 5]

A concise description of why new films look/feel different than old films. Combined w/ the Bordwell chapters from "The Classical Hollywood Cinema," they'd tell you all you needed to know about directing/writing a Hollywood movie. Too bad he wastes 1/3 of this book defending his argument against the popular conception that contemporary H-wood films suck. If it weren't so overly defensive, it'd be a perfect handbook for directors.

[Jeremy · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting book on how many of the conventions of movie-making have been consistent over the past 100 or so years.

For me, the full treatment for certain scenes in movies was the most interesting: He really analyzes the story of Jerry Maguire, for example, drawing comparisons to other work; and he compares the direction of three movies with each other to show how the Directors approached a similar scene differently and how their approach changed how the viewer perceived the scene.

[Justin Roberts · Rating 5 out of 5]

I'm now a David Bordwell fan. Bordwell offers some interesting and, at times, sweeping insights concerning the evolution of style in film, but he never fails to back it up with a deep well of cinematic references. His passion for film history is evident and this book will be enjoyed by anyone who shares that same love of cinema.

[Amanda · Rating 5 out of 5]

A great look at contemporary film story and style from the ever-delightful, ever-brilliant David Bordwell. Fascinating and engaging to read, as always.

[Haimaneltohamy · Rating 5 out of 5]

A must-reed to understand the craft of storytelling in Hollywood.

[Fi · Rating 3 out of 5]

Had to read for my film analysis class. It was pretty good, but Bordwell gave way too many examples, it was kind of annoying. All in all, he explained the concepts, but he could have done so more clearly.

[Jeevan Koneti · Rating 4 out of 5]

Informative

[Nathan Wittmann]

Very succinct text on how filmmaking has changed in the latter half of the twentieth century, and yet for the most part remained grounded in the filmic devices of the earliest Hollywood productions. It’s not so much a treatise on films as works of art, nor is it a profound meditation on film itself; simply, it is an explanation of how modern films are constructed through several disparate methods, and how the viewer is meant to interpret these methods.
It does feel somewhat dated, as it was published prior to the age of the high-tech computer animated blockbusters that we are currently living through. I would like to know how Bordwell would intertextualize the even more frenetic pacing and editing techniques of the modern computer-graphics film; has the classic Hollywood style finally been sent to the graveyard? If this work is any indication, they’re still there, sporting a fresh coat of paint, ready for the next prodigious aesthetic to remake the canvas.