Figures Traced in Light: On Cinematic Staging

by David Bordwell

A film tells its story not only through dialogue and actors' performances but also through the director's control of movement and shot design. Figures Traced in Light is a detailed consideration of how cinematic staging carries the story, expresses emotion, and beguiles the audience through pictorial composition. Ranging over the entire history of cinema, David Bordwell focuses on four filmmakers' unique contributions to the technique. In-depth chapters examine Louis Feuillade, master of the 1910s serial; Kenji Mizoguchi, the great Japanese director who worked from the 1920s to the 1950s; Theo Angelopoulos, who began his career as a political modernist in the late 1960s; and Hou Hsiao-hsien, the Taiwanese filmmaker who in the 1980s became the preeminent Asian director. For comparison, Bordwell draws on films by Howard Hawks, Michelangelo Antonioni, Yasujiro Ozu, Takeshi Kitano, and many other directors. Superbly illustrated with more than 500 frame enlargements and 16 color illustrations, Figures Traced in Light situates its close analysis of model sequences in the context of the technological, industrial, and cultural trends that shaped the directors' approaches to staging.

Genres: Film, Nonfiction, Art

327 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2005

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

[Ben · Rating 4 out of 5]

There’s a little too much discussion of the seemingly meaningless metric of Average Shot Length, but other than that this book is excellent

[Victor Morosoff · Rating 5 out of 5]

Staggering. (And I don't even like Angelopoulos.)

[Paul]

The size and shape of this book, to say nothing of the content, suggests “textbook.” I should have been prepared for that, and casually reading through a good textbook isn’t such a hardship. But I found it a little tougher sledding than, say, Bordwell’s blog, which offers more easily digestible but still equally thorough analysis. Simply put, reading this book gave me a lot of new insight into Mizoguchi’s genius as a filmmaker, without letting me forget why I had trouble keeping my eyes open while actually watching those films. (It’s a “me” problem! It’s a “me” problem!) All told, I have to appreciate a book that teaches me new ways of watching movies and new vocabulary to describe them. Plus, I already love a lot of the long-take-heavy “slow cinema” that’s descended from these twentieth-century masters, so there was much nodding of my head in certain passages. This is my first Bordwell book, and I look forward to digging into the rest.

[Ackuhnz · Rating 2 out of 5]

Bordwell starts out by saying he's going to do what no other film criticism does and focus on the aesthetics of actor and camera blocking and not the literary, social or political aspects of a director's work. Then he focuses on the literary, social and political aspects of these directors' work amidst the driest play-by-play recounting of long takes without ever analyzing their effects. In fact, the two takeaways are: 1. Long takes are cool! and 2. Saying that since cinema has no set vocabulary, any technique can mean anything so we can't analyze it.

Bonus points for picking obscure films that most people haven't seen.

[Matinghaderi · Rating 5 out of 5]

بهترین کتابی سینمایی که خوندم. (متاسفانه به فارسی ترجمه نشده)
این کار بوردول بر روی چهار کارگردان متمرکز است، که به هر کدام یک فصل فشرده اختصاص داده است.- فؤیاد، میزوگوچی، شیائو شین و آنجلوپولوس، به عنوان اساتید صحنه‌سازی. در اواخر کتاب نیز بوردول به جزئیات نحوه ساخت فیلم های معاصر هالیوودی میپردازه، که از اونها بعنوان "intensified continuity" اسم میبره.
و ازشون انتقاد میکنه که ریتم فیلم رو با کات های دو/سه ثانیه ایی به خیال خودشون تسریع میبخشند، اما این چیزی نیست جز پرت کردن حواس یا کنار گذاشتن منطق به عنوان مانعی برای سرگرمی، تا سعی کنند به جای مخاطب، مصرف کننده های سینمایی رو بار بیارند.

[Kristof Boghe · Rating 4 out of 5]

The chapter on Hou Hsiao-Hsien is gold.

[Pablo · Rating 5 out of 5]

Hasta cuando discrepas de Bordwell, aprendes infinitamente más que con el 98% de estudiosos en activo. Un libro al que volver. UPF-master stuff.

[Juniperus · Rating 2 out of 5]

More of a post-hoc study of directors than something actually useful for a production resource.

[Julie · Rating 4 out of 5]

A bit dry, but still some interesting stuff.

[Lakulin · Rating 5 out of 5]

An outstanding scholarly piece, a must-read!