In the light of new A-level specifications, and particularly the introduction of an AS (that mysterious category between GCSE and A level) in both Film and Media, it’s no surprise that there are two new film books available and no doubt more to come. Film books which cover a range of approaches, issues and debates are enticing because of the prospect of finding all the information you and your students will need to make life as easy as possible. You hope that each book will be a sort of "Everything you always wanted to know about A-level Film Studies but were afraid to ask", but from my experience they are rarely so.

Introducing Film

Graham Roberts and Heather Wallis (Arnold)
ISBN 0 34076 228 4, price £9.99 paperback

Introducing Film is a trawl through the familiar film-book fodder, featuring chapters on genre, stardom, film language, narrative, institution and so forth. It’s useful for teachers who are new to the subject, or those wishing to embark on a film option unit on a Media course. It provides an overview so you can swot up when preparing lessons. One of its strengths is the accessible checklist for students, which acts as a summary at the end of some chapters (but why not all of them?)

Few film books take the opportunity to provide a solid case study covering all the main areas for analysis. This one does: the final chapter is aptly titled "Bringing it all Together" and features a study of Star Wars: an excellent choice, considering every students’ indoctrination in the Lucas theology. This is a general chapter, suitable for AS, that will generate some thoughts on using ‘the force’ in the classroom.

Studying Film

Nathan Abrams, Ian Bell and Jan Udris (Arnold)
ISBN 0 34076 134 2, price £16.99 paperback

Studying Film has been written with AS specifications in mind, but with chapters that are also relevant for those areas we would cover during the second year. The book is divided into four distinct areas — Cinema as Institution, Film as Text, Critical Approaches and Film Movements and National Cinema. Chapters are accessible, difficult concepts are attractively presented and a bullet-point summary concluding each chapter rounds it all off very nicely. Since teaching A-level Film (and as an option unit on A-level Media Studies) I have avidly consumed potential textbooks, while settling for those that are OK in parts but not quite up to scratch overall. But Studying Film is worth all of the hassle (and grovelling) involved in trying to get textbook funds from your tight-fisted curriculum manager or head of department. Gone are the days of having to adapt chapters from Bordwell and Thompson’s Film Art in an attempt to make them suitable for A-level rather than undergraduate classes.

I cannot recommend Studying Film enough, for both teachers and as a textbook. Each chapter contains an overview of the topic and includes student activities. There’s an admirable balance of contemporary mainstream references and those alien phenomena better known as silent, black-and-white and subtitled movies. If this wasn’t enough, it is written in student-friendly language, a rarity in most film circles.