Now in its third
edition, Anatomy of Film is aimed at upper secondary and the early
stages of higher education. In the chapters on graphics, mise en scene,
editing and genres, it outlines the basic aspects of film language in a
fairly accessible way but with curious omissions. It also gives a clear
explanation of the role of the film director and film editor and is good
on screenwriting and the difference between dialogue in films and on the
stage. In the chapter on editing, however, while it gives a fairly useful
account of Eisenstein's Theory of Montage, it skimps on such a central
concept as continuity editing. The chapter on film genres is instructive
although the book's determination to avoid "dreary jargon" means that it
dispenses with useful terms such as iconography.
The key concepts are illustrated by a good range of references, both from the Hollywood canon and European films though fewer British films (Brief Encounter, The Third Man, and Four Weddings and a Funeral being the only ones I can recall). The book is well illustrated, within the limits of its small format, by well-chosen stills.
There is an accessible introduction to film theory and included in the history of film criticism are realism, semiotics and feminist criticism (but no reference to Marxism or post-modernism). Citizen Kane is subjected to four approaches to practical criticism: that of the film historian, the auteurist, the myth critic and the social historian. The book is good on the process of adaptation from literary works illustrated in particular by Spielberg's The Color Purple and two recent adaptations from Jane Austen's Emma (Amy Heckerling's Clueless and Doug McGrath's Emma). In the curiously titled chapter, Film as Film, there are short but useful analyses of Casablanca, The Godfather, Part Two, Raging Bull, and Nashville (the latter two replacing The Passenger and Natural Born Killers from the second edition of 1993).
Where the book is perhaps at its weakest is the lack of an institutional context. An interview with Billy Wilder does deal with auteurism in relation to the Hollywood studio system but, while the logos of the main Hollywood studios are analysed, there is little reference to how films get to be made, neither in the classic period nor more recently. Nor is there more than a passing reference to the developing technologies (apart from brief references to morphing and colorisation) which have revolutionised film making throughout its history. Another weakness is that there is little attention given to film audiences and, despite a detailed discussion on myth in relation to Cat People, Shane, High Sierra, One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest and Double Indemnity, there is little on the function of narrative in film apart from a discussion on anachrony (flashback and flashforward) in the chapter, "Film and Literature".
The book is a useful primer for its intended audience and therefore suitable, for example, for the Higher Still Cinema Analysis Unit, but because of the lacunae referred to above it would have to be supplemented by more comprehensive texts such as Bordwell and Thomson's "Film Art" .
Des Murphy
Bridge of Don Academy,
Aberdeen
(MEJ25)
© 2001 Des Murphy/MEJ