How to read a film : movies, media, and beyond : art, technology, language, history, theory / James Monaco ; with diagrams by David Lindroth.

1. Film As An Art

2. Technology: Image and Sound

3. The Language of Film: Signs and Syntax

4. The Shape of Film History

5. Film Theory: Form and Function

6. Media: In the Middle of Things

7. Multimedia: The Digital Revolution

Film and Media: A Chronology

Reading About Film and Media: A Select Library

Art and Technology -- Image Technology -- Sound Technology -- The Lens -- The Camera -- The Filmstock -- Negatives, Prints, and Generations -- Aspect Ratio -- Grain, Gauge, and Speed -- Color, Contrast, and Tone -- The Soundtrack -- Post-Production -- Editing -- Mixing and Looping -- Special Effects -- Opticals, the Lab, and the Post House -- Video and Film -- Projection -- Digital Tipping Points.

Community -- Print and Electronic Media -- The Technology of Mechanical and Electronic Media -- Radio and Records -- Television and Video -- "Broadcasting": The Business -- "Television": The Art -- "TV": The Virtual Family.

Film as an Art -- The Technology of Film and Media -- The Language of Film -- Film History -- Film Theory and Practical Criticism -- Media -- New Media -- Film Reference: A Brief History -- Antidotes.

From Analog to Digital -- The Myth of Multimedia -- The Myth of Virtual Reality -- The Myth of Cyberspace -- The Mediasphere.

Movies/Film/Cinema -- "Movies": Economics -- "Film": Politics -- "Cinema": Esthetics -- Creating an Art: Lumiere versus Melies -- The Silent Feature: Realism versus Expressionism -- Hollywood: Genre versus Auteur -- Neorealism and After: Hollywood versus the World -- The New Wave and the Third World: Entertainment versus Communication -- The Postmodern Sequel: Democracy, Technology, End of Cinema -- Beyond Cinema: Metafiction, Metareality.

Signs -- The Physiology of Perception -- Denotative and Connotative Meaning -- Syntax -- Codes -- Mise-en-Scene -- The Framed Image -- The Diachronic Shot -- Sound -- Montage.

The Nature of Art -- Ways of Looking At Art -- The Spectrum of Abstraction -- The Modes of Discourse -- The "Rapports de Production" -- Film, Recording, and the Other Arts -- Film, Photography, and Painting -- Film and the Novel -- Film and Theater -- Film and Music -- Film and the Environmental Arts -- The Structure of Art.

The Poet and the Philosopher: Lindsay and Munsterberg -- Expressionism and Realism: Arnheim and Kracauer -- Montage: Pudovkin, Eisenstein, Balazs, and Formalism -- Mise-en-Scene: Neorealism, Bazin, and Godard -- Film Speaks and Acts: Metz and Contemporary Theory.

To 1895: Prehistory -- 1896-1915: The Birth of Film -- 1916-1930: Silent Film, Radio, and Sound Film -- 1931-1945: The Great Age of Hollywood and Radio -- 1946-1960: The Growth of Television -- 1961-1980: The Media World -- 1981-1999: The Digital Transition -- 2000-Present: The New Century.

As in previous editions, Monaco once again looks at film from many vantage points, as both art and craft, sensibility and science, tradition and technology. After examining film's close relation to other artistic media such as the novel, painting, photography, television, and even music, the book discusses the elements necessary to understand how films convey meaning and, more important, how we can best discern all that a film is attempting to communicate. In addition, Monaco stresses the still-evolving digital context of film throughout--one of the new sections looks at the untrustworthy nature of digital images and sound--and his chapter on multimedia brings media criticism into the twenty-first century with a thorough discussion of topics like virtual reality, cyberspace, telepresence, and ther proximity to film.

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