Film as Social Practice

This book makes a good text for beginning film students who need an understanding of film history as well as a picture of the ways media affect our lives. It presents film as interactive, not only in terms of the immediate experience, but in the ways audiences affect the daily decisions made in the business and in the ways today's educated film goers affect the uses directors and writers can make of the medium. Readers gain insight into the mysterious ways movies are born, into the major film theories, and into the way film-makers see their movies as part of a larger social context. The lay reader with a general interest in film will find the chapter on Westerns interesting because it explores a genre in depth and reveals how the movies see genre as a symbolic language. Although the word "genre" itself appears frequently in film reviews, readers generally do not seem to fully understand its importance to the movie business. The book summarizes creative, economic, and historical issues regarding film as a pervasive influence in our lives as more and more movies extend themselves into markets beyond the entity of the celluloid itself. All the peripherals such as action toys, books, music, videos, cereal, clothing, etc. are explored to help us realize the global impact movies have throughout our daily existence. If you like the movies and want to understand more about them as a world wide phenomenon, this is a good overview.