World Film History

Author: Kristin Thompson
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2004-01-01
Features: A History of World Cinema is a highly influential work on the history and theory of world cinema in Western academia and a best-selling film textbook in Western countries. Many film and communication departments at universities in the United States use this book as a teaching material. This film history is vast and profound, systematic and detailed, covering the birth of cinema up to the 1980s. It reviews the development of cinema over a century, primarily from three major categories: narrative films, documentary films, and avant-garde experimental films. The book's framework for film history is highly original. In addition to systematic discussions on film art, film aesthetic styles, and film masters, it offers unique and thoroughly documented insights into the development of the film industry. The book provides fresh perspectives on the appearance of film history as a whole and on certain specific details, not only reorganizing the history of world cinema but also conducting a systematic exploration and critique of the academic history of world film studies. The book engages with the history of cinema through three fundamental questions: 1. How has the film medium been used, i.e., how has film language gradually emerged, developed, matured, and been standardized? 2. How has the environment of the film industry—film production, distribution, and exhibition—affected the development of the film medium? 3. How have the global trends in film art and the internationalization trends in the film market emerged?