Intoxicating analyses of films dance alongside the most far-reaching theories of signification and history. Yet through it all Philip Rosen maintains a sober eye, pointing out the backgrounds of these performers and the consequences of their gestures. Under his measured gaze this dizzying flight of ideas takes on a pattern, or rather multiple patterns, that will keep us thinking and talking for a long time to come. Read either for the careful continuity of these introductions or for the dramatic intensity of the individual pieces, the anthology must reward the student, the initiated, and the merely curious.
Dudley Andrew, Yale University, author of What Cinema Is! Exceptionally well-crafted... Narrative, Apparatus, Ideology achieves a substantial contextual horizon, through Philip Rosen's impeccable positioning of essays within an intellectual history. In addition to this, his collection successfully strives for representativeness on such a number of significant fronts that it promises to provide a very engrossing forum for the introduction and discussion of contemporary film theory in the classroom.
Barbara Klinger Journal of Film and Video A much sought-after resource. Choice Rosen's collection continues to be a classic and irreplaceable guide to contemporary film theory. This essential anthology includes key texts by Roland Barthes, Raymond Bellour, Christian Metz, David Bordwell, and others, as well as superb contextual essays by Rosen for each section of the book.
David Rodowick Harvard University