Film As Argument

The Secret to Feature Film Storytelling

Darren Paul Fisher (Autor)

Buch | Hardcover

234 Seiten

2025
Rutgers University Press (Verlag)
978-1-9788-4114-7 (ISBN)

Artikel merken

If you’ve picked up this book, it’s most likely that you have an interest in movies over-and-above the typical audience member. Perhaps a screenwriter, producer or director looking to improve your work, always searching for any insight that will result in better cinematic storytelling. If that’s the case, then good news: this is the book for you. It asks a deceptively straightforward question. Why do we make feature films?

Is it to entertain? To move and audience? To tell a powerful story? For fame and fortune?

You may have answered yes to each, but those answers don’t account for the practice overall. Most books about screenwriting and directing are primarily concerned with craft and technique, but how can you truly understand filmmaking – or make the best films - unless you know what purpose it really serves.

So what’s the secret? As the title of this book suggests, making feature films is fundamentally the practice of making a very specific type of argument. To see how this works, we will deep-dive into how filmmakers are trained and taught to think about filmmaking, and what traditions they knowingly or unknowingly follow. We will look at hundreds of films and some major case studies, including Toy Story 3, Schindler’s List, Raiders of the Lost Ark, Amour, and mother!, to explore how and what films argue, and why knowing this can both unlock both a greater appreciation of the form, and improve the impact your films make.

Darren Paul Fisher is an international multi-award-winning screenwriter, director, producer, and head of film, screen and creative media at Bond University, Australia.

NOTE ON SCREEN REFERENCES

PART I: THE ELEPHANT IN THE SCREENING ROOM

1 WHAT’S THE BIG SECRET?

2 THE OTHER HALF OF THE STORY
A Brief History of Film as Argument

3 WHAT AND HOW FILMS ARGUE

4 ALTERNATE CONCEPTIONS

PART II: THE CASE STUDIES

GENERAL NOTES ON THE CASE STUDIES

5 THE EXEMPLAR
Toy Story 3

6 THE COUNTEREXAMPLE
Mulholland Drive

7 THREE APPROACHES
Brave, Frozen and Barbie

PART III: NOW ON RELEASE AND COMING ATTRACTIONS

8 WHY FAILURES SUCCEED
The Cinema of Compensation

9 THE END

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
NOTES
FILMOGRAPHY
BIBLIOGRAPHY
INDEX

Erscheinungsdatum	11.09.2025
Zusatzinfo	1 table image
Verlagsort	New Brunswick NJ
Sprache	englisch
Maße	152 x 229 mm
Gewicht	454 g
Themenwelt	Kunst / Musik / Theater ► Film / TV
	Geisteswissenschaften ► Sprach- / Literaturwissenschaft ► Literaturwissenschaft
	Sozialwissenschaften ► Kommunikation / Medien ► Medienwissenschaft
ISBN-10	1-9788-4114-0 / 1978841140
ISBN-13	978-1-9788-4114-7 / 9781978841147
Zustand	Neuware