Yesterday I got lucky.
I got to sit and listen to David Bordwell speak for a whole hour and a half about film.
And you know what was great? Even though he was part of a symposium on metaphor in the art film at the University of Copenhagen, he didn't sound like an academic. Instead of using convoluted, rambling sentences that wind their way to a point, he distills his thoughts into pure film theory gold. It was so refreshing to hear him talk so simply, and make so much sense, which is all too rare in a theorist. And because it's useless to rhapsodize about him in my own words, I'll give you a few of his:
"Narrational modes become a conceptual frame that prompt us to make figurative meaning, so read the signs according to what the film itself sets up."
I got to sit and listen to David Bordwell speak for a whole hour and a half about film.
And you know what was great? Even though he was part of a symposium on metaphor in the art film at the University of Copenhagen, he didn't sound like an academic. Instead of using convoluted, rambling sentences that wind their way to a point, he distills his thoughts into pure film theory gold. It was so refreshing to hear him talk so simply, and make so much sense, which is all too rare in a theorist. And because it's useless to rhapsodize about him in my own words, I'll give you a few of his:
"Narrational modes become a conceptual frame that prompt us to make figurative meaning, so read the signs according to what the film itself sets up."