When Daniel says "the latter," I take it he means the Giannetti. But my students find the Gianetti "dry" (they use more a more florid term). I try to combat that with close attention in class to their actively using the formal terms Gianneti covers in their own analyses of the films we're watching. My intro students love Hitchcock's _Psycho_ for studying form. It's a nice compromise between "classical" and contemporary--made so by Van Sant's recent homage. Cheers, Susan Crutchfield >Having used both the Bordwell-Thompson book (Film Art: An Introduction) >and the Giannetti book (Understanding Movies), I would suggest the latter. >It's been my experience that students find the former dry and hard to >relate to, in that it uses films they've never heard of as examples (of >camera angles, sound techniques, etc.); the latter uses more current >movies (Titanic, etc.) and seems to connect film technique to issues the >students care about. > >While it's important to introduce students to "the classics" in a film >*history* class, in a intro to film class different issues are often at >center stage. For my money, it's much more effective to use a James >Cameron film as an example of a long take than "Magnificent Ambersons", at >least to a group of restless freshmen.... > >Best, > > Daniel Isaac Humphrey > Department of Art & Art History > University of Rochester > 424 Morey Hall > Rochester NY 14627-0456 > >---- >Screen-L is sponsored by the Telecommunication & Film Dept., the >University of Alabama: http://www.tcf.ua.edu Susan Crutchfield 425W North Hall Department of English University of Wisconsin at La Crosse La Crosse, WI 54601 phone: 608-785-6943 fax: 608-785-8301 ---- Online resources for film/TV studies may be found at ScreenSite http://www.tcf.ua.edu/ScreenSite