Back in the late 60's Talbott's book was one of my texts in film
school.  There weren't very many film texts then, and few established
academic programs...In the beginning of the 70's more film texts
suitable for "course work" were published, probably out of the
frustration of trying to find a book that did what needed to be
done in film courses to introduce the medium...
So much theory has been written in the past 20 years that has
been considered more "avante garde" and current than Talbott's
anthology of early theorists...semiotics isn't mentioned
in Talbott's anthology, and deconstructionism,...linguistics
and philosophy had not taken over film theory back then...
Someone who can handle I.A. Richards literary theories of
metaphor can certainly handle Bill Nichols'book, however,
it wouldn't be a bad idea to begin with something more basic
just to get the jargon down, and what the basic issues have
been....I paricularly like a book I used to use alot in my
theory courses...Perkins' Film as Film.  It is the British
approach as opposed to the French approach to film theory,and
I found it very helpful as an approach to film analysis.
 
Sandy Dwiggins
 
 On Thu, 2 Jun 1994 22:06:16 -0500 Patrick B Bjork said:
> >I defer to your more experienced judgment, Robert; I have a colleague who
> >uses _Understanding Movies_ in his Freshman Composition Class, and
> >students find it fairly accessible. However, the poster did write
> >"in-depth" and "I.A. Richards" in nearly the same sentence, so I assumed
> >she could handle something, well. . . a little more in-depth. As to any
> >college text being inexpensive--forget it these days.
>       Ah, Patrick, I must now defer to *your* more experienced judgement since
> I am not really familiar with the I.A.Richards book. Can you clue me in?
> BTW, I just stumbled across (in my bookshelf) another of those now-dated but
> so readable anthologies, _Film:An Anthology_, ed by Daniel Talbot, and
> subtitled "A diverse collection of outstanding writing on the film," which it
> really is, with pieces by the likes of Panofsky, Pauline Kael, John Grierson,
> James Agee, Pudovkin, Cocteau, Rene Clair, Ben Hecht, Kracauer, and even
> Henry Miller.  A real grab-bag, but such an enjoyable mix.  Why is no one
> publishing this type of thing nowadays?  I'm convinced it has something to do
> with the establishment of film studies in the academy since the seventies,
> which has led to both gains and losses.
>                                        Robert
>
 
 
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