Film Dialogue

Film Dialogue is a rich and exciting collection of essays that bravely counters the widely-held view that cinema is a visual medium. Covering the work of famous directors as well as science fiction, documentary, animation and films adapted from literature, this book demonstrates the many ways that dialogue functions, and shows why movies must be listened to as well as watched. This volume challenges our conventional understanding of cinema and takes it to a wholly new level. -- Stephen Prince, Virginia Tech, author of Digital Visual Effects in Cinema: The Seduction of Reality Film Dialogue represents a great step towards a more detailed and wide-ranging examination of dialogue in film. Although it is not intended as a survey of dialogue in every cinematic genre across all decades and continents, it does gather together a rich assortment of studies that demonstrates how varied, significant and instructive dialogue analysis can be. In so doing, it goes a long way towards filling some major critical gaps in film scholarship, while leaving plenty of scope for others to pursue similar projects of their own. This is a major intervention in film studies, one that makes us rethink our relationship to film, one with the potential to inspire further research into the words, speech and voices of cinema. -- Martin Shingler, University of Sunderland, author of Star Studies: A Critical Guide

Film Dialogue is the first anthology in film studies devoted to the topic of language in cinema, bringing together leading and emerging scholars to discuss the aesthetic, narrative, and ideological dimensions of film speech.Film Dialogue is the first anthology in film studies devoted to the topic of language in cinema, bringing together leading and emerging scholars to discuss the aesthetic, narrative, and ideological dimensions of film speech that have largely gone unappreciated and unheard. Consisting of thirteen essays divided into three sections: genre, auteur theory, and cultural representation, Film Dialogue revisits and reconfigures several of the most established topics in film studies in an effort to persuade readers that "spectators" are more accurately described as "audiences," that the gaze has its equal in eavesdropping, and that images are best understood and appreciated through their interactions with words. Including an introduction that outlines a methodology of film dialogue study and adopting an accessible prose style throughout, Film Dialogue is a welcome addition to ongoing debates about the place, value, and purpose of language in cinema.