Looking at Movies (Fifth Edition)

Film analysis starts here.

Looking at Movies is the most effective, engaging, and widely adopted introduction to film analysis available. From its very first chapter, Looking at Movies provides students with all the tools they need to become perceptive viewers of film, including the most sophisticated and seamlessly integrated media resources that are rich with comprehensive analysis and assessment tools ever produced for a textbook in this market. Authoritative, accessible, and of superior value, Looking at Movies offers instructors with abundant teachable resources to help students analyze movies critically and effectively.

About the Author 

Richard Barsam (Ph.D., University of Southern California) is Professor Emeritus of Film Studies at Hunter College, City University of New York. He is the author of Nonfiction Film: A Critical History (rev., exp. ed. 1992), The Vision of Robert Flaherty: The Artist as Myth and Filmmaker (1988), In the Dark: A Primer for the Movies (1977), and Filmguide to "Triumph of the Will" (1975); editor of Nonfiction Film Theory and Criticism (1976); and contributing author to Paul Monaco’s The Sixties: 1960–1969 (Vol. 8, History of the American Cinema, 2001) and Filming Robert Flaherty’s "Louisiana Story": The Helen Van Dongen Diary (ed. Eva Orbanz, 1998). His articles and book reviews have appeared in Cinema Journal, Quarterly Review of Film Studies, Film Comment, Studies in Visual Communication, and Harper’s. He has been a member of the Executive Council of the Society for Cinema and Media Studies, the Editorial Board of Cinema Journal, and the Board of Advisers of the History of American Cinema series, and he cofounded the journal Persistence of Vision.

Dave Monahan (M.F.A., Columbia University) is Associate Professor and Chair of Film Studies at the University of North Carolina, Wilmington. His work as a writer, director, or editor includes Ringo (2005), Monkey Junction (2005), Prime Time (1996), and Angels Watching Over Me (1993). His work has been screened internationally in over fifty film festivals and has earned numerous awards, including the New Line Cinema Award for Most Original Film (Prime Time) and the Seattle International Film Festival Grand Jury Prize for Best Animated Short Film (Ringo).