Projecting a Camera Language-Games in Film Theory [Paperback]

In Projecting a Camera,film theorist Edward Branigan offers a groundbreaking approach to understanding film theory. Why, for example, does a camera move? What does a camera know ? (And when does it know it?) What is the camera's relation to the subject during long static shots? What happens when the screen is blank? Through a wide-ranging engagement with Wittgenstein and theorists of film, he offers one of the most fully developed understandings of the ways in which the camera operates in film.

With its thorough grounding in the philosophy of spectatorship and narrative, Projecting aCamera takes the study of film to a new level. With the care and precision that he brought to NarrativeComprehension and Film, Edward Branigan maps the ways in which we must understand the role of the camera, the meaning of the frame, the role of the spectator, and other key components of film-viewing. By analyzing how we think, discuss, and marvel about the films we see, Projecting a Camera,offers insights rich in implications for our understanding of film and film studies.

Preface
Acknowledgments

Terminological note

1. The Life of a Camera

2. A Camera-in-the-Text

3. What Is a Camera?

4. How Frame Lines (and Film Theory) Figure

5. WhenIs a Camera?

Notes
Works cited
Index

Projecting a Camerais not the type of book you can read in a weekend and then put aside. It offers a daunting challenge to our everyday, intuitive understanding of film and theoretical concepts. Its scope, breadth of argument and insights into film theory are simply breathtaking. Like Deleuzes two cinema books (1986, 1989), it may take the discipline several years to come to terms with Branigans innovative perspective, to implement his original insights, and retl£,