David Bordwell
Bordwell lecturing on the economics of the film industry; his whiteboard diagram shows the oligopoly that existed in the US film industry during theGolden Age of Hollywood.
Born	(1947-07-23)July 23, 1947 Penn Yan, New York, U.S.
Died	February 29, 2024(2024-02-29) (aged 76) Madison, Wisconsin, U.S.
Occupation(s)	Film historian,film theorist
Known for	Neoformalism,historical poetics,linguistic film theory
Spouses	Barbara Weinstein ​ ​ (m. 1970, divorced)​ Kristin Thompson ​ ​ (m. 1979⁠–⁠2024)​
Website	davidbordwell.net

David Jay Bordwell (/ˈbɔːrdwəl/; July 23, 1947 – February 29, 2024) was an Americanfilm theorist andfilm historian.^[1] After receiving his PhD from theUniversity of Iowa in 1973, he wrote more than fifteen volumes on the subject of cinema includingNarration in the Fiction Film (1985),Ozu and the Poetics of Cinema (1988),Making Meaning (1989), andOn the History of Film Style (1997).^[2]

With his wifeKristin Thompson, Bordwell wrote the textbooksFilm Art (1979) andFilm History (1994).Film Art, in its 12th edition as of 2019, is still used as a text in introductory film courses. Withaesthetics philosopherNoël Carroll, Bordwell edited the anthologyPost-Theory: Reconstructing Film Studies (1996), a polemic on the state of contemporary film theory. His largest work wasThe Classical Hollywood Cinema: Film Style and Mode of Production to 1960 (1985), written in collaboration with Thompson andJanet Staiger. Several of his more influential articles on theory, narrative, and style were collected inPoetics of Cinema (2007), named in homage to the famous anthology of Russianformalist film theoryPoetika Kino, edited byBoris Eikhenbaum in 1927.

Bordwell spent nearly the entirety of his career as a professor of film at theUniversity of Wisconsin–Madison, retiring in 2004^[1] and becoming the Ledoux Professor of Film Studies,Emeritus in the Department of Communication Arts. Film theorists who wrote their dissertations under his advisement include Edward Branigan, Murray Smith, and Carl Plantinga. He and Thompson maintained the blog"Observations on film art" for their ruminations on cinema.

Bordwell was born inPenn Yan, New York, on July 23, 1947.^[3] He was educated at theState University of New York at Albany and theUniversity of Iowa.^[4]

Drawing inspiration from film theorists such as Noel Burch as well as from art historianErnst Gombrich, Bordwell contributed books and articles on classical film theory, the history of art cinema, classical and contemporary Hollywood cinema, and East Asian film style. However, his more influential and controversial works dealt with cognitive film theory (Narration in the Fiction Film being one of the first volumes on this subject),historical poetics of film style, and critiques of contemporary film theory and analysis (Making Meaning andPost-Theory were his two major contributions to this subject).

Bordwell was also associated with a methodological approach known asneoformalism, although this approach has been more extensively written about by his wife,Kristin Thompson.^[5] Neoformalism is an approach to film analysis based on observations first made by the literary theorists known as theRussian formalists: that there is a distinction between a film's perceptual and semiotic properties (and that film theorists have generally overstated the role of textual codes in one's comprehension of such basic elements asdiegesis and closure). One scholar has commented that thecognitivist perspective is the central reason why neoformalism earns its prefix (neo) and is not "traditional" formalism.^[6] Much of Bordwell's work considers the film-goer's cognitive processes that take place when perceiving the film's nontextual, aesthetic forms. This analysis includes how films guide our attention to salient narrative information, and how films partake in "defamiliarization", a formalist term for how art shows us familiar and formulaic objects and concepts in a manner that encourages us to experience them as if they were new entities.

Neoformalists reject many assumptions and methodologies made by other schools of film study, particularlyhermeneutic (interpretive) approaches, among which he countsLacanianpsychoanalysis and certain variations ofpoststructuralism. InPost-Theory: Reconstructing Film Studies, Bordwell and co-editorNoël Carroll argue against these types of approaches, which they claim act as "Grand Theories" that use films to confirm predetermined theoretical frameworks, rather than attempting mid-level research meant to illuminate how films work. Bordwell and Carroll coined the term "S.L.A.B. theory" to refer to theories that use the ideas ofSaussure,Lacan,Althusser, and/orBarthes.

Bordwell's considerable influence within film studies reached such a point that many of his concepts are reported to "have become part of a theoreticalcanon in film criticism and film academia."^[6]

The David Bordwell Collection of over one hundred 35mm film prints is held at theAcademy Film Archive and is particularly noteworthy for the strength of itsHong Kong holdings as well as having copies ofSusan Seidelman'sDesperately Seeking Susan andPeter Greenaway'sProspero's Books.^[7]

In 1970, Bordwell married Barbara Weinstein; their marriage ended in divorce.^[8] He married Kristin Thompson in 1979.^[8]

Bordwell died fromidiopathic pulmonary fibrosis at his home inMadison, Wisconsin, on February 29, 2024, at the age of 76.^{[8][9][10][11]}

• Bordwell, David (1973).Filmguide to La Passion de Jeanne d'Arc. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.ISBN 9780253393029.
• Bordwell, David; Thompson, Kristin (1979).Film Art: An Introduction. Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley. |Smith, Jeff (2024).13th Edition. New York: McGraw-Hill.ISBN 9781264296095.
• Bordwell, David (1980).French Impressionist Cinema: Film Culture, Film Theory, Film Style. New York: Arno Press. Reprint of 1974 Ph.D. dissertation
• Bordwell, David (1981).The Films of Carl-Theodor Dreyer. Berkeley: University of California Press.
• Bordwell, David; Staiger, Janet; Thompson, Kristin (1985).The Classical Hollywood Cinema: Film Style and Mode of Production to 1960. New York: Columbia University Press.
• Bordwell, David (1985).Narration in the Fiction Film. Madison:University of Wisconsin Press.
• Bordwell, David (1988).Ozu and the Poetics of Cinema. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
• Bordwell, David (1989).Making Meaning: Inference and Rhetoric in the Interpretation of Cinema. Cambridge:Harvard University Press.
• Bordwell, David (1993).The Cinema of Eisenstein. Cambridge:Harvard University Press.
• Bordwell, David; Thompson, Kristin (1994).Film History: An Introduction. New York: McGraw-Hill.ISBN 9780070064454. |Smith, Jeff (2021).Fifth Edition.ISBN 9781260837476.
• Bordwell, David; Carroll, Noël, eds. (1996).Post-Theory: Reconstructing Film Studies. Madison:University of Wisconsin Press.
• Bordwell, David (1997).On the History of Film Style. Cambridge:Harvard University Press.
• Bordwell, David (2000).Planet Hong Kong: Popular Cinema and the Art of Entertainment. Cambridge:Harvard University Press.
• Bordwell, David (2005).Figures Traced in Light: On Cinematic Staging. Berkeley: University of California Press.
• Bordwell, David (2006).The Way Hollywood Tells It: Story and Style in Modern Movies. Berkeley: University of California Press.
• Bordwell, David (2008).Poetics of Cinema. Berkeley: Routledge.
• Bordwell, David; Thompson, Kristin (2011).Minding Movies: Observations on the Art, Craft, and Business of Filmmaking. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
• Bordwell, David (2016).The Rhapsodes: How 1940s Critics Changed American Film Culture. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
• Bordwell, David (2017).Reinventing Hollywood: How 1940s Filmmakers Changed Movie Storytelling. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
• Bordwell, David (2023).Perplexing Plots: Popular Storytelling and the Poetics of Murder. New York:Columbia University Press.ISBN 978-0-231-55655-2.

• "The Art Cinema as a Mode of Film Practice"Film Criticism 4:1 (Fall 1979); revised forPoetics of Cinema
• "Textual Analysis, Etc."Enclitic 5:2 / 6:1 (Fall 1981 / Spring 1982); see also "Textual Analysis Revisited"Enclitic 7:1 (Spring 1983) written in response to Lawrence Crawford
• "Lowering the Stakes: Prospects for a Historical Poetics of Cinema"Iris 1:1 (1983)
• "Mizoguchi and the Evolution of Film Language" inCinema and Language, eds. Stephen Heath and Patricia Mellencamp (AFI 1983)
• "Jump Cuts and Blind Spots"Wide Angle 6:1 (1984)
• "Widescreen Aesthetics and Mise-en-Scene Criticism"The Velvet Light Trap 21 (Summer 1985)
• "A Salt and Battery" (with Kristin Thompson)Film Quarterly, 40:2 (Winter 1986-87; from a polemic between Bordwell/Thompson and Barry Salt regardingThe Classical Hollywood Cinema and Salt's own work on classical Hollywood style and technology
• "Approppriations and ImPropprieties: Problems in the Morphology of Film Narrative"Cinema Journal 27:3 (Spring 1988
• "Adventures in the Highlands of Theory"Screen 29:1 (Winter 1988); from a polemic between Bordwell/Staiger/Thompson and Barry King regarding King's two-part review ofThe Classical Hollywood Cinema
• "A Case for Cognitivism"Iris 9 (Spring 1989); see also "A Case for Cognitivism: Further Reflections"Iris 11 (Summer 1990) written in response to Dudley Andrew
• "A Cinema of Flourishes: Japanese Decorative Classicism of the Prewar Era" inDirections in Japanese Cinema, eds.David Desser and Arthur Noletti (Indiana 1992); reprinted inPoetics of Cinema
• "Cognition and Comprehension: Viewing and Forgetting in Mildred Pierce"Journal of Dramatic Theory and Criticism 6:2 (Spring 1992); revised forPoetics of Cinema
• "Film Interpretation Revisited"Film Criticism 17:2-3 (Winter/Spring 1993); written in response to critics ofMaking Meaning
• "The Power of a Research Tradition: Prospects for a Progress in the Study of Film Style"Film History 6:1 (Spring 1994)
• "Visual Style in Japanese Cinema, 1925-1945"Film History 7:1 (Spring 1995); revised forPoetics of Cinema
• "Contemporary Film Studies and the Vicissitudes of Grand Theory" inPost-Theory (UW-Madison 1996)
• "Convention, Construction, and Cinematic Vision" inPost-Theory (UW-Madison 1996); reprinted inPoetics of Cinema
• "La Nouvelle Mission de Feuillade; or, What WasMise-en-Scene?"The Velvet Light Trap 37 (Spring 1996); revised forFigures Traced in Light
• "Aesthetics in Action: Kung Fu, Gunplay, and Cinematic Expressivity" inFifty Years of Electric Shadows, ed. Law Kar (Urban Council / Hong Kong International Film Festival 1997); reprinted inPoetics of Cinema
• "Richness through Imperfection: King Hu and the Glimpse" inTranscending the Times: King Hu and Eileen Chan, ed. Law Kar (Urban Council / Hong Kong International Film Festival 1998); revised forPoetics of Cinema
• "Transcultural Spaces: Toward a Poetics of Chinese Film"Post Script 20:2 (2001)
• "Film Futures"Substance 97 (2002); reprinted inPoetics of Cinema
• "Intensified Continuity: Visual Style in Contemporary American Film"Film Quarterly 55:3 (Spring 2002); revised forThe Way Hollywood Tells It
• "Who Blinked First? How Film Style Streamlines Nonverbal Interaction"Style and Story: Essays in Honor of Torben Grodal, eds. Lennard Hojbjerg and Peter Schepelern (Museum Tusulanum Press 2003); reprinted inPoetics of Cinema
• "CinemaScope: The Modern Miracle You See without Glasses!" inPoetics of Cinema; an expanded revision of "Schema and Revision: Staging and Composition in Early CinemaScope" inLe CinemaScope Entre art et industrie, ed. Jean-Jacques Meusy (AFRHC 2004)
• "Rudolf Arnheim: Clarity, Simplicity, Balance" inArnheim for Film and Media Studies, ed. Scott Higgins (Routledge 2010); an expanded revision ofSimplicity, clarity, balance: A tribute to Rudolf Arnheim fromdavidbordwell.net (June 15, 2007)

• "How Motion Pictures Become the Movies 1908-1920: Thirteen years that changed world cinema"
• "CinemaScope: The Modern Miracle You See without Glasses!"
• "Hou Hsiao-hsien: Constraints Traditions and Trends"

• Iris 9 (Spring 1989) "Cinema and Cognitive Psychology"; issue edited by Dudley Andrew, featuring essays by Bordwell ("A Case for Cognitivism"), Julian Hochberg, Virginia Brooks, Dirk Eitzen, and Michel Colin; inIris 11 Bordwell responds to Andrew's characterization of cognitive film theory ("A Case for Cognitivism: Further Reflections"), followed by Andrew's reply
• Journal of Dramatic Theory and Criticism 6:2 (Spring 1992) "Cognitive Science and Cinema"; supplement edited by Edward S. Small, featuring essays by Bordwell ("Cognition and Comprehension: Viewing and Forgetting inMildred Pierce"), Joseph Anderson, and Calvin Pryluck, as well as Noël Carroll's response to Warren Buckland's review ofMystifying Movies: Fads and Fallacies in Contemporary Film Theory (fromScreen 30:4), a response which the editors ofScreen supposedly refused to print
• Film Criticism 17:2-3 (Winter/Spring 1993), "'Film Interpretation, Inc.': Issues in Contemporary Film Studies", issue dedicated toMaking Meaning, featuring essays from Edward Branigan, RIck Altman, David A. Cook, Thomas Elsaesser, Robert B. Ray, and Robin Wood; Bordwell responds in length at the end ("Film Interpretation Revisited")
• Style 32:3 (Fall 1998), "Style in Cinema", issue edited by Bordwell, complementingOn the History of Film Style and featuring essays by Noël Carroll, Lea Jacobs, Charles O'Brien, and Scott Higgins

• David Bordwell."David Bordwell's Website on Cinema". RetrievedMarch 28, 2006.
• David Bordwell."David Bordwell's CV". RetrievedDecember 14, 2006.
• Chuck Stephens."School's Out? Never!: David Bordwell Keeps Working the Room (interview)".Cinema Scope. Archived fromthe original on April 8, 2006. RetrievedMarch 28, 2006.
• "Observations on film art Facebook feed".Facebook. RetrievedJuly 21, 2014.
• David Bordwell atIMDb

• 1947 births
• 2024 deaths
• 20th-century American historians
• 21st-century American historians
• American film historians
• American male non-fiction writers
• Deaths from pulmonary fibrosis
• Film theorists
• Historians from New York (state)
• People from Penn Yan, New York
• University of Wisconsin–Madison faculty
• Writers from Madison, Wisconsin

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