Richard Gilman referred to How to Read a Film as simply "the best singlework of its kind." Janet Maslin of The New York Times Book Review marveled atJames Monaco's ability to collect "an enormous amount of useful information andassemble it in an exhilaratingly simple and systematic way." And Richard Roud,Director of the New York Film Festival stated, "Anyone who writes about film,who is interested in film seriously, just has to have it." Clearly, few books onfilm have met with such critical acclaim as How to Read a Film. Since itsoriginal publication in 1977, this hugely popular book has become the definitivesource on film and media. Now, James Monaco offers a completely revised andrewritten third edition that brings every major aspect of this dynamic mediumright up to the present day.Looking at film from many vantage points, Monaco discusses the elementsnecessary to understand how a film conveys its meaning, and, more importantly,how the audience can best discern all that a film is attempting to communicate.He begins by setting movies in the context of the more traditional arts such asthe novel, painting, photography, theater--even music--demonstrating that filmas a narrative technique is directly comparable to these older mediums. Hepoints out that much of what we see and experience in film can be traceddirectly back to other art forms. Accordingly, as film is a technology as wellas an art, he examines the intriguing science of cinema and follows thedevelopment of the electronic media and its parallel growth with film duringthis century. A new chapter on multimedia brings media criticism into the late1990s with a thorough discussion of such topics as virtual reality andcyberspace and their relationship to film. Monaco goes on to show how filmoperates as a language, describing the various techniques and conceptsresponsible for the often visceral reactions that only film can elicit.Lavishly illustrated with over 350 halftones and seventy-four originaldiagrams, as well as discussions on the development of the art of movies and themajor theoretical developments of the last seventy-five years, How to Read aFilm is an exciting and definitive behind the scenes look at the complex worldof film.