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Michel Chion is well known in contemporary film studies for his innovative investigations into aspects of cinema that scholars have traditionally overlooked. Following his work on sound in film in Audio-Vision and Film, a Sound Art, Words on Screen is Chion's survey of everything the seventh art gives us to read on screen. He analyzes titles, credits, and intertitles, but also less obvious forms of writing that appear on screen, from the tear-stained letter in a character's hand to reversed writing seen in mirrors. Through this examination, Chion delves into the multitude of roles that words on screen play: how they can generate narrative, be torn up or consumed but still remain in the viewer's consciousness, take on symbolic dimensions, and bear every possible relation to cinematic space.
About the author
Michel Chion schrieb für die Cahiers du Cinema über Bergman, Fellini, Tarkowski und David Lynch, außerdem Aufsätze über Ton und Sprache im Film. Es liegen von ihm Essays und Artikel zu ganz unterschiedlichen Themen vor: Er beschäftigt sich mit konkreter Musik, mit Chaplin und Tati, mit dem Filmgeschäft und Theorien über das Drehbuchschreiben. Er ist Filmemacher - vor allem von Kurzfilmen und Videos -, Komponist für konkrete Musik, Begründer des Verlags Tonkonzept, hat sich mit dem Hören und der "Audiovision" beschäftigt, ist Toningenieur und Lehrer. Er unterrichtet Inszenieren in mehreren professionellen Zentren und an verschiedenen französischen Hochschulen.
Summary
A poetic investigation into the many ways that the written word is used in cinema
Report
"Words On Screen offers a radically new understanding of cinema. By concentrating on the written word in a very wide variety of films, Chion turns what in the past has always been no more than a passing concern into a full-fledged reading strategy, applicable to films of all periods and types. I never could have imagined that Chion would once again create an entirely new approach to cinema." Rick Altman, author of A Theory of Narrative
