Nandu News reporter Liu YifanAccording to foreign media reports, on February 29, well-known film scholar David Podwell died of lung cancer at the age of 76. David Bordwell wrote, co-authored and edited about 22 books during his lifetime, and his books such as "The Art of Film", "The World History of Cinema", "The Poetics of Film" and "Hong Kong Film Kingdom" have influenced many film practitioners and enthusiasts.
Born on July 23, 1947, David Bordwell received his Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in 1969, his Master of Fine Arts degree in 1971, and his Ph.D. from the University of Iowa in 1974. He was a retired professor emeritus at the School of Communication at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and still serves as a consultant to the French Film Archive.
His academic output is prolific, and his research covers a wide range of topics, including film poetics, film narratology, cognitive psychology, film history studies, new formalism, film stylistics, regional film studies, and many director case studies. Among them, film poetics, film narratology, and cognitive psychology are the three pillars on which Bordwell constructs his theoretical edifice. Among them, the poetics of film is the area where he has made the most achievements and controversy.
In his magnum opus, The Poetics of Cinema, Bordwell argues that cinema is the creation of something that exists in a historical context, with the aim of producing a definite effect. Starting from this central theme, Bordwell proposes a holistic approach to understanding how cinema directs and transforms cultural and cross-cultural influences for the purposes of its films. In The Poetics of Cinema, Bordwell introduces the dimension of "history", pointing out that poetics can simultaneously reveal the changes and continuities between norms by reconstructing historical contexts, how these works adapt to a tradition, and how they repeat, modify or discard the traditions of their predecessors.
David Bordwell had a keen interest in Asian cinema, and he wrote a book dedicated to Hong Kong cinema, The Kingdom of Hong Kong Cinema, which was one of the earliest classics of Western scholars to study Hong Kong cinemaDavid Bordwell believes that Hong Kong cinema uses a lot of cinematic techniques, such as rapid editing, delicate maneuvering of the camera, and so on. He believes that these skills are the secret of the success of Hong Kong films. Compared with the meticulous and logical plot, Hong Kong movies pay more attention to the creation of characters. The logic of the plot of many Hong Kong movies is not very strict, but the movie really creates too wonderful characters. Through the characters to drive the story, to express thoughts, the characters become the soul of the story. The translation of this book is currently available in Hong Kong and mainland editions, and the mainland version is entitled "The Secret of Hong Kong Cinema".
After David Baldwell's death, the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where he had previously taught, published a long article in his memory. Many well-known film critics, such as "The New Yorker" film critic Richard Brody, also posted articles to mourn the death of David Bordwell.