How Films Tell Stories ( paperback)

'How Films Tell Stories' (2nd ed.) presents a concise and engaging introduction to the narrative strategies of cinema. In part one, Aspects of Story, major theories of plot structure, character, and fictional worlds are applied to cinema. Part two, Aspects of Discourse, discusses how the story is communicated, examining techniques of cinematic narration such as time manipulation, perspective, cinematography, editing, and sound. Each chapter concludes with questions encouraging readers to produce their own analyses of the narrative strategies of films. A supplemental website provides video links to many of the film scenes discussed in the book.