Figures Traced in Light: On Cinematic Staging

Figures Traced in Light is a detailed consideration of how cinematic staging carries the story, expresses emotion, & beguiles the audience through pictorial composition. Ranging over the entire history of cinema, David Bordwell focuses on four filmmakers' unique contributions to the technique. 

In-depth chapters examine Louis Feuillade, master of the 1910s serial; Kenji Mizoguchi, the great Japanese director who worked from the 1920s to the 1950s; Theo Angelopoulos, who began his career as a political modernist in the late 1960s; & Hou Hsiao-hsien, the Taiwanese filmmaker who in the 1980s became the preeminent Asian director. For comparison, Bordwell draws on films by Howard Hawks, Michelangelo Antonioni, Yasujiro Ozu, Takeshi Kitano, & many other directors.

Superbly illustrated with more than 500 frame enlargements & 16 color illustrations, Figures Traced in Light situates its close analysis of model sequences in the context of the technological, industrial, & cultural trends that shaped the directors' approaches to staging.