Playful Frames: Styles of Widescreen Cinema

The use of a wider, more expansive screen in cinema allows filmmakers to disrupt and redirect audience expectations, surprising viewers with creative uses of the widescreen image. Playful Frames: Styles of Widescreen Cinema explores the poetics of the auteur-driven widescreen image, offering analyses of the work of four distinctive filmmakers who reimagined popular genres through their use of the wide frame.

Format: Paperback / softback
Length: 198 pages
Publication date: 31 October 2023
Publisher: Rutgers University Press

The allure of a widescreen frame in cinema invites the viewer to embark on a whimsical and imaginative journey. Moreover, this innovative technology grants filmmakers the freedom to challenge and subvert audience expectations, delivering delightful surprises through the utilization of a larger and more expansive screen. Playful Frames: Styles of Widescreen Cinema delves into the artistic essence of the auteur-driven widescreen image, presenting concise yet comprehensive examinations of the work of four distinguished filmmakers: Jean Negulesco, Blake Edwards, Robert Altman, and John Carpenter. Through its exploration of the interplay between aspect ratio and subject matter, Playful Frames unveils how directors ingeniously employ widescreen technology. Each of these four visionary filmmakers reimagined beloved genres (such as melodrama, slapstick comedy, film noir, science fiction, and horror cinema) through their innovative use of the wide frame, infusing their work with a diverse array of intermedial influences (painting, performance, and music). This scholarly study specifically focuses on the technical foundations, aesthetic contours, and interpretive ramifications of these four directors' creative utilization of widescreen, offering a fresh perspective on how wide imagery continues to captivate and inspire us in the present day.

Weight: 45g
Dimension: 235 x 156 x 13 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9781978815940