Just as film imitates society, society imitates film. Engaging Cinema teaches film as critics see it—not just as a collection of aesthetic choices, but as an art form influenced by and responding to the world around us. Consistently informed by its key thesis—that a film’s social context is just as important as its formal makeup—Engaging Cinema covers all the necessary concepts of an intro to film book while placing emphasis on the questions that make film interesting to students and to film scholars. Why might two people disagree on whether a given movie is great? How—if at all—has cinema helped push progressive social movements forward? Is Hollywood really stuck in a cycle of reboots, remakes, and sequels? And, most importantly: How is the content inside movies related to the world around us—and what can movies tell us about how we got here and where we’re going?

Now available as an ebook for additional flexibility at a low cost!

Highlights of this edition’s new content:

• A new Chapter 1, The Terms of Cinematic Engagement, introduces students to the main concepts and ideas behind the book by establishing the formal context and social context framework and defining key terms students will need to analyze the relationships between these contexts in cinematic worlds.
• Chapter 7: Hollywood and Beyond includes up-to-date analysis on the relationship between business and cinema in the twenty-first century.
• Chapter 10: Ethnicity and Racism in Film expands the discussion of socialization as it relates to individual and institutional racism and includes a new section on intersectionality and inequality.
• A new Chapter 11, Gender, Masculinity, and Feminism, presents a streamlined, updated discussion of gender representation in film.
• A new Chapter 12, The Rise of Queer Cinema, devotes an entire chapter to the history of queer cinema, with a new section discussing transgender representation in film.
• New examples throughout the book feature popular films and TV shows of the past five years, including Poor Things, Barbie, Parasite, Tár, Little Women, The Bear, Succession, and more.