Bordwell David: Tvorba značenja

David Bordwell: The Making of Meaning

making conclusions and rhetoric in film interpretation

The Making of Meaning is the work of the American film theorist David Bordwell, author of a number of influential books in the field of general film theory, film history and film style, and narratology. Published in 1989, at the time of the culmination of multidisciplinary approaches to film interpretation, this book is simultaneously a history of film criticism, an analysis of the way critics interpret film, and a proposal for an alternative approach to criticism based on the interpretation of artistic texts as a central preoccupation of the humanities. 

Showing how critical institutions limit and direct critical practice, the first part of the book traces the history of film interpretation, from the work of the first critics to the rise of academic film studies in the 1960s and 70s. Illustrating his insights with a series of examples from Western (American, English and French) practice, Bordwell analyzes and compares two dominant and opposing traditions – explicational and symptomatic criticism. The second part of the book "reconciles" these two trends by answering the question of how interpretation works. Bordwell approaches film interpretation as a constructive meaning-making process and a skill that can be mastered, with critics of all orientations equally applying the established rhetorical skills of persuasion. The book ends polemically, with a proposal of an alternative to criticism based on interpretation, which the author sees above all in turning to the problems of form and style, i.e. historical poetics.



This book is an extremely important, in many ways original contribution to the world theory and history of interpretation of artistic phenomena (all interpretations, especially those in the field of filmology), of great cognitive and educational importance for our contemporary circumstances. The typological-theoretical approach, which harmonizes theoretical generalization and the observational-empirical approach, is in the trend of the most scientifically fruitful approach in contemporary filmology (and, in general, the humanities).

Hrvoje Turković



David Bordwell is one of the most influential contemporary film theorists and historians, with the status of professor emeritus of the American University of Wisconsin-Madison, where he spent almost his entire professional life. He has published numerous articles and books on history, history of film style, general film theory and narratology.