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Social media posts are reporting that David Bordwell has passed away. That one breaks my heart tremendously and owe his website and books as a major foundation for my appreciation of cinema.

Horrible. He was our greatest living writer on film and without question one of the best to ever make meaning from movies

I haven't read him in forever, and looking through his work, I can't even figure out what piece(s) it was.. what would be top recommendations?

A tragic loss for film criticism, a truly passionate film scholar and one of the few I will always take a chance on. For anyone with a Criterion Channel subscription, I recommend taking a look at his Observations of Film Art episodes as they are well worth anyone’s time.

therewillbeblus wrote: Fri Mar 01, 2024 7:39 pm I haven't read him in forever, and looking through his work, I can't even figure out what piece(s) it was.. what would be top recommendations?

the Classical Hollywood Cinema (with its randomly selected films from the period a brilliant methodology that avoids using many of the most familiar examples to study the output)
Narrative in the Fiction Film
Plus any edition of Film Art: An Introduction and his World Cinema textbook are shelf staples for any film student

And yes, his blog was unbelievably good as well

Thanks!

A number of his books are available as free pdfs on his site.

I’ve been meaning to read his book on Hong Kong cinema for a while. This is a good excuse to get to it. I still have my copy of Film Art from my introductory film class around here somewhere

Horrible news about Bordwell, one of the best ever and someone who really thought about film in a unique way and greatly influenced many, myself included. I’m thankful he was able to get a book completed semi-recently (Perplexing Plots, which I haven’t read yet but will make my next read).
I can also recommend Reinventing Hollywood about how the 1940s permanently changed narrative storytelling (his book on 1940s film critics is also really interesting). His books on Bresson and Ozu are also essential for those interested in those filmmakers. The Ozu one is free on his website, as is a book on Christopher Nolan which I haven’t read but am intrigued by.
It’s going to be bittersweet if Criterion release a big Ozu box set and Bordwell isn’t on there with any new material.

Mr. Sausage, based on your writeups on Hong Kong movies (which are great, by the way) I think you’ll really appreciate Planet Hong Kong

Did he do any commentary tracks?

FrauBlucher wrote: Fri Mar 01, 2024 9:23 pm Did he do any commentary tracks?

I believe he did a commentary for An Autumn Afternoon.

His books were standard textbooks in god knows how many university film classes - that alone leaves an immeasurable influence.

Devastated. Truly one of the greats. Figures Traced in Light is essential.

TechnicolorAcid wrote: Fri Mar 01, 2024 9:24 pm

FrauBlucher wrote: Fri Mar 01, 2024 9:23 pm Did he do any commentary tracks?

I believe he did a commentary for An Autumn Afternoon.

Also Alexander Nevsky.

This is what I've been able to put together for him so far for supplements.

His Eisenstein monograph is also wonderful.

From this fun lecture, you get a bit of everything that's in the Planet Hong Kong book (maybe aside from the chapter on WKW and "avant-pop").

A hero of cinema. Coming across his blog blew my mind when I was first getting into movies and his work has continued to surprise and delight me ever since. I relished the few opportunities I had to see him give lectures and lead film discussions.

He’s a writer and scholar in the most rigorous academic tradition but his work is also accessible and fun to read, refusing obfuscation to take on the art form with an incredible lucidity and precision in a field where those qualities are so often lacking. I went through his Godard pieces last December and his essays on Adieu au langage 3D are a stunning example of how he could take a difficult film, which many are content to praise or dismiss without much further analysis, and open it up beautifully from a number of angles with a close reading that explores what in the hell it’s actually doing. I also recommend his CinemaScope essay/lecture which gave me a whole new appreciation of widescreen during our 50s list project.

His recent books were still raising the bar for all other film writers and researchers—IIRC, for Reinventing Hollywood he watched every existant Hollywood film from the 40s so as to not imprecisely generalize or misrepresent trends and innovations. Who else would?

Very sad news. When I was discovering the films of Ozu during the retrospective about twenty years ago, his Ozu book was the one I really wanted to have. Bought a used copy and it has been a treasured item since then. That was before the pdf version was available.

I'm very sad. I never got to meet him (his last trip to Boston seems to have been about a year prior to my belated discovery of Ozu and Japanese cinema in general) -- but we corresponded from time to time over the years. His books were essential reading -- and I consider him my only real cinema-sensei, Only a bit older than me, so I feel lie it is way to early to have to say goodbye.

Apparently, the free online version of his Ozu book is currently offline for reasons not yet determined, but but it is being looked into. (Princeton wouldn't reprint this, even though it was still in demand -- so he didn't just put it online for free, he had the photographs rescanned to take advantage of color, when applicable, and the higher resolution now possible).

Maltic wrote: Fri Mar 01, 2024 11:20 pm His Eisenstein monograph is also wonderful.

From this fun lecture, you get a bit of everything that's in the Planet Hong Kong book (maybe aside from the chapter on WKW and "avant-pop").

Thanks for this. That was great. Does anyone know what the last clip was that he showed, the one he called “the Odessa steps sequence of Hong Kong cinema”? Apparently it’s from a Jackie Chan film.

That's the mall climax from Police Story!

It seems Bordwell was a criterionforum lurker, with you singled out in particular, Kerpan.

DB here:

If I had a time machine, I’d zip over to Japan between 1924 and 1940. I’d trade a year of my life here and now for a year there and then.

Why? First, because the world I see in the movies of that period holds an irresistible fascination for me. I’d like to walk through Ginza, take a train to a spa, wander through Asakusa, have tea at the Imperial Hotel, hike around the temples of Kyoto. Second, if I could go back, I could see all the films I will never see—the lost Ozus and Mizoguchis, of course, but also the films we don’t even know are important.

You can find passionate conversations about Shimizu and the release of these DVDs at the Criterion Forum. See especially the comments of Michael Kerpan.

Maltic -- you made me cry.... (but thank you for catching that).

The vultures are already circling, a Bordwell book I was watching on eBay magically doubled in price overnight

Here’s hoping some publishers decide to reissue some of his books.

̶A̶l̶l̶ ̶b̶u̶t̶ a few are available as PDFs linked from Bordwell’s site: https://www.davidbordwell.net/books/

Based on that link, almost none of his books are available on PDF from his site