Selected Film Essays and Interviews

“Bruce F. Kawin’s ‘Selected Film Essays and Interviews,’ a collection of his writings spanning from 1977 to 2011, is a welcome addition to film studies literature. Kawin, Professor of English and Film at the University of Colorado at Boulder, writes in a style refreshingly free of the jargon and verbal clutter that all too often serve to obfuscate and distract in academic film writing. This volume collects a number of his most important essays and reviews as well as two interviews with Lillian Gish and Howard Hawks, respectively. [...] [A]n essential collection [containing] concise and thoughtful examinations on different areas of film studies.” —Matt Barry, roguecinema.com

“The way in which the volume situates Faulkner and Foote in – even surrounds them with – such groundbreaking film scholarship productively skews more conventional accounts of these writers […] [Scholars] would do well to heed Kawin’s plea to ‘get it right,’ to ‘stand up for accuracy.’ I can think of no better model in this pursuit than his ‘Selected Film Essays and Interviews’.” —Sarah Gleeson-White, “Mississippi Quarterly”

“This book is a splendid introduction to an influential writer you may not have had the opportunity to read previously. Kawin emerges as the quintessential cinema academic, a writer of (mostly) concise opinion imbued with an understanding of the technicalities of the medium and a real adoration for its possibilities; a unique overview of cinema as a multi-faceted artistic expression.” —Jez Owen, “Film International”