Observations on David Bordwell

Many of you may know that an anthology of writings about various aspects of David’s career has been in the works–partly because many of you contributed to it. Twenty-five to be precise, plus, as the cover above states, a foreword by me and a preface by Damien Chazelle. It has been edited by Charlie Keil and Murray Smith, two alumni of the Film Studies area of the Dept. of Communication Arts here at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Editing collections of essays is a daunting task, so hats off to Charlie and Murray! Those of you who did not write for it may have attended the “Roundtable – David Bordwell” at the Society for Cinema and Media Studies conference in Chicago in March. It was an event aimed at rememberimg David but also at announcing the approaching publication of the book. It’s hard to get a precise number by counting heads in a photograph of such a large room, but I gave it a try and think there were roughly ninety to a hundred people attending, many of whom chimed in…