David Bordwell (1947-2024)
After it was reported in late February 2024 that David Bordwell had passed away (from interstitial pulmonary fibrosis) I spontaneously wrote this on Facebook:
When I was an undergraduate in Stockholm some 30 years ago David Bordwell was known as the master. We students even joked about the awe with which he was regarded. Once he came to the faculty and lectured to us, comparing the narration of Trois couleurs: Bleu (1993) with that of Die Hard (1988). I still remember how he discussed the ways in which John McTiernan, the director of Die Hard, was using space to move the story forward. I think it is safe to say that this lecture, which was way beyond that of any of our regular teachers, sparked something in me. We read Film Art and Film History, which he wrote with his wife Kristin Thompson, but after his visit I started to read everything by him, and I have not stopped yet. I probably never will.
Bordwell was not just a master, he was a giant. I have met him a couple of times, and he invited me to a conference in Roanoke, Virginia, where he apologised for missing my talk. (Oh, I am glad he did not come! I would not have been able to give it if he had been in the room.)
This is a terrible loss, and my condolences to Kristin and his friends and family.
I am thinking now of his explosive laughter, after I had made a joke about Fritz Lang, and that is how I want to remember him.
I should have added that my favourite book of his is Poetics of Cinema from 2008. I have long wanted to write about Bordwell’s theories and concepts, to engage with them. Eventually I will, but it will have to wait for a while.
Kristin wrote this about David a few days after his death
He wanted to die at home rather than spending his last days at a hospice facility, and he did. I was with him. It was brief, and I don’t think he suffered. It happened within a few months of the fiftieth anniversary of when we moved in together in the summer of 1974. He was as wonderful a spouse as he was a scholar and a friend.
(full text here) and in the days and weeks after his death, many have posted their own tributes and memories and below I have linked to a few of these.
First, here is a fine interview from 2004, now translated into English for the first time:
https://montagesmagazine.com/2024/03/mesmerised-by-the-movies-an-interview-with-david-bordwell/
Here is a quote:
One of the fascinating things about cinema is that it engages us on so many levels. The way I tend to think about it is that there are three levels. One that is purely perceptual: we see movements, shapes, recognisable human beings and so on. That’s of interest in itself, because we like to exercise our visual system.
And then there’s another level, which is about stories and how these visual elements are translated into actions, events, scenes and characters, with their own purposes, in addition to a puzzle-solving element and an element of “what will happen next”, “why did he do that”, “what will the outcome be”. This is another level of engagement, above the purely perceptual.
In the end there is the third level, which is more abstract, about the meaning of what we see, what does it signify, what are the implications, for my life, for other people’s lives, what is the film trying to say, what do I want the film to say (laughs).
Among the fabulous things with this interview is that Bordwell talks a lot about Michael Mann, like this about Collateral (2004)
So I am absorbed in the story, I am interested in the characters, I am feeling the suspense, but at the same I notice those directorial elements, the ingredients that Michael Mann brings to it that’s very distinctive to him. It is a certain way of handling urban landscape in the Cinemascope format; a certain self-conscious pictorialism in the visual design; blocks of colour almost as if it was a painting, blocks of colour laid out with vertical lines dividing them; reflections; coloured light – all these design elements that Mann works so much on in his other films. The film is having an effect on me, I understand the story, I am following what’s going on, but another part of my mind is noticing “ah, every environment in the film has its own distinctive look, colour scheme, tonality or texture, and every one of those works against you to recall other ones”.
But the interview is about so many things, not least Japanese and Taiwanese cinema, and full of things to treasure.
Here is a tribute from James Naremore, another great film scholar:
https://www.bfi.org.uk/features/memory-david-bordwell-aristotle-cinema-study
And here is Peter Labuza:
I like this part:
Bordwell admits that his Ozu book would have never been possible without having seen dozens upon dozens of early Japanese films only available at the Library of Congress so he could understand the norms first (it would have been silly to dedicate dozens of pages to Ozu’s pillow shots if they were in every Shochiku production).
It is safe to assume that most film scholars do not take this approach, but would instead consider it silly to spend so much time watching films only for context.
Matt Zoller Seitz also writes about Bordwell’s exceptional work ethic, in his wonderful article “Eye on the Screen”: https://www.rogerebert.com/mzs/eye-on-the-screen-david-bordwell-1947-2024
We take for granted how important that kind of textbook was, and how hard it was to create in the pre-digital era. There were no desktop computers in 1979, and no home video to speak of. You couldn’t make screenshots. Maybe you could point a camera at a low-resolution TV showing a Betamax cassette of a movie, but that wouldn’t yield a good enough quality image for a college textbook. David told me that up until the 1990s, when laserdiscs and DVDs and home computers came into common use, he had to get ahold of actual 35mm prints of movies he wanted to include in his work, screen them in an actual theater or screening or editing room, and take actual photos on actual film with an actual camera on an actual tripod and develop them with actual chemicals in an actual darkroom.
/…/
The image of a young David standing for two hours in the back of a dark theater taking photos of a movie screen, day after day for weeks on end, is one that I think of often. It’s inspiring. He often went to those lengths, because it was the only way to gather the data he needed to complete whatever study he was engaged in.
I think that is enough for now. No, one more, from David Hudson: https://www.criterion.com/current/posts/8404-remembering-david-bordwell
If you want something to listen to here are two episodes of the Film Comment podcast with Bordwell as the guest, talking about two of his books about Hollywood films and film criticism of the 1940s:
https://www.filmcomment.com/blog/film-comment-podcast-david-bordwells-reinventing-hollywood/
and
https://www.filmcomment.com/blog/film-comment-podcast-david-bordwell-rhapsodes/