Comprehending Cinema

Comprehending Cinema is a collection of in-depth interviews and panoramic essays that models a generalist approach to modern audiovisual media, prioritizing remarkable cinematic accomplishments that can get lost within our overwhelming modern mediascape.

The 18 interviewees featured in this publication include Oscar-winning documentarians Daniel Lindsay and TJ Martin; Dean Fleischer Camp, whose Marcel the Shell with Shoes On was an internet smash, then an Oscar nominee; canonical filmmakers Guy Maddin and Su Friedrich, still building on remarkable careers; renowned poet (and cineaste) John Ashbery; Irish independent Tadhg O'Sullivan who is entranced by the moon; indefatigable cine-historian, Paul Cronin; LA artist Jennifer West, who collaborated with 11,500 visitors on New York City's High Line to produce a new kind of City Symphony; Penny Lane, whose documentary films continually surprise; a collaborative filmmaking team who provide an immersive motion study of a crowd taking selfies with the Mona Lisa; cine-explorers Lucien Castaing-Taylor and Véréna Paravel; master of the cine-archive Bill Morrison; cine-scientist Erin Espelie; video-essayist Chloé Galibert-Laîné; and the Alloy Orchestra, who entertained silent-film audiences for three decades.

Comprehending Cinema combines engaging conversations with accomplished filmmakers and essayistic explorations of recent contributions to modern media-making by filmmakers creating a tradition of "cine-nocturnes," and by filmmakers exploring archival representations of World War 1. The book offers a reading adventure dedicated to opening the door to exciting new kinds of film experience.

Scott MacDonald is author of A Critical Cinema: Interviews with Independent Filmmakers (5 volumes), The Garden in the Machine (2001), and 15 other books, most recently Avant-Doc: Intersections of Documentary and Avant-Garde Cinema (2015); The Sublimity of Document: Cinema as Diorama (Avant-Doc 2) (2019); and William Greaves: Filmmaking as Mission (2020). Named an Academy Scholar by the Academy of Motion Picture Sciences in 2011, he has taught film history at Utica College of Syracuse University, Bard College, Colgate University, Harvard University, and currently teaches film history and programs F.I.L.M. at Hamilton College.