Both comprehensive and compact, Beginning film studies is a much needed introduction to the study of film, combining depth with clarity and scholarship with a lightness of touch. Written with verve and wit, it charts for new readers to the field the complex landscape of twentieth and twenty-first century film studies. As well as evaluating significant trends in the discipline's past and present, it suggests directions for film studies in the future when cinema will increasingly be challenged by other forms of visual culture. Beginning film studies is wide-ranging, moving outwards from detailed consideration of film stylistics to explore questions of narrative authorship, genre, the start and ideology. Later chapters on production and consumption assess the discipline's recent €˜geographical' turn. Discussion is illustrated by references to film cultures as