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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.
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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 during the Q&A that followed the presentations. The panel consisted of Charlie Keil as moderator and Murray Smith, Katherine Spring, and Jeff Smith, all four contributors to the volume.
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The book’s publication date is December 8, 2026, but I got the image above from pre-order pages that have already appeared on Amazon.com [4] and Rutgers University Press’ [5]s website. Amazon’s page just says “by Professor Charlie Keil
When David Bordwell died in 2024, he left behind a legacy of film scholarship and criticism whose influence is unmatched. Co-author of a pair of textbooks adopted across the globe and the main force behind a blog read by thousands, Bordwell has influenced generations of film students, filmmakers, and film critics. Observing Film Art examines the breadth of Bordwell’s work through the perspectives of those who knew him best, collaborators, former students, and critics among them. This is the first collection devoted to the work of Bordwell, and it gives equal attention to each facet of his prodigious scholarship, structured to highlight his interest in theory, history, and analysis and criticism. The cornerstones of his approach to film study, including formalism, cognitivism, and historical poetics, are all examined in detail, as are key works, including The Classical Hollywood Cinema (coauthored with Kristin Thompson and Janet Staiger) and Narration in the Fiction Film.
At this point, Amazon’s prices for hardback, paperback, and Kindle are the same as Rutgers’ for the hardback, paperback, and ebook (ePUB or PDF).
BUT, if you go to Rutgers’ site and click on this option, you can get a leaflet that contains a code for a 30% discount.
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My thanks to all who attended the SCMS panel and participated in the lively Q&A, who contributed essays to Observing Film Art, and who will read it and remember David fondly. Thanks also to Colin Burnett for the photos of the Roundtable event.