Welcome and important book ... considerable value of this book ... It develops an original, complex, articulated theory and fruitfully applies it to a wide variety of films ... an impressive work that in its lucidity and careful argumentation sets intellectual standards that most current film theory does not come even close to matching.
Murray Smith is Professor of Philosophy, Art, and Film at the University of Kent, co-director of the Aesthetics Research Centre at Kent, and Past President of the Society for Cognitive Studies of the Moving Image. He has published widely on film, art and aesthetics. In addition to Engaging Characters, his publications include Film, Art, and the Third Culture (OUP); Trainspotting (BFI); Film Theory and Philosophy (co-edited with
Richard Allen) (OUP); Contemporary Hollywood Cinema (co-edited with Steve Neale) (Routledge); and Thinking through Cinema (co-edited with Tom Wartenberg) (Blackwell).