Film as Argument

If you’ve picked up this book, it’s most likely that you have an interest in movies over-and-above the typical audience member. Perhaps a screenwriter, producer or director looking to improve your work, always searching for any insight that will result in better cinematic storytelling. If that’s the case, then good news: this is the book for you. It asks a deceptively straightforward question. Why do we make feature films?

Is it to entertain? To move and audience? To tell a powerful story? For fame and fortune?

You may have answered yes to each, but those answers don’t account for the practice overall. Most books about screenwriting and directing are primarily concerned with craft and technique, but how can you truly understand filmmaking – or make the best films - unless you know what purpose it really serves.

So what’s the secret? As the title of this book suggests, making feature films is fundamentally the practice of making a very specific type of argument. To see how this works, we will deep-dive into how filmmakers are trained and taught to think about filmmaking, and what traditions they knowingly or unknowingly follow. We will look at hundreds of films and some major case studies, including Toy Story 3, Schindler’s List, Raiders of the Lost Ark, Amour, and mother!,  to explore how and what films argue, and why knowing this can both unlock both a greater appreciation of the form, and improve the impact your films make.