Understanding Movies

This introductory text is based on the conviction that understanding movies requires, first of all, an awareness of how film differs from other media, the specific ways in which movies communicate, as well as what they can do and what they have done historically. As Marshall McLuhan once declared, “any understanding of social and cultural change is impossible without a knowledge of the way media work as environments.” Therefore, the goal of this introductory text is not to teach students to change their viewing habits, but to make them more aware of the reasons why people respond to movies as they do. The author’s aim has been to make students more aware of their own national cinema and to suggest some of the reasons why people respond to Canadian movies in particular ways.