Top all-time · #7319
David Bordwell
Personal blog · davidbordwell.net/blogculturewriting
David Bordwell writes Observations on film art, a personal blog at davidbordwell.net about culture and writing. Since 2011, 11 different Hacker News readers have linked it 15 times, most often “Eye tracking THERE WILL BE BLOOD”. It is still writing: the last post was on 2026-10-14, and you can follow it by feed.
Too few sampled comments (4) to say how often HN recommends it.?
Why HN links it
Linked for film scholarship and criticism, covering cinematic shots, anime visual style, and film criticism. One commenter calls the blog a great resource that is still actively updated.
Summarised by Claude from a sample of 4 HN comments that link here. Each comment is marked recommending, critical or neutral (citing without judging); how this works.
Most-linked posts?
- Eye tracking THERE WILL BE BLOOD2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2011-12-19
What Hacker News says?
I can't believe you interviewed him. That is amazing! The rest of this post isn't directed at you specifically, you probably know this and much more. Evangelion perhaps popularized this kind of shot, but there's an interesting broader history and context. In general, this kind of shot is called an establishing shot : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Establishing_shot [An establishing shot] establishes the context for a…
Comment linking /blog/category/directors-ozu-yasujiro/
on “Why Is Anime Obsessed With Power Lines?”Submitted Best Films of 1931 as a story · 59 points
HN discussionGood criticism elevates the craft of critical writing above simply giving a "yea" or "nay" and also doesn't just summarize the plot. Sadly, that's like 90% of modern media criticism these days. You've named some of the outliers. Good critics are like guides on a hike or cartographers: clarifying, examining, and situating the work in, its context (which is to say our context). Book criticism, because it is a far olde…
Comment linking /blog/
on “Valid Reasons to Hate on Art”Submitted Eye tracking THERE WILL BE BLOOD as a story · 6 points
HN discussionI was surprised that I was immediately nauseous within seconds of putting on an Oculus, because I don't feel disorientation watching 3D movies or riding amusement park rides. It was something more deep seated than that, akin to motion sickness or ocean sickness, and I hadn’t felt such an immediate onset since I was young. So I’m thinking that the component that’s missing is not so much better hardware, but a sense o…
Comment linking /blog/wp-content/uploads/3d_directors-400.jpg
on “Virtual Reality Fails Its Way to Success”Submitted John Ford and the Citizen Kane assumption (2012) as a story · 2 points
HN discussionThere's also Reverse Shot: https://reverseshot.org/ The Dissolve alumni are all (mostly) writing at various publications: https://thedissolve.com/ While David Bordwell sadly passed, his blog is still a great resource (books, too!) and actively updated: https://www.davidbordwell.net/blog/
Comment linking /blog/
on “He Lost It at the Movies”Submitted Anatomy of the Action Picture (2007) as a story · 2 points
HN discussionSubmitted Observations on film art : Watching you watch THERE WILL BE BLOOD as a story · 2 points
HN discussionSubmitted Pandora’s digital box: End times as a story · 2 points
HN discussionSubmitted Observations on film art: Watching you watch There Will Be Blood as a story · 2 points
HN discussionSubmitted The Social Network: Faces behind Facebook as a story · 2 points
HN discussionSubmitted Pandora’s digital box: Pix and pixels as a story · 1 points
HN discussionSubmitted Pandora’s digital box as a story · 1 points
HN discussion
