What is Cinema?

The first volume of What is Cinema? was simultaneously basic and complex, rigorous and open, almost the Poetics of movies; and as a follow-up these newly translated essays are not a disappointment...In the excellent translations by Hugh Gray, these painstakingly structured essays are difficult yet exhilarating reading...both volumes of What is Cinema? are rich in distilled insights, and anybody interested in movies and movie criticism should have access to them.