Characters in Film and Other Media

I know of nothing even approaching the scope, detail, and rigor of Jens Eder’s magisterial study of character. Its publication in a complete translation finally makes this foundational work available to English-language readers, thereby allowing it to have the impact it merits—alongside works by authors from Aristotle to E. M. Forster and Northrop Frye (or even above the works of these authors, none of whom devoted such learned and plenary attention to character). Eder’s book is not only erudite and theoretically astute but deeply illuminating in its interpretations. Moreover, such theoretical insights as his discrimination of four levels of character analysis are developed with such lucidity that I suspect most readers will find their own analyses of character have gained greatly in insight, simply because they have engaged with Eder’s book.

Film Book of the Month ... We are dealing here with a fundamental work.