What Cinema Is! offers an engaging answer to Andre Bazin's famous question, exploring his 'idea of cinema' with a sweeping look back at the near century of Cinema's phenomenal ascendancy. * Written by one of the foremost film scholars of our time * Establishes cinema's distinction from the current enthusiasm over audio-visual entertainment, without relegating cinema to a single, older mode * Examines cinema's institutions and its social force through the qualities of key films * Traces the history of an idea that has made cinema supremely alive to (and in) our times