this was an interesting book Perez passionately puts forth his ideas and, while largely very persuasive, the natural differences between all of us keeps this from being a boring one sided book .I would recommend this to any reader who also loves watching and thinking about film.

The Eloquent Screen was an interesting book; however, I am not sure it will be for everyone. Pérez has many fascinating points to make. I enjoyed following his thought processes and reasoning. Nevertheless, I felt I was sometimes doing so at a disadvantage due to being unfamiliar with so many of the movies he referenced. A handful I knew and had seen, but most I either hadn't seen or had never even heard of. The Eloquent Screen really requires readers to be familiar with a number of old movies (1910s-1940s predominantly) and also to have a strong grasp of literary theory terminology. If you've read Aristotle, Plato, and Barthes, you'll get on far better with this work than someone who hasn't. I could follow the theory, and Pérez generally gave sufficient information on the film plots so I could understand his commentary without having seen the movies in question, but it did require a great deal of concentration, which made this book feel a little 'heavy going' at times. I am giving it four stars, because it was fascinating and I appreciated many of Pérez's thoughts. However, I would caution that this is a work better suited to film academics than the casual movie fan looking to read more about the cinema.