Scholarly Commentary and Film Study

Abstract

Commentary by scholars has a long history, one now largely overlooked. But we might recall that the earliest manuscript books, in addition to performing the crucial scholarly tasks of transcribing and editing, provided commentary in the margins surrounding the text. These monkish lucubrations, the product of an age far more starved for information, sought largely to collect and treasure hard-won scraps of knowledge by which the abstruse references of ancient texts could be deciphered and understood.