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I realize how my comment could have been misinterpreted. I didn't mean to say that the font, coverart, etc. of a book were its form elements...I just meant that you're looking at one element of a medium and missing a whole shitload of more important elements. I will concede that it was a pretty bad analogy.
A more fitting one would be to say that you analyze literature solely for the author's word choice and stylistic decisions, rather than looking at the their character development, narrative, etc. This is actually an annoying trend in modern literary criticism, and a good explanation for why most modern literature sucks...high on interesting stylistic and linguistic touches, but lacking in any real depth or emotion. If you want to reduce film to a purely intellectual medium, appreciatable only in its conceptual qualities, be my guest. I'd just argue that it's a pretentious and overly simplistic viewpoint that deprives film of any real value it could have.
And I don't think it makes sense to say that film is more like music than literature, because film has a shitload more in common, in all possible respects, to literature than it does to music...I don't think that's a point I need to argue, but I suppose I could if you contest it.
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