Christian Metz And The Reality Of Film

A pioneering figure in film studies, Christian Metz proposed countless new concepts for reflecting on cinema, rooted in his phenomenological structuralism. He also played a key role in establishing film studies as a scholarly discipline, making major contributions to its institutionalisation in universities worldwide. This book brings together a stellar roster of contributors to present a close analysis of Metz's writings, their theoretical and epistemological positions, and their ongoing influence today.

In formulating a notion of filmic reality, The Reality of Film offers a novel way of understanding our relationship to cinema. It argues that cinema need not be understood in terms of its capacities to refer to, reproduce or represent reality, but should be understood in terms of the kinds of realities it has the ability to create. The Reality of Film investigates filmic reality by way of six key film theorists: André Bazin, Christian Metz, Stanley Cavell, Gilles Deleuze, Slavoj Žižek and Jacques Rancière. In doing so, it provides comprehensive introductions to each of these thinkers, while also debunking many myths and misconceptions about them. Along the way, a notion of filmic reality is formed that radically reconfigures our understanding of cinema. This book is essential reading for film scholars, students and philosophers of film, while it will also appeal to graduate students and specialists in other fields.

A pioneer in the field, Christian Metz applies insights of structural linguistics to the language of film. "The semiology of film . . . can be held to date from the publication in 1964 of the famous essay by Christian Metz, 'Le cinéma: langue ou langage?'"—Geoffrey Nowell-Smith, Times Literary Supplement "Modern film theory begins with Metz."—Constance Penley, coeditor of Camera Obscura "Any consideration of semiology in relation to the particular field signifying practice of film passes inevitably through a reference to the work of Christian Metz. . . . The first book to be written in this field, [Film Language] is important not merely because of this primacy but also because of the issues it raises . . . issues that have become crucial to the contemporary argument."—Stephen Heath, Screen

Reality has become an increasingly prominent topic in contemporary philosophy. The book’s contributors are responding to the challenge to use the philosophically underexplored potential of film to disclose what the editors propose to call “the real of reality.”

This volume offers readable summaries, elaborations, and explanations of his sometimes complex and demanding theories of film.

From 1968 to 1991 the acclaimed film theorist Christian Metz wrote several remarkable books on film theory: Essais sur la signification au cinema, tome 1 et 2; Langage et cinéma; Le signifiant imaginaire; and L'Enonciation impersonnelle. These books set the agenda of academic film studies during its formative period. Metz's ideas were taken up, digested, refined, reinterpreted, criticized, and sometimes dismissed, but rarely ignored. This volume collects and translates into English for the first time a series of interviews with Metz, who offers readable summaries, elaborations, and explanations of his sometimes complex and demanding theories of film. He speaks informally of the most fundamental concepts that constitute the heart of film theory as an academic discipline - concepts borrowed from linguistics, semiotics, rhetoric, narratology, and psychoanalysis. Within the colloquial language of the interview, we witness Metz's initial formation, development, and application of these concepts. The interviewers act as curious readers who pose probing questions to Metz about his books, and seek clarification and elaboration of his key concepts. Metz also reveals a series of curious and unusual insights, including the contents of his unpublished (and now apparently 'lost') manuscript, the social networks operative in the French intellectual community during the 1970s and 1980s, Metz's relation to the Filmology movement, and his views on Gilles Deleuze's film theory.

Mitry was driven to explain the "why," "what if," and "how come" experiences that resulted after the "wow" experience in cinema. His theory uses psychology and phenomenology to understand how cinema can elevate the viewer from the everyday world.