Critical Visions In Film Theory

Critical Visions in Film Theory is a new book for a new generation, embracing groundbreaking approaches in the field without ignoring the history of classical film theory. The study of film theory has changed dramatically over the past 30 years with innovative ways of looking at classic debates in areas like film form, genre, and authorship, as well as exciting new conversations on such topics as race, gender and sexuality, and new media. Until now, no film theory anthology has stepped forward to represent this broader, more inclusive perspective. Critical Visions also provides the best guidance for students, giving them the context and the tools they need to critically engage with theory and apply it to their film experiences.

First published in 1988. Feminism and Film Theory traces the major issues in feminist film theory as they have evolved over the last decade. Comprised of essays that are classics of this intellectually sophisticated area of cultural studies, Feminism and Film Theory makes available much sought after essays that are often difficult to find. Empha­sizing the polemical challenge of feminism to film theory, this anthology forces us to reconsider film theory's most basic ideas about genre, narrative, image, spec­tatorship, and audience. The essays offer a model for a politically engaged critique of contemporary thought. Feminism and Film Theory will be of great interest to students and scholars concerned with film, critical theory, art and media, cultural studies, or feminism.

Why have certain kinds of documentary and non-narrative films emerged as the most interesting, exciting, and provocative movies made in the last twenty years? Ranging from the films of Ross McElwee (Bright Leaves) and Agnès Varda (The Gleaners and I) to those of Abbas Kiarostami (Close Up) and Ari Folman (Waltz with Bashir), such films have intrigued viewers who at the same time have struggled to categorize them. Sometimes described as personal documentaries or diary films, these eclectic works are, rather, best understood as cinematic variations on the essay. So argues Tim Corrigan in this stimulating and necessary new book. Since Michel de Montaigne, essays have been seen as a lively literary category, and yet--despite the work of pioneers like Chris Marker--seldom discussed as a cinematic tradition. The Essay Film, offering a thoughtful account of the long rapport between literature and film as well as novel interpretations and theoretical models, provides the ideas that will change this.

Critical Theory and Film brings together critical theory and film to enhance the critical potential of both. The book focuses on the Frankfurt School, most notably the works of Adorno and Horkheimer, as well as associated thinkers. It seeks to demonstrate that cinema can help critical theory repoliticize culture and society and affirm the theoretical and political impact of cinematic knowledge. After discussing how the Frankfurt School saw cinema as an instrument of capitalism use to promote the cultural and political regimentation of the masses, Vighi then proceeds to demonstrate that critical theory can in fact suggest a different verdict on the progressive potential of cinema. Each chapter focuses on a key critical theory concept that is explained and redefined through film analysis to unravel the hidden presuppositions and most radical consequences of critical theory. A unique contribution to the literature, this volume in the Critical Theory and Contemporary Society series offer an innovative reading of film as a critical tool, drawing on the latest developments in Lacanian theory.

Today’s film scholars draw from a dizzying range of theoretical perspectives—they’re just as likely to cite philosopher Gilles Deleuze as they are to quote classic film theorist André Bazin. To students first encountering them, these theoretical lenses for viewing film can seem exhilarating, but also overwhelming. Thinking in the Dark introduces readers to twenty-one key theorists whose work has made a great impact on film scholarship today, including Rudolf Arnheim, Sergei Eisenstein, Michel Foucault, Siegfried Kracauer, and Judith Butler. Rather than just discussing each theorist’s ideas in the abstract, the book shows how those concepts might be applied when interpreting specific films by including an analysis of both a classic film and a contemporary one. It thus demonstrates how theory can help us better appreciate films from all eras and genres: from Hugo to Vertigo, from City Lights to Sunset Blvd., and from Young Mr. Lincoln to A.I. and Wall-E. The volume’s contributors are all experts on their chosen theorist’s work and, furthermore, are skilled at explaining that thinker’s key ideas and terms to readers who are not yet familiar with them. Thinking in the Dark is not only a valuable resource for teachers and students of film, it’s also a fun read, one that teaches us all how to view familiar films through new eyes. Theorists examined in this volume are: Rudolf Arnheim, Béla Balázs, Roland Barthes, André Bazin, Walter Benjamin, Judith Butler, Stanley Cavell, Michel Chion, Gilles Deleuze, Jean Douchet, Sergei Eisenstein, Jean Epstein, Michel Foucault, Siegfried Kracauer, Jacques Lacan, Vachel Lindsay, Christian Metz, Hugo Münsterberg, V. F. Perkins, Jacques Rancière, and Jean Rouch.

In American cinema, films with multiple plots can be traced back to Grand Hotel in 1932, but the form was used only sporadically in subsequent decades. However, filmmakers of the 1970s and 80s, notably Robert Altman and Woody Allen, repeatedly employed complex narratives to weave sprawling stories in their films. Later filmmakers such as Quentin Tarantino, Paul Thomas Anderson, Wong Kar-Wai, Steven Soderbergh, and Paul Haggis embraced multiple plotlines, a device that eventually achieved mainstream respectability in such Oscar winners as Traffic and Crash. In the past two decades, more than 200 films utilizing some variation of this format have appeared worldwide. In Altman and After: Multiple Narratives in Film, Peter Parshall carefully examines films that feature various plotlines. Parshall asserts that although this form may lose some of the close psychological identification and forward drive of linear narratives, such films gain a corresponding strength by developing thematic relationships in the various story lines. In each of these chapters, Parshall examines a different example of the multi-plot form, such as network narrative and the multiple-draft narrative, demonstrating that the structure of each is central to their artistry. He also argues that these devices open up a variety of creative vistas, a strength that appeals to directors and audiences alike. Films studied in this book include Nashville, Pulp Fiction, Amores Perros, Code Unknown, The Edge of Heaven, Virgin Stripped Bare by Her Bachelors, The Double Life of Veronique, and Run Lola Run. A long overdue examination of this unique cinematic form, Altman and After will appeal to scholars, students, and fans eager to learn more about complex-narrative films.

A classic on the aesthetics of filmmaking from the pioneering Soviet director who made Battleship Potemkin. Though he completed only a half-dozen films, Sergei Eisenstein remains one of the great names in filmmaking, and is also renowned for his theory and analysis of the medium. Film Form collects twelve essays, written between 1928 and 1945, that demonstrate key points in the development of Eisenstein’s film theory and in particular his analysis of the sound-film medium. Edited, translated, and with an introduction by Jay Leyda, this volume allows modern-day film students and fans to gain insights from the man who produced classics such as Alexander Nevsky and Ivan the Terrible and created the renowned “Odessa Steps” sequence.

Over the last several decades, the boundaries of languages and national and ethnic identities have been shifting, altering the notion of borders around the world. Borderland areas, such as East and West Europe, the US/Mexican frontera, and the Middle East, serve as places of cultural transfer and exchange, as well as arenas of violent conflict and segregation. As communities around the world merge across national borders, new multi-ethnic and multicultural countries have become ever more common. Border Visions: Identity and Diaspora in Film offers an overview of global cinema that addresses borders as spaces of hybridity and change. In this collection of essays, contributors examine how cinema portrays conceptions of borderlands informed by knowledge, politics, art, memory, and lived experience, and how these constructions contribute to a changing global community. These essays analyze a variety of international feature films and documentaries that focus on the lives, cultures, and politics of borderlands. The essays discuss the ways in which conflicts and their resolutions occur in borderlands and how they are portrayed on film. The volume pays special attention to contemporary Europe, where the topic of shifting border identities is one of the main driving forces in the processes of European unification. Among the filmmakers whose work is discussed in this volume are Fatih Akin, Montxo Armendàriz, Cary Fukunaga, Christoph Hochhäusler, Holger Jancke, Emir Kusturica, Laila Pakalnina, Alex Rivera, Larissa Shepitko, Andrea Staka, Elia Suleiman, and István Szabó. A significant contribution to the dialogue on global cinema, Border Visions will be of interest to students and scholars of film, but also to scholars in border studies, gender studies, sociology, and political science.