film week one

What is film theory

Film theory is a broad field with multiple theories rather than a single unified system. While this diversity can be challenging for newcomers, it is also a source of enrichment, much like other traditional arts such as literature and music. Since the 1960s, various paradigms in film theory have emerged, each contributing to the understanding of cinema. This lack of a "master theory" is not a drawback but a strength, as the debates and contrasting ideas drive discovery and innovation in the field.

Film theory helps us understand how films work, convey meaning, and affect us, offering insights into cinema's role in history and culture. It illuminates the social purpose of cinema and explores its impact on different audiences and societies. Additionally, film theory evolves alongside film production, addressing new trends, technologies, and consumption practices. It also influences filmmaking, posing new questions and challenges. Ultimately, film theory persists because movies provoke thought and exploration.

Key Factors Driving the Shift in Film Theory:

1. The Academicization of Film Studies:

   • The late 1960s saw film studies becoming a legitimate academic field, especially in North American universities. This shift was driven by cinephilia (a passion for cinema), which spread throughout American culture, leading students to pursue film analysis within academic settings. Despite resistance from some traditional scholars, film studies found its place in university curricula, often borrowing frameworks from literature to establish its intellectual credibility.

   • The integration of film analysis into humanities programs meant that film began to be treated as a serious intellectual pursuit, similar to the study of literature, philosophy, or history.

2. Cinephilia and the Emergence of the Film Generation:

   • The 1960s witnessed a surge in cinephilia, especially among young people who had grown up in the post-war era. Television broadcasts of classic Hollywood films, coupled with the rise of European art cinema, ignited widespread interest in film. Critics like Andrew Sarris and Pauline Kael championed the artistic value of directors, helping to create a more sophisticated, appreciative audience.

   • As the so-called "Film Generation" emerged, they began to demand a more formalized, academic approach to film analysis, thus paving the way for the establishment of film studies departments.

3. The Rise of the New Hollywood:

   • A parallel development in American cinema, known as New Hollywood, saw filmmakers creating self-conscious, auteur-driven films that were heavily influenced by European cinema. These films, like Easy Rider (1969) and The Conversation (1974), mirrored the countercultural spirit of the 1960s and helped to solidify cinema's place as an intellectual and cultural force.

4. Theoretical Influences:

   • As film studies became institutionalized, film scholars looked to interdisciplinary theories to legitimize their field. Theories from fields like psychoanalysis, Marxism, and semiotics provided the theoretical foundation for film studies, encouraging deeper analysis of the medium beyond its entertainment value. For instance, psychoanalytic theories, such as those advanced by Christian Metz, allowed critics to analyze films in terms of their psychological and symbolic meanings.

   • These interdisciplinary theories helped film scholars pose broad questions about culture, ideology, and the human condition, linking film analysis with the intellectual currents of the time.

5. Resurgence in Theoretical Writings:

   • The institutionalization of film studies also led to the proliferation of academic film journals and publications, many of which were focused on critical and theoretical discourse. The 1970s saw a boom in film scholarship, as universities and presses published monographs and surveys of film theory. Key journals like Screen and Movie became crucial in pushing the boundaries of film criticism, incorporating feminism, psychoanalysis, Marxism, and semiotics.

   • Additionally, theorists began to revisit and translate earlier writings from figures like Eisenstein and Bazin, expanding the theoretical canon and creating a more comprehensive understanding of cinema.

Film theory post-1960 underwent significant political transformations, largely influenced by the social upheavals occurring in the USA and Europe. Political engagement became central to film theory, spurred by social movements and rising discontent with the status quo. In the U.S., protests for anti-militarism, anti-discrimination, and against the Vietnam War created an environment where political engagement in academic circles began to thrive, including within film studies.

This political awakening was mirrored in the academic field, especially in Britain, where ‘Screen theory’ emerged. British theorists, influenced by Marxist cultural theory, began integrating ideological and aesthetic frameworks from Althusser, Brecht, and Eisenstein. This trend aimed to fuse political and cinematic critique, shifting film theory to address broader social issues. By 1970, leftist film theory, particularly Marxist thought, had pervaded many French and British film discussions.

The 1960s also witnessed the infusion of Marxism in French film theory, as seen in the radicalization of journals like Cahiers du cinéma. Directors like Godard embraced these ideas, seeking to challenge orthodox cinematic techniques through counter-cinema, an anti-illusionist aesthetic that opposed mainstream cinema conventions. This desire to politicize the medium led film theorists to advocate for a more engaged, socially aware film practice.

Political Movements and Cultural Critique

The growing political consciousness in both the U.S. and Europe influenced the development of politicized film theory. In America, the mobilization of various social movements against war and inequality was mirrored in the theoretical shift towards Althusserian Marxism. By the late 1960s, Althusser’s ideas about ideology and state apparatuses became central in film theory, particularly in journals like Screen. At this time, structuralist thinkers such as Barthes, Lacan, and Levi-Strauss also contributed to film discourse, reinforcing Marxist premises and cementing their influence on film theory.

From Early Film Theory to Marxist Engagement

The period before 1960 witnessed a different kind of theoretical focus in film studies. Classical film theory, developed by figures like Arnheim, Eisenstein, and Bazin, was primarily concerned with defending cinema as an art form. Theorists sought to distinguish cinema from mere mechanical reproduction, emphasizing its unique ability to shape reality and convey meaning artistically. For example, Rudolf Arnheim celebrated the limitations of silent cinema, arguing that its imperfections allowed for creative transformation, which he viewed as essential to its artistic value.

In contrast, Bazin’s post-war theory rejected Arnheim's skepticism about cinema's photographic nature. Bazin and other theorists like Kracauer argued that cinema’s unique power lay in its indexical relationship to reality. For Bazin, cinema’s ability to transcribe reality was its greatest strength, and he celebrated its capacity to capture the "real" in a way other art forms could not.

These earlier film theorists, while different in their methods, shared the goal of affirming cinema’s artistic legitimacy. They laid the foundation for the more politically charged film theory that emerged in the 1960s, showing both continuities and shifts in the field as it moved from formalist to politicized approaches.

What is Film Theory? provides an overview of the major debates and approaches in film theory since 1960. It introduces the diverse theoretical positions within the field and explains how these theories evolve through ongoing discussions and revisions of pre-existing ideas. The book organizes the theories chronologically, covering key traditions and major works, and offering detailed explanations of the frameworks and arguments that define contemporary film theory.

Each chapter focuses on significant works and figures, summarizing key ideas and occasionally using case studies to illustrate theoretical approaches in practice. The book selects films as examples to demonstrate how theory can be applied to specific works, including both popular and lesser-known films across various genres. This approach highlights the adaptability of film theory and its relevance to different cinematic contexts.

The book emphasizes the dynamic nature of film theory, showcasing the connections between different theoretical traditions. While each chapter stands alone as an overview of a particular theory, the book as a whole offers a comprehensive introduction to the field. A glossary at the end of each chapter helps clarify specialized terminology for readers.

Lecture:

 what is film criutism

The emergence of cinema (around 1895) led to the concurrent emergence of film criticism and subsequent emergence of film theory.

Film criticism is concerned with value judgement: assigning to a film a category of “good” or “bad”, worthy of seeing or not.

It is focused on evaluating film's artistic merits and appeal to the public.

The term “film criticism” is most often applied to articles and short reviews designed for mass audiences.

 film crirtuism is usuallt opresented in sort articles.

Why a film is bad or good and essential qualities.

 film theory is to make and verify propositions about film or some aspect of it. Therories and hypothesis. Film theory is a generalised reflections of patterns and regualrrues found in film.  To be able to generalise. 

Why study film? Theories help us understand the medium  and understand the meaning. While we may feel we engage,. Critically using theory will further our understanding . By the mid twentieth century cinema has solidified its status as a central medium.

Cinema is a threshold art that means it exists between pop culture an d high art. It carries forward  storytelling and is a mixed nature as it usues artisic and traditional

technologies interudspilnarty

 film theropy is a collection of interitivbe framworks developed overtime in ordere to better understand .

Periodisation

Classical film theory (1915-1960)

 realist and formative film theory

Contrompry film theory (1960-presen)  may ideology such as femism psycholnanalysis

What is film and TV criticism?

What is screen theory? How are they different?

What is the value of screen theory? 

What is the difference between early and contemporary film theories? 

What are some of the questions that each of them addresses? 

 formatiove perspective / formalist persepctive

This perspective posits that  value of cinema as art lies in its ability to alter the real world or invent alternative worlds, and while doing so also transform our psyche and consciousness. The art of the moving image  is at its strongest not when it merely mechanically records reality but when it  transforms the normal ways in which the human eye perceives, through editing, camera angles, and photography. These concerns and emphasis on formal parameters of film underpin formalist analysis of film, i.e  attending to the formal characteristics of film: mise en scene (sets, costumes, props), cinematography (lighting, colors, camera angles and movements), editing (length of shots and transitions) and sound. This perspective was articulated by such early film theorists as Hugo Munsterberg and Sergei Eisenstein and by later theorists such as Rudolf Arnheim and Kirstin Thomson.

Realism

Realist film theorists valued cinema for its ability to record and reproduce reality without authorial intervention—a reversal of Munsterberg’s and Eisenstein’s positions. This reversal was caused in part by the development of cinema itself, which increasingly resembled reality with the introduction of sound, deep-focus photography, and Italian neorealist aesthetics—a progression that André Bazin called the myth of total cinema. Siegfried Kracauer, a critic of authoritarian aesthetics, argued that cinema should focus on the unpredictable, unplanned events of everyday existence. André Bazin preferred films that use depth of field and long takes to emphasize mise en scène, preserving the spatiotemporal integrity of the scene and empowering the spectator to scan the image for meaning.

Semiotics and structualism

Semiotics and structuralism in film theory drew on Ferdinand de Saussure’s theory of semiology (a study of signs) and Claude Levi-Strauss’s structural anthropology. Extended into film theory by scholars like Umberto Eco and Roland Barthes this approach aims to define film language as a set of deep codes and structures that organize meaning in ways determined by the medium itself, rather than by individual filmmakers. Structuralism looks at a film as a set of patterns, relationships, or structures. Structuralism believes that we see,  understand and enjoy films through recognition of these structures. The meaning of a film comes not so much from inbuilt (inherent) meanings of its individual elements, but from the context in which they are arranged: from how they interrelate within what we know as a film’s “structure” or “system”.

 psychoanaysis

Psychanalytic approach to film analysis is inspired by Sigmund Freud. Many of Freud’s  concepts have been used in film theory: the unconscious; the return of the repressed; Oedipal drama; narcissism; castration; and hysteria. Possibly his most important contributions were his accounts of the unconscious, subjectivity, and sexuality. According to Freud, large parts of human thought remain unconscious; that is, the subject does not know about the content of certain troubling ideas and often much effort is needed to make them conscious. Undesirable thoughts will be repressed or kept from consciousness by the ego under the command of the super-ego, or conscience. In Freud’s view, repression is the key to understanding the neuroses. Repressed thoughts can manifest themselves in dreams, nightmares, slips of the tongue, and forms of artistic activity. These ideas have influenced film study and some psychoanalytic critics explore the 'unconscious' of the film text, analysing it for repressed contents, perverse utterances, and evidence of the workings of desire.

 screen and appartus theroy

“Screen” theory was launched on the pages of British film journal Screen and was influenced by Marxism and  psychoanalysis. Between 1971 and 1977 Screen was  probably the most important humanities journal in English-speaking academia and facilitated the rise of films studies as a disciplinary field.  The theoreticians of this approach – Colin MacCabe, Stephen Heath and Laura Mulvey – put forward the notion of the "cinematic apparatus“. The cinematic apparatus includes the darkened theatre where film projection takes place, the enforced immobilized seating of the viewers, the filtering out of noises and other distractions from the outside world. As another theorist,  Baudry, argued, the film apparatus puts viewers into a dreamlike state of “spectatorial tranquillity” where they are primed to identify with the onscreen narrative and images and are thus susceptible to their ideological content.

Cinema and ideology

Interest in ideology in cinema rose in the aftermath of student and worker revolts of spring-summer 1968 and political shock and re-evaluation of cultural life it initiated. This created the desire to revolutionise film study itself – first by introducing Marxist aesthetics to its field of inquiry; and second by welding a theory of ideology to semiotic and formal analyses as a way of understanding cinema’s potential for either perpetuating or undermining the formulation and circulation of value systems under late capitalism. The significance of ideology for film studies primarily relates to the question whether a film (consciously or unconsciously) promotes or subverts dominant ideology, and how the discourse of classical Hollywood cinema, including its formalist features, transmits ideology. Some scholars, however, go further and insist that a theory of film should not merely comment on films and film-making after the fact, but should instead guide and inform new forms of cinema and new approaches to film making.

 feminist film theoiry

Early feminist film scholars, such as Molly Haskell and Sandy Flitterman-Lewis, focused on stereotypes of women in Hollywood and art cinema and drew attention to previously neglected women filmmakers. Later scholars sought to describe the patriarchal dynamics of cinematic spectatorship. Laura Mulvey argued that classical Hollywood films invite a male gaze that aligns itself with active male characters and voyeuristically looks at or fetishizes passive female characters. According to Mary Ann Doane, female spectators have few options: they may either empower themselves (at the expense of their gender) by identifying with the male protagonist or identify (masochistically) with the female victim. Feminist theorists encouraged women filmmakers to create alternative film aesthetics, which Claire Johnston said should channel female desire, Laura Mulvey said should destroy spectatorial (and hence sexist, patriarchal) pleasure, and Luce Irigaray said should be based on the unique properties of the female body and feminine subjectivity.

 postcolonialism and critical race theory

Postcolonial film theory and critical race theory were influenced by “Screen theory” and feminist theory. These movements are united in their attention to minority groups, that is, to groups of people who have been underrepresented or misrepresented in mainstream cinema – colonial nations, minority races, migrants and refugees. By bringing attention to such minority groups, these groups can be encouraged to speak for and represent themselves. One of the aims of these theories then is to take the burden of representation away from the dominant centres – Hollywood, especially – in order to make it possible for minority groups to represent themselves in ways not determined by mainstream, dominant models (typically that of white, European males). 

Film and postmodernism

Postmodern theory challenges the modernist’s beliefs or “master narratives” associated with “progress,” “truth,” “human improvement,” “high art,” “science,” “technology” — the assumption that these “narratives” will lead humans to a greater sense of happiness and fulfilment.  Postmodernism places emphasis on the activity of the spectator; arguing that meanings are not determined by films, rather spectators make meanings out of films. It also places new emphasis on the popular,  breaking down the opposition of high and low culture. Postmodernism is acutely political and sees mass culture as a visual culture driven by the demands of multinational capitalism.

conclusion

Film theories are essential in order to understand screen texts in terms of narrative structures, visual aesthetics, and character development. They are also instrumental in explicating critical potential of cinema. As we have seen, feminist film theory challenges traditional gender roles in cinema, advocating for more nuanced and authentic portrayals of women. Marxist film theory, a form of ideological critique,  explores how films can challenge and subvert capitalist ideologies, serving as a tool for social emancipation. Critical race theory prompts an examination of racial stereotypes and the representation of marginalized communities. None of these theories provides a perfect model for analysis in itself though – rather, they can help us to approach the issues of representation, subjectivity and critique in an intersectional way. The concept of intersectionality recognizes that social categories like gender, race, class, and sexuality intersect, shaping individuals' experiences in complex ways.

Film in focus

Hugo (2011) is directed by Martin Scorsese, who is famous not only for his elaborate storytelling, but also for his love and appreciation of film history. Scorsese supports film restoration and film preservation through The Film Foundation that he created.  And Hugo is not only a charming story of an orphaned boy, but also an homage to early cinema, and particularly Brothers Lumiere and Georges Méliès who are of interest to us in this unit.  For they are associated with the two powerful traditions in filmmaking and film theory that we will explore in the first two weeks of our unit: formative and realist traditions.

synopsis

Hugo, based on The Invention of Hugo Cabret by Brian SelzIt’s  is a film about an orphaned boy Hugo (Asa Butterfield) who lives in the Gare Montparnasse railway station in Paris at some point in the 1930s. Hugo’s only possession is a broken automaton that his father was trying to repair when he died in a fire. Hugo develops a complicated love/hate relationship with Georges (Ben Kingsley), who runs the station’s sweet and toy shop and from whom Hugo steals the parts he needs to fix the automaton. Eventually it’s revealed that Georges is actually Georges Méliès, one of the first commercial filmmakers in the world. The automaton turns out to be something Georges created when he was a professional stage magician.

Geoges melies

Méliès (1861-1938) was one of the most important early filmmakers, serving as screenwriter, director, actor, and producer, and making a staggering 500 films between 1895 and 1913, when bad business decisions left him bankrupt.

 style

Mélies built the world's first movie studio in 1896 near Paris; from it cascaded fantastic magic films, dream films, historical reconstructions, imaginary journeys, melodramas, slapstick comedies—even erotic films. Prior to discovering the new medium of film, Mélies had worked as a stage magician, and he brought a magician’s eye to his work as a filmmaker. He specialized in films that told fantastic stories and often employed stage magic tricks, rather than reflecting anything that exists. As such, he is often considered one of the first formalist filmmakers.

A Trip to the Moon (1902)

When Méliès made one of his most famous films,  A Trip to the Moon, he wasn’t concerned with what a spaceship or the moon might actually look like. He wanted to impress his audiences, to be funny and to use clever special effects. So, he makes a purposefully fake looking bullet, which the astronauts climb into and are shot into space, hitting the moon (which does have a face) right in the eyeball.

Méliès and the beginning

of formalist tradition in film

A genuine virtuoso, Méliès produced and directed his films while also devising the narratives; designing the sets, costumes and props; and frequently performing the leading parts. Fantasy and imagination rein in Méliès’ films  and as such they mark the origins of a transformative, formalist tradition in filmmaking. Formalist directors have no interest in showing reality – rather, they want to challenge the audience to see outside the everyday. They want to show their personal vision of the world.

Formalist film style

The formalist style draws attention to itself, as if the director is saying, “Look at me! I am an artist and I made this!” For this reason, formalist films are often dream-like. They have detailed, exaggerated sets and costumes. They have complicated camerawork and symbolic lighting. At the extreme end, formalist will avoid story and characters altogether, and instead try to convey a particular mood or emotion by showing abstract images. 

Formalist filmmakers are concerned with spiritual and psychological truths that they believe can best be expressed by distorting and exaggerating the image. Filmmakers like Fritz Lang and Sergei Eisenstein were pioneers of formalist techniques, while later on Stanley Kubrick, David Lynch, Darren Aronofsky, Wes Anderson and many other continued to experiment with formalist approach.

But in Hugo we are also given a broader history of cinema. Not only we meet George Méliès there, but Hugo and Isabelle also go to the Film Academy library and check out “The Invention of Dreams” by Rene Tabard.

It begins with a description of the first publicly-shown film, the Lumière brothers’ Arrival of a Train at La Ciotat (1895) made by the Lumiere Brothers

The film was nothing more than a train entering a station, but, as the story goes, the people who saw this film were frightened and dove out of the way, thinking they’d be hit by it, a scene so lovingly recreated by Scorsese:

The Lumière Brothers and realism

The Lumière Brothers made many more short films like this, which were called actualities. They invented a portable camera, took it to the streets, and documented what they saw: workers leaving the factory in the evening, a baby eating her breakfast  etc. These films, often less than a minute long, were, in fact, early documentaries. The Lumière Brothers thus started a realist tradition in cinema, which is all about showing the world as it is.

Realism in cinema

A realist director will try to preserve the illusion that their film world is unmanipulated, an objective mirror of the actual world. We rarely notice style in a realistic movie. They often shoot on location and use natural light - they don’t build sets, but instead find existing buildings or outdoor locations. They often use a handheld camera or simply a camera on a tripod. Their films are about everyday people and everyday situations, and real people are often playing themselves, rather than professional actors. These films often deal with social issues. Some of the best realist films were produced by the Italian neorealist directors after WWII – Vittorio de Sica, Roberto Rossellini, Luchino Visconti. Nowadays this tradition is alive in the work of British director Ken Loach, Belgium filmmakers the Dardenne Brothers and some masters of Romanian and Iranian cinema

Conclusion

Formalist and realist traditions in filmmaking are reflected in formalist and realist film theories. Formalist, or constructivist,  perspective argues that cinema is at its best and most powerful when it doesn’t merely reflect the world but alter and manipulate filmic perception. By contrast, realist theory argues that cinema’s unique power lies in its ability to record and reproduce reality and its phenomena. Both traditions have implications for  how we approach representation – one celebrates and promotes cinema’s ability to unleash imagination and take us beyond what we know and can witness, another insists that it is grappling with the world as it is where cinema should concentrate its effort. They also offer different critical strategies. Formalist theory argues that it is by transforming our vision of the world that we can experiment not only with new ways of seeing, but also – thinking about the world’s challenges, and as such this type of filmmaking can lead to real changes in social, political and ideological realms. Realist theory believes that it is by exposing the truth about the world that we can move towards improvements and alter he status quo.

Tute 1

Number one priority should be to watch the film , 2, come to tutorials, 3, watch lecture before tutorials.

Big idea- film and tv matter.

Representation is a big idea.

Three kinds

• Representation of something that exists

1. Photographic representation ( the capture and representation of reality)

2. Semiotic representations ( the construction of ideas through signs and images) symbols

3. The critical politics of representation ( how people and places are portrayed in film and the judgements reinforced or challenged by these images.

What do you understand film theory?

What makes cinema unique

What is its purpose

Which view is hugo a mix of both but more realism as the more formalist dreams are clearly set as dreams