Noël Carroll
- Published in print:
- 2003
- Published Online:
- October 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780300091953
- eISBN:
- 9780300133073
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Yale University Press
- DOI:
- 10.12987/yale/9780300091953.003.0014
- Subject:
- Society and Culture, Media Studies
This chapter is about Siegfried Kracauer's book Theory of Film: The Redemption of Physical Reality, which was published in 1960. It is important to stress this from the outset because, during the ...
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This chapter is about Siegfried Kracauer's book Theory of Film: The Redemption of Physical Reality, which was published in 1960. It is important to stress this from the outset because, during the course of his career, Kracauer made a number of contributions to the topic of film theory, not all of which are strictly compatible with the theses of Theory of Film. Exploring the relations and the tensions between Kracauer's earlier writings and Theory of Film is a worthy task for intellectual historians, but, in contrast, the author's purpose is to examine the argument of Theory of Film. That book alone provides more than enough material to engage a brief introductory essay such as this one.Less
This chapter is about Siegfried Kracauer's book Theory of Film: The Redemption of Physical Reality, which was published in 1960. It is important to stress this from the outset because, during the course of his career, Kracauer made a number of contributions to the topic of film theory, not all of which are strictly compatible with the theses of Theory of Film. Exploring the relations and the tensions between Kracauer's earlier writings and Theory of Film is a worthy task for intellectual historians, but, in contrast, the author's purpose is to examine the argument of Theory of Film. That book alone provides more than enough material to engage a brief introductory essay such as this one.
Sarah Cooper
- Published in print:
- 2019
- Published Online:
- May 2020
- ISBN:
- 9781474452786
- eISBN:
- 9781474476676
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Edinburgh University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3366/edinburgh/9781474452786.001.0001
- Subject:
- Film, Television and Radio, Film
Film and the Imagined Image explores the extraordinary ways in which film can stimulate and direct the image-making capacity of the imagination. From documentary to art house cinema, and from an ...
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Film and the Imagined Image explores the extraordinary ways in which film can stimulate and direct the image-making capacity of the imagination. From documentary to art house cinema, and from an abundance of onscreen images to their complete absence, films that experiment variously with narration, voice-over, and soundscapes do not only engage the thoughts and senses of spectators in a perceptually rich experience. They also make an appeal to visualise more than is visible on screen and they provide instruction on how to do so as spectators think and feel, listen and view. Bringing together philosophy, film theory, literary scholarship, and cognitive psychology with an international range of films from beyond the mainstream, Sarah Cooper charts the key processes that serve the imagining of images in the light of the mind. Through its navigation of a labile and vivid mental terrain, this innovative work makes a profound contribution to the study of spectatorship.Less
Film and the Imagined Image explores the extraordinary ways in which film can stimulate and direct the image-making capacity of the imagination. From documentary to art house cinema, and from an abundance of onscreen images to their complete absence, films that experiment variously with narration, voice-over, and soundscapes do not only engage the thoughts and senses of spectators in a perceptually rich experience. They also make an appeal to visualise more than is visible on screen and they provide instruction on how to do so as spectators think and feel, listen and view. Bringing together philosophy, film theory, literary scholarship, and cognitive psychology with an international range of films from beyond the mainstream, Sarah Cooper charts the key processes that serve the imagining of images in the light of the mind. Through its navigation of a labile and vivid mental terrain, this innovative work makes a profound contribution to the study of spectatorship.
Matthew Carter and Andrew Patrick Nelson (eds)
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- September 2017
- ISBN:
- 9781474403016
- eISBN:
- 9781474422031
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Edinburgh University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3366/edinburgh/9781474403016.003.0001
- Subject:
- Film, Television and Radio, Film
This extended introduction covers three areas. First, it offers a critical biography of Daves’ life and career, drawing upon archival materials held at the Stanford University library. Second, it ...
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This extended introduction covers three areas. First, it offers a critical biography of Daves’ life and career, drawing upon archival materials held at the Stanford University library. Second, it offers an overview of the development of auteur theory in film scholarship, explaining the process by which the films of some American moviemakers has been canonized while those of others, despite comparable output and acclaim, has not. Finally, the introduction makes the case that Daves’s work does, in fact, evidence a unique authorial viewpoint, valorising man as a rational rather than instinctual agent in society.Less
This extended introduction covers three areas. First, it offers a critical biography of Daves’ life and career, drawing upon archival materials held at the Stanford University library. Second, it offers an overview of the development of auteur theory in film scholarship, explaining the process by which the films of some American moviemakers has been canonized while those of others, despite comparable output and acclaim, has not. Finally, the introduction makes the case that Daves’s work does, in fact, evidence a unique authorial viewpoint, valorising man as a rational rather than instinctual agent in society.
Charles Burnetts
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- September 2018
- ISBN:
- 9780748698196
- eISBN:
- 9781474434881
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Edinburgh University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3366/edinburgh/9780748698196.001.0001
- Subject:
- Film, Television and Radio, Film
The book examines how the “sentimental”, a term so often invoked in film criticism, has been mobilized, denigrated, quarantined or ignored over 300 years of aesthetic debate. Responding to the often ...
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The book examines how the “sentimental”, a term so often invoked in film criticism, has been mobilized, denigrated, quarantined or ignored over 300 years of aesthetic debate. Responding to the often vexed question of what the sentimental means to various critical and popular constituencies, it argues for its continued conceptual value, less as an evaluative term (with its ongoing connotations of a stoical critical elitism), but as a theoretical tradition and taste category that speaks to the tensions between emotion and cognition in literary and visual culture. Using a meta-critical analysis of a wide range of philosophers and film theorists, and case-studies of Chaplin, Ford, Spielberg and various contemporary independent US filmmakers, the book proposes a more inclusive approach to the analysis of emotion in film studies to that offered by ‘cognitivist’ film scholars. It provides a thorough account of sentimentalism’s links with melodrama, a key ‘mode’ of American cinema, as both its conceptual and narratological cousin. It also speculates on the relevance of sentimentality to feminist and genre-based approaches to film, as well as more recent approaches in film philosophy, like ‘cine-ethics’, phenomenology and the impact of Gilles Deleuze’s philosophy.Less
The book examines how the “sentimental”, a term so often invoked in film criticism, has been mobilized, denigrated, quarantined or ignored over 300 years of aesthetic debate. Responding to the often vexed question of what the sentimental means to various critical and popular constituencies, it argues for its continued conceptual value, less as an evaluative term (with its ongoing connotations of a stoical critical elitism), but as a theoretical tradition and taste category that speaks to the tensions between emotion and cognition in literary and visual culture. Using a meta-critical analysis of a wide range of philosophers and film theorists, and case-studies of Chaplin, Ford, Spielberg and various contemporary independent US filmmakers, the book proposes a more inclusive approach to the analysis of emotion in film studies to that offered by ‘cognitivist’ film scholars. It provides a thorough account of sentimentalism’s links with melodrama, a key ‘mode’ of American cinema, as both its conceptual and narratological cousin. It also speculates on the relevance of sentimentality to feminist and genre-based approaches to film, as well as more recent approaches in film philosophy, like ‘cine-ethics’, phenomenology and the impact of Gilles Deleuze’s philosophy.
Murray Pomerance and Kyle Stevens (eds)
- Published in print:
- 2018
- Published Online:
- May 2020
- ISBN:
- 9781474417037
- eISBN:
- 9781474444750
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Edinburgh University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3366/edinburgh/9781474417037.001.0001
- Subject:
- Film, Television and Radio, Film
This two-volume set presents detailed interpretations of singular performances by several of the most compelling actors in cinema history, asking in many different and complementary ways what makes ...
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This two-volume set presents detailed interpretations of singular performances by several of the most compelling actors in cinema history, asking in many different and complementary ways what makes performance meaningful, how it reflects a director's style, as well as how it contributes to the development of national cinemas and cultures. Whether noting the precise ways actors shape film narrative, achieve emotional effect, or move toward political subversion, the essays in these books innovate new approaches to studying screen performance as an art form and cultural force.
This second volume focuses on international cinema, and includes case studies of key performances from actors like Ingrid Bergman, Gael Garcia Bernal, Nikolai Cherkassov, Alec Guinness, Setsuko Hara, Isabelle Huppert, Peter Lorre, Madhubala, Anna Magnani, Toshirô Mifune, and Choi Min Sik, amongst many others.Less
This two-volume set presents detailed interpretations of singular performances by several of the most compelling actors in cinema history, asking in many different and complementary ways what makes performance meaningful, how it reflects a director's style, as well as how it contributes to the development of national cinemas and cultures. Whether noting the precise ways actors shape film narrative, achieve emotional effect, or move toward political subversion, the essays in these books innovate new approaches to studying screen performance as an art form and cultural force.
This second volume focuses on international cinema, and includes case studies of key performances from actors like Ingrid Bergman, Gael Garcia Bernal, Nikolai Cherkassov, Alec Guinness, Setsuko Hara, Isabelle Huppert, Peter Lorre, Madhubala, Anna Magnani, Toshirô Mifune, and Choi Min Sik, amongst many others.
Gina Marchetti
- Published in print:
- 2018
- Published Online:
- May 2020
- ISBN:
- 9781474417037
- eISBN:
- 9781474444750
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Edinburgh University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3366/edinburgh/9781474417037.003.0025
- Subject:
- Film, Television and Radio, Film
A discussion of Maggie Cheung in In the Mood for Love
A discussion of Maggie Cheung in In the Mood for Love
Charles Burnetts
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- September 2018
- ISBN:
- 9780748698196
- eISBN:
- 9781474434881
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Edinburgh University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3366/edinburgh/9780748698196.003.0003
- Subject:
- Film, Television and Radio, Film
Explores how classical film theorists of the early-to-mid 20th century were able conceive of cinema as a sentimental medium alongside the sociocultural and intellectual backdrop of modernity and ...
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Explores how classical film theorists of the early-to-mid 20th century were able conceive of cinema as a sentimental medium alongside the sociocultural and intellectual backdrop of modernity and modernism respectively. Theory is selected from formalist and realist traditions, both familiar and less well-known texts, using a critical lens attuned to the representation of individual virtue, the face, the sympathetic ‘auteur’, and cinematic pedagogy. Key work by such theorists as Sergei Eisenstein, the writers of 'Close-Up' magazine, André Bazin and Béla Balázs, are examined in terms of a revisionist understanding of modernist emotion and intimacy. Such theory is aligned in turn with sentimental principles introduced in the first chapter; for instance, in relation to the face in close-up (Balázs on Dreyer’s Joan of Arc), ‘sentimental humanism’ (Eisenstein on Dickens), the importance of a virtuous hero or heroine (Balázs’ critique of avant-garde film) and notions of ‘sympathetic’ filmmaking (Bazin on Chaplin and De Sica).Less
Explores how classical film theorists of the early-to-mid 20th century were able conceive of cinema as a sentimental medium alongside the sociocultural and intellectual backdrop of modernity and modernism respectively. Theory is selected from formalist and realist traditions, both familiar and less well-known texts, using a critical lens attuned to the representation of individual virtue, the face, the sympathetic ‘auteur’, and cinematic pedagogy. Key work by such theorists as Sergei Eisenstein, the writers of 'Close-Up' magazine, André Bazin and Béla Balázs, are examined in terms of a revisionist understanding of modernist emotion and intimacy. Such theory is aligned in turn with sentimental principles introduced in the first chapter; for instance, in relation to the face in close-up (Balázs on Dreyer’s Joan of Arc), ‘sentimental humanism’ (Eisenstein on Dickens), the importance of a virtuous hero or heroine (Balázs’ critique of avant-garde film) and notions of ‘sympathetic’ filmmaking (Bazin on Chaplin and De Sica).
Janet Bergstrom
- Published in print:
- 2018
- Published Online:
- May 2020
- ISBN:
- 9781474417037
- eISBN:
- 9781474444750
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Edinburgh University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3366/edinburgh/9781474417037.003.0006
- Subject:
- Film, Television and Radio, Film
A discussion of Peter Lorre in M
A discussion of Peter Lorre in M
Gary D. Rhodes and Robert Singer
- Published in print:
- 2020
- Published Online:
- September 2020
- ISBN:
- 9781474460682
- eISBN:
- 9781474481083
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Edinburgh University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3366/edinburgh/9781474460682.001.0001
- Subject:
- Film, Television and Radio, Film
The American television commercial exhibits an aesthetic and historical dynamic linking it directly to cinematic and media cultures. Consuming Images: Film Art and the American TelevisionCommercial ...
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The American television commercial exhibits an aesthetic and historical dynamic linking it directly to cinematic and media cultures. Consuming Images: Film Art and the American TelevisionCommercial establishes the complex vitality of the television commercial both as a short film and as an art form. Through close and comparative readings, the book examines the influence of Hollywood film styles on the television commercial, and the resulting influence of the television commercial on Hollywood, exploring an intertwined aesthetic and technical relationship.
Analysing key commercials over the decades that feature new technologies and film aesthetics that were subsequently adopted by feature filmmakers, the book establishes the television commercial as film art.Less
The American television commercial exhibits an aesthetic and historical dynamic linking it directly to cinematic and media cultures. Consuming Images: Film Art and the American TelevisionCommercial establishes the complex vitality of the television commercial both as a short film and as an art form. Through close and comparative readings, the book examines the influence of Hollywood film styles on the television commercial, and the resulting influence of the television commercial on Hollywood, exploring an intertwined aesthetic and technical relationship.
Analysing key commercials over the decades that feature new technologies and film aesthetics that were subsequently adopted by feature filmmakers, the book establishes the television commercial as film art.
Sergio Rigoletto
- Published in print:
- 2018
- Published Online:
- May 2020
- ISBN:
- 9781474417037
- eISBN:
- 9781474444750
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Edinburgh University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3366/edinburgh/9781474417037.003.0007
- Subject:
- Film, Television and Radio, Film
A discussion of Anna Magnani in The Golden Coach
A discussion of Anna Magnani in The Golden Coach
Adrian Danks
- Published in print:
- 2018
- Published Online:
- May 2020
- ISBN:
- 9781474417037
- eISBN:
- 9781474444750
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Edinburgh University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3366/edinburgh/9781474417037.003.0013
- Subject:
- Film, Television and Radio, Film
A discussion of Jeanne Moreau in The Bride Wore Black
A discussion of Jeanne Moreau in The Bride Wore Black
Alexia Kannas
- Published in print:
- 2018
- Published Online:
- May 2020
- ISBN:
- 9781474417037
- eISBN:
- 9781474444750
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Edinburgh University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3366/edinburgh/9781474417037.003.0018
- Subject:
- Film, Television and Radio, Film
A discussion in of Catherine Deneuve in The Umbrellas of Cherbourg
A discussion in of Catherine Deneuve in The Umbrellas of Cherbourg
Sarah Cooper
- Published in print:
- 2019
- Published Online:
- May 2020
- ISBN:
- 9781474452786
- eISBN:
- 9781474476676
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Edinburgh University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3366/edinburgh/9781474452786.003.0001
- Subject:
- Film, Television and Radio, Film
This opening chapter serves to introduce the principal focus of the book, which explores the felt experience of mental image-making while watching film. The introductory discussion positions the book ...
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This opening chapter serves to introduce the principal focus of the book, which explores the felt experience of mental image-making while watching film. The introductory discussion positions the book first of all in relation to cognitivist work on imagination within film studies and points to the gap in scholarship on spectatorship regarding the experience of the image-making capacity of the imagination, situating it within a broader debate on mental imagery. The chapter engages with film theory and philosophy that anticipates the kind of image-making that will be focused on throughout the book and introduces what it means to imagine in images. It also justifies the book’s concentration on sound rather than silent cinema, since the verbal dimension and soundtracks are crucial to the kind of direction that produces the most vivid mental images, and the verbal dimension in particular permits introduction of the work of Elaine Scarry on guided imagining. It is the vivacity of such mental images that this first chapter outlines. In conceptual terms, this chapter and the following chapter serve to set up the key notion of ‘dual vision’ – of seeing what is on screen and ‘seeing’ what is in the mind – that informs the entire study.Less
This opening chapter serves to introduce the principal focus of the book, which explores the felt experience of mental image-making while watching film. The introductory discussion positions the book first of all in relation to cognitivist work on imagination within film studies and points to the gap in scholarship on spectatorship regarding the experience of the image-making capacity of the imagination, situating it within a broader debate on mental imagery. The chapter engages with film theory and philosophy that anticipates the kind of image-making that will be focused on throughout the book and introduces what it means to imagine in images. It also justifies the book’s concentration on sound rather than silent cinema, since the verbal dimension and soundtracks are crucial to the kind of direction that produces the most vivid mental images, and the verbal dimension in particular permits introduction of the work of Elaine Scarry on guided imagining. It is the vivacity of such mental images that this first chapter outlines. In conceptual terms, this chapter and the following chapter serve to set up the key notion of ‘dual vision’ – of seeing what is on screen and ‘seeing’ what is in the mind – that informs the entire study.
Sarah Cooper
- Published in print:
- 2019
- Published Online:
- May 2020
- ISBN:
- 9781474452786
- eISBN:
- 9781474476676
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Edinburgh University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3366/edinburgh/9781474452786.003.0002
- Subject:
- Film, Television and Radio, Film
This chapter opens with an example from Marguerite Duras’s film The Atlantic Man (1981), in order to introduce some of the ways in which the felt experience of image-making spoken about in relation ...
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This chapter opens with an example from Marguerite Duras’s film The Atlantic Man (1981), in order to introduce some of the ways in which the felt experience of image-making spoken about in relation to dual vision and mental pictures in the first chapter can be further fleshed out. It is the substantiality of the vivid mental image that is explored in this chapter, which furthers what it means to imagine in images while watching film. Duras’s work is a point of reference throughout the book but serves here to lead into discussion of perception and imagination as theorised by twentieth-century phenomenologists. The felt experience of image-making begins to take shape in palpable form, and the relationship between perception and imagination that informs subsequent chapters is articulated first of all through a dialogue with Maurice Merleau-Ponty’s work in particular, and then with that of other philosophers and film theorists.Less
This chapter opens with an example from Marguerite Duras’s film The Atlantic Man (1981), in order to introduce some of the ways in which the felt experience of image-making spoken about in relation to dual vision and mental pictures in the first chapter can be further fleshed out. It is the substantiality of the vivid mental image that is explored in this chapter, which furthers what it means to imagine in images while watching film. Duras’s work is a point of reference throughout the book but serves here to lead into discussion of perception and imagination as theorised by twentieth-century phenomenologists. The felt experience of image-making begins to take shape in palpable form, and the relationship between perception and imagination that informs subsequent chapters is articulated first of all through a dialogue with Maurice Merleau-Ponty’s work in particular, and then with that of other philosophers and film theorists.
Kyle Stevens
- Published in print:
- 2018
- Published Online:
- May 2020
- ISBN:
- 9781474417037
- eISBN:
- 9781474444750
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Edinburgh University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3366/edinburgh/9781474417037.003.0014
- Subject:
- Film, Television and Radio, Film
A discussion of Michel Serrault in La cage aux folles
A discussion of Michel Serrault in La cage aux folles
Gary Bettinson
- Published in print:
- 2014
- Published Online:
- May 2015
- ISBN:
- 9789888139293
- eISBN:
- 9789888313082
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Hong Kong University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5790/hongkong/9789888139293.001.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, Film, Media, and Cultural Studies
The widely acclaimed films of Wong Kar-wai are characterized by their sumptuous yet complex visual and sonic style. This study of Wong’s filmmaking techniques uses a poetics approach to examine how ...
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The widely acclaimed films of Wong Kar-wai are characterized by their sumptuous yet complex visual and sonic style. This study of Wong’s filmmaking techniques uses a poetics approach to examine how form, music, narration, characterization, genre, and other artistic elements work together to produce certain effects on audiences. Bettinson argues that Wong’s films are permeated by an aesthetic of sensuousness and “disturbance” achieved through techniques such as narrative interruptions, facial masking, opaque cuts, and other complex strategies. The effect is to jolt the viewer out of complete aesthetic absorption. Each of the chapters focuses on a single aspect of Wong’s filmmaking. The book also discusses Wong’s influence on other filmmakers in Hong Kong and around the world. The Sensuous Cinema of Wong Kar-wai will appeal to all who are interested in authorship and aesthetics in film studies, to scholars in Asian studies, media and cultural studies, and to anyone with an interest in Hong Kong cinema in general, and Wong’s films in particular.Less
The widely acclaimed films of Wong Kar-wai are characterized by their sumptuous yet complex visual and sonic style. This study of Wong’s filmmaking techniques uses a poetics approach to examine how form, music, narration, characterization, genre, and other artistic elements work together to produce certain effects on audiences. Bettinson argues that Wong’s films are permeated by an aesthetic of sensuousness and “disturbance” achieved through techniques such as narrative interruptions, facial masking, opaque cuts, and other complex strategies. The effect is to jolt the viewer out of complete aesthetic absorption. Each of the chapters focuses on a single aspect of Wong’s filmmaking. The book also discusses Wong’s influence on other filmmakers in Hong Kong and around the world. The Sensuous Cinema of Wong Kar-wai will appeal to all who are interested in authorship and aesthetics in film studies, to scholars in Asian studies, media and cultural studies, and to anyone with an interest in Hong Kong cinema in general, and Wong’s films in particular.
Jerry Mosher
- Published in print:
- 2018
- Published Online:
- May 2020
- ISBN:
- 9781474417037
- eISBN:
- 9781474444750
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Edinburgh University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3366/edinburgh/9781474417037.003.0003
- Subject:
- Film, Television and Radio, Film
A discussion of Emil Jannings in The Blue Angel
A discussion of Emil Jannings in The Blue Angel
Jason Jacobs
- Published in print:
- 2018
- Published Online:
- May 2020
- ISBN:
- 9781474417037
- eISBN:
- 9781474444750
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Edinburgh University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3366/edinburgh/9781474417037.003.0016
- Subject:
- Film, Television and Radio, Film
A discussion of Michael Caine in Alfie
A discussion of Michael Caine in Alfie
Aaron Taylor
- Published in print:
- 2018
- Published Online:
- May 2020
- ISBN:
- 9781474417037
- eISBN:
- 9781474444750
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Edinburgh University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3366/edinburgh/9781474417037.003.0019
- Subject:
- Film, Television and Radio, Film
A discussion Jean-Pierre Léaud in Stolen Kisses
A discussion Jean-Pierre Léaud in Stolen Kisses
Nick Davis
- Published in print:
- 2018
- Published Online:
- May 2020
- ISBN:
- 9781474417037
- eISBN:
- 9781474444750
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Edinburgh University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3366/edinburgh/9781474417037.003.0023
- Subject:
- Film, Television and Radio, Film
A discussion of Denis Lavant in Holy Motors
A discussion of Denis Lavant in Holy Motors
