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.
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.
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).
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.
Andrew V. Uroskie
- Published in print:
- 2014
- Published Online:
- September 2014
- ISBN:
- 9780226842981
- eISBN:
- 9780226109022
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Chicago Press
- DOI:
- 10.7208/chicago/9780226109022.003.0001
- Subject:
- Society and Culture, Media Studies
Since the mid-‘90s, contemporary art practice and criticism has been engaged in a widespread reformulation of the concept of “site-specificity.” At the same time, the vast proliferation of artists’ ...
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Since the mid-‘90s, contemporary art practice and criticism has been engaged in a widespread reformulation of the concept of “site-specificity.” At the same time, the vast proliferation of artists’ film and video installation has given rise to an anxiety over the proper material, institutional, and discursive location of these works as they abjure the traditional conditions of the art gallery’s white cube or the film theatre’s black box. The introduction endeavors to bring these two apparently disparate threads together by recalling their historical conjunction within a theory and practice of 1960s Expanded Cinema.Less
Since the mid-‘90s, contemporary art practice and criticism has been engaged in a widespread reformulation of the concept of “site-specificity.” At the same time, the vast proliferation of artists’ film and video installation has given rise to an anxiety over the proper material, institutional, and discursive location of these works as they abjure the traditional conditions of the art gallery’s white cube or the film theatre’s black box. The introduction endeavors to bring these two apparently disparate threads together by recalling their historical conjunction within a theory and practice of 1960s Expanded Cinema.
Nico Baumbach
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- May 2014
- ISBN:
- 9780748676118
- eISBN:
- 9780748695096
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Edinburgh University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3366/edinburgh/9780748676118.003.0007
- Subject:
- Film, Television and Radio, Film
This chapter, written by Nico Baumbach, focuses on the Lumières’ film Le Repas de Bébé (Baby’s Meal); taking as its starting point Georges Méliès’s observation that it was through this film that he ...
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This chapter, written by Nico Baumbach, focuses on the Lumières’ film Le Repas de Bébé (Baby’s Meal); taking as its starting point Georges Méliès’s observation that it was through this film that he first registered the potential of cinema. It is not the spectacular that Méliès notices, but the incidental detail of moving leaves in the background of the film. Baumbach homes in on this incidental detail to explore the significance it held for filmmakers, including D. W. Griffith. Baumbach addresses film’s power to construct palpable, seemingly concrete visual phenomena, though here he examines the transitory aesthetics of the ‘wind in the trees’. Baumbach enriches the interest in what Tom Gunning and André Gaudreault called the ‘cinema of attractions’ by suggesting, via detours into Kant, Benjamin, German Romantic poetry, and Impressionist painting, that the inscription of the incidental could often be as powerful as the spectacular.Less
This chapter, written by Nico Baumbach, focuses on the Lumières’ film Le Repas de Bébé (Baby’s Meal); taking as its starting point Georges Méliès’s observation that it was through this film that he first registered the potential of cinema. It is not the spectacular that Méliès notices, but the incidental detail of moving leaves in the background of the film. Baumbach homes in on this incidental detail to explore the significance it held for filmmakers, including D. W. Griffith. Baumbach addresses film’s power to construct palpable, seemingly concrete visual phenomena, though here he examines the transitory aesthetics of the ‘wind in the trees’. Baumbach enriches the interest in what Tom Gunning and André Gaudreault called the ‘cinema of attractions’ by suggesting, via detours into Kant, Benjamin, German Romantic poetry, and Impressionist painting, that the inscription of the incidental could often be as powerful as the spectacular.
Alejandro Yarza
- Published in print:
- 2018
- Published Online:
- September 2018
- ISBN:
- 9780748699247
- eISBN:
- 9781474444729
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Edinburgh University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3366/edinburgh/9780748699247.003.0001
- Subject:
- Film, Television and Radio, Film
Francoist kitsch is interpreted as an essential part of a politically eclectic discourse whose study brings together aesthetics, film theory and the politics of fascist Spain. Drawing on conceptual ...
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Francoist kitsch is interpreted as an essential part of a politically eclectic discourse whose study brings together aesthetics, film theory and the politics of fascist Spain. Drawing on conceptual work on fascism by thinkers such as Theodor Adorno, Walter Benjamin, Christopher Bollas, Mark Neocleous and Susan Sontag, and on studies on kitsch by Hermann Broch, Matei Calinescu, Gillo Dorfles, Umberto Eco and Saul Friedländer, among others, my theoretical framework elucidates how Francoism appropriated the fetishistic nature of cinema and kitsch aesthetics, relying on its potential both to mobilize and secure ideological control over the Spanish citizenry.Less
Francoist kitsch is interpreted as an essential part of a politically eclectic discourse whose study brings together aesthetics, film theory and the politics of fascist Spain. Drawing on conceptual work on fascism by thinkers such as Theodor Adorno, Walter Benjamin, Christopher Bollas, Mark Neocleous and Susan Sontag, and on studies on kitsch by Hermann Broch, Matei Calinescu, Gillo Dorfles, Umberto Eco and Saul Friedländer, among others, my theoretical framework elucidates how Francoism appropriated the fetishistic nature of cinema and kitsch aesthetics, relying on its potential both to mobilize and secure ideological control over the Spanish citizenry.
