A Companion to Film Theory (Blackwell Companions in Cultural Studies, 1)

This volume of specially commissioned work by experts in the field of film studies provides a comprehensive overview of the field. Its international and interdisciplinary approach will have a broad appeal to those interested in this multifaceted subject. Provides a major collection of specially commissioned work by experts in the field of film studies. Represents material under a variety of headings, including class, race, gender, queer theory, nation, stars, ethnography, authorship, and spectatorship. Offers an international approach to the subject, including coverage of topics such as genre, image, sound, editing, culture industries, early cinema, classical Hollywood, and TV relations and technology. Includes concise chapter-by-chapter accounts of the background and current approaches to each topic, followed by a prognostication on the future. Considers cinema studies in relation to other forms of knowledge, such as critical studies, anthropology, and literature. This volume of specially commissioned articles examines the relationship of cinema studies with other forms of scholarship, such as critical studies, anthropology, and literature.

Each chapter, accesses a concise account of the background and current approaches to a topic, followed by a prognostication on the future. Representation is considered under a variety of headings: class, race, gender, queer theory, nation, stars, ethnography, authorship, and spectatorship. Approaches to textual analysis are covered in pieces on psychoanalysis, semiotics, cognitivism, narratology, genre, image, sound, editing, and alternative aesthetics. A further section on contexts considers postmodernism, political economy, culture industries, culture exchange, post-colonialism, cultural studies, historical research, early cinema, classical Hollywood, national cinema historiography, TV relations, and technology.

Robert Stam is a Professor in the Cinema Studies Department at New York University. His many books include Tropical Multiculturalism: A Comparative History of Race in Brazilian Cinema and Culture (1997), Unthinking Eurocentrism: Multiculturalism and the Media with Ella Shohat (1994), which won the Katherine Singer Kovocs 'Best Film Book Award'; and Subversive Pleasures: Bakhtin, Cultural Criticism, and Film (1992).

Toby Miller is a professor in the Cinema Studies Department at New York University. He is the author of a wide range of work in cultural studies, including two recent books Technologies of Truth (1998) and (with Alec McHoul) Popular Culture and Everyday Life (1998). He is also co-editor of the journal Social Text.

A Companion to Film Theory......Page 5 Contents......Page 7 1 Introduction......Page 9 2 Authorship......Page 17 3 Genre......Page 33 4 Enunciation and Narration......Page 53 5 Film Editing......Page 72 6 Film Semiotics......Page 92 7 Cognitivism......Page 113 8 Psychoanalytic Film Theory......Page 131 9 Spectatorship and Subjectivity......Page 154 10 Laura Mulvey Meets Catherine Tramell Meets the She-Man: Counter-History, Reclamation, and Incongruity in Lesbian, Gay, and Queer Film and Media Criticism......Page 173 11 Is There Class in this Text?: The Repression of Class in Film and Cultural Studies......Page 190 12 Culture Industries......Page 210 13 The Political Economy of Film......Page 229 14 The Work of Theory in the Age of Digital Transformation......Page 242 15 Cultural Exchange......Page 270 16 Shooting Back: From Ethnographic Film to Indigenous Production/ Ethnography of Media......Page 303 17 Psycho’s Bad Timing: The Sensual Obsessions of Film Theory......Page 331 18 Historical Allegory......Page 341 19 Every Picture Tells a Story: José Guadalupe Posada’s Protocinematic Graphic Art......Page 371 20 “Historical Poetics,” Narrative, and Interpretation......Page 395 Index......Page 421 This volume of specially commissioned work by experts in the field of film studies provides a comprehensive overview of the field. Its international and interdisciplinary approach will have a broad appeal to those interested in this multifaceted subject. This major film theory collection:* Represents material under a variety of headings, including class, race, gender, queer theory, nation, stars, ethnography, authorship, and spectatorship* Offers an international approach to the subject, including coverage of topics such as genre, image, sound, editing, postmodernism, culture industries, early This volume sketches the field of film theory in a non-parochial, internationalist way, considering the relationship of cinema studies to other areas such as critical studies, anthropology and literature. Each chapter examines the background, future and approaches to a related topic." - publisher "This volume of specially commissioned work by experts in the field of film studies sketches the field in an international way. It examines the relationship of cinema studies to other forms of knowledge, such as critical studies, anthropology, and literature."--Jacket