Bakhtin and the movies : new ways of understanding Hollywood film

Martin Flanagan uses Bakhtin's notions of dialogism, chronotope and polyphony to address fundamental questions about film form and reception, focussing particularly on the way cinematic narrative utilises time and space in its very construction. The theories of the Russian literary critic and philosopher Mikhail Bakhtin (1895-1975) are highly suggestive for helping to understand cinema, yet their usefulness has yet to be fully and accessibly articulated in relation to the key debates of Film Studies. At the heart of this text is the key notion of chronotope, which Flanagan adapts to show how time and space 'fuse together' in cinematic narrative. Similarly crucial are the Bakhtinian concepts of dialogism and polyphony, which help to address fundamental questions about film form and reception. The 'unfinalizable' Bakhtinian word seems to hold great significance for a changing media world where meanings seem constantly renewable, and diffuse practices of spectatorship outgrow earlier, rigid models of interpretation. Via case studies of a diverse range of films (from Die Hard 4.0 to House of Games, The Searchers to The Incredibles), this book vividly demonstrates that Bakhtin's theories can bring about an exciting intervention into some of the most contested areas of film theory Front Matter....Pages i-xi Introduction....Pages 1-16 Dialogism and Film Studies: The Dialogic Spectator....Pages 17-52 Chronotope I: Time, Space, Narrative — ‘Get Ready for Rush Hour’....Pages 53-82 Chronotope II: Time, Space and Genre in the Western Film....Pages 83-126 Polyphony: Authorship and Power....Pages 127-154 Hollywood Calling: Cinema’s Technological Address....Pages 155-180 Conclusion: Making it Real....Pages 181-188 Back Matter....Pages 189-239