Film theory
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Film theory seeks to develop concise, systematic concepts that apply to the study of film/cinema as art. Classical film theory provides a structural framework to address classical issues of techniques, narrativity, diegesis, cinematic codes, "the image", genre, subjectivity, and authorship. More recent analysis has given rise to psychoanalytic film theory, structuralist film theory, feminist film theory, and theories of documentary, new media, third cinema, and new queer cinema, to name just a few. See also film criticism.
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History
Classical film theory took shape during the era of silent film. It emerged from the works of directors like Sergei Eisenstein, Lev Kuleshov, Dziga Vertov, Paul Rotha and film critics like Rudolf Arnheim, Bela Balasz and Siegfried Kracauer. It was not an academic discipline.
In the sixties academics began to try to ensure academic respectability by constructing film theories, id est importing concepts from established disciplines like psychoanalysis, literary studies and linguistics.
In the seventies the british journal «Screen» was very influential.
Specific theories and styles of film
- Apparatus Theory
- Art film
- Auteur theory
- Feminist film theory
- Formalist film theory
- Genre film theory
- Film noir
- German Expressionism
- Horror film
- Italian Neorealism
- Marxist film theory
- Psychoanalytical film theory
- Structuralist film theory
Further readings
- Francesco Casetti, Theories of Cinema, 1945-1990, Paperback Edition, University of Texas Press 1999
- The Oxford Guide to Film Studies, Oxford University Press 1998