Description
Smartly selected and organized, the essays in this anthology introduce several central issues in film theory, namely, the classical narrative text, oppositional and avant-garde cinema, subject positioning, the cinematic apparatus, and ideology. Written by seminal scholars, including Christian Metz, Jean-Louis Baudry, Stephen Heath, Peter Wollen, Laura Mulvey, and Noel Burch, as well as such leading thinkers as Roland Barthes, Julia Kristeva, and Jean-Francois Lyotard, these works utilize a number of approaches in their analyses, particularly structuralism, poststructuralism, psychoanalysis, feminism, neoformalism, Marxism, and semiotics. Divided into sections, the anthology features introductions to each group of essays outlining the major assumptions, ideas, and arguments of the articles and situating them within the history of film theory, narrative analysis, and social and cultural theory.
"The impressive variety of approaches to film that mushroomed in the seventies are worthy of the celebration this anthology has staged. Intoxicating analyses of filmes dance alongside the most far-reaching theories of signification and history. What an era this was! Yet through it all Philip Rosen maintains a sober eye, pointing out to us the background of these performers, the consequences of their gestures. Under his measured gaze this dizzying flight of ideas takes on pattern, or rather multiple patterns, that can keep us thinking and talking about them for a long time to come...Read either for the careful continuity of these introductions or for the dramatic intensity of the individual pieces, the anthology must reward the student, the initiated, and the merely curious."
About the Author
Philip Rosen is professor of modern culture and media at Brown University and works in the fields of film theory and history, with special attention to the question of culture and ideology and to historiography and temporality in the contexts of national cinemas. He is the author of Change Mummified: Cinema, Historicity, Theory and coeditor of Cinema Histories, Cinema Practices.
Reviews
Intoxicating analyses of films dance alongside the most far-reaching theories of signification and history. Yet through it all Philip Rosen maintains a sober eye, pointing out the backgrounds of these performers and the consequences of their gestures. Under his measured gaze this dizzying flight of ideas takes on a pattern, or rather multiple patterns, that will keep us thinking and talking for a long time to come. Read either for the careful continuity of these introductions or for the dramatic intensity of the individual pieces, the anthology must reward the student, the initiated, and the merely curious. -- Dudley Andrew, Yale University, author of What Cinema Is! Exceptionally well-crafted... Narrative, Apparatus, Ideology achieves a substantial contextual horizon, through Philip Rosen's impeccable positioning of essays within an intellectual history. In addition to this, his collection successfully strives for representativeness on such a number of significant fronts that it promises to provide a very engrossing forum for the introduction and discussion of contemporary film theory in the classroom. -- Barbara Klinger Journal of Film and Video A much sought-after resource. Choice Rosen's collection continues to be a classic and irreplaceable guide to contemporary film theory. This essential anthology includes key texts by Roland Barthes, Raymond Bellour, Christian Metz, David Bordwell, and others, as well as superb contextual essays by Rosen for each section of the book. -- David Rodowick Harvard University
Book Information
ISBN 9780231058810
Author Philip Rosen
Format Paperback
Page Count 549
Imprint Columbia University Press
Publisher Columbia University Press
"The impressive variety of approaches to film that mushroomed in the seventies are worthy of the celebration this anthology has staged. Intoxicating analyses of filmes dance alongside the most far-reaching theories of signification and history. What an era this was! Yet through it all Philip Rosen maintains a sober eye, pointing out to us the background of these performers, the consequences of their gestures. Under his measured gaze this dizzying flight of ideas takes on pattern, or rather multiple patterns, that can keep us thinking and talking about them for a long time to come...Read either for the careful continuity of these introductions or for the dramatic intensity of the individual pieces, the anthology must reward the student, the initiated, and the merely curious."
About the Author
Philip Rosen is professor of modern culture and media at Brown University and works in the fields of film theory and history, with special attention to the question of culture and ideology and to historiography and temporality in the contexts of national cinemas. He is the author of Change Mummified: Cinema, Historicity, Theory and coeditor of Cinema Histories, Cinema Practices.
Reviews
Intoxicating analyses of films dance alongside the most far-reaching theories of signification and history. Yet through it all Philip Rosen maintains a sober eye, pointing out the backgrounds of these performers and the consequences of their gestures. Under his measured gaze this dizzying flight of ideas takes on a pattern, or rather multiple patterns, that will keep us thinking and talking for a long time to come. Read either for the careful continuity of these introductions or for the dramatic intensity of the individual pieces, the anthology must reward the student, the initiated, and the merely curious. -- Dudley Andrew, Yale University, author of What Cinema Is! Exceptionally well-crafted... Narrative, Apparatus, Ideology achieves a substantial contextual horizon, through Philip Rosen's impeccable positioning of essays within an intellectual history. In addition to this, his collection successfully strives for representativeness on such a number of significant fronts that it promises to provide a very engrossing forum for the introduction and discussion of contemporary film theory in the classroom. -- Barbara Klinger Journal of Film and Video A much sought-after resource. Choice Rosen's collection continues to be a classic and irreplaceable guide to contemporary film theory. This essential anthology includes key texts by Roland Barthes, Raymond Bellour, Christian Metz, David Bordwell, and others, as well as superb contextual essays by Rosen for each section of the book. -- David Rodowick Harvard University
Book Information
ISBN 9780231058810
Author Philip Rosen
Format Paperback
Page Count 549
Imprint Columbia University Press
Publisher Columbia University Press
Details
Subtitle: |
A Film Theory Reader |
Imprint: |
Columbia University Press |
