TYPES OF FILM THEORY
APPARATUS THEORY
Pulls its understanding of cinema from Marxist film theory, semiotics, and psychoanalysis. This theory supports the idea that the cinematic apparatus or technology used for production, exhibition, and spectatorship have an ideological effect upon the spectator. The theory further argues that cinema is ideologically based on ideas because the films are created to represent reality. This was a dominant theory in cinema studies during the 1970s, when psychoanalytical theories were popular for film.
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Comolli and Narboni
AUTEUR THEORY
Stylistic and narrative notions, derived largely from French director and film critic Alexandre Astruc's explanation of the concept of caméra-stylo, or “camera-pen.” This theory holds that the director, who oversees all audio and visual elements of the motion picture, is more involved with the shape and message of the film than the screenwriter, ultimately creating an identifiable creative product. This theory considers that the director is therefore to be considered more as the “author” of the film than is the actual writer(s) of the screenplay.
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Andrew Sarris
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Alexandre Astruc
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Jean Luc Godard
COGNITIVE FILM THEORY
Cognitive film theory originated as a research tradition in the 1980s, as a reaction and critique of the dominant psychoanalytic-semiotic theoretical paradigm. Cognitive film theory proposes alternative accounts of various elements of the film viewing experience by drawing on research in the interdisciplinary fields of cognitive science and analytic philosophy. Since the 1980s, the original work in the field has expanded to include film theorists who draw upon work in a diverse array of fields and disciplines, as well as an increasing number of researchers who are trained in such areas as literary studies, experimental psychology, philosophy of art, and neuroscience.
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David Bordwell
FEMINIST FILM THEORY
This theoretical film criticism is derived from feminist politics and general feminist theory. As an approach to film analysis, the feminist claim that men and women are differently positioned by cinema visits the idea that men men are subjectively identified with those agents who drive the film's narrative forward, while women are viewed as objects for masculine desire and fetishistic gazing.
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Barbara Creed
FORMALIST FILM THEORY
Generally, formalism considers film to be a manipulative medium that uses the combination of ideas that generate the multiple elements of film production, and the effects, emotional and intellectual, of that synthesis and the blend of the individual elements create film that is art, and not a mere representation of reality. The primary focus is on the formal, or technical, elements of a film (lighting, scoring, sound and set design, use of color, shot composition, and editing).
GENRE THEORY
This area of theory facilitates the categorization of films, and is dependent on predictable factors such as story line, director, and audience expectations. Genre theory allows for a sort of quantification of audience expectations for distinct types of films created under certain cinematic systems, using predictably detailed gender roles, during particular film periods, and using specific technologies.
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Steve Neale
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Tom Ryall
HORROR
Horror films are centered around the dark side of life, intentionally centered on the frightening, shocking, and disgusting, with the intent of invoking fear, even as the strange and forbidden events captivate and entertain us. Horror theory allows for the experience of our most primal fears and vulnerabilities, including the terror of the unknown, fear of death, and fears surrounding gender and sexuality. Horror, according to this theory, qualifies itself through genre conventions and the underlying structure of values that the genre puts into play.
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Noel Carroll
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Carol J. Clover
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Julia Kristeva
MARXIST FILM THEORY
This theory takes a structuralist approach to filmmaking was used, the more vociferous complaint that the Russian filmmakers had was with the narrative structure of Hollywood filmmaking. They believed, as many Marxists since have believed, that Hollywood cinema is designed to draw you into believing in the capitalist propaganda. Shot reverse shot is nothing more than a device to make you align yourself with this "unhealthy" ideology.
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Harry Alan Potamkin
PHILOSOPHY OF LANGUAGE FILM ANALYSIS
A form of film analysis that pulls apart film aesthetics and structure by investigating the plans and intentions of the concepts and practices that comprise the experience and interpretation of movies. It is based on the philosophical tradition begun by Ludwig Wittgenstein.
PSYCHOANALYTIC FILM THEORY
An academic form of film criticism first employed in the 1970s and 1980s. Very similar to critical theory, in that it analyzes film from the perspective of finding the meanings behind screen images, before moving on to a consideration of cinema as a representation of fantasy through analysis of the subjective position of the viewer. Through a focus on the work of the relationship between cinema and the trauma that disrupts the functioning of ideology, psychoanalytic film criticism is also associated with an emphasis on the spectator search for the missing "object of desire."
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Sigmund Freud
SCREEN THEORY
A Marxist-psychoanalytic film theory associated with the British journal, SCREEN, in the 1970s. Screen theory considers the "cinematic apparatus" to be a version of Althusser's Ideological State Apparatus (ISA). As an ISA, the cinematic spectacle creates the spectator, because the subject is both created and acted upon at the same time by the narrative viewed on screen. Simultaneously, the viewed narrative is masked by the apparent realism of its' communicated content.
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Stephen Heath
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Colin McCabe
SPECTATOR THEORY
Spectator theory investigates the larger system of meaning created by film through audience engagement. As an issue of critical thinking, spectator theory engages study of spectator activity or passivity, manipulation or resistance, distance or implication, in relation to the film. Aside from its critical study, spectator theory is also important for the film industry as a gauge for a moneymaking enterprise; the more the study learns about individual film viewers and their tastes, the better chance a film or filmmaker has of ensuring profitability for its cinematic investment.
STRUCTURALIST THEORY
Structuralist film theory studies the way films are constructed to convey meaning through the use of codes and conventions. This theory argues for key elements and structures that function like modern day mythology, or known stories, to build and communicate meaning, as a way of understanding the world.
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David Bordwell
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Stephen Heath