What is "Film Theory," Really?

Summary

This lecture introduces the distinction between classical and contemporary film theory, exploring how early theorists like Maxim Gorky approached the new medium of cinema. Classical film theory, from 1915-1960, sought to define cinema as a unique art form, while contemporary film theory (post-1960) focuses on how cinema produces meaning, perpetuates ideologies, and addresses identities like race, gender, and class. The script highlights how theorists engaged with cinema’s realism, using examples like Gorky’s poetic description of the Lumière brothers’ films to illustrate early theoretical reflections on movement, life, and the nature of the cinematographic image.

Takeaways

• 🎬 Film theory is distinct from film criticism/analysis (individual films) and film history (cataloging change over time); it makes generalized propositions about film as a medium.
• 🧠 Key definitions from scholars: Dudley Andrew (propositions about film), David Bordwell (general hypotheses), Robert Stam (generalized reflections on patterns and cinematic systems).
• 🔎 The defining feature of film theory is its focus on generality — broad claims or hypotheses about how film works, not just close readings of single films.
• 📚 The course divides film theory historically into two broad periods: Classical (≈1915–1960) and Contemporary (1960s onward).
• 🏛️ Classical film theory asks the ‘what’ questions: What is cinema? What makes it distinct from other arts? Is it a legitimate art form?
• ❤️ Classical theorists are often motivated by enthusiasm for cinema and by a desire to legitimate the medium (e.g., auteur theory helped legitimize film).
• 🛠️ Early, pre-theoretical practices — company/device names (cinematograph, kinetoscope, vitascope, biograph) — already carry theoretical claims about movement, life, and the medium’s uniqueness.
• 🤯 Maxime Gorky’s Lumière account shows how early spectators experienced the moving image as lifelike but uncanny — close to reality yet clearly an image (the train example).
• 🧩 Contemporary film theory emphasizes the ‘how’: how cinema produces meaning, how it perpetuates dominant ideology, and how it addresses identities like race, class, gender, and sexuality.
• 🔍 From the 1960s, film theory draws on linguistics and psychoanalysis and shifts to systemic analyses of cinema as social and symbolic meaning.
• ⚖️ Contemporary theorists are more suspicious of dominant (Hollywood) cinema and more interested in cinema’s political and ideological effects, though they may champion oppositional cinemas.
• 🌿 Close observation of early films (e.g., Lumière’s ‘Baby’s Breakfast’) highlights medium-specific features — contingency, unplanned background movement, and the particular realism of motion.
• 🪟 The cinematic image can feel like a window onto a world (strong realism) while simultaneously being a mediated, frame-bounded spectacle — producing uncanny effects.
• 🧭 A helpful heuristic: Classical theory focuses on what cinema is; contemporary theory focuses on how cinema works on viewers and society.

Q & A

What is the primary distinction between film theory, film criticism, and film history?

Film theory involves generalized propositions about the medium of film, whereas film criticism or analysis focuses on individual films, and film history deals with the cataloging of events that shaped cinema over time. Film theory aims to understand what film is, its properties, and its societal role.

How does film history differ from film theory?

Film history is concerned with documenting the evolution of film, including its technical aspects and historical events that influenced its development. Film theory, in contrast, seeks to understand the general principles and concepts behind the medium, exploring its artistic, cultural, and social implications.

What is the significance of generalization in film theory?

Film theory relies on generalization to create broad claims or hypotheses about the medium of film. While the humanities often focus on specifics, film theory applies general concepts to understand and explain the artistic and social phenomena of cinema.

What are the main concerns of classical film theory?

Classical film theory, roughly from 1915 to 1960, focused on questions like 'What is cinema?' and 'What makes cinema distinct from other art forms?' It dealt with defining cinema's uniqueness, its legitimacy as an art form, and its relationship to reality and other artistic mediums.

How does contemporary film theory differ from classical film theory?

Contemporary film theory, starting in the 1960s, shifted focus to how cinema works—how it produces meaning, perpetuates ideologies, and addresses issues of identity (such as class, race, gender, and sexuality). It became more critical of mainstream cinema and its role in reinforcing societal norms.

What role does psychoanalysis play in contemporary film theory?

Psychoanalysis became a key theoretical tool in the 1960s for understanding how films create meaning. It helped theorists analyze how cinema taps into unconscious desires, drives, and symbols, thus influencing the way we interpret films on a psychological level.

Why was the legitimacy of cinema as an art form a central question for classical film theorists?

Early film theorists were concerned with establishing cinema as a legitimate medium of artistic expression, since it was new and often viewed skeptically by traditional art forms like painting and literature. They wanted to prove that film had unique artistic value and could be as serious as other established art forms.

What are some of the major questions that contemporary film theory addresses?

Contemporary film theory explores how cinema constructs meaning, how it perpetuates dominant ideologies, and how it addresses identity issues (e.g., race, gender, and sexuality). It also investigates cinema’s role in social and political contexts, questioning how films influence and reflect societal values.

What does Richard Rushton suggest about the shift from classical to contemporary film theory?

Rushton highlights that the shift in film theory from the classical to the contemporary period marked a transition from a focus on legitimizing cinema as an art form to analyzing cinema as a system of social and symbolic meaning. Cinema's role in perpetuating ideology and reflecting social structures became the central concern.

How does Maxim Gorky’s description of early cinema provide a theoretical perspective on film?

Maxim Gorky’s poetic description of the Lumière films in 1896 articulates a theoretical view of cinema as an image that captures life in a unique way. He notes the lifelike quality of the moving image and contrasts it with the stillness of photography, showing an early recognition of cinema’s potential to represent reality in a way no other art form could.