Film Theory: An Introduction by Robert Stam

Author:Robert Stam [Stam, Robert]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Performing Arts, Film, History & Criticism, Photography, Techniques, Cinematography & Videography
ISBN: 9781119491576
Google: U8Q_DwAAQBAJ
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
Published: 2017-11-20T00:04:58.079523+00:00

Interpretation and its Discontents

In the 1980s textual analysis as conceived by film semiotics came under attack from a number of directions. On the one hand, poststructuralist currents both inspired and destabilized textual analysis, shaking early semiology’s scientistic faith that analysis might definitively capture a film’s meaning by exhaustively delineating all its codes. On the other hand, the emerging field of cultural studies was not terribly invested in textual analysis. Its attitude was summed up later in the words of Cary Nelson, Paula Treichler, and Lawrence Grossberg in their introduction to Cultural Studies (1992), where they state that “although there is no prohibition against close textual readings in cultural studies, they are also not required, [since] textual analysis in literary studies carries a history of convictions that texts are properly understood as wholly self-determined and independent objects.”

Jacques Aumont and Michel Marie (1989) outline four possible critiques of textual analysis:

1 Its relevance is limited to narrative cinema.

2 It “murders to dissect,” ignoring the organic unity of the text.

3 It reductively “mummifies” film by reducing it to its systemic skeleton.

4 It elides film’s context, its conditions for production and reception.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.