Film Studies A Focused On Critical Appreciation Of Film And Cinema

By Adrianna Noton


Film Studies is growing field of academic study that is focused on the critical appraisal and appreciation of cinema as a form of art together with its role in shaping contemporary society and culture. Scholars in the field concerns themselves with analyzing how best to view and appraise movies in order to understand all their many meanings and impacts. The discipline sits within the larger fields of media and cultural studies.

The field of study is comparatively new one dating back only a handful of decades to the latter part of last century. The explosive growth of movies and their powerful influence on pop culture has been a major factor driving interest in the subject. That interest has given birth to a large range of peer-reviewed, academic journals such as Cinema Journal, Journal of Film and Video plus the British journal Screen.

Academic cinema journals have introduced many important concepts in film theory over the years. For example, prominent cinema theorist and British academic Laura Mulvey (1941-stillliving) published her famous 1975 article titled Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema in Screen. That influential article adopted a Freudian psychoanalytic analysis of the portrayal of women in cinema. It is one of the earliest articles to combine cinema theory, psychoanalysis and feminism and remains widely read today.

The Hollywood studio and star system have operated to dominate movie making and marketing in terms of its influence on pop culture. Given this commercial success, some people may perhaps be surprised at the prominent early historical influence that Europe and Russia have had on both the technical aspects of filmmaking and cinema theory. The clearest example of this point is perhaps the Moscow Film School. Founded as early as 1919, the school was the first organization to focus on the technical aspects of movie making.

As another example, Frenchman Andre Bazin is generally acknowledged to be the first cinema theorist. He writings date back to 1943 during World War II in 1943, when he was only 25 years old. Soon after, in 1951, he co-founded the widely read Cahiers du cinema magazine with two other colleagues, Joseph-Marie Lo Duca and Jacques Doniol-Valcroze. His writings remain an influential voice in contemporary cinema circles.

A four-volume compendium of his essays was published After his death between 1958 and 1962 and titled What is Cinema? (Qu'est-ce que le cinema?). A selection from these writings was translated into English; they were published as two volumes, one during the late-1960s and the other during early-1970s.

Bazin also favored films that presented an objective reality rather than indulging in blatant fake manipulations of reality. He supported documentaries and films crafted on the lines of Italian neorealism. From a technical viewpoint, he encouraged directors to render themselves invisible in their films; he supported advocated deep focus shots and wide shots; he discouraged adding meaning through montage favoring instead continuity via mise en scene.

Bazin argued that the best objective for films was to attempt to present an objective reality. He therefore favored documentaries and films in the style of Italian neorealism. From a technical perspective he argued that directors should seek to make themselves invisible; advocated the use of deep focus or large depth of field (favored, for example by Orson Welles) and wide shots (Jean Renoir). Bazin also supported lack of montage, that is, extended continuity through mise en scene rather than montage editing and special effects. All of these Bazin viewpoints are challenged by the modern film studies community. Bazin is nevertheless celebrated as having been an original thinker in his time.




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