Film Theory an Introduction

Authors:
Robert Lapsley
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Michael Westlake
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Contemporary film theory has been indelibly marked by the political upheaval in France during 1968. Comprising filmmakers, technicians and critics, it provided an institutional platform for the articulation of two questions that would dominate film theory thereafter, and that would call on very considerable conceptual resources for their answers. The absence of anything analogous to interpellation occasioned a divide within post-structuralist film theory. The broad shift of film theory from structuralism to post-structuralism occasioned fewer differences and discontinuities than might be supposed. Despite the shift in conceptual terminology, the emphasis remained theoretical; and despite the eclipse of Marxism and the rise of the new politics, there was a continued commitment to oppositional politics. Nevertheless, by the mid-l 970s, in the light of the film theory developments associated with structuralism, many women felt a growing dissatisfaction with the assumptions on which much of feminist film theory proceeded. The first, structuralist theoretical moment in feminist film criticism has more recently been superseded, as it became apparent that the promise of overarching theory was unfulfillable. The influence of Althusser, in particular, was short-lived. Althusserian theory had never enjoyed the authority in the women's movement that it had elsewhere. Put schematically, gender and class appeared to be two quite different axes of exploitation and oppression, with the former no less important than the latter. It was in fact in rethinking and re-evaluating the concept of difference, specifically sexual difference, that the post-structuralist disposition was most evident.
eISBN:
9781526185853
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.7765/9781526185853
Online Publication Date:
30 Jul 2024
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Cover Dance and politics

Dance and politics

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Author:
Dana Mills

Book

Publication History:

Online Publication Date:
21 Nov 2016
Subjects:
  1. Film, Media and Music
Available In:
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Cover It’s a London thing

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Author:
Caspar Melville

Book

Publication History:

Online Publication Date:
21 Nov 2019
Subjects:
  1. Film, Media and Music
Available In:
Redeem Token

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Cover Tony Garnett

Tony Garnett

Author:
Stephen Lacey

Book

Publication History:

Online Publication Date:
19 Jul 2013
Subjects:
  1. Film, Media and Music
Available In:
Redeem Token

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