From Photoplays to Texts: Film Theory, Film Studies, and the Future.

TLDR: In this article, a brief historical survey of the motivational underbelly of "classical" film theory is presented, showing that although film theory has been studied in strikingly diverse ways, the motivations underlying these studies have been strikingly similar.

Abstract: When Vachel Lindsay enthusiastically began to theorize about the nature and possibilities of the cinema, he probably never imagined that "photoplays" would become available in every living room, bedroom, and kitchen, in supermarkets, truck rental outfits, candy stores, and even on screens as small as watch crystals. But in 1915, the ideosyncratic Lindsay had already identified the photoplays of pioneers like D. W. Griffith as allies in his life-long battle for cultural democratization. Lindsay believed that photoplays would quickly become instrumental in our social and cultural development: they would spread the gospel of Beauty, generate national artistic standards, and thus help to unify our very heterogeneous nation. The photoplay itself seemed to him to fulfill the goals of his own artistic activity. He believed that the kind of bardic communication he had tried to accomplish by disseminating his poetry from door to door could be instantaneously achieved by the simultaneous screenings of films across America. Lindsay was a visionary pioneer of film studies, though, as even his staunchest supporters admit, he was also undoubtedly a fool. Nevertheless, Lindsay's rudimentary work in film theory and his reasons for undertaking this work highlight the kind of inquiry I would like to pursue in this paper. What Lindsay's interest in "photoplays" underscores for me are the motivations behind the theoretical study of film. Why have individuals devoted substantial time and effort to produce and study film theory? What can we hope to gain from film theory now? What should we hope to gain from it in the future? In other words, what is the point of film theoretical discourses?' I hope to present a brief historical survey of the motivational underbelly of "classical" film theory in order to show that although film theory has been studied in strikingly diverse ways, the motivations underlying these studies have been strikingly similar. And "film studies" can benefit from the appreciation and reaffirmation of these motivations, for they provide the field with one of its most singular characteristics. I should note that I am concerned with neither the objects nor the methods of film theory in this presentation. Theoretical explorations of the status of the object of film theory and of the methods utilized to describe and explain that object are terribly important. (Is Gone With the Wind the same