Post-Theory: Reconstructing Film Studies
01 Jan 1997-Journal of The Midwest Modern Language Association (University of Wisconsin Press)-Vol. 30, pp 146-149
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors present essays by 27 scholars on topics as diverse as film scores, audience response and the national film industries of Russia, Scandinavia, the US and Japan.
Abstract: Since the 1970s, film scholars have been searching for a unified theory that will explain all types of film, their production and their reception; the field has been dominated by structuralist Marxism, varieties of cultural theory and the psychoanalytic ideas of Freud and Lacan. The authors of this text ask why not employ many theories tailored to specific goals, rather than search for a unified theory. They offer directions for understanding film, presenting essays by 27 scholars on topics as diverse as film scores, audience response and the national film industries of Russia, Scandinavia, the US and Japan. Using historical, philosophical, psychological and feminist methods, the book examines issues such as: what goes on when viewers perceive a film?; how do filmmakers exploit conventions?; how do movies create illusions?; and how does a film arouse emotion?
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TL;DR: In this article, the authors take the politics of affect as not just incidental but central to the life of cities, given that cities are thought of as inhuman or transhuman entities and that politics is understood as a process of community without unity.
Abstract: This paper attempts to take the politics of affect as not just incidental but central to the life of cities, given that cities are thought of as inhuman or transhuman entities and that politics is understood as a process of community without unity. It is in three main parts. The first part sets out the main approaches to affect that conform with this approach. The second part considers the ways in which the systematic engineering of affect has become central to the political life of Euro‐American cities, and why. The third part then sets out the different kinds of progressive politics that might become possible once affect is taken into account. There are some brief conclusions.
1,594 citations
TL;DR: In this article, the authors discuss using film as a resource for teaching organizational behavior and management theories and concepts, drawing from the film theory and film studies literature to describe film's unique qualities as a communication medium.
Abstract: This article discusses using film as a resource for teaching organizational behavior and management theories and concepts. It draws from the film theory and film studies literature to describe film's unique qualities as a communication medium. The article describes how film enhances the learning process in ways unavailable in other media. It describes many ways of using films in organizational behavior and management courses, using examples of scenes from several well-known films.
386 citations
TL;DR: In this article, the inter-subject correlation analysis (ISC) was used to assess similarities in the spatiotemporal responses across viewers' brains during movie watching, and found that some movies can exert considerable control over brain activity and eye movements.
Abstract: This article describes a new method for assessing the effect of a given film on viewers' brain activity. Brain activity was measured using func- tional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) during free viewing of films, and inter-subject correlation analysis (ISC) was used to assess similarities in the spatiotemporal responses across viewers' brains during movie watching. Our results demonstrate that some films can exert considerable control over brain activity and eye movements. However, this was not the case for all types of motion picture sequences, and the level of control over viewers' brain activity differed as a function of movie content, editing, and directing style. We pro- pose that ISC may be useful to film studies by providing a quantitative neuro- scientific assessment of the impact of different styles of filmmaking on viewers' brains, and a valuable method for the film industry to better assess its prod- ucts. Finally, we suggest that this method brings together two separate and largely unrelated disciplines, cognitive neuroscience and film studies, and may open the way for a new interdisciplinary field of "neurocinematic" studies.
379 citations
Cites background from "Post-Theory: Reconstructing Film St..."
...Bordwell and Carroll (1996) characterize the tool of cognitivism as a theoretical stance, which “seeks to understand human thought, emotion, and action by appeal to processes of mental representation, naturalistic processes, and (some sense of) rational agency” (Bordwell and Carroll, 1996: xvi)....
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TL;DR: In this paper, the juncture of cinema and modernism has been explored in a number of ways, ranging from early cinema's interrelations with the industrial-technological modernity of the late nineteenth century, through an emphasis on the international art cinemas of both interwar and new wave periods, to speculations on the cinema's implication in the distinction between the modern and the postmodern.
Abstract: In this chapter, I wish to reassess the juncture of cinema and modernism, and I will do so by moving from the example of early Soviet cinema to a seemingly less likely case, that of the classical Hollywood film. My inquiry is inspired by two complementary sets of questions: one pertaining to what cinema studies can contribute to our understanding of modernism and modernity; the other aimed at whether and how the perspective of modernist aesthetics may help us to elucidate and reframe the history and theory of cinema. The juncture of cinema and modernism has been explored in a number of ways, ranging from research on early cinema’s interrelations with the industrial-technological modernity of the late nineteenth century, through an emphasis on the international art cinemas of both interwar and new wave periods, to speculations on the cinema’s implication in the distinction between the modern and the postmodern. My focus here is more squarely on mid-twentieth-century modernity, roughly from the 1920s through the 1950s—the modernity of mass production, mass consumption, and mass annihilation—and the contemporaneity of a particular kind of cinema, mainstream Hollywood, with what has variously been labeled ‘high’ or ‘hegemonic modernism.’
191 citations
TL;DR: Digital imaging technologies are rapidly transforming nearly all phases of contemporary film production as mentioned in this paper and the rapid nature of these changes is creating problems for film theory, particularly for concepts of photographically based realism.
Abstract: Digital imaging technologies are rapidly transforming nearly all phases of contemporary film production. Film-makers today storyboard, shoot, and edit their films in conjunction with the computer manipulation of images. For the general public, the most visible application of these technologies lies in the new wave of computer-generated and -enhanced special effects that are producing images-the watery creature in The Abyss (1989) or the shimmering, shape-shifting Terminator 2 (1991)-unlike any seen previously. The rapid nature of these changes is creating problems for film theory. Because the digital manipulation of images is so novel and the creative possibilities it offers are so unprecedented, its effects on cinematic representation and the viewer's response are poorly understood. Film theory has not yet come to terms with these issues. What are the implications of computer-generated imagery for representation in cinema, particularly for concepts of photographically based realism? How might theory adapt to an era of digital imaging? Initial applications of special-effects digital imaging in feature films began more than a decade ago in productions like Tron (1982), Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan (1982), and The Last Starfighter (1984). The higher-profile successes of Terminator 2, Jurassic Park (1993), and Forrest Gump (1994), however, dramatically demonstrated the creative and remuneraive possibilities of computer-generated imagery (CGI). Currently, two broad categories of digital imaging exist. Digital-image processing covers applications
161 citations
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01 May 1987TL;DR: Cognitive Science as discussed by the authors is a single-source undergraduate text that broadly surveys the theories and empirical results of cognitive science within a consistent computational perspective, covering individual contributions of psychology, philosophy, linguistics, and artificial intelligence to cognitive science, and adding a new chapter on cognitively related advances in neuroscience.
Abstract: Cognitive Science is a single-source undergraduate text that broadly surveys the theories and empirical results of cognitive science within a consistent computational perspective. In addition to covering the individual contributions of psychology, philosophy, linguistics, and artificial intelligence to cognitive science, the book has been revised to introduce the connectionist approach as well as the classical symbolic approach and adds a new chapter on cognitively related advances in neuroscience. Cognitive science is a rapidly evolving field that is characterized by considerable contention among different views and approaches. Cognitive Science presents these in a relatively neutral manner. It covers many new orientations theories and findings, embedding them in an integrated computational perspective and establishing a sense of continuity and contrast with more traditional work in cognitive science. The text assumes no prerequisite knowledge, introducing all topics in a uniform, accessible style. Many topics, such as natural language processing and vision, however, are developed in considerable depth, which allows the book to be used with more advanced undergraduates or even in beginning graduate settings. A Bradford Book
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