This volume of new essays energizes a growing movement in film theory which questions and seeks to overturn many of the assumptions that have governed film theory for the last twenty years. The book brings together film scholars and philosophers in a united commitment to the standards of argumentation that characterize analytic philosophy rather than a single doctrinal approach. The essays address such topics as authorship, emotion, ideology, representation, and expression in film.

This volume of essays gives impetus to a growing movement in film theory in which many of the assumptions that have governed film theory of the last 20 years are being questioned and overturned. Topics addressed include authorship, emotion, ideology, representation and expression in film.

Includes bibliographical references (p. [458]-465) and index.

Richard Allen is Associate Professor of Cinema Studies, New York University

Murray Smith is Lecturer in Film Studies at the University of Kent at Canterbury

Introduction: Film Theory and Philosophy, Richard Allen and Murray Smith

PART 1 What is Cinematic Representation

1. The Film Theory that Never Was: A Nervous Manifesto, Gregory Currie

2. On Pictures and Photographs: Objections Answered, Kendall L. Walton

3. Looking at Motion Pictures, Richard Allen

4. Sound, Epistemology, Film, Edward Branigan

PART 2 Meaning, Authorship, and Intention

5. Cinematic Authorship, Paisley Livingston

6. Film Authorship and Collaboration, Berys Gaut

7. Fiction, Non-Fiction, and the Film of Presumptive Assertion: A Conceptual Analysis, Noel Carroll

8. What is Non-Fiction Cinema?, Trevor Ponech

9. On Film Narrative and Narrative Meaning, George Wilson

PART 3 Ideology and Ethics

10. The Ideological Impediment: Epistemology, Feminism, and Film Theory, Jennifer Hammett

11. Ideology and Film Culture, Hector Rodriguez

12. Aesthetics and Politics in Contemporary Black Film Theory, Tommy Lott

PART 4 Aesthetics

13. Music in the Movies: A Philosophical Enquiry, Peter Kivy

14. Personal Agency Theories of Expressiveness and the Movies, Flo Leibowitz

15. Aristotelians on Speed: Paradoxes of Genre in the Context of Cinema, Deborah Knight

PART 5 Emotional Response

16. Notes on Spectator Emotion and Ideological Film Criticism, Carl Plantinga

17. Comedy and Criticism, Dirk Eitzen

18. Imagining from the Inside: POV, Imagining Seeing, and Empathy, Murray Smith

19. Seeing Theory: On Perception and Emotional Response in Current Film Theory, Malcolm Turvey

Select Bibliography

Index