A Companion to Film Theory (Blackwell Companions in Cultural Studies)

This volume of specially commissioned work by experts in the field of film studies provides a comprehensive overview of the field. Its international and interdisciplinary approach will have a broad appeal to those interested in this multifaceted subject.

This major film theory collection:

• Represents material under a variety of headings, including class, race, gender, queer theory, nation, stars, ethnography, authorship, and spectatorship
• Offers an international approach to the subject, including coverage of topics such as genre, image, sound, editing, postmodernism, culture industries, early cinema, classical Hollywood, and TV relations and technology
• Includes concise chapter-by-chapter accounts of the background and current approaches to each topic, followed by a prognostication on the future
• Considers cinema studies in relation to other forms of knowledge, such as critical studies, anthropology, and literature.

A Companion to Film Theory provides the ideal reference source for students of film theory in departments of cultural studies, media studies, literature, and sociology.

This volume of specially commissioned work by experts in film studies explores the field from an international perspective. Each chapter gives a concise account of the background and current approaches to a major topic in film studies, followed by a look toward the future of each area discussed. Representation is considered under a variety of headings: class, race, gender, queer theory, nation, stars, ethnography, authorship, and spectatorship. Approaches to textual analysis are covered in pieces on psychoanalysis, semiotics, cognitivism, narratology, genre, image, sound, editing, and alternative aesthetics. A further section on contexts considers postmodernism, political economy, culture industries, culture exchange, post-colonialism, cultural studies, historical research, early cinema, classical Hollywood, national cinema historiography, TV relations, and technology. Throughout, this "Companion examines the relationship of cinema studies to other forms of knowledge such as critical studies, anthropology, and literature.

Toby Miller is Professor in the Cinema Studies Department at New York University. He is the author or editor of a wide range of work in cultural studies, including A Companion to Cultural Studies (Ed. Blackwell Publishing, 2001), Technologies of Truth (1998) and (with Alec McHoul) Popular Culture and Everyday Life (1998). He is also co-editor of the journal Social Text and (with Robert Stam) co-editor of Film and Theory: An Anthology (Blackwell Publishing, 2000).

Robert Stam is Professor in the Cinema Studies Department at New York University. His many books include Film Theory: An Introduction (Blackwell Publishing, 1999); Tropical Multiculturalism: A Comparative History of Race in Brazilian Cinema and Culture (1997); Unthinking Eurocentrism: Multiculturalism and the Media, with Ella Shohat (1994), which won the Katherine Singer Kovocs “Best Film Book Award”; and Subversive Pleasures: Bakhtin, Cultural Criticism, and Film (1992). He is also co-editor (with Toby Miller) of Film and Theory: An Anthology (Blackwell Publishing, 2000).

1. Introduction: Toby Miller.

2. Authorship: James Naremore.

3. Genre: Sarah Berry.

4. Enunciation and Narration: André Gaudreault and François Jost.

5. Film Editing: Lucy Fischer.

6. Film Semiotics: Warren Buckland.

7. Cognitivism: Greg Currie.

8. Psychoanalysis: Richard Allen.

9. Spectatorship and Subjectivity: E. Deidre Pribram.

10. Laura Mulvey Meets Cathrine Tramell Meets the She-Man: Counter-History, Reclamation, and Incongruity in Lesbian, Gay, and Queer Film and Media Criticism: Julia Erhart.

11. Is There Class in this Text?: The Repression of Class in Film and Cultural Studies : David James.

12. Culture Industries: Douglas Kellner.

13. The Political Economy of Film: Janet Wasko.

14. The Work of Theory in the Age of Digital Transformation: Henry Jenkins.

15. Cultural Exchange: Tom O'Regan.

16. Anthropology for the World: Mass Media: Faye Ginsburg.

17. Psycho's Bad Timing: The Sensual Obsessions of Film Theory: Toby Miller.

18. Historical Allegory: Ismail Xavier.

19. Every Picture Tells a Story: José Guadalupe Posada's Photocinematic Graphic Art: Charles Ramirez Berg.

20. On "Historical Poetics," Narrative, and Interpretation: Ira Bhaskar.

Index.