Film theory: how much do you know about it, and how valuable is it to you?

[Amnesiac]

...

[Skitch]

I've done some reading by some that dive on the topic. I enjoy reading theory when it's feels passionately written, but most of the time it comes off as either too esoteric, or too pretentious.

[Duncan]

Do any of you have a working knowledge of any of the following? That is, semiotics, structuralism, post-structuralism, psychoanalysis, apparatus theory, post-modernity...I'm sure I forgot one or two. I'm pretty familiar with semiotics, psychoanalysis, and post-modernity. I've read bits and pieces about structuralism and post-structuralism (which is weird because almost all the short films I make are heavily influenced by people like Michael Snow and Ernie Gehr). I've never heard of apparatus theory.


Or how about any of these people? Sergei Eisenstein. Vsevolod Pudovkin. Christian Metz. Laura Mulvy. Hugo Münsterberg. Seigfried Kracauer. André Bazin. Jean-Louis Baudry. Tom Gunning. Definitely missing a few but you get the idea. I've read things that I remember from the bolded people. I'm also pretty sure I've read or read about Metz and Baudry, but I can't remember...Deleuze is another one I've read quite a bit from.


I'm just curious, as far as film theory goes, how much the average avid movie watcher knows? Do you find it useful and enlightening? Or do you find some of these theories esoteric or archaic? Or have you studied them all pretty closely and found it has enriched your experience with film? I generally find semiotic and phenomenological approaches the most rewarding. A lot of the psychoanalytical stuff I find too specious to be taken seriously. Probably why I'm not such a big fan of Hitchcock's films or Mulvey's most famous essay "Visual Pleasures in the Narrative Cinema."

So, basically, I find it an interesting topic that I apply quite heavily to the films I watch.

[Scar]

I study science.

[Grouchy]

I study film, so I have to read all that.

It's not like I don't find it interesting, though. Bazin, Tarkovsky, Deleuze were all pretty enlightening reads for me, even if I've never been able to enjoy the Tarkovsky films I've seen.

The best piece of film theory I've seen recently in class was The Pervert's Guide to Cinema. While it's nothing new to watch Hitchcock films with Freudian psychology in mind, the connections he draws between films are unexpected, original and always very intelligent. I didn't mention it in the FDT because we didn't watch all of it.

[Melville]

I study science.
This. I'd like to read some film theory, but I've never gotten around to it. I think my analyses are probably abstruse enough as it is.

[baby doll]

I've mostly read psychoanalytic stuff (the aforementioned Laura Mulvey essay, the essays in "Lacan and Contemporary Cinema"--just bits and pieces), and I find it intriguing, but it seems that the authors are merely using films to explain psychoanalytic concepts. I have my reservations about Bordwell as well (specifically, some of the stuff he talks about can't be perceived by human beings watching the films in a theatre), but I find his approach is closer to the mark.

The semiotic stuff and Deleuze just go over my head.

[balmakboor]

I read this and that when I get a chance. I mostly prefer to weave my own wacky theories though. The reviews I write for the paper are pretty much in the Manny Farber, Pauline Kael, and Roger Ebert vein. In other words, not much use for hard film theory there.

[Grouchy]

I wasn't aware Tarkovsky wrote anything on film. Then again, I've yet to check out any of his films, either (going to remedy that problem very soon). I don't think I've ever read anything by Gilles Deleuze, though.
I totally recommend you read Tarkovsky's book, Sculpting in Time. Like Bresson's writings, it gives a totally unique and individualistic approach to cinema. One that I don't necessarily share or use in my own attempts at filming stuff, but that stems from hard, objective thinking about the medium.

I also highly recommend you read some Deleuze.

I'm not a fan of semiotic thinking either, but to analyze films that way, you have to banish from your mind any form of auteuristic thinking. In semiotics, the signs are there, whether intentional or not.

[Robby P]

There are still people in the world who take psychoanalysis seriously? Huh.

[Duncan]

I see. But am I right in assuming that, in semiotics, there is one definite meaning for each sign? I remember reading Robin Wood's analysis of I Walked With A Zombie and he referred to certain scenes (and the elements therein) as connoting very particular things ... do those who practice semiotics not allow for multiple meanings behind one sign? Or are they more interested in definitive connotations (i.e., the idea that one sign definitely means this, regardless of the context, viewer or auteur). I think semiotics is almost the opposite of this. It puts a lot of emphasis on the viewer and how he or she conceptualizes the signified from the signifier. For that reason, context is very important. What comes before, what comes after. I would argue that this is reconcilable with auteur theory because one never watches a movie as a blank slate. If one is previously familiar with a director's work then one can apply that context to the interpretation of signs in a film being watched for the first time. This applies thematically, of course, but also in the sense of technical appreciation. Many auteurs have a distinct syntax, the study of which is just as valid a branch of semiotics as the interpretation of signs. The two overlap each other, obviously.


Or is semiotics more about breaking down (or identifying) the cultural myths which make us associate certain signs with certain meanings?
This sounds more like deconstructionism, or perhaps Lyotard's critique of metanarratives. But I guess it also applies to semiotics.

I second Grouchy's recommendation of Tarkovsky's Sculpting in Time. It's actually one of my favourite books.

[B-side]

This is a field I'm anxious to look deeper into. I've read a lot on Eisenstein's theories on intellectual montage, and read up a bit on Bresson's ideas regarding actors. I'd say with more research it could become a fairly major part of my film experience.

[Melville]

So, perhaps semiotics is very much not in pursuit of objectivity or definitive, fixed correspondences between signifier and signified.
I don't know about semiotic theories of film, but semiotics in general definitely doesn't pursue such definitive correspondences. A lot of semiotics is predicated on the arbitrariness of the signifier.

Edit: though I guess when it comes to applying semiotics to art, the most fruitful approach would be to analyze the art in terms of the most common meanings of the signs (and collections of signs) in it. (e.g. by analyzing a film's use of archetypal symbols and what not.)

[SirNewt]

My personal reading is devoted almost entirely to fiction and poetry. My major is computer science so that's how I spend the rest of my time.

I do watch as much of the background material as I can on DVDs and try to listen to the commentaries, though some of you film stiffs are reeeeeeaaaalllllllyyyyyyyy boring! If I remember, the Criterion version of Contempt has a really cool commentary on it though about contradicting elements in film. The commentator talks a lot about the film theories of certain guy, crap his name is right on the tip of my tongue.

Personally, I like to see film diverge from story. I like cinematic moments that more like poetry than prose

[Kurious Jorge v3.1]

Saussure


I thought this said sausage upon first glance.



Continue on.

[Melville]

Didn't Saussure first make that claim in reference to linguistics only? I figured it wouldn't count for film. Since, as I mentioned above, a word like "bush", doesn't necessarily have any connection to the physicality of a bush. However, a visual recording of a bush does have that connection. That is, the word "bush" is meaningless in and of itself. But if you capture a bush on camera and present it within a film, that signifier becomes less arbitrary. Because it actually has that representative connection to the real object...

I could be way off, though.
Well, somebody who's actually read something about semiotic film theory would probably be able to better respond. What you're talking about is just a representation of a bush, not a signification of a bush, so I didn't think that's what people would be analyzing (though certainly there is a grey area in which a really, really "bushy" bush could serve as something like an ideogram or logogram). I think an interesting aspect of visual art is that something can serve as both a representation and a signifier (to give a lame example, the bush might be burning, signifying a religious experience). But I'm not sure what semioticians talk about when they talk about movies; I would have thought it would be either about the language of cinema (e.g. how abstract signifiers like framing and editing come to signify certain things) or about visual symbols and iconography (e.g. give a guy a motorcylce, a leather jacket, and some brylcreem, and he's a '50s greaser).