5. Round Table on Film Theory

The British Journal of Aesthetics, 2006

Palgrave Communications, 2018

The cinema as a cultural institution has been studied by academic researchers in the arts and humanities. At present, cultural media studies are the home to the aesthetics and critical analysis of film, film history and other branches of film scholarship. Probably less known to most is that research psychologists working in social and life science labs have also contributed to the study of the medium. They have examined the particular experience that motion pictures provide to the film audience and the mechanisms that explain the perception and comprehension of film, and how movies move viewers and to what effects. This article reviews achievements in psychological research of the film since its earliest beginnings in the 1910s. A leading issue in the research has been whether understanding films is a bottom-up process, or a top-down one. A bottom-up explanation likens film-viewing to highly automated detection of stimulus features physically given in the supply of images; a top-dow...

Oxford Handbook of Film Theory, 2022

"There is a big secret about sex," Leo Bersani once wrote: "most people don't like it." What is true of sex is also true of theory, and no doubt doubly so when it comes to psychoanalytic theory, which conjoins what many would see as the worst aspects of each, specializing in claims (like Bersani's) that defy empirical verification and relentlessly turning up sex everywhere--behind every tree a phallus, behind every pack of wolves a Father. Psychoanalysis, cornerstone of the out-of-favor "hermeneutics of suspicion, " allegedly knows in advance what it is going to find, then finds it. In this chapter, I argue that cinema as a historically specific technical medium--indeed, the dominant cultural medium of the twentieth century--requires a psychoanalytic theory; which is in part because cinema and psychoanalysis emerge at the end of the nineteenth century, as part of the same techno-historical-economic assemblage. In the classical period of film theory, discussions of the "ontology" of cinema focused on its material grounding in the photographic image. While cinema's technical (i.e., photographic) realism is surely fundamental to its ontology, I propose that equally fundamental is that cinema is a technology of fantasy--which means it invites a psychoanalysis.

2011

2023

This monograph * identifies the following main historical stages in the evolution of film theory concepts in the Cinema Art journal from its inception (1931, the journal was then called Proletarian Cinema) to the present day: 1931-1955 (during the overall totalitarian period of the USSR, editors-in-chief V. Sutyrin, K. Yukov, N. Semenov, A. Mitlin, I. Pyryev, N. Lebedev, V. Grachev, D. Yeremin, V. Zhdan), 1956-1968 (thaw period, editors-in-chief V. Zhdan, V. Grachev, L. Pogozheva), 1969-1985 (stagnation period, editors-in-chief E. Surkov, A. Medvedev, Y. Cherepanov), 1986-1991 (the period of "perestroika," editors-in-chief Y. Cherepanov and K. Shcherbakov), the post-Soviet period 1992-2022 (editors-in-chief K. Shcherbakov, 1992; D. Dondurey, 1993-2017; A. Dolin, 2017-2022). * Some small fragments of the monograph were written with the participation of Andrei Novikov. * Сhapter “Theoretical Concepts of Film Studies in Cinema Art Journal: XXI Century” were written with the participation of Emma Camarero. his research was supported financially by the Russian Science Foundation (project No. 22-28-00317) at Rostov State University of Economics. Project theme: "Evolution of Theoretical Concepts of Film Studies in the Cinema Art Journal (1931-2021)". The head of the project is film historian, Prof. Dr. A.V. Fedorov. Reviewers: Professor Marina Tselykh, Professor Valery Gura.

Media Education, 2022

Based on the analysis of film studies concepts (in the context of the socio-cultural and political situation, etc.) of the first decade of the existence of the journal Cinema Art (1931–1941), the authors came to the conclusion that theoretical works on cinematographic topics during this period can be divided into the following types: - ideologized articles by Association of Revolutionary Cinematographers activists (1931–1932), emphasizing the dominance of "truly revolutionary proletarian cinema" and an uncompromising struggle with the views of any opponents; - ideologically reoriented articles (1932–1934), written as a positive reaction to the Resolution of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party (of Bolsheviks) “On the restructuring of literary and artistic organizations” (1932), many provisions of which (in particular, a clear indication that that the framework of the proletarian literary and artistic organizations) have become a direct threat to the existence of the Association of Revolutionary Cinematographers; in articles of this kind, activists of the Association of Revolutionary Cinematographers — until the liquidation of this organization in early 1935 – tried to prove their necessity and loyalty to the “general line of the Communist party”; - Articles containing sharp criticism of "groupism" (including among the Association of Revolutionary Cinematographers), "enemies of the people", etc. (1935–1938); - theoretical articles attacking various types of formalistic phenomena (primarily in the field of montage) in cinema and culture (1931–1941); - theoretical articles opposing empiricism, "documentaryism", naturalism and physiology, vulgar materialism, aestheticism, "emotionalism" on the basis of Marxist-Leninist ideological and class approaches (1931–1941); - theoretical articles defending the principles of socialist realism in cinema (1933–1941); - theoretical articles criticizing bourgeois film theories and Western influence on Soviet cinema (1931–1941); - theoretical articles aimed primarily at professional problems of mastering sound in cinema (in particular, the dramaturgy of sound, music), editing, image, film image, film language (for example, the cinematic possibilities of the “zeit-loop” effect), cinema style, genre, entertainment, construction script (plot, composition, conflict, typology of characters, typology of comic devices, etc.), acting, etc. (1931–1941); - theoretical articles balancing between ideology and professional approaches to the creation of cinematic works of art (1931–1941).

in F. Colombo (ed.), Media and Communication in Italy: Historical and Theoretical Perspectives, Milan, Vita e Pensiero, pp. 32-45., 2019

The paper is a survey of Italian film Theory extended from the origins to our days The paper is divided into four sections: 1. Microtheories; 2. Classical Theories; 3. Modern Theories; 4. Post-theories.