In Film Theory: Rational Reconstructions, Warren Buckland asks a series of questions about how film theory gets written in the first place:

• How does it select its objects of study and its methods of inquiry?
• How does it make discoveries and explain filmic phenomena? And,
• How does it formulate and solve theoretical problems?

He asks these questions of film theory through a rational reconstruction and a classical commentary. Both frameworks clarify and reformulate vague and inexact expressions, redefine obscure concepts, and examine the underlying logic of film theory arguments. This not only subjects film theory to rigorous examination; it also teaches students how to write theory, by enabling them to question and critically interrogate the logic of previous film theory arguments.

The book consists of nine chapters that closely examine a series of canonical film books and essays in great detail, by Peter Wollen, Laura Mulvey, Thomas Elsaesser, Stephen Heath, and Slavoj i ek, among others.

The Routledge Encyclopedia of Film Theory is an international reference work representing the essential ideas and concepts at the centre of film theory from the beginning of the twentieth century, to the beginning of the twenty-first. When first encountering film theory, students are often confronted with a dense, interlocking set of texts full of arcane terminology, inexact formulations, sliding definitions, and abstract generalities. The Routledge Encyclopedia of Film Theory challenges these first impressions by aiming to make film theory accessible and open to new readers. Edward Branigan and Warren Buckland have commissioned over 50 scholars from around the globe to address the difficult formulations and propositions in each theory by reducing these difficult formulations to straightforward propositions. The result is a highly accessible volume that clearly defines, and analyzes step by step, many of the fundamental concepts in film theory, ranging from familiar concepts such as 'Apparatus', 'Gaze', 'Genre', and 'Identification', to less well-known and understood, but equally important concepts, such as Alain Badiou's 'Inaesthetics', Gilles Deleuze's 'Time-Image', and Jean-Luc Nancy's 'Evidence'. The Routledge Encyclopedia of Film Theory is an ideal reference book for undergraduates of film studies, as well as graduate students new to the discipline.

From "Inception" to "The Lake House," moviegoers are increasingly flocking to narratologically complex puzzle films. These puzzle movies borrow techniques like fragmented spatio-temporal reality, time loops, unstable characters with split identities or unreliable narrators more commonly attributed to art cinema and independent films. The essays in "Hollywood Puzzle Films" examine the appropriation of puzzle film techniques by contemporary Hollywood dramas and blockbusters through questions of narrative, time, and altered realities. Analyzing movies like "Source Code," "The Butterfly Effect," "Donnie Darko," "Deja Vu," and adaptations of Philip K. Dick, contributors explore the implications of Hollywood's new movie mind games."

Film theory no longer gets top billing or plays a starring role in film studies today, as critics proclaim that theory is dead and we are living in a post-theory moment. While theory may be out of the limelight, it remains an essential key to understanding the full complexity of cinema, one that should not be so easily discounted or discarded.

In this volume, contributors explore recent popular movies through the lens of film theory, beginning with industrial-economic analysis before moving into a predominately aesthetic and interpretive framework. The Hollywood films discussed cover a wide range from 300 to Fifty First Dates, from Brokeback Mountain to Lord of the Rings, from Spider-Man 3 to Fahrenheit 9/11, from Saw to Raiders of the Lost Ark, and much more. Individual essays consider such topics as the rules that govern new blockbuster franchises, the ?posthumanist realism? of digital cinema, video game adaptations, increasingly restricted stylistic norms, the spatial stories of social networks like YouTube, the mainstreaming of queer culture, and the cognitive paradox behind enjoyable viewing of traumatic events onscreen.

With its cast of international film scholars, Film Theory and Contemporary Hollywood Movies demonstrates the remarkable contributions theory can offer to film studies and moviegoers alike.

From mainstream blockbusters to art house cinema, narrative and narration are the driving forces that organize a film. Yet attempts to explain these forces are often mired in notoriously complex terminology and dense theory. Warren Buckland provides a clear and accessible introduction that explains how narrative and narration work using straightforward language. Narrative and Narration distills the basic components of cinematic storytelling into a set of core concepts: narrative structure, processes of narration, and narrative agents. The book opens with a discussion of the emergence of narrative and narration in early cinema and proceeds to illustrate key ideas through numerous case studies. Each chapter guides readers through different methods that they can use to analyze cinematic storytelling. Buckland also discusses how departures from traditional modes, such as feminist narratives, art cinema, and unreliable narrators, can complicate and corroborate the book's understanding of narrative and narration. Examples include mainstream films, both classic and contemporary; art house films of every stripe; and two relatively new styles of cinematic storytelling: the puzzle film and those driven by a narrative logic derived from video games. Narrative and Narration is a concise introduction that provides readers with fundamental tools to understand cinematic storytelling.

In Film Theory: Rational Reconstructions, Warren Buckland asks a series of questions about how film theory gets written in the first place: How does it select its objects of study and its methods of inquiry? How does it make discoveries and explain filmic phenomena? And, How does it formulate and solve theoretical problems? He asks these questions of film theory through a rational reconstruction and a classical commentary. Both frameworks clarify and reformulate vague and inexact expressions, redefine obscure concepts, and examine the underlying logic of film theory arguments. This not only subjects film theory to rigorous examination; it also teaches students how to write theory, by enabling them to question and critically interrogate the logic of previous film theory arguments. The book consists of nine chapters that closely examine a series of canonical film books and essays in great detail, by Peter Wollen, Laura Mulvey, Thomas Elsaesser, Stephen Heath, and Slavoj Zizek, among others.

In The Cognitive Semiotics of Film, Warren Buckland argues that the conflict between cognitive film theory and contemporary film theory is unproductive. Examining and developing the work of 'cognitive film semiotics', a neglected branch of film theory that combines the insights of cognitive science with those of linguistics and semiotics, he investigates Michel Colin's cognitive semantic theory of film; Francesco Casetti and Christian Metz's theories of film enunciation; Roger Odin's cognitive-pragmatic film theory; and Michel Colin and Dominique Chateau's cognitive studies of film syntax, which are viewed within the framework of Noam Chomsky's transformational generative grammar. Presenting a survey of cognitive film semiotics, this study also re-evaluates the film semiotics of the 1960s, highlights the weaknesses of American cognitive film theory, and challenges the move toward 'post-theory' in film studies.

Film theory no longer gets top billing or plays a starring role in film studies today, as critics proclaim that theory is dead and we are living in a post-theory moment. While theory may be out of the limelight, it remains an essential key to understanding the full complexity of cinema, one that should not be so easily discounted or discarded. In this volume, contributors explore recent popular movies through the lens of film theory, beginning with industrial-economic analysis before moving into a predominately aesthetic and interpretive framework. The Hollywood films discussed cover a wide range from 300 to Fifty First Dates, from Brokeback Mountain to Lord of the Rings, from Spider-Man 3 to Fahrenheit 9/11, from Saw to Raiders of the Lost Ark, and much more. Individual essays consider such topics as the rules that govern new blockbuster franchises, the 'posthumanist realism' of digital cinema, video game adaptations, increasingly restricted stylistic norms, the spatial stories of social networks like YouTube, the mainstreaming of queer culture, and the cognitive paradox behind enjoyable viewing of traumatic events onscreen. With its cast of international film scholars, Film Theory and Contemporary Hollywood Movies demonstrates the remarkable contributions theory can offer to film studies and moviegoers alike.

In The Cognitive Semiotics of Film, Warren Buckland argues that the conflict between cognitive film theory and contemporary film theory is unproductive. He examines and develops the work of "cognitive film semiotics," a neglected branch of film theory that combines the insights of cognitive science with those of linguistics and semiotics. Presenting a survey of cognitive film semiotics, this study also reevaluates the film semiotics of the 1960s, highlights the weaknesses of American cognitive film theory, and challenges the move toward "post-theory" in film studies.

The Routledge Encyclopedia of Film Theory is an international reference work representing the essential ideas and concepts at the centre of film theory from the beginning of the twentieth century, to the beginning of the twenty-first.

When first encountering film theory, students are often confronted with a dense, interlocking set of texts full of arcane terminology, inexact formulations, sliding definitions, and abstract generalities. "The Routledge Encyclopedia of Film Theory" challenges these first impressions by aiming to make film theory accessible and open to new readers.

Edward Branigan and Warren Buckland have commissioned over 50 scholars from around the globe to address the difficult formulations and propositions in each theory by reducing these difficult formulations to straightforward propositions.

The result is a highly accessible volume that clearly defines, and analyzes step by step, many of the fundamental concepts in film theory, ranging from familiar concepts such as Apparatus, Gaze, Genre, and Identification, to less well-known and understood, but equally important concepts, such as Alain Badiou s Inaesthetics, Gilles Deleuze s Time-Image, and Jean-Luc Nancy s Evidence .

"

The Routledge Encyclopedia of Film Theory "is an ideal reference book for undergraduates of film studies, as well as graduate students new to the discipline.

This book offers a solution to one of film history’s major controversies: the long-running dispute over Orson Welles’ and Herman J. Mankiewicz’s contributions to the Citizen Kane screenplay. It establishes the vital importance of computing and statistics to solving previously intractable puzzles in the arts and humanities. Citizen Kane (1941) is one of the most acclaimed films in the history of cinema. For 50 years it topped the Sight & Sound film critics’ poll. Orson Welles directed the film and is credited with co-writing the screenplay with Herman J. Mankiewicz. But the co-writer credit generates furious disputes between those who argue Mankiewicz is the sole author of Citizen Kane and those who claim that Welles collaborated fully with its writing. The author employs computing and statistics to answer two questions: What are the distinguishing features of Welles’ and of Mankiewicz’s writing? And What did each contribute to the writing of the Citizen Kane screenplay? To answer these questions, the author bypasses opinions and impressions, and instead subjects the language of the Citizen Kane screenplay to a ‘forensic’ examination. Employing linguistics, basic statistical tests, plus computer technology and software, the author identifies the stylistic signature of each author – the combination of consistent and regular linguistic habits that make each author’s writing distinctive. This book replaces impressionistic discussions of Mankiewicz’s and Welles’ contributions to the Citizen Kane screenplay with a rigorous, experiment-driven statistical analysis. Earlier statistical studies of authorship have discovered that small, unassuming language features (such as punctuation, pronouns, and prepositions) in statistically significant quantities, constitute a screenwriter’s distinctive writing habits. Only with the extensive experimentation carried out in this volume, did the author decide Mankiewicz’s and Welles’ specific habits and their contributions to Citizen Kane.

Drawing upon the expertise of film scholars from around the world, "Puzzle Films" investigates a number of films that sport complex storytelling--from "Memento," "Old Boy," and "Run Lola Run," to the "Infernal Affairs" trilogy and "In the Mood for Love."Unites American 'independent' cinema, the European and International Art film, and certain modes of avant-garde filmmaking on the basis of their shared storytelling complexityDraws upon the expertise of film scholars from North America, Britain, China, Poland, Holland, Italy, Greece, New Zealand, and Australia

From "Inception" to "The Lake House," moviegoers are increasingly flocking to narratologically complex puzzle films. These puzzle movies borrow techniques like fragmented spatio-temporal reality, time loops, unstable characters with split identities or unreliable narrators more commonly attributed to art cinema and independent films. The essays in "Hollywood Puzzle Films" examine the appropriation of puzzle film techniques by contemporary Hollywood dramas and blockbusters through questions of narrative, time, and altered realities. Analyzing movies like "Source Code," "The Butterfly Effect," "Donnie Darko," "Deja Vu," and adaptations of Philip K. Dick, contributors explore the implications of Hollywood's new movie mind games."

Wes Anderson's Symbolic Storyworld presents a theoretical investigation of whatmakes the films of Wes Anderson distinctive. Chapter by chapter, it relentlessly pulls apart each of Anderson's narratives to pursue the proposition that they all share the same deep underlying symbolic values - a common symbolic storyworld. Taking the polemical strategy of outlining and employing Claude Levi-Strauss's distinguished (and notorious) work on myth and kinship to analyze eight of Anderson's films, Warren Buckland unearths the peculiar symbolic structure of each film, plus the circuits of exchange, tangible and intangible gift giving, and unusual kinship systems that govern the lives of Anderson's characters. He also provides an analysis of Wes Anderson's visual and aural style, identifying several distinctive traits of Anderson's mise en scene.

From 1968 to 1991 the acclaimed film theorist Christian Metz wrote several remarkable books on film theory: Essais sur la signifi cation au cinema, tome1 et 2; Langage et cinema; Le signifiant imaginaire; and L'Enonciation impersonnelle. These books set the agenda of academic film studies during its formative period. Metz's ideas were taken up, digested, refined,reinterpreted, criticized and sometimes dismissed, but rarely ignored. This volume collects and translates into English for the first time a series of interviews with Metz, who offers readable summaries,elaborations, and explanations of his sometimes complex and demanding theories of film. He speaks informally of the most fundamental concepts that constitute the heart of film theory as an academic discipline - concepts borrowed from linguistics, semiotics, rhetoric, narratology, and psychoanalysis. Within the colloquial language of the interview, we witness Metz's initial formation and development of his film theory. The interviewers act as curious readers who pose probing questions to Metz about his books, and seek clarification and elaboration of his key concepts. We also discover the contents of his unpublished manuscript on jokes, his relation to Roland Barthes, and the social networks operative in the French intellectual community during the 1970s and 1980s.

What are the most appropriate theories and methods for analysing contemporary American cinema? In this book Thomas Elsaesser and Warren Buckland answer this question by taking an innovative approach to writing about individual movies: in each of the main chapters they examine the assumptions behind one traditional theory of film, distil a method of analysis from it, and then analyse a contemporary American movie. They then go beyond the traditional theory by analysing the same movie using a more current theory and method. This book has identically structured, coherent chapters, which overcomes the dogmatism of subscribing to one theory and method, and instead encourages students to adopt a comparative, pluralistic approach to film analysis. The traditional theories include: mise en scene criticism, auteurism, structural analysis, narratology, studies of realism, psychoanalysis, and feminism. The more current theories include: new and post-Lacanian approaches to subjectivity, cognitivism, computerised statistical style analysis, the philosophy of modal logic, new media theory, and deconstruction. Films analysed include: "Chinatown", "Die Hard", "The Silence of the Lambs", "Pulp Fict

Wes Anderson's Symbolic Storyworld presents a theoretical investigation of whatmakes the films of Wes Anderson distinctive. Chapter by chapter, it relentlessly pulls apart each of Anderson's narratives to pursue the proposition that they all share the same deep underlying symbolic values - a common symbolic storyworld. Taking the polemical strategy of outlining and employing Claude Levi-Strauss's distinguished (and notorious) work on myth and kinship to analyze eight of Anderson's films, Warren Buckland unearths the peculiar symbolic structure of each film, plus the circuits of exchange, tangible and intangible gift giving, and unusual kinship systems that govern the lives of Anderson's characters. He also provides an analysis of Wes Anderson's visual and aural style, identifying several distinctive traits of Anderson's mise en scene.

An unpretentious guide for all those who want to learn to analyse, understand and evaluate films. Film Studies: An Introduction provides an overview of the key areas in film studies, including aesthetics, narrative, genre, documentary films and the secrets of film reviewing. From Hitchcock and Tarantino to Spielberg and Bigelow, you will gain a critical understanding of legendary directors and the techniques and skills that are used to achieve cinematic effects. Whether you are a film studies student or just a film buff wanting to know more, this book will give you an invaluable insight into the exciting and incredibly fast-moving world of film. Understand Film Studies includes: Chapter 1: Film aesthetics: formalism and realism Chapter 2: Film structure: narrative and narration Chapter 3: Film authorship: the director as auteur Chapter 4: Film genres: defining the typical film Chapter 5: The non-fiction film: five types of documentary Chapter 6: The reception of film: the art and profession of film viewing

A Critical Companion to Christopher Nolan provides a wide-ranging exploration of Christopher Nolan's films, practices, and collaborations. From a range of critical perspectives, this volume examines Nolan's body of work, explores its industrial and economic contexts, and interrogates the director's auteur status. This volume contributes to the scholarly debates on Nolan and includes original essays that examine all his films including his short films. It is structured into three sections that deal broadly with themes of narrative and time; collaborations and relationships; and ideology, politics, and genre. The authors of the sixteen chapters include established Nolan scholars as well as academics with expertise in approaches and perspectives germane to the study of Nolan's body of work. To these ends, the chapters employ intersectional, feminist, political, ideological, narrative, economic, aesthetic, genre, and auteur analysis in addition to perspectives from star theory, short film theory, performance studies, fan studies, adaptation studies, musicology, and media industry studies.

Although the blockbuster is the most popular and commercially successful type of filmmaking, it has yet to be studied seriously from a formalist standpoint. This is in opposition to classical Hollywood cinema and International Art cinema, whose form has been analyzed and deconstructed in great detail. "Directed By Steven Spielberg" fills this gap by examining the distinctive form of the blockbuster. The book focuses on Spielberg's blockbusters, because he is the most consistent and successful director of this type of film - he defines the standard by which other Hollywood blockbusters are judged and compared. But how did Spielberg attain this position? Film critics and scholars generally agree that Spielberg's blockbusters have a unique look and use visual storytelling techniques to their utmost effectiveness. In this book, Warren Buckland examines Spielberg's distinct manipulation of film form, and his singular use of stylistic and narrative techniques. The book demonstrates the aesthetic options available to Spielberg, and particularly the choices he makes in structuring his blockbusters. Buckland emphasizes the director's activity in making a film (particularly such a powerful director as Spielberg), including: visualizing the scene on paper via storyboards; staging and blocking the scene; selecting camera placement and movement; determining the progression or flow of the film from shot to shot; and deciding how to narrate the story to the spectator. "Directed By Steven Spielberg" combines film studies scholarship with the approach taken by many filmmaking manuals. The unique value of the book lies in its grounding of formal film analysis in filmmaking.