Kevin McDonald - Film Theory: The Basics

It is important to start by thanking those who were most directly responsible for making this project possible. I really only started to think seriously about the history of film theory while writing an entry for The Routledge Encyclopedia of Film Theory. I am immensely grateful to Edward Branigan and Warren Buckland for inviting me to make that contribution and firmly believe that that was the primary catalyst for this book. I am thankful to everyone at Routledge for their guidance and support as well as their patience and understanding. Siobhan Poole initiated the project and directed it through its early stages. Natalie Foster and then Sheni Kruger took over and guided it to its completion. Sheni Kruger and Emma Sherriff are responsible for putting the second edition into motion. I greatly appreciate their hard work and support in keeping everything going forward.

Since completing the first edition of Film Theory: The Basics, I have had time to think about the many other friends and supporters who were equally important in its gestation, even if they initially went unacknowledged. I want to belatedly thank those who were missed before. I also want to reiterate my gratitude for those who deserve repeated recognition for their nonstop support. From my time at Berkeley, I want to thank Kathleen Moran and Charlie Bertsch. They were among the first to invite ongoing conversations and encouraged me to continue forward. Charlie Bertsch in particular has had the kind of influence that radiates across time. Bill Nichols and Jenny Lau, at San Francisco State, and Rick Altman and Louis-Georges Schwartz, at Iowa, were tasked with providing much-needed institutional direction despite my having very little sense of where I was going. They always managed to do so with a combination of intellectual vigor and exceptional patience. Friends along the way, especially at Iowa, were of the utmost importance. I am thankful to Jennifer Fleeger, Joe Klapper, Jonah Horowitz, Claudia Pummer, Andrew Ritchey, Margaret Schwartz, Peter Shaefer, Gerald Sim, and Erica Stein for their camaraderie and commitment to mutual support. Ofer Eliaz has been an especially important source of encouragement. His theoretical sophistication and wry sense of humor are deeply appreciated.

My largest debt is owed to my two closest friends and immediate family. Ben Stork and Kris Fallon have offered their unconditional support for many, many years. They have repeatedly read and commented on drafts for this project, sharing, or at least entertaining, my interest in theory while always offering sound advice whenever things seem to bog down. They have been an indispensable part of this work, and if there is anything useful here it is because of them. Every word of kindness that I have said here should be said again about my partner, Gina Giotta. The difference, however, is that her support extends to every other part of life and in so doing she makes it all that much better. Like Gina, my sisters, Tricia and Krista, combine loving support with unending solidarity, providing encouragement along with moments of reprieve that keep everything in perspective. My mom, Joanne, always likes to say that any book smarts that I have were thanks to my dad. But I like to think that this book has a lot more to do with hard work and a sense of responsibility to others, things for which she serves as a preeminent example. I am thankful to her for this and everything else.

There are always many others who also deserve acknowledgment. I might sum up some of this oblique appreciation by mentioning the importance of 142 Dwinelle Hall, the classroom where I first encountered film theory in Fall 1996 at the same time, unbeknownst to me, that film theory was supposedly gasping its last breaths. The professor, Anne Nesbet, maybe in a long forgotten aside, compared this classroom to a cave-like enclosure where theories danced about with the same beguiling allure that the shadows had once had in Platos memorable allegory. Fittingly, that classroom is no longer there, at least not in the way that it was when I was there. Much of its influence, however, persists, and, perhaps, its many shadows will continue to dance while film theory lies in wait for what remains an unlikely future.

acousmtre:a figure within the story world who is heard but not seen. This position retains a special power within most narratives but can be rendered vulnerable when voice and body are realigned.Afro-pessimism:a means of interrogating the ongoing effects of racism and slavery while also foregrounding the violence of anti-blackness; it suggests a system of racial exclusion so severe that existing methods of scholarly inquiry are unable to confront it in a meaningful way.Anthropocene:term used to indicate that human activities are affecting the earth on a significant, geological scale; informally, it draws attention to the urgency of current environmental and ecological issues and encourages a new framework for thinking about the relationship between nature and human culture.anti-humanism:a position adopted by several post-war French theorists that questions or rejects the assumptions of Western philosophy, especially the sovereignty of the human subject as a rational, self-determining agent.apparatus theory:a distinction adopted by critics of cinemas ideological function; cinema is considered an ideological apparatus based on its methods of representation and the spectatorial position it provides.attraction:concept developed by Sergei Eisenstein; derived from popular entertainment (e.g., amusement parks or the circus) and used by Eisenstein to provoke an intense reaction among spectators.aura:a distinctive feature found in art and associated with its unique existence in a particular place; ostensibly rendered obsolete following technological advances that allow most forms of culture to reproduced on a mass scale.authorship:the general assumption that a films creative virtues can be attributed to its director.avant-garde:an artistic vanguard or group of innovators explicitly dedicated to challenging social and aesthetic norms.camp:a sensibility or style that emphasizes artifice and exaggeration; also, a reading practice whereby queer audiences recognize ostentatious figures or qualities within popular entertainment; a form that simultaneously conveys defiance and affirmation.carnivalesque:a cultural practice in which traditional hierarchies are inverted, providing an alternative model of pleasure and subversion; associated with Mikhail Bakhtin.castration:psychoanalytic concept associated with the male childs inability to comprehend anatomical difference; also functions as a paternal threat designed to enforce heteronormative social and sexual relations.cinema of attractions:Tom Gunnings term for a tendency in early cinema to directly address spectators, inciting visual curiosity by foregrounding the novelty of cinematic technologies; the term is drawn from Sergei Eisenstein and has been applied to different genres ranging from experimental cinema to pornography.cinephilia:an intense affection or love for the cinema and its effects.classical Hollywood cinema:a historical distinction referring to the Hollywood studio system and its methods of production; also, a stylistic distinction referring to narrative conventions that privilege cause-and-effect logic as a way to maintain spatial and temporal continuity.close analysis:analysis devoted to explicating a texts formal elements and their related codes; in the case of film, this involves detailed, shot-by-shot examination of select sequences.code:a set of conventions that inform the selection or combination of units within a discursive formation; a code does not have the same regulative force as langue, meaning that it functions in a less restrictive manner; cinema is simultaneously informed by many codes (e.g., narrative codes, stylistic codes, technical codes, gender codes).cognitivism:an approach that utilizes different aspects of cognitive science in the analysis and theorization of moving images; emphasizes how spectators understand and respond to specific techniques; borrows certain principles from analytic philosophy in terms of prioritizing clarity of argument and empirical evidence.commodity fetishism:the principle developed by Marx that commodities are infused with values or associations that exceed their basic material composition.condensation:psychoanalytic term referring to an unconscious process, in dreams for example, whereby certain ideas are fused together.connotation:associated meanings attached to or evoked by a sign; often specific to the signs social and cultural context.convergence culture:a general description of media and society in which older boundaries are dissolving and new relationships are emerging; this is apparent in terms of technology, industrial organization, and transmedia storytelling; but for Henry Jenkins, it is most interesting in relationship to the new forms of audience participation and fandom that have developed.counter-cinema:oppositional style of filmmaking that rejects the dominant ideology at the level of both form and content.