DOCSLIB.ORG

James Buhler, Theories of the Soundtrack

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
James Buhler, Theories of the Soundtrack Journal of Film Music 7.2 (2014) 47-50 ISSN (print) 1087-7142 https://doi.org/10.1558/jfm.38909 ISSN (online) 1758-860X James Buhler, Theories of the Soundtrack New York: Oxford University Press, 2019 [xiv, 318 pp. ISBN: 9780199371082. $35.00 (trade paper)]. Oxford Music/Media Series. Illustration, figures, and index. JEFF SMITH University of Wisconsin-Madison [email protected] ike proverbial showbiz stories of overnight consider perspectives more broadly associated with success, the sudden rise of “sound studies” contemporary film theory. Buhler begins with theories L within academia is a development several that emerged in the 1960s and 1970s under the decades in the making. The past fifteen years have influence of semiotics, psychoanalysis, and Marxism. seen the appearance of new journals, new scholarly He then turns his attention to several approaches interest groups, new professional organizations, that emerged as a response to this continental strain, and several new compendia of published research. including neoformalism, cognitivism, feminist film Contributions to this field represent a wide range theory, post-colonial theory, and queer studies. of different approaches drawn from a vast array of The sheer breadth of Buhler’s compass indicates more established disciplines: linguistics, semiotics, the richness of film music and sound studies in psychology, musicology, narratology, and media its current constellation. Yet it also illustrates the studies. Its main areas of inquiry also run the gamut, immense challenge that Buhler has set himself. In displaying a concern with aesthetics, technology, and seeking to summarize such a large swath of academic culture. The result of this intellectual ferment is an literature, Buhler attempts to place these theoretical arena ever more difficult to navigate. Thankfully, perspectives in dialogue with one another, revealing Oxford University Press has published a new book the gaps, limitations, and contradictions evident in that can help guide intrepid newcomers: James the work of particular scholars. Buhler’s Theories of the Soundtrack, an ambitious survey Buhler’s introduction previews the structure of of sound’s role within more than a century of media the book and highlights three concepts that thread theory. through the various chapters that follow. The first Buhler notes in his acknowledgments that Theories premise involves the hybridity of sound film. Here of the Soundtrack was inspired by the work of two film Buhler lays down a marker that indicates he will theorists: Dudley Andrew and Francesco Casetti.1 problematize or reject certain theoretical formulations Andrew’s and Casetti’s influence is palpable not only of the sound film based on considerations of medium in the specific topics that Buhler covers, but also in specificity. To put it another way, if sound film is the book’s overall design. Two chapters are dedicated inherently a hybrid form, then theories that define to classical film theory, a framework that seeks to film’s aesthetic potentials based on their medium- legitimate film as an art form by specifying the bases specific properties are inevitably doomed to failure of its aesthetic potential. The remaining chapters insofar as they cannot adequately account for cinema’s multimedial or intermedial qualities. The 1 See Dudley Andrew’s The Major Film Theories (New York: Oxford University second premise is related to the first in underlining Press, 1976) and Concepts in Film Theory (New York: Oxford University Press, sound film’s status as an audiovisual medium. This 1984). See also Francesco Casetti, Theories of Cinema, 1945–1999 (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1999). idea will seem self-evident to modern viewers. © Copyright the International Film Music Society, published by Equinox Publishing Ltd 2019, Office 415, The Workstation, 15 Paternoster Row, Sheffield, S1 2BX. 48 THE JOURNAL OF FILM MUSIC But it is important to remember that cinema’s communicates in a completely autonomous manner. audiovisuality took a quite different form prior to Buhler’s omission proves important insofar as it the innovation of synchronized recorded sound. complicates his conclusion that Arnheim’s perspective Many classical film theorists initially conceived of “requires a homogeneous material, a single medium” cinema as a photographic medium, privileging its (p. 51). Buhler’s characterization of Arnheim visual dimensions over that of its soundtrack. By undoubtedly rings true. Yet it also neglects certain emphasizing sound film as an audiovisual medium, nuances of Arnheim’s position by failing to tease out Buhler seeks to challenge these assumptions by the distinction between artistic composites and truly treating cinema as a combinatoire of expression, to hybrid media. borrow Claudia Gorbman’s phrase, rather than Buhler generally fares better in his précis of as communicative form that contains separate theories related to classical sound film. Notably, channels of information.2 Lastly, Buhler also cites the term “classical” here refers not to music but K.J. Donnelly’s notion of “occult aesthetics” and its to films produced within the classical Hollywood attendant emphasis on mimetic synchronization as a studio system between 1930 and 1960. The theorists normative aspect of classical cinema’s representational surveyed by Buhler are mostly practitioners, strategies. This, too, proves to be a through line in like composer Aaron Copland and documentary Buhler’s account as some theorists rejected such filmmaker Raymond Spottiswoode. On the whole, techniques as redundant, and therefore uninformative, these individuals are less interested in furnishing an while others sought ways of overcoming or refining internally consistent set of aesthetic principles and such aesthetic tendencies. more concerned with providing practical advice about Indeed, the apparent problem posed by mimetic particular norms for both sound design and musical synchronization proved to be a vital question accompaniment. for theorists writing during the transition to Buhler’s analysis of this body of work nicely synchronized recorded sound. As Buhler shows in his captures the range of opinion regarding the functions analysis of this period, early film theorists struggled and purpose of the film soundtrack. Hanns Eisler to identify a proper role for the soundtrack in their and Theodor Adorno famously criticized the style accounts of the “talking film.” Theorists from the and technique of most Hollywood scores in their Soviet montage school, such as Vsevolod Pudovkin pioneering study Composing for the Films (1947). Many and Sergei Eisenstein, argued that sound film best others are far more accepting of these techniques fulfilled its aesthetic potential by using sound as a in highlighting the ways film music can suggest counterpoint to the image. Others, however, objected time and place, convey characters’ interior states, to the dominance of dialogue on most soundtracks as and support narrative continuity in a formal system being duplicative and overly theatrical. that often manipulates the order and duration Without question, the most important exponent of story events. As David Bordwell observed, the of this position is Rudolf Arnheim, whose book Film classical Hollywood film is “an excessively obvious as Art offers a formidable summation of silent film cinema.”3 To that end, the semantic redundancy that aesthetics. Buhler provides an excellent overview of concerned so many theorists during the transition to Arnheim’s key premises, such as his emphasis on synchronized recorded sound became a hallmark of asynchronism and his resistance to simple mimesis. the style, an attribute widely accepted in the name of Yet, somewhat surprisingly, Buhler focuses most of communicative efficacy. his attention on Arnheim’s writing in the early 1930s, After covering the basic functions and principles ignoring his more comprehensive account of the of classical sound film technique, Buhler moves on to talking film in “The New Laocoön,” first published the work of three theorists who treat sound within a in 1938. In that essay, Arnheim compares the talking framework that mixes phenomenology with semiotics: film to other widely accepted artistic composites, Jean Mitry, Christian Metz, and Gilles Deleuze. At such as opera, ballet, and theater. Unlike cinema, first blush, their inclusion in this volume might seem these audiovisual media found proper ways to balance a bit puzzling. They are all giants in the field of film their audio and visual components by placing them theory, to be sure. Yet they also proffer fairly scant in strict hierarchies and by emphasizing principles observations on the specific role of sound in cinema. of parallelism wherein each part of the whole 3 See David Bordwell, Janet Staiger, and Kristin Thompson, The Classical 2 Claudia Gorbman, Unheard Melodies: Narrative Film Music (Bloomington: Hollywood Cinema: Film Style and Mode of Production to 1960 (New York: University of Indiana Press, 1987), 16. Columbia University Press, 1985), 3. © The International Film Music Society 2019. REVIEWS 49 Metz’s reputation as a theorist of the soundtrack on music’s relation to quite distinct narrative registers, rests mostly on a fairly modest essay he published including the notoriously fuzzy distinction between on the concept of “aural objects.”4 In Deleuze’s case, diegetic and nondiegetic sound. Here Buhler considers comments on the soundtrack are scattered throughout the work of Robynn Stilwell and Ben Winters, who
Load more

Recommended publications
  • Prospects for a Historical Poetics of Cinema: David Bordwell, Kristin Thompson, and Neoformalism
    Prospects for a Historical Poetics of Cinema: David Bordwell, Kristin Thompson, and Neoformalism BY GREG LINNELL SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF MASTER OF PHILOSOPHICAL FOUNDATIONS IN AESTHETICS SUPERVISOR: DR. CALVIN SEERVELD INSTITUTE FOR CHRISTIAN STUDIES TORONTO, ONTARIO, CANADA SEPTEMBER 1993 TABLE OF CONTENTS PROSPECTS (INTRODUCTION) .......................................................................................1 CHAPTER 1 : THE FORMALIST LEGACY introduction .............................................................................................................5 historical overview ..................................................................................................6 key concepts and scientific-historical poetics ...................................................... ..12 neoformalist appropriation .....................................................................................22 critique and summary .............................................................................................30 CHAPTER 2: A NEOFORMALIST HISTORIOGRAPHY introduction .............................................................................................................36 Formalism, neoformalism, critics ...........................................................................37 Dreyer and Ozu .......................................................................................................41 classical Hollywood cinema ................................................................................
    [Show full text]
  • Author Functions, Auteur Fictions Understanding Authorship in Conglomerate Hollywood Commerce, Culture, and Narrative
    Author Functions, Auteur Fictions Understanding Authorship in Conglomerate Hollywood Commerce, Culture, and Narrative VOLUME I: ARGUMENTS Thomas James Wardak A thesis submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy The University of Sheffield Faculty of Arts and Humanities School of English Literature March 2017 i Abstract In 1990, Timothy Corrigan identified a rising trend in Hollywood film marketing wherein the director, or auteur, had become commercially galvanised as a brand icon. This thesis updates Corrigan’s treatise on the ‘commerce of auteurism’ to a specific 2017 perspective in order to dismantle the discursive mechanisms by which commodified author-brands create meaning and value in Conglomerate Hollywood’s promotional superstructure. By adopting a tripartite theoretical/industrial/textual analytical framework distinct from the humanistic and subjectivist excesses of traditional auteurism, by which conceptions of film authorship have typically been circumscribed, this thesis seeks to answer the oft- neglected question how does authorship work as it relates to the contemporary blockbuster narrative. Naturally, this necessitates a corresponding understanding of how texts work, which leads to the construction of a spectator-centric cognitive narratorial heuristic that conceptualises ‘the author’ as a hermeneutic code which may be activated when presented with sufficient ‘authorial’ signals. Of course, authorial signals do not only emanate from films but also promotional paratexts such
    [Show full text]
  • Cognitivism and Film Theory Edward S. Small
    Spring 1992 165 Introduction: Cognitivism and Film Theory Edward S. Small This supplement is designed as an introduction to a movement which I believe is not yet well-known to scholars in either theatre or film. I myself first heard the term "cognitivism" less than three years ago. For me it is still in the process of definition. Each time I set about researching and writing something on cognitivism, I find that I learn a great deal more about the subject and, as a result, wind up refashioning my previous definitions. I do not expect that this process will greatly diminish; in fact, I expect it will greatly increase. Extant publications-books and articles-which fall under the aegis of "cognitive science" constitute a bibliography which is already vast and (perhaps monthly) grows vaster. Much of it deals with matters that have commanded my academic curiosity and concern for many years: issues of mentation and perception coupled with such philosophic mainstays as epistemological and ontological questions. Thus I have the feeling that cognitivism will continue to influence my scholarship and my teaching, at least throughout this current capstone decade. This is not to say that I presently call myself a "cognitivist." As a film theorist, I have spent the past several years studying Derrida's deconstruction and, when asked about disciplinary specializations, tend to characterize myself as a film/video semiotician (devoted to the continental school of Ferdinand de Saussure). Yet the following papers will show that the flourish and fashion enjoyed by, first, semiotics and structuralism, and later by postmodern analytic strategies are often implicitly countered by cognitive science.
    [Show full text]
  • Cognitive Film Theory : an Insider’S Appraisal Carl Plantinga
    Document generated on 09/27/2021 1:34 p.m. Cinémas Revue d'études cinématographiques Journal of Film Studies Cognitive Film Theory : An Insider’s Appraisal Carl Plantinga Cinéma et cognition Article abstract Volume 12, Number 2, hiver 2002 This article appraises the contributions of what has been called cognitivism or the cognitive approach to film studies, and suggests the means by which the URI: https://id.erudit.org/iderudit/024878ar cognitive approach can become more central to film studies than it has been so DOI: https://doi.org/10.7202/024878ar far. The author first shows that much of what has been called "cognitivist" film studies is only cognitivist in a broad sense, and could just as well be called See table of contents "analytic." He then argues that the cognitive approach would be most useful when it is thus broadly applied, becoming then more a commitment to the rationality of discourse and human thought than a narrow project within psychology. The article then goes on to appraise the utility of the cognitive Publisher(s) approach in our understanding of the psychological power of film and film Cinémas aesthetics. ISSN 1181-6945 (print) 1705-6500 (digital) Explore this journal Cite this article Plantinga, C. (2002). Cognitive Film Theory : An Insider’s Appraisal. Cinémas, 12(2), 15–37. https://doi.org/10.7202/024878ar Tous droits réservés © Cinémas, 2002 This document is protected by copyright law. Use of the services of Érudit (including reproduction) is subject to its terms and conditions, which can be viewed online. https://apropos.erudit.org/en/users/policy-on-use/ This article is disseminated and preserved by Érudit.
    [Show full text]
  • The Cognitive Semiotics of Film
    The Cognitive Semiotics of Film WARREN BUCKLAND Liverpool John Moores University PUBLISHED BY THE PRESS SYNDICATE OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE The Pitt Building, Trumpington Street, Cambridge, United Kingdom CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS The Edinburgh Building, Cambridge CB2 2RU, UK http://www.cup.cam.ac.uk 40 West 20th Street, New York, NY 10011-4211, USA http://www.cup.org 10 Stamford Road, Oakleigh, Melbourne 3166, Australia Ruiz de AlarcoÂn 13, 28014 Madrid, Spain q Warren Buckland 2000 This book is in copyright. Subject to statutory exception and to the provisions of relevant collective licensing agreements, no reproduction of any part may take place without the written permission of Cambridge University Press. First published 2000 Printed in the United States of America Typeface Palatino 10/13 pt. System DeskTopPro/UX [BV] A catalog record for this book is available from the British Library. Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Buckland, Warren. The cognitive semiotics of ®lm / Warren Buckland. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0-521-78005-5 1. Motion pictures ± Semiotics. I. Title. PN1995 .B796 2000 791.43©01©4 ± dc21 00-026227 ISBN 0 521 78005 5 hardback Contents Preface and Acknowledgements page ix 1 The Cognitive Turn in Film Theory 1 2 The Body on Screen and in Frame: Film and Cognitive Semantics 26 3 Not What Is Seen through the Window but the Window Itself: Re¯exivity, Enunciation, and Film 52 4 The Institutional Context: A Semio-pragmatic Approach to Fiction and Documentary Film 77 5 All in the Mind? The Cognitive Status of Film Grammar 109 Conclusion 141 Notes 145 Bibliography of Works Cited 163 Index 171 vii CHAPTER ONE The Cognitive Turn in Film Theory We have witnessed a number of attempts to by-pass [®lm theory's] most dif®cult conceptual problems by replacing it with something else.
    [Show full text]
  • 'Theory Is Always for Someone and for Some Purpose': Thinking Through
    ‘Theory is always for someone and for some purpose’: Thinking through post-structuralism and cognitivism Robert Geal University of Wolverhampton [email protected] ABSTRACT: This essay explores the historical socio-cultural contexts that determine the contending epistemologies of post-structuralism and cognitivism. Debates between these paradigms have focused on a-priori philosophical premises. Synthesis between these premises has not materialised because each paradigm valorises a form of knowledge which its rival cannot match. This essay attempts to position these contested premises within a diachronic background in which theoretical claims can be tested, not merely against fixed deductive positions, but against specific socio-cultural contexts that manifest themselves in epistemology. Post-structuralism and cognitivism can then be thought of as aggregates of thought reflecting broad political, social, philosophical and cultural contexts. KEYWORDS: Ideology, epistemology, discourse analysis, post-structuralism, cognitivism. 1 To say that film studies‟ methodological protocols are highly contested would be an understatement. Reasons given for the lack of consensus range from John Mullarkey‟s assertion that „[a]s a consequence of its infancy no doubt, film-philosophy has been unable to avoid being highly partisan thus far: [...] film being understood entirely through one paradigm, cognitive science, cultural studies, Freudian psychodynamics, rhizomatic materialism, and so on‟ (2009, 6), to Casey Haskin‟s contextualisation of film theory‟s contested „meta-orthodoxy [as] hardly unique to film theory. Its bipolar pattern is a staple of endless histories of intellectual conflict, in philosophy, religion, and elsewhere‟ (2009, 36). These divisions are most starkly delineated between both the a-priori philosophical foundations, and the interpretative conclusions derived therefrom, within two of the discipline‟s leading paradigms, post-structuralism and cognitivism.
    [Show full text]
  • Review Essay: Cognitivism Goes to the Movies
    s6_PROJ-040106 4/5/10 4:27 PM Page 83 Review Essay: Cognitivism Goes to the Movies Robert Sinnerbrink Paisley Livingston and Carl Plantinga, eds., The Routledge Companion to Philos- ophy and Film (London and New York: Routledge, 2009), xix + 672 pp., $152.00 (cloth). Carl Plantinga, Moving Viewers: American Film and the Spectator’s Experience (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 2009), xii + 280 pp., $21.33 (paperback). Torben Grodal, Embodied Visions: Evolution, Emotion, Culture, and Film (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009), viii + 324 pp., $30.78 (paperback). In just under twenty five years, analytic philosophy of film and cognitivist film theory have joined forces in a formidable research paradigm, one that has moved from keen rival to would-be victor in the battle for the “arts and minds” (to quote Gregory Currie) of film theorists and students of the moving image. David Bordwell’s Narration in the Fiction Film (1985), Noël Carroll’s “The Power of Movies” (1985), and Bordwell’s “A Case for Cognitivism” (1989), pioneered the wave of film theory during the 1990s that based itself, not on Lacanian psychoanalysis or various maîtres à penser, but rather on analytic philosophy and cognitive psychology. Noël Carroll’s Mystifying Movies (1988) famously at- tacked what he and Bordwell later dubbed “grand theory” (psychoanalytic, semiotic, and ideologico-critical film theory of the 1970s and 1980s). Bordwell and Carroll followed up with their jointly edited landmark volume Post-Theory: Reconstructing Film Studies (1996), which advocated the kind of empirical mid- dle-level theorizing—shaped by analytic and cognitivist approaches—that aimed to define the future of the discipline.
    [Show full text]
  • The Part-Time Cognitivist: a View from Film Studies
    The Part-Time Cognitivist: A View from Film Studies David Bordwell Abstract: Understanding how spectators interact with films requires some theory of filmic representation. This article reviews three such theories. The first, a communication model, assumes that an artwork constitutes or con- tains a message passed from a sender to a receiver. The second, a signification model, assumes that the film operates within a system of codes and that the perceiver applies codes to signs in the text in order to arrive at meanings. This conception of film as signification may be found in both classic structuralist and post-structuralist accounts. The third, an empirical-experiential model, assumes that an artwork is designed to create an experience for the specta- tor. This article argues that the cognitive approach to film studies is founded on the third model of representation. The article also traces the strengths and limits of cognitive film theory and its theory of representation. Keywords: cinematic representation, cognitive film theory, poetics of cinema, post-structuralism, semiotics, structuralism How do spectators engage with films? Within film studies, this has been con- sidered a question about film as a system and process of representation. No decisive answers are forthcoming, but we have enough history behind us to sketch out three families of theories about cinematic representation. I do this while tracing some of their underlying assumptions about what representa- tion involves. I follow my rather schematic outline with ideas We have enough history about how the third family of theories has altered my own thinking about film. behind us to sketch out three Three caveats: First, philosophers and empirical research- families of theories about ers won’t find completely familiar ground here, though I cinematic representation.
    [Show full text]
  • Cognitive Film Theory : an Insider's Appraisal
    Document généré le 30 sept. 2021 09:10 Cinémas Revue d'études cinématographiques Journal of Film Studies Cognitive Film Theory : An Insider’s Appraisal Carl Plantinga Cinéma et cognition Résumé de l'article Volume 12, numéro 2, hiver 2002 Cet article évalue la contribution de l'approche cognitive aux études cinématographiques et indique les voies à emprunter pour que cette approche URI : https://id.erudit.org/iderudit/024878ar soit aussi efficace et utile que possible. L'auteur montre d'abord que les études DOI : https://doi.org/10.7202/024878ar « cognitivistes » du cinéma ne sont telles qu'au sens large du terme et qu'elles pourraient tout aussi bien être qualifiées d'« analytiques ». Il fait ensuite valoir Aller au sommaire du numéro que l'approche cognitive serait plus utile si elle était appliquée de façon plus générale, devenant alors davantage un engagement en faveur de la rationalité du discours et de la pensée humaine qu'un projet se tenant strictement dans les limites de la psychologie. Enfin, il démontre l'utilité de l'approche cognitive Éditeur(s) pour la compréhension du pouvoir psychologique du cinéma et de l'esthétique Cinémas du film. ISSN 1181-6945 (imprimé) 1705-6500 (numérique) Découvrir la revue Citer cet article Plantinga, C. (2002). Cognitive Film Theory : An Insider’s Appraisal. Cinémas, 12(2), 15–37. https://doi.org/10.7202/024878ar Tous droits réservés © Cinémas, 2002 Ce document est protégé par la loi sur le droit d’auteur. L’utilisation des services d’Érudit (y compris la reproduction) est assujettie à sa politique d’utilisation que vous pouvez consulter en ligne.
    [Show full text]
  • From Theory to Post-Theory and Beyond: Politics & Film
    From Theory to Post-Theory and Beyond: Politics & Film Ana Lomtadze Advisor: Dr. Maurizio Viano Submitted in Partial Fulfillment Of the Prerequisite for Honors In the Cinema and Media Studies Program May 2014 Lomtadze Table of Contents Introduction…………………………………………………………………4 Chapter I: Which is Which?............................................................................9 Chapter II: Film Theory&Politics……………………………………….....32 Chapter III: Theory & Film………………………………………………..63 CODA……………………………………………………………………...76 Works Cited……………………………………………………………......78 2 Lomtadze Acknowledgments First and foremost, I would like to thank the Cinema and Media Studies Program for providing me with a nurturing and a welcoming ‘home’ over the past four years at Wellesley College. It is through this program and its invaluable faculty that I have grown and learned in more ways than I could describe. Two classes in particular – “Film and Media Theory” and “Films by Godard and Varda”, taught by Professor Dominique Bluher and Professor Maurizio Viano, respectively – have marked my personal and intellectual fascination with film theory. These classes have had a great influence on my thesis project. I must thank my thesis advisor, Professor Maurizio Viano, who has shown unreserved emotional and intellectual support and generosity with his time throughout the year. Without his encouragement and patience, my thesis might have never seen the light of day. I am also indebted to Professor Winifred Wood, who offered invaluable support and helped me immensely with editing and formulating my work. Additionally, I am grateful for conversations with Professor Nicholas Knouf. His suggestions helped me clarify and distill my ideas. My deep gratitude goes out to Sundus-Al Bayati, who did not let me take myself too seriously and supported me with long conversations, many laughs and generous hugs.
    [Show full text]
  • Film Studies and the New Science
    Film Studies and the New Science IRA KONIGSBERG Abstract: Film theory has been much involved with psychology, especially with the viewer’s perceptual and emotional response to the images on the screen. Psychoanalytic and cognitive film theories, though not exactly kindred spirits, have so far dominated psychological film studies. At the present time, technology offers neuroscience methods to explore the brain that open up the discourse on the mind. This article explains ways in which neuroscience, and its study of the brain, can extend our understanding and theory of film by exploring three areas of our response to cinema. Although the perception of motion is a complicated business, the phenomenon of implied motion sug- gests the brain’s readiness to find movement even when there is none and links together many of the same perceptual mechanisms we use when view- ing film and also the world outside the theater. Attention, focus, and binding are essential for us to make sense of the vast amount of stimuli that bombard our eyes. They explain what we see and do not see when viewing film and also the way film technique controls our understanding of the action on the screen. Finally, the argument about what we feel and do not feel when watch- ing the characters on the screen may receive some clarification by neuro- science’s investigation of “mirror neurons” in our brain. Keywords: attention, brain, cognitivism, emotion, film, motion, neuroscience, psychoanalysis The discussion of film theory often moves us away from experiencing and critiquing individual films. Instead films are used to ground generalizations about the ways we perceive and respond to film.
    [Show full text]
  • Using Deleuze: the Cinema Books, Film Studies and Effect
    USING DELEUZE: THE CINEMA BOOKS, FILM STUDIES AND EFFECT Dyrk Ashton A Dissertation Submitted to the Graduate College of Bowling Green State University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY August 2006 Committee: Cynthia Baron, Chair Patrick Pauken, Graduate Faculty Representative Donald Callen Jonathan Chambers Ronald Shields © 2006 Dyrk Ashton All Rights Reserved iii ABSTRACT Cynthia Baron, Advisor Since their publication, Deleuze’s Cinema 1: The Movement-Image (French 1983, English 1986) and Cinema 2: The Time-Image (French 1985, English 1989) have held a precarious position in Anglophone film studies. The difficulties of the cinema books are pointed out by many, a broad range of complaints have been leveled against them, and their usefulness has been widely questioned. There has, however, been an increase in interest in the cinema books among Anglophone film scholars over the last few years. Still, many of the “complaints” and “concerns” about the cinema books remain. A guiding principal of this dissertation is to provide a “way in” to Deleuze’s work in the cinema books, or a key to assist in unlocking and unpacking Deleuze’s cinema project. To this end, I have analyzed Deleuze’s approach in the cinema books, their style, methodology, rationale and theoretical framework, utilizing Theodor Adorno’s concept of “parataxis” because I believe it illuminates his metaphysics. I have also explicated key elements of Deleuze’s Bergson-inspired metaphysics, concentrating on what I feel are fundamental aspects that aid in a clarification of “movement-images” and “time-images.” A key concept that I utilized in this endeavor is Deleuze’s “crystal-image” because I maintain that the characteristics of crystal-images are the very foundation of all time- images.
    [Show full text]