European Film Theory and Cinema : A Critical Introduction

by Aitken, Ian

• ISBN13: 9780253215055
• ISBN10: 0253215056
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2002-01-01
• Publisher: Indiana Univ Pr

Summary

European Film Theory and Cinema explores the major film theories and movements within European cinema since the early 1900s. An original and critically astute study, it considers film theory within the context of the intellectual climate of the last two centuries. Ian Aitkin focuses particularly on the two major traditions that dominate European film theory and cinema: the "intuitionist modernist and realist" tradition and the "post-Saussurian" tradition. The first originates in a philosophical lineage that encompasses German idealist philosophy, romanticism, phenomenology, and the Frankfurt School. Early intuitionist modernist film culture and later theories and practices of cinematic realism are shown to be part of one continuous tradition. The post-Saussurian tradition includes semiotics, structuralism, and post-structuralism.

Author Biography

Ian Aitken is a Senior Research Fellow at De Montfort University. He is author of The Documentary Film Movement and The Cinema of Alberto Cavalcanti.

Table of Contents

Introduction	1	(3)
Didacticism and Intuition in Russian Formalism and Weimar Film Theory	4	(23)
Determinism and Symbolism in the Film Theory of Eisenstein	27	(20)
Aestheticism and Engagement in Weimar Cinematic Modernism and Soviet Montage Cinema	47	(22)
Into the Realm of the Wondrous: French Cinematic Impressionism	69	(22)
The World Well Lost: From Structuralism to Relativism	91	(41)
From Political Modernism to Postmodernism	132	(30)
The Redemption of Physical Reality: Theories of Realism in Grierson, Kracauer, Bazin and Lukacs	162	(41)
Late European Cinema and Realism	203	(25)
Post-war Italian and Spanish Realist Cinema	228	(28)
Conclusions	256	(2)
Select Bibliography	258	(8)
Index	266