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Since the 1970s film studies has been dominated by a basic paradigm—the concept of classical Hollywood cinema—that is, the protagonist-driven narrative, valued for the way it achieves closure by neatly answering all of the enigmas it raises. It has been held to be a form so powerful that its aesthetic devices reinforce gender positions in society. In a variety of ways, the essays collected here—representing the work of some of the most innovative theorists writing today—challenge this paradigm.
Significantly expanded from a special issue of South Atlantic Quarterly (Spring 1989), these essays confront the extent to which formalism has continued to dominate film theory, reexamine the role of melodrama in cinematic development, revise notions of "patriarchal cinema," and assert the importance of television and video to cinema studies. A range of topics are discussed, from the films of D. W. Griffith to sexuality in avant-garde film to television's Dynasty.
Contributors. Rick Altman, Richard Dienst, Jane Feuer, Jane Gaines, Christine Gledhill, Miriam Hansen, Norman N. Holland, Fredric Jameson, Bill Nichols, Janey Staiger, Chris Straayer, John O. Thompson
List of contents
Introduction: The Family Melodrama of Classical Narrative Cinema/ Jane M. Gaines 1
Dickens, Griffith, and Film Theory Today/ Rick Altman 9
Form Wars: The Political Unconscious of Formalist Theory/ Bill Nichols 49
Film Response from Eye to I: The Kuleshov Experiement/ Norman N. Holland 79
Securing the Fictional Narrative as a Tale of the Historical Real: The Return of Martin Guerre/ Janet Staiger 107
Between Melodrama and Realism: Anthony Asquith's Underground and King Vidor's The Crowd/ Christine Gledhill 129
The Hieroglyph and the Whore: D.W. Griffith's Intolerance/ Miriam Hansen 169
The She-Man: Postmodern Bi-Sexed Performance in Film and Video/ Chris Straayer 203
Dead Ringer: Jacqueline Onassis and the Look-Alike/ Jane Gaines 227
Nostalgia for the Present/ Fredric Jameson 253
Reading Dynasty: Television and Reception Theory/ Jane Feuer 275
Dialogues of the Living Dead/ John O. Thompson 295
Image/ Machine/ Image: On the Use and Abuse of Marx and Metaphor in Television Theory/ Richard Dienst 313
Notes on Contributors 341
Index 345
About the author
Jane Gaines, ed.
