Lukácsian film theory and cinema explores Georg Lukács’ writings on film. The Hungarian Marxist critic Georg Lukács is primarily known as a literary theorist, but he also wrote extensively on the cinema. These writings have remained little known in the English-speaking world because the great majority of them have never actually been translated into English – until now. Aitken has gathered together the most important essays and the translations appear here, often for the first time. This book thus makes a decisive contribution to understandings of Lukács within the field of film studies, and, in doing so, also challenges many existing preconceptions concerning his theoretical position. For example, whilst Lukács’ literary theory is well known for its repudiation of naturalism, in his writings on film Lukács appears to advance a theory and practice of film that can best be described as naturalist. Lukácsian film theory and cinema is divided into two parts. In part one, Lukács’ writings on film are explored, and placed within relevant historical and intellectual contexts, whilst part two consists of the essays themselves. This book will be of considerable interest to scholars and students working within the fields of film studies, literary studies, intellectual history, media and cultural studies. It is also intended to be the final volume in a trilogy of works on cinematic realism, which includes the author’s earlier European film theory and cinema (2001), and Realist film theory and cinema (2006).

Lukácsian film theory and cinema explores Georg Lukács’ writings on film. The Hungarian Marxist critic Georg Lukács is primarily known as a literary theorist, but he also wrote extensively on the cinema. These writings have remained little known in the English-speaking world because the great majority of them have never actually been translated into English – until now. Aitken has gathered together the most important essays and the translations appear here, often for the first time. This book thus makes a decisive contribution to understandings of Lukács within the field of film studies, and, in doing so, also challenges many existing preconceptions concerning his theoretical position. For example, whilst Lukács’ literary theory is well known for its repudiation of naturalism, in his writings on film Lukács appears to advance a theory and practice of film that can best be described as naturalist. Lukácsian film theory and cinema is divided into two parts. In part one, Lukács’ writings on film are explored, and placed within relevant historical and intellectual contexts, whilst part two consists of the essays themselves. This book will be of considerable interest to scholars and students working within the fields of film studies, literary studies, intellectual history, media and cultural studies. It is also intended to be the final volume in a trilogy of works on cinematic realism, which includes the author’s earlier European film theory and cinema (2001), and Realist film theory and cinema (2006).

‘Realist film theory and cinema’ embraces studies of cinematic realism and 19th century tradition, the realist film theories of Lukács, Grierson, Bazin and Kracauer, and the relationship of realist film theory to the general field of film theory and philosophy. This is the first book to attempt a rigorous and systematic application of realist film theory to the analysis of particular films. The book suggests new ways forward for a new series of studies in cinematic realism, and for a new form of film theory based on realism. It stresses the importance of the question of realism both in film studies and in contemporary life. Aitken’s work will be of interest to scholars and advanced students of film studies, literary studies, media studies, cultural studies and philosophy.

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 the 1910s to the emergence of structuralism and post-structuralism in the 1960s, the writings of John Grierson, Siegfried Kracauer, Andre Bazin and Georg Lukacs dominated realist film theory. In this critical anthology, the first collection to address their work in one volume, a wide range of international scholars explore the interconnections between their ideas and help generate new understandings of this important, if neglected, field. Challenging preconceptions about 'classical' theory and the nature of realist representation, and in the process demonstrating how this body of work can be seen as a cohesive theoretical model, this invaluable collection will help return the realist paradigm of film theory to the forefront of academic enquiry.

This landmark collection of essays considers the global legacy of John Grierson, the father of British documentary. Featuring the work of leading scholars from around the world, The Grierson Effect explores the impact of Grierson's ideas about documentary and educational film in a wide range of cultural and national contexts – from Russia and Scandinavia, to Latin America, South Africa and New Zealand. In reconsidering Grierson's international infl uence, this major new study emphasises the material conditions of the production and circulation of documentary cinema, foregrounds core issues in documentary studies, and opens up expanded perspectives on transnational cinema cultures and histories.

The history of Greek cinema post-1945 is best understood through the stories of its most internationally celebrated and influential directors. Focusing on the works of six major filmmakers active from just after WWII to the present day, with added consideration of many others, this book examines the development of cinema as an art form in the social and political contexts of Greece. Insights on gender in film, minority cinemas, stylistic richness and the representation of historical trauma are afforded by close readings of the work and life of such luminaries as Michael Cacoyannis, Nikos Koundouros, Yannis Dalianidis, Theo Angelopoulos, Antouanetta Angelidi, Yorgos Lanthimos, Athena-Rachel Tsangari and Costas Zapas. Throughout, the book examines how directors visually transmute reality to represent unstable societies, disrupted collective memories and national identity.

This book offers an accessible account of film theory for the student and the cinemagoer. It ranges from the late 1960s to the present, a period in which a number of conceptual strands--notably politics, semiotics and psychoanalysis--came together. Lapsely and Westlake chart the construction of this synthesis and its subsequent fragmentation and elucidate the various intellectual currents contributing to it. The first part of the book covers the conceptual background of film theory, dealing with historical materialism, semiotics, and psychoanalysis, while the second part concentrates on particular topics--authorship, narrative, realism, the avant-garde and postmodernism. This second edition features an extensive retrospective introduction, as well as a fully updated and extended bibliography.

This innovative book is about the place of world cinema in the cultural imaginary. It also repositions world cinema in a wider discursive space than is usually the case and treats it as an object of theoretical enquiry, rather than as a commercial label. The editors and distinguished group of contributors offer a range of approaches and case studies whose organizing principle is the developing idea of polycentrism as applied to cinema. They refine and redefine key concepts in film studies, including identification and identity, narrative and realism, allegory and the national project, auteurism and the popular, art and genre. They re-evaluate how cinema shapes and responds to the philosophical, cultural and political effects of transnationalism and cosmopolitanism in the age of the moving image, and explore the interconnectedness of films produced worldwide, as well as the links between cinema and other visual cultural forms. The contributors include: John Caughie, Felicia Chan, Tiago de Luca, Rajinder Dudrah, Song Hwee Lim, Laura Mulvey, Lucia Nagib, Geoffrey Nowell-Smith, Chris Perriam, Ashish Rajadhyaksha, Paul Julian Smith, and Ismail Xavier.

World Cinema and the Ethics of Realism is a highly original study. Traditional views of cinematic realism usually draw on the so-called classical cinema and its allegiance to narrative mimesis, but Nagib challenges this, drawing instead on the filmmaker's commitment to truth and to the film medium's material bond with the real. Starting from the premise that world cinema's creative peaks are governed by an ethics of realism, Nagib conducts comparative case studies picked from world new waves, such as the Japanese New Wave, the French nouvelle vague, the Cinema Novo, the New German Cinema, the Russo-Cuban Revolutionary Cinema, the Portuguese self-performing auteur and the Inuit Indigenous Cinema. Drawing upon Badiou and Rancière, World Cinema and the Ethics of Realism revisits and reformulates several fundamental concepts in film studies, such as illusionism, identification, apparatus, alienation effects, presentation and representation. Its groundbreaking scholarship takes film theory in a bold new direction.