Film Theory: An Introduction

This book is a lively and provoking introduction to film theory. It is suitable for students from any discipline but is particularly aimed at students studying film and literature as it examines issues common to both subjects such as realism, illusionism, narration, point of view, style, semiotics, psychoanalysis and multiculturalism. It also includes coverage of theorists common to both, Barthes, Lacan and Bakhtin among others. Robert Stam, renowned for his clarity of writing, will also include studies of cinema specialists providing readers with a depth of reference not generally available outside the field of film studies itself. Other material covered includes film adaptations of works of literature and analogies between literary and film criticism.

Preface. Introduction. 1. The Antecedents of Film Theory. 2. Russian Formalism. 3. The Question of Film Language. 4. The Presence of Brecht. 5. The Poststructuralist Mutation. 6. The Rise of Cultural Studies. 7. The Coming Out of Queer Theory. 8. Third World Cinema Revisited. 9. The Politics of Postmodernism. 10. Post Cinema: Digital Theory and the New Media. Index.

Robert Stam is Professor in the Cinema Studies Department at New York University. His many books include Film Theory: An Introduction (Blackwell Publishers, 1999), Tropical Multiculturalism: A Comparative History of Race in Brazilian Cinema and Culture (1997), Unthinking Eurocentrism: Multiculturalism and the Media with Ella Shohat (1994), which won the Katherine Singer Kovocs ′Best Film Book Award′; and Subversive Pleasures: Bakhtin, Cultural Criticism, and Film (1992).

"A remarkable synthesis, recommended to anyone who wants to understand the questions and debates that have animated film theory in the twentieth century. Throughout, Stam′s discussion is lucid, generous, and intelligent." James Naremore, Indiana University