Film studies is an academic discipline that deals with various theoretical, historical, and critical approaches to cinema as an art form and a medium. It is sometimes subsumed within media studies and is often compared to television studies. Film studies is less concerned with advancing proficiency in film production than it is with exploring the

narrative A narrative, story, or tale is any account of a series of related events or experiences, whether nonfictional ( memoir, biography, news report, documentary, travelogue, etc.) or fictional (fairy tale, fable, legend, thriller Thriller may r ...

, artistic, cultural, economic, and political implications of the cinema. In searching for these social-ideological values, film studies takes a series of critical approaches for the analysis of production, theoretical framework, context, and creation. Also, in studying film, possible careers include critic or production. Overall the study of film continues to grow, as does the industry on which it focuses. Academic journals publishing film studies work include ''

Sight & Sound ''Sight and Sound'' (also spelled ''Sight & Sound'') is a British monthly film magazine published by the British Film Institute (BFI). It conducts the well-known, once-a-decade ''Sight and Sound'' Poll of the Greatest Films of All Time, ongoing ...

'', '' Film Comment'', '' Film International'', '' CineAction'', '' Screen'', '' Journal of Cinema and Media Studies'', '' Film Quarterly'', and '' Journal of Film and Video''.

History

Film studies as an academic discipline emerged in the twentieth century, decades after the invention of motion pictures. Not to be confused with the technical aspects of film production, film studies exists only with the creation of film theory—which approaches film critically as an art—and the writing of

film historiography The history of film chronicles the development of a visual art form created using film technologies that began in the late 19th century. The advent of film as an artistic medium is not clearly defined. However, the commercial, public scr ...

. Because the modern film became an invention and industry only in the late nineteenth century, a generation of film producers and directors existed significantly before the academic analysis that followed in later generations. Early film schools focused on the production and subjective critique of film rather than on the critical approaches, history and theory used to study academically. Since the time film was created, the concept of film studies as a whole grew to analyze the formal aspects of film as they were created. Established in 1919 the

Moscow Film School The Gerasimov Institute of Cinematography (russian: Всероссийский государственный институт кинематографии имени С. А. Герасимова, meaning ''All-Russian State Institute of Cinemat ...

was the first school in the world to focus on film. In the United States the USC School of Cinematic Arts, established in 1929, was the first cinematic based school, which was created in agreement with the

Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS, often pronounced ; also known as simply the Academy or the Motion Picture Academy) is a professional honorary organization with the stated goal of advancing the arts and sciences of motion ...

. They were also the first to offer a major in film in 1932 but without the distinctions that are assumed in film studies. Universities began to implement different forms of cinema related curriculum without, however, the division between the abstract and practical approaches. The ''Deutsche Filmakademie Babelsberg'' (i.e. German Film Academy Babelsberg) was founded in the Third Reich in 1938. Among the lecturers were e.g. Willi Forst and Heinrich George. To complete the studies at the Academy a student was expected to create his own film. A movement away from Hollywood productions in the 1950s turned cinema into a more artistic

independent Independent or Independents may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Artist groups * Independents (artist group), a group of modernist painters based in the New Hope, Pennsylvania, area of the United States during the early 1930s * Independe ...

endeavor. It was the creation of the auteur theory, which asserted film as the director's vision and art, that prompted film studies to become truly considered academically worldwide in the 1960s. In 1965, film critic Robin Wood, in his writings on

Alfred Hitchcock Sir Alfred Joseph Hitchcock (13 August 1899 – 29 April 1980) was an English filmmaker. He is widely regarded as one of the most influential figures in the history of cinema. In a career spanning six decades, he directed over 50 featur ...

, declared that Hitchcock's films contained the same complexities of Shakespeare's plays. Similarly, Jean Luc Godard, a contributor to the influential magazine '' Cahiers du Cinéma'' wrote, "Jerry Lewis...is the only one in Hollywood doing something different, the only one who isn't falling in with the established categories, the norms, the principles. ...Lewis is the only one today who's making courageous films. With stable enrollment, proper budgets and interest in all

humanities Humanities are academic disciplines that study aspects of human society and culture. In the Renaissance, the term contrasted with divinity and referred to what is now called classics, the main area of secular study in universities at th ...

numerous universities contained the ability to offer distinct film studies programs. As the global community of filmmakers and scholars grew, the analysis of film developed into an academic discipline. This was helped in part by large donations from successful commercial filmmakers, who helped fund film studies departments in universities. An example is George Lucas' US$175 million donation to the USC School of Cinematic Arts in 2006.

Approaches to film studies

* Analytic **

Cognitive film theory Aesthetic cognitivism is a methodology in the philosophy of art, particularly audience responses to art, that relies on research in cognitive psychology. Although the term is used more in humanistic disciplines than scientific ones, the methodolog ...

** Historical poetics ** Linguistic film theory ** Neoformalism * Classical ** Formalist film theory * Continental ** Feminist film theory ** Film semiotics **

Marxist film theory Marxist film theory is an approach to film theory centered on concepts that make possible a political understanding of the medium.Mike Wayne (ed.), ''Understanding Film: Marxist Perspectives'', Pluto Press, 2005, p. 24. Overview Sergei Eisens ...

Psychoanalytic film theory Psychoanalytic film theory is a school of academic thought that evokes the concepts of psychoanalysts Sigmund Freud and Jacques Lacan. The theory is closely tied to Critical theory, Marxist film theory, and Apparatus theory. The theory is separa ...

Screen theory Screen theory is a Marxist– psychoanalytic film theory associated with the British journal ''Screen'' in the early 1970s. It considers filmic images as signifiers that do not only encode meanings but also mirrors in which viewers accede to subjec ...

Structuralist film theory Structuralist film theory is a branch of film theory that is rooted in structuralism, itself based on structural linguistics. Overview Structuralist film theory emphasizes how films convey meaning through the use of codes and conventions not dis ...

* Criticism ** Auteur theory ** Schreiber theory

Modern film studies

Today film studies exists worldwide as a discipline with specific schools dedicated to it. The aspects of film studies have grown to encompass numerous methods for teaching history, culture and society. Many

liberal arts Liberal arts education (from Latin "free" and "art or principled practice") is the traditional academic course in Western higher education. ''Liberal arts'' takes the term '' art'' in the sense of a learned skill rather than specifically th ...

colleges and universities contain courses specifically geared toward the analysis of film. Also exemplifying the increased diversity of film studies is the fact that high schools across the United States offer classes on film theory. Many programs conjoin film studies with media and television studies, taking knowledge from all parts of visual production in the approach. With the growing technologies such as 3-D film and

YouTube YouTube is a global online video sharing and social media platform headquartered in San Bruno, California. It was launched on February 14, 2005, by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim. It is owned by Google, and is the second most ...

, films are now concretely used to teach a reflection of culture and art around the world as a primary medium. Due to the ever-growing dynamic of film studies, a wide variety of curricula have emerged for analysis of critical approaches used in film. Although each institution has the power to form the study material, students are usually expected to grasp a knowledge of conceptual shifts in film, a vocabulary for the analysis of film form and style, a sense of ideological dimensions of film, and an awareness of extra textual domains and possible direction of film in the future. Universities offer their students a course in the field of film analysis to critically engage with the production of films which also allows the students to take part in research and seminars of specialized topics to enhance their critical abilities.

Common curriculum

The curriculum of tertiary level film studies programs often include but are not limited to: * Introduction to film studies * Modes of film studies * Close analysis of film * History of film/media * Analysis with emphasis # Attention to time period # Attention to regional creation # Attention to genre # Attention to creators * Methods of film production With diverse courses that make up for film studies majors or minors come to exist within schools.

United States film studies

In the United States,

universities A university () is an institution of higher (or tertiary) education and research which awards academic degrees in several academic disciplines. ''University'' is derived from the Latin phrase ''universitas magistrorum et scholarium'', which ...

offer courses specifically toward film studies, and schools committed to minor/major programs. Currently 144 different tertiary institutions nationwide offer a major program in film studies. This number continues to grow each year with new interest in the film studies discipline. Institutions offering film degrees as part of their arts or communications curriculum differ from institutions with a dedicated film program. The curriculum is in no way limited to films made in the United States; a wide variety of films can be analyzed. With the American film industry generating by far the highest global box office returns and second worldwide only to India in terms of number of filmgoers and number of productions, the attraction for film studies is high. To obtain a degree in the United States, a person is likely to pursue careers in the production of film, especially directing and producing films. Often classes in the United States will combine new forms of media, such as television or

new media New media describes communication technologies that enable or enhance interaction between users as well as interaction between users and content. In the middle of the 1990s, the phrase "new media" became widely used as part of a sales pitch for ...

, in combination with film study. Those who study film want to be able to analyze the numerous films released in the United States every year in a more academic setting, or to understand the history of cinema as an art form. Films can reflect the culture of the period not only in the United States but around the world.

World film studies

Film studies throughout the world exist in over 20 countries. Due to the high cost of film production

developing countries A developing country is a sovereign state with a lesser developed Industrial sector, industrial base and a lower Human Development Index (HDI) relative to other countries. However, this definition is not universally agreed upon. There is al ...

are left out of the film industry especially in the academic setting. Despite this fact more prosperous countries have the ability to study film in all the aspects of film studies. Discourse in film can be found in the schools around the world; often, international attention to the aesthetics of film emerge from film festivals. For example, the

Cannes Film Festival The Cannes Festival (; french: link=no, Festival de Cannes), until 2003 called the International Film Festival (') and known in English as the Cannes Film Festival, is an annual film festival held in Cannes, France, which previews new films ...

is the most prestigious in the world. Though this discourse revolves around the film industry and promotion and does not exist within an academic school setting, numerous aspects of analysis and critical approaches are taken into account on this international stage.

Prominent scholars

* Hugo Münsterberg * Ricciotto Canudo * Germaine Dulac * Béla Balázs * Siegfried Kracauer * Vsevolod Pudovkin * Jean Epstein *

Sergei Eisenstein Sergei Mikhailovich Eisenstein (russian: Сергей Михайлович Эйзенштейн, p=sʲɪrˈɡʲej mʲɪˈxajləvʲɪtɕ ɪjzʲɪnˈʂtʲejn, 2=Sergey Mikhaylovich Eyzenshteyn; 11 February 1948) was a Soviet film director, scre ...

* Lev Kuleshov * Jean Mitry * Rudolf Arnheim * Paul Rotha * André Bazin * Alexandre Astruc * Gilles Deleuze * Stanley Cavell *

Andrew Sarris Andrew Sarris (October 31, 1928 – June 20, 2012) was an American film critic. He was a leading proponent of the auteur theory of film criticism. Early life Sarris was born in Brooklyn, New York, to Greek immigrant parents, Themis (née Kat ...

* Jean-Louis Baudry * Christian Metz *

François Truffaut François Roland Truffaut ( , ; ; 6 February 1932 – 21 October 1984) was a French film director, screenwriter, producer, actor, and film critic. He is widely regarded as one of the founders of the French New Wave. After a career of more tha ...

* Robin Wood * Noël Burch * Raymond Durgnat *

E. Ann Kaplan E. Ann Kaplan is an American professor, author, and director. She currently teaches English at the Stony Brook State University of New York, and is the founder and director of The Humanities Institute at Stony Brook University. She coined the term ...

* Jeanine Basinger *

Teresa de Lauretis Teresa de Lauretis (; born 1938 in Bologna) is an Italian author and Distinguished Professor Emerita of the History of Consciousness at the University of California, Santa Cruz. Her areas of interest include semiotics, psychoanalysis, film theory, ...

* Peter Wollen *

Richard Barsam Richard Barsam (born 8 November 1938), author and film historian, is Professor Emeritus of Film Studies at Hunter College of The City University of New York (CUNY).

* Teshome Gabriel * Raymond Bellour * Molly Haskell * Marsha Kinder * Vivian Sobchack * Claire Johnston * Laura Mulvey * Robert Stam * James Naremore * Bill Nichols * James Monaco * Jacques Aumont *

Pam Cook Pam Cook (born 6 January 1943) is Professor Emerita in Film at the University of Southampton. She was educated at Sir William Perkins's School, Chertsey, Surrey and Birmingham University, where she was taught by Stuart Hall, Richard Hoggart ...

Peter Bondanella __NOTOC__ Peter Bondanella (1943–2017) was Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Italian, Comparative Literature, and Film Studies at Indiana University, United States. Selected publications *''Federico Fellini: Essays in Criticism''. Ed. by P. Bon ...

* Barbara Creed *

Jonathan Rosenbaum Jonathan Rosenbaum (born February 27, 1943) is an American film critic and author. Rosenbaum was the head film critic for '' The Chicago Reader'' from 1987 to 2008, when he retired. He has published and edited numerous books about cinema and h ...

* Thomas Elsaesser * Serge Daney *

Hamid Naficy Hamid Naficy ( fa, حمید نفیسی; born 1944) is an Iranian-born American filmmaker, writer, scholar, and educator. He is the Hamad Bin Khalifa Al-Thani Professor in Communication at Northwestern University in the department of Radio/Film/Te ...

Richard Dyer Richard Dyer (born 1945) is an English academic who held a professorship in the Department of Film Studies at King's College London. Specialising in cinema (particularly Italian cinema), queer theory, and the relationship between entertainment ...

* Ian Christie * Dudley Andrew * Annette Kuhn *

Janet Staiger Janet Staiger (; born 1946) is the William P. Hobby Centennial Professor Emeritus of Communication in the Department of Radio-Television-Film and Professor Emeritus of Women's and Gender Studies at the University of Texas at Austin. Education She ...

* Linda Williams * Noël Carroll *

Francesco Casetti Francesco Casetti (born April 2, 1947 in Trento, Italy) is an Italian naturalized US citizen film and television theorist. He is Sterling Professor of Humanities and Film and Media Studies at Yale University. He has been described as "the best an ...

* David Bordwell *

Michel Chion Michel Chion (born 1947) is a French film theorist and composer of experimental music. Life Born in Creil, France, Chion teaches at several institutions in France and currently holds the post of Associate Professor at the University of Paris III ...

* B. Ruby Rich * Slavoj Žižek *

Colin MacCabe Colin Myles Joseph MacCabe (born 9 February 1949) is an English academic, writer and film producer. He is currently a distinguished professor of English and film at the University of Pittsburgh.

* Kristin Thompson * Mary Ann Doane *

Elizabeth Cowie Elizabeth Cowie ( ) is a British academic, author, and emeritus professor of film studies at the University of Kent. Biography Cowie has a degree in history, politics and sociology. After university, she found work in publishing, and from 1972 t ...

Jonathan Beller Jonathan Beller is a film theorist, culture critic and mediologist. He currently holds the position of Professor of Humanities and Media Studies and Critical and Visual Studies, Pratt Institute, Brooklyn, NY. He is the recipient of numerous awards ...

* Geoff Andrew * Adrian Martin * David Kipen * Mark Cousins

Academic journals

* '' Cinema Journal'' * '' Film Quarterly'' * ''

Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television The ''Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television'' is an academic journal dedicated to the study of media history. It is published quarterly by Routledge on behalf of the International Association for Media and History. The current editor- ...

'' * '' Journal of Film and Video'' * '' Journal of Popular Film & Television'' * ''

New Review of Film and Television Studies ''New Review of Film and Television Studies'' is a quarterly peer-reviewed academic journal covering research in the humanities that makes a contribution to film and television studies. It was established in 2003 and is published by Routledge. The ...

'' * '' Screen'' * '' The Velvet Light Trap'' * '' Television & New Media''

References

External links

FILMdrippink.com - Database providing academic & journalist texts about film & TV

Main website for the Berkeley film studies

Main website for USC School of Cinematic ArtsMain website for the Los Angeles Film SchoolMain website for the NYFA Film SchoolFilm Studies in New Delhi, IndiaScreensite listing of college film programs
{{Authority control Film Media studies