Film studies is an academic discipline that deals with various theoretical,

historical History (derived ) is the systematic study and the documentation of the human activity. The time period of event before the History of writing#Inventions of writing, invention of writing systems is considered prehistory. "History" is an umbr ...

, and

critical Critical or Critically may refer to: *Critical, or critical but stable, medical states **Critical, or intensive care medicine * Critical juncture, a discontinuous change studied in the social sciences. *Critical Software, a company specializing ...

approaches to cinema as an art form and a medium. It is sometimes subsumed within

media studies Media studies is a discipline and field of study that deals with the content, history, and effects of various media; in particular, the mass media. Media Studies may draw on traditions from both the social sciences and the humanities, but mostl ...

and is often compared to television studies. Film studies is less concerned with advancing proficiency in

film production Filmmaking (film production) is the process by which a motion picture is produced. Filmmaking involves a number of complex and discrete stages, starting with an initial story, idea, or commission. It then continues through screenwriting, cast ...

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, novel, etc ...

, 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'', '' 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 Film theory is a set of scholarly approaches within the academic discipline of film or cinema studies that began in the 1920s by questioning the formal essential attributes of motion pictures; and that now provides conceptual frameworks for u ...

—which approaches film critically as an art—and the writing of film historiography. 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 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 Hollywood usually refers to: * Hollywood, Los Angeles, a neighborhood in California * Hollywood, a metonym for the cinema of the United States Hollywood may also refer to: Places United States * Hollywood District (disambiguation) * Hollywoo ...

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 William Shakespeare ( 26 April 1564 – 23 April 1616) was an English playwright, poet and actor. He is widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's nation ...

's plays. Similarly, Jean Luc Godard, a contributor to the influential magazine ''

Cahiers du Cinéma ''Cahiers du Cinéma'' (, ) is a French film magazine co-founded in 1951 by André Bazin, Jacques Doniol-Valcroze, and Joseph-Marie Lo Duca.Itzkoff, Dave (9 February 2009''Cahiers Du Cinéma Will Continue to Publish''The New York TimesMacnab ...

'' 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 t ...

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 George Walton Lucas Jr. (born May 14, 1944) is an American filmmaker. Lucas is best known for creating the '' Star Wars'' and '' Indiana Jones'' franchises and founding Lucasfilm, LucasArts, Industrial Light & Magic and THX. He served as c ...

' US$175 million donation to the USC School of Cinematic Arts in 2006.

Approaches to film studies

Analytic Generally speaking, analytic (from el, ἀναλυτικός, ''analytikos'') refers to the "having the ability to analyze" or "division into elements or principles". Analytic or analytical can also have the following meanings: Chemistry * ...

** Cognitive film theory ** 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 **

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 *

Criticism Criticism is the construction of a judgement about the negative qualities of someone or something. Criticism can range from impromptu comments to a written detailed response. , ''"the act of giving your opinion or judgment about the good or bad q ...

** Auteur theory **

Schreiber theory The Schreiber theory is a writer-centered approach to film criticism and film theory which holds that the principal author of a film is generally the screenwriter rather than the director. The term was coined by David Morris Kipen, Director of Lit ...

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 Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic languages, Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as La ...

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

. 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 mo ...

, 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. Universities typically offer both undergraduate and postgraduate programs. In the United State ...

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, 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 base and a lower Human Development Index (HDI) relative to other countries. However, this definition is not universally agreed upon. There is also no clear agreem ...

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 festival A film festival is an organized, extended presentation of films in one or more cinemas or screening venues, usually in a single city or region. Increasingly, film festivals show some films outdoors. Films may be of recent date and, depending upo ...

s. 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 Hugo Münsterberg (; June 1, 1863 – December 16, 1916) was a German-American psychologist. He was one of the pioneers in applied psychology, extending his research and theories to industrial/organizational (I/O), legal, medical, clinical, educ ...

* Ricciotto Canudo * Germaine Dulac * Béla Balázs * Siegfried Kracauer *

Vsevolod Pudovkin Vsevolod Illarionovich Pudovkin ( rus, Всеволод Илларионович Пудовкин, p=ˈfsʲevələt ɪlərʲɪˈonəvʲɪtɕ pʊˈdofkʲɪn; 16 February 1893 – 30 June 1953) was a Russian and Soviet film director, screenwrite ...

Jean Epstein Jean Epstein (; 25 March 1897 – 2 April 1953) was a French filmmaker, film theorist, literary critic, and novelist. Although he is remembered today primarily for his adaptation of Edgar Allan Poe's ''The Fall of the House of Usher'', he directe ...

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, scree ...

* Lev Kuleshov * Jean Mitry * Rudolf Arnheim * Paul Rotha *

André Bazin André Bazin (; 18 April 1918 – 11 November 1958) was a renowned and influential French film critic and film theorist. Bazin started to write about film in 1943 and was a co-founder of the renowned film magazine ''Cahiers du cinéma'' in 1951, ...

* Alexandre Astruc *

Gilles Deleuze Gilles Louis René Deleuze ( , ; 18 January 1925 – 4 November 1995) was a French philosopher who, from the early 1950s until his death in 1995, wrote on philosophy, literature, film, and fine art. His most popular works were the two volu ...

Stanley Cavell Stanley Louis Cavell (; September 1, 1926 – June 19, 2018) was an American philosopher. He was the Walter M. Cabot Professor of Aesthetics and the General Theory of Value at Harvard University. He worked in the fields of ethics, aesthetics, an ...

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 Katav ...

Jean-Louis Baudry Jean-Louis Baudry (March 2, 1930 – October 3, 2015) was a French novelist, '' Tel Quel'' literary editor, and psychoanalytic film theorist. He is best known for "Ideological Effects of the Basic Cinematographic Apparatus" (1970) and "The Appara ...

* 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 Noël Burch (born 1932) is an American film theorist and movie maker who moved to France France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of overseas regions and terr ...

Raymond Durgnat Raymond Durgnat (1 September 1932 – 19 May 2002) was a British film critic, who was born in London to Swiss parents. During his life he wrote for virtually every major English language film publication. In 1965 he published the first maj ...

* E. Ann Kaplan *

Jeanine Basinger Jeanine Basinger (born 3 February 1936, in Ravenden, AR), a film historian, retired in 2020 as the Corwin-Fuller Professor of Film Studies and Founder and Curator of The Cinema Archives at Wesleyan University, Middletown, Connecticut. Education Ba ...

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 Peter Wollen (29 June 1938 – 17 December 2019) was a film theorist and filmmaker. He studied English at Christ Church, Oxford. Both political journalist and film theorist, Wollen's ''Signs and Meaning in the Cinema'' (1969) helped to transfo ...

* Richard Barsam *

Teshome Gabriel Teshome H. Gabriel (September 24, 1939 – June 14, 2010) was an Ethiopian-born American cinema scholar and professor at the UCLA School of Theater, Film and Television in Los Angeles. Gabriel was considered an expert on cinema and film of Africa a ...

Raymond Bellour Raymond Bellour (born 1939 in Lyon) is a French scholar, and writer. Best known to Anglophone readers for his publications on film analysis, his work is dispersed across a wide range of articles and books, few of which are available in English, i ...

Molly Haskell Molly Clark Haskell (born September 29, 1939)Aitken, Ian, ed. (2006)''Encyclopedia of Documentary Film, Volume 2'' New York: Routledge. p. 541. . is an American feminist film critic and author. She contributed to ''The Village Voice''—fir ...

Marsha Kinder Marsha Kinder (born 1940) is an American film scholar and Professor of Critical Studies at the University of Southern California. Background Kinder began her career as a scholar of eighteenth-century English Literature before moving to the study ...

Vivian Sobchack Vivian Carol Sobchack is an American cinema and media theorist and cultural critic. Sobchack's work on science fiction films and phenomenology of film is perhaps her most recognized. She is a prolific writer and has authored numerous books and a ...

* Claire Johnston *

Laura Mulvey Laura Mulvey (born 15 August 1941) is a British feminist film theorist. She was educated at St Hilda's College, Oxford. She is currently professor of film and media studies at Birkbeck, University of London. She previously taught at Bulmershe ...

Robert Stam Robert Stam (born October 29, 1941) is an American film theorist working on film semiotics. He is a professor at New York University, where he teaches about the French New Wave filmmakers. Stam has published widely on French literature, comparativ ...

James Naremore James Naremore, born James Otis Naremore, is a film, English and Comparative Literature scholar based at Indiana University. Now retired, he retains the titles of Chancellors' Professor of Communication and Culture, English, and Comparative Literat ...

* Bill Nichols *

James Monaco James F. Monaco (November 15, 1942 – November 25, 2019) was an American film critic, author, publisher, and educator. Life and Work Monaco founded Baseline in 1982, an early online database about the entertainment industry, and a forerunner o ...

Jacques Aumont Jacques Aumont (born 25 February 1942) is a French academic and writer on film theory. Born in Avignon he initially trained as an engineer but started contributing film criticism to ''Cahiers du cinéma'' in the late 1960s.Daniel DottoriniAumont, ...

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, M ...

* Peter Bondanella *

Barbara Creed Barbara Creed (born 30 September 1943) is a professor of cinema studies in the School of Culture and Communication at the University of Melbourne. She is the author of six books on gender, feminist film theory, and the horror genre. Creed is ...

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 has ...

Thomas Elsaesser Thomas Elsaesser (22 June 1943 – 4 December 2019) was a German film historian and professor of Film and Television Studies at the University of Amsterdam. He was also the writer and director of ''The Sun Island'', a documentary essay film abou ...

Serge Daney Serge Daney (June 4, 1944, Paris – June 12, 1992) was a French movie critic. He was a major figure of ''Cahiers du cinéma'' which he co-edited in the late 1970s. He also wrote extensively about films, television, and society in the newspaper ''Li ...

* Hamid Naficy *

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 James Dudley Andrew (born July 28, 1945) is an American film theorist. He is R. Selden Rose Professor of Film and Comparative Literature at Yale University, where he has taught since the year 2000. Before moving to Yale, he taught for thirty years ...

Annette Kuhn Annette Frieda Kuhn, FBA is a British author, cultural historian, educator, researcher, editor and feminist. She is known for her work in screen studies, visual culture, film history and cultural memory. She is Professor and Research Fellow in ...

* Janet Staiger * Linda Williams *

Noël Carroll Noël Carroll (born 1947) is an American philosopher considered to be one of the leading figures in contemporary philosophy of art. Although Carroll is best known for his work in the philosophy of film (he is a proponent of cognitive film theory) ...

* Francesco Casetti * 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 B. Ruby Rich is an American scholar; critic of independent, Latin American, documentary, feminist, and queer films; and a professor emerita of Film & Digital Media and Social Documentation at UC Santa Cruz. Among her many contributions, she is ...

Slavoj Žižek Slavoj Žižek (, ; ; born 21 March 1949) is a Slovenian philosopher, cultural theorist and public intellectual. He is international director of the Birkbeck Institute for the Humanities at the University of London, visiting professor at New Y ...

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 Kristin Thompson (born 1950) is an American film theorist and author whose research interests include the close formal analysis of films, the history of film styles, and " quality television," a genre akin to art film. She wrote two scholarly books ...

Mary Ann Doane Mary Ann Doane (born 1952) is the Class of 1937 Professor of Film and Media at the University of California, Berkeley and was previously the George Hazard Crooker Professor of Modern Culture and Media at Brown University. She is a pioneer in the ...

* Elizabeth Cowie *

Jonathan Beller Jonathan Beller is a film theorist, culture critic and Mediology, 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 numero ...

Geoff Andrew Geoff Andrew (born 1954) is a British writer and lecturer on film, and Programmer-at-large at BFI South Bank. After gaining a First in Classics at King's College, Cambridge, he was for some years programmer at London's Electric Cinema in Notting ...

Adrian Martin Adrian Martin (born 1959) is an Australian film and arts critic. He now lives in Malgrat de Mar in Spain. He is Adjunct Associate Professor in Film Culture and Theory at Monash University. His work has appeared in many magazines, journals and n ...

David Kipen David Kipen (born August 14, 1963) is an author, critic, broadcaster, arts administrator, full-time UCLA writing faculty member and nonprofit bilingual lending librarian. His fiction and nonfiction have appeared in ''The New York Times'' , the '' ...

* Mark Cousins

Academic journals

* ''

Cinema Journal The ''Journal of Cinema and Media Studies'' (formerly ''Cinema Journal'' and ''The Journal of the Society of Cinematologists'') is the official academic journal of the Society for Cinema and Media Studies (formerly the Society for Cinema Studies). ...

'' * '' Film Quarterly'' * '' Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television'' * '' Journal of Film and Video'' * ''

Journal of Popular Film & Television ''Journal of Popular Film and Television'' is a quarterly peer-reviewed academic journal published by Routledge, which purchased it from Heldref Publications in 2009. Michael Marsden, who was the dean of the College of Arts & Sciences at Northern ...

'' * '' New Review of Film and Television Studies'' * '' Screen'' * ''

The Velvet Light Trap ''The Velvet Light Trap'' is a peer-reviewed academic journal covering film and media studies. It is edited by graduate students at the University of Wisconsin–Madison and the University of Texas at Austin. Each issue covers critical, theo ...

'' * ''

Television & New Media ''Television & New Media'' is a peer-reviewed academic journal that publishes papers in the field of communication. The journal's editors are Diane Negra (University College Dublin) and Jonathan Corpus Ong (University of Massachusetts at Amherst) ...

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