Film Theories

Film Theory
1. AUTEUR FILM THEORY

What is Auteur Film Theory?
● Auteur theory is one of the most discussed types of film theory in both classical and modern
cinema.
● The term “Auteur” in French simply means “author.”
● According to Auteur theory, a film’s criticisms are based upon its director or producer. As well as
sometimes other dominant figures involved in the production. Such as stars from past movies or
shows.
● Auteur film theory is one of the most largely-accepted forms of film theory.
● And seeks to understand a film based on underlying themes and elements commonly associated
with the director.
● This is because this type of film theory focuses on how the director of a film (especially when the
director also writers and occasionally stars in said film) feels the “author” of the film itself.
History
● Even before auteur theory, the director was considered the most important influence on a film.
In Germany, an early film theorist, Walter Julius Bloem, explained that since filmmaking is an art
geared toward popular culture, a film's immediate influence, the director, is viewed as the artist,
whereas an earlier contributor, like the screenwriter, is viewed as an apprentice. James Agee, a
leading film critic of the 1940s, said that "the best films are personal ones, made by forceful
directors". Meanwhile, the French film critics André Bazin and Roger Leenhardt described that
directors, vitalizing films, depict the directors' own worldviews and impressions of the subject
matter, as by varying lighting, camerawork, staging, editing, and so on.
● A film is treated as artwork while the auteur, as its creator, is the original copyright holder,a film
director is considered the film's author or one of its authors.
2. FEMINIST FILM THEORY
What is Feminist Film theory?
● Feminist theory is the extension of feminism into theoretical, fictional, or philosophical
discourse. It aims to understand the nature of gender inequality. It examines women's and men's
social roles, experiences, interests, chores, and feminist politics in a variety of fields.
● Feminist theory often focuses on analyzing gender inequality. Themes often explored in
feminist theory include discrimination, objectification (especially sexual objectification),
oppression, patriarchy, stereotyping, art history and contemporary art, and aesthetics.
● Feminist film theory of the last twenty years is heavily influenced by the general transformation
in the field of aesthetics, including the new options of articulating the gaze, and more female
oriented films have come up.
History
● The development of feminist film theory was influenced by second wave feminism and women's
studies in the 1960s and 1970s.Initially in the United States in the early 1970s feminist film
theory was generally based on sociological theory and focused on the function of female
characters in film narratives or genres.
● Feminist film theory, analyze the ways in which women are portrayed in film, and how this
relates to a broader historical context. Additionally, feminist critiques also examine common
stereotypes depicted in film, the extent to which the women were shown as active or passive,
and the amount of screen time given to women.
● Many feminist film critics, such as Laura Mulvey, have pointed to the "male gaze" that
predominates in classical film making
3. QUEER FILM THEORY
What is Queer Film Theory?
● According to queer theory, films can be studied based on a variety of underlying concepts in
gender and sexual practice largely dominated by the LGBTQ community.
● Moreover, queer theory examines the role of gender and sexual practice in the production of
and creative outcomes of a film.
● Queer film theory also referred to as “new queer cinema” or “queer new wave,” queer film
theory explores how sexual orientation and gender identity have been perceived and portrayed
in cinema over the years. It also strives to produce more diversity and inclusivity in modern
filmmaking.
History
● Queer theory is a field of critical theory that emerged in the early 1990s
● Informal use of the term "queer theory" began with Gloria Anzaldúa and other scholars in the
1990s, themselves influenced by the work of French post-structuralist philosopher Michel
Foucault, who viewed sexuality as socially constructed and rejected identity politics.
● Teresa de Lauretis organized the first queer theory conference in 1990; in the early 1990s, the
term started to become legitimized in academia.
● Definition of queerness does not have a fixed reference point, They suggest that ‘queer’ as a
term should never be ‘fully owned, but always and only redeployed, twisted, queered from a
prior usage and in the direction of urgent and expanding political purposes’.
● The flexibility allows for the constant readjustment of queer theory to accommodate the
experiences of people who face marginalisation and discrimination on account of their sexuality
and gender
Queer theory in films
● Queer theory is the lens used to explore and challenge how scholars, activists, artistic texts, and
the media perpetrate gender- and sex-based binaries, and its goal is to undo hierarchies and
fight against social inequalities. Due to controversy about the definition of queer, including
whether the word should even be defined at all or should be left deliberately open-ended, there
are many disagreements and often contradictions within queer theory. In fact, some queer
theorists, like Berlant and Warner and Butler, have warned that defining it or conceptualizing it
as an academic field might only lead to its inevitable misinterpretation or destruction, since its
entire purpose is to critique academia rather than become a formal academic domain itself.
● Fundamentally, queer theory does not construct or defend any particular identity, but instead,
grounded in post-structuralism and deconstruction, it works to actively critique
heteronormativity, exposing and breaking down traditional assumptions that sexual and gender
identities are presumed to be heterosexual or cisgender.
4. LINGUISTIC FILM THEORY
What is Linguistic Film Theory?
● Linguistic film theory is a form of film theory that studies the aesthetics of films by investigating
the concepts and practices that comprise the experience and interpretation of movies.
● Film theorists which study the role of dialogue and the impact that the philosophical study of
dialogue has on filmmaking and film production are represented by the linguistic film theory
approach.
● The techniques and effects of film often have been referred to as the "language of film."
● The theoretical evidence for linguistics of film is controversial but growing in acceptance and
maturity of the concept.
Founder of Linguistic film theory
● Linguistic film theory was proposed by Stanley Cavell and it is based on the philosophical
tradition begun by late Ludwig Wittgenstein. The theory itself is said to mirror aspects of the
activity of Wittgenstein's own philosophising (e.g. Wittgenstein's thought experiments) as films
are viewed capable of engaging the audience in a therapeutic process of 'dialogue' and even
investigate the absurd and the limits of thought.Cavell's framework is seen as a distinctive way
of approaching film and philosophy since question of style - the finding of words adequate to
our aesthetic experience - is central to the understanding of the meaning of films.[3] One of his
ideas involved the position that "if one thinks of a grammar as a machine for generating
sentences, then perhaps one will wish to speak of the camera and its film as a machine for
generating idioms."
Film Language
● The correctness of “film language” concept as the most common designation of specific
cinematographic techniques is questioned since it caused the formation of typical audience
responses to a film. The main approaches of the film theory focus on an analogies search
between cinema and language. Possible directions of film theory movement beyond language
analogies are outlined. It is proposed to note the film techniques that in principle do not have
the designation function. The thesis on changing the typical audience viewing responses from
an interpretive “understanding” to a sensual “encounter” is proposed for further discussion. It is
necessary to continue the theoretical work which refuses linguistic analogies and interpretive
position of theorist and viewer and makes movement towards a conversation on the
autonomous existence mode of cinematography possible.

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Film Theory

1. AUTEUR FILM THEORY

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