Since the 1970s film studies has been dominated by a basic paradigm—the concept of classical Hollywood cinema—that is, the protagonist-driven narrative, valued for the way it achieves closure by neatly answering all of the enigmas it raises. It has been held to be a form so powerful that its aesthetic devices reinforce gender positions in society. In a variety of ways, the essays collected here—representing the work of some of the most innovative theorists writing today—challenge this paradigm.
Significantly expanded from a special issue ofSouth Atlantic Quarterly(Spring 1989), these essays confront the extent to which formalism has continued to dominate film theory, reexamine the role of melodrama in cinematic development, revise notions of "patriarchal cinema," and assert the importance of television and video to cinema studies. A range of topics are discussed, from the films of D. W. Griffith to sexuality in avant-garde film to television'sDynasty.
Contributors. Rick Altman, Richard Dienst, Jane Feuer, Jane Gaines, Christine Gledhill, Miriam Hansen, Norman N. Holland, Fredric Jameson, Bill Nichols, Janey Staiger, Chris Straayer, John O. Thompson
US
Jane Gaines is Associate Professor of English and Literature and Director of the Film and Video Program at Duke University. She is the author ofContested Culture: The Image, the Voice, and the Law.
Introduction: The Family Melodrama of Classical Narrative Cinema/ Jane M. Gaines 1
Dickens, Griffith, and Film Theory Today/ Rick Altman 9
Form Wars: The Political Unconscious of Formalist Theory/ Bill Nichols 49
Film Response from Eye to I: The Kuleshov Experiement/ Norman N. Holland 79
Securing the Fictional Narrative as a Tale of the Historical Real: The Return of Martin Guerre/ Janet Staiger 107
Between Melodrama and Realism: Anthony Asquith's Undergroundl£”
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