Film Theory An Introduction through the Senses [Hardcover]

What is the relationship between cinema and spectator? This is the key question for film theory, and one that Thomas Elsaesser and Malte Hagener put at the center of their insightful and engaging book, now revised from its popular first edition. Every kind of cinema (and every film theory) first imagines an ideal spectator, and then maps certain dynamic interactions between the screen and the spectators mind, body and senses. Using seven distinctive configurations of spectator and screen that move progressively from exterior to interior relationships, the authors retrace the most important stages of film theory from its beginnings to the presentfrom neo-realist and modernist theories to psychoanalytic, apparatus, phenomenological and cognitivist theories, and including recent cross-overs with philosophy and neurology.

This new and updated edition of Film Theory: An Introduction through the Senses has been extensively revised and rewritten throughout, incorporating discussion of contemporary films like Her and Gravity, and including a greatly expanded final chapter, which brings film theory fully into the digital age.

Introduction: Film Theory, Cinema, the Body and the Senses  1. Cinema as Window and Frame  2. Cinema as Door  Screen and Threshold  3. Cinema as Mirror  Face and Close-Up  4. Cinema as Eye  Look and Gaze  5. Cinema as Skin  Body and Touch  6. Cinema as Ear  Acoustic and Space  7. Cinema as Brain  Mind and Body  8. Digital Cinema and Film Theory  Challenge or Confirmation?

Thomas Elsaesseris Professor Emeritus of Film and Television Studies at the University of Amsterdam and since 2012 Visiting Professor at Columbia University. His recent books include: Weimar Cinema and After(Routledge, 2000); Metropolis(BFI, 2000)l“,