Film: The Key Concepts

Description

Film: The Key Concepts presents a coherent, clear and exciting overview of film theory for beginning readers. The book takes the reader through the often conflicting analyses which make up film theory, illustrating arguments with examples from mainstream and independent films. Concise and comprehensive, the book guides the reader through realism, formalism, structuralism, semiotics, Marxism, psychoanalysis, feminism, cognitivism, post-colonialism, postmodernism, gender and queer film theory, stardom and film audience research. The book as a whole provides a complete overview of the evolution of film theory. Throughout, the analysis is illustrated with lively boxed studies of key mainstream and independent films. Bulleted chapter summaries, questions and guides to further reading are also provided.

Nitzan Ben-Shaul is Senior Lecturer at the Film and Television Department in Tel Aviv University. He is the author of Mythical Expressions of Siege in Israeli Films, Introduction to Film Theories and A Violent World: Competing Images of Middle East Conflicts.

'An admirably clear and rigorous guide to the conceptual frameworks that have informed and influenced developments in film theory and film-making from Jean Epstein to Donna Haraway. Thoughtful and thought-provoking, it is also eminently readable and recommended for anyone interested in the intellectual history of cinema.' Pam Cook, author of The Cinema Book