Film Theory: Rational Reconstructions: Rational Reconstructions - Hardcover

Buckland, Warren

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0415590973 ISBN 13: 9780415590976

Publisher: Routledge, 2012

Synopsis

In Film Theory: Rational Reconstructions, Warren Buckland asks a series of questions about how film theory gets written in the first place:

• How does it select its objects of study and its methods of inquiry?
• How does it make discoveries and explain filmic phenomena? And,
• How does it formulate and solve theoretical problems?

He asks these questions of film theory through a rational reconstruction and a classical commentary. Both frameworks clarify and reformulate vague and inexact expressions, redefine obscure concepts, and examine the underlying logic of film theory arguments. This not only subjects film theory to rigorous examination; it also teaches students how to write theory, by enabling them to question and critically interrogate the logic of previous film theory arguments.

The book consists of nine chapters that closely examine a series of canonical film books and essays in great detail, by Peter Wollen, Laura Mulvey, Thomas Elsaesser, Stephen Heath, and Slavoj Žižek, among others.

About this title

About the Author

Warren Buckland is Reader in Film Studies at Oxford Brookes University, UK. He is a prolific author with several books to his name. He is also the editor of the quarterly journal the New Review of Film and Television Studies (Routledge).

Edition details

• Publisher: Routledge
• Publication date: 2012
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0415590973
• ISBN 13: 9780415590976
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 204