Editing Film theory (section)

=== Later theory, after 1945 ===
In the years after [[World War II]], the French film critic and theorist [[André Bazin]] argued that film's essence lay in its ability to mechanically reproduce reality, not in its difference from reality.<ref>[[André Bazin]], ''What is Cinema?'' essays selected and translated by Hugh Gray, Berkeley: University of California Press, 1971.</ref> This had followed the rise of ''[[poetic realism]]'' in French cinema in the 1930s.{{Sfn|McDonald|2016|p=45}} He believed that the purpose of art is to preserve reality, even famously claiming that "The photographic image is the object itself".{{Sfn|McDonald|2016|p=46}} Based on this, he advocated for the use of [[long take]]s and [[deep focus]], to reveal the ''structural depth'' of reality and finding meaning objectively in images.{{Sfn|McDonald|2016|p=47}} This was soon followed by the rise of [[Italian neorealism]].{{Sfn|McDonald|2016|p=47}} [[Siegfried Kracauer]] was also notable for arguing that [[Realism (arts)|realism]] is the most important function of cinema.<ref>[[Dudley Andrew]], ''The Major Film Theories: An Introduction'', Oxford, New York: Oxford University Press, 1976, Part II.</ref>

The [[Auteur]] theory derived from the approach of critic and filmmaker [[Alexandre Astruc]], among others, and was originally developed in articles in ''[[Cahiers du Cinéma]]'', a film journal that had been co-founded by Bazin.<ref name="Britannica">{{cite web |date=n.d. |title=Auteur theory |url=https://www.britannica.com/art/auteur-theory |website=[[Encyclopædia Britannica]]}}</ref> [[François Truffaut]] issued auteurism's manifestos in two ''Cahiers'' essays: "Une certaine tendance du cinéma français" (January 1954) and "Ali Baba et la 'Politique des auteurs'" (February 1955).<ref name="auteurism">{{Cite web |date=2020-02-11 |title=Evolution of the Auteur Theory |url=https://tvcrit.org/Classes/Jbutler/T440/AuteurTheory.php |access-date=2022-05-31 |website=The University of Alabama}}</ref> His approach was brought to American criticism by [[Andrew Sarris]] in 1962.<ref>{{cite journal |last=Sarris |first=Andrew |author-link=Andrew Sarris |date=Winter 1962–1963 |title=Notes on the Auteur Theory in 1962 |url=https://dramaandfilm.qwriting.qc.cuny.edu/files/2011/06/Sarris-Notes-on-the-Auteur-Theory.pdf |journal=Film Culture |volume=27 |pages=1–8 |access-date=2022-05-31 |archive-date=2020-07-26 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200726115912/https://dramaandfilm.qwriting.qc.cuny.edu/files/2011/06/Sarris-Notes-on-the-Auteur-Theory.pdf |url-status=dead }}</ref> The auteur theory was based on films depicting the directors' own worldviews and impressions of the subject matter, by varying lighting, camerawork, staging, editing, and so on.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Thompson |first=Kristin |url=https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/294064466 |title=Film history : an introduction |date=2010 |publisher=McGraw-Hill Higher Education |others=David Bordwell |isbn=978-0-07-338613-3 |edition=3rd |location=New York, NY |pages=381–383 |oclc=294064466}}</ref> [[Georges Sadoul]] deemed a film's putative "author" potentially even an actor, but a film indeed collaborative.<ref>{{Cite book |last1=Sadoul |first1=Georges |last2=Morris |first2=Peter |title=Dictionary of Film Makers |year=1972 |publisher=University of California Press |isbn=978-0-520-02151-8 |url=https://archive.org/details/dictionaryoffilm00sado_1}}</ref>{{page needed|date=March 2023}} [[Aljean Harmetz]] cited major control even by film executives.<ref name=":3">Aljean Harmetz, ''Round up the Usual Suspects'', p. 29.</ref> [[David Kipen]]'s view of screenwriter as indeed main author is termed ''[[Schreiber theory]]''.

In the 1960s and 1970s, film theory took up residence in academia importing concepts from established disciplines like [[psychoanalysis]], [[gender studies]], [[anthropology]], [[literary theory]], [[semiotics]] and [[linguistics]]{{--}}as advanced by scholars such as [[Christian Metz (theorist)|Christian Metz]].<ref name="Metz">{{Cite book |last=Metz |first=Christian |url=https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/840504588 |title=Language and cinema |date=1974 |publisher=Mouton |isbn=978-3-11-081604-4 |location=The Hague |oclc=840504588}}</ref> However, not until the late 1980s or early 1990s did film theory ''per se'' achieve much prominence in American universities by displacing the prevailing humanistic, [[auteur theory]] that had dominated cinema studies and which had been focused on the practical elements of film writing, production, editing and criticism.<ref name="Weddle">Weddle, David. "[https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2003-jul-13-tm-filmschool28-story.html Lights, Camera, Action. Marxism, Semiotics, Narratology: Film School Isn't What It Used to Be, One Father Discovers]." ''Los Angeles Times'', July 13, 2003; URL retrieved 22 Jan 2011.</ref> American scholar [[David Bordwell]] has spoken against many prominent developments in film theory since the 1970s. He uses the derogatory term "SLAB theory" to refer to [[film studies]] based on the ideas of [[Ferdinand de Saussure]], [[Jacques Lacan]], [[Louis Althusser]], and [[Roland Barthes]].<ref name="SLAB">{{Cite journal |last=Quart |first=Alissa |date=2000 |title=David Bordwell Blows the Whistle on Film Studies |url=http://www.davidbordwell.net/articles/Bordwell_Lingua%20franca_vol10_no2_March2000_34.pdf |journal=Lingua Franca |volume=10 |issue=2 |pages=35–43}}</ref> Instead, Bordwell promotes what he describes as "[[Neoformalism (film theory)|neoformalism]]" (a revival of [[formalist film theory]]).

During the 1990s the digital revolution in image technologies has influenced film theory in various ways. There has been a refocus onto celluloid film's ability to capture an "indexical" image of a moment in time by theorists like [[Mary Ann Doane]], Philip Rosen and [[Laura Mulvey]] who was informed by psychoanalysis. From a psychoanalytical perspective, after the Lacanian notion of "the Real", [[Slavoj Žižek]] offered new aspects of "the [[gaze]]" extensively used in contemporary film analysis.<ref>[[Slavoj Žižek]], ''Welcome to the Desert of the Real'', London: Verso, 2000.</ref> From the 1990s onward the Matrixial theory of artist and psychoanalyst [[Bracha L. Ettinger]]<ref>Bracha L. Ettinger, ''The Matrixial Borderspace'', University of Minnesota Press, 2006</ref> revolutionized [[feminist film theory]].<ref>Nicholas Chare, ''Sportswomen in Cinema: Film and the Frailty Myth''. Leeds: I.B.Tauris 2015.</ref><ref>James Batcho, ''Terrence Malick's Unseeing Cinema. Memory, Time and Audibility''. Palgrave Macmillan.</ref> Her concept [[The Matrixial Gaze]],<ref>Bracha L. Ettinger, ''The Matrixial Gaze''. Published by Leeds University, 1995. Reprinted in: ''Drawing Papers'', nº 24, 2001.</ref> that has established a feminine gaze and has articulated its differences from the phallic gaze and its relation to feminine as well as maternal specificities and potentialities of "coemergence", offering a critique of [[Sigmund Freud]]'s and [[Jacques Lacan]]'s psychoanalysis, is extensively used in analysis of films<ref>[[Griselda Pollock]], ''After-effects – After-images''. Manchester University Press, 2013</ref><ref>[[Maggie Humm]], Feminism and Film''. Edinburgh University Press, 1997''</ref> by female authors, like [[Chantal Akerman]],<ref>Lucia Nagib and Anne Jerslev (ends.), ''Impure Cinema''. London: I.B.Tauris.</ref> as well as by male authors, like [[Pedro Almodovar]].<ref>Julian Daniel Gutierrez-Arbilla, ''Aesthetics, Ethics and Trauma in the Cinema of [[Pedro Almodovar]]''. Edinburgh University Press, 2017</ref> The matrixial gaze offers the female the position of a subject, not of an object, of the gaze, while deconstructing the structure of the subject itself, and offers border-time, border-space and a possibility for compassion and witnessing. Ettinger's notions articulate the links between aesthetics, ethics and trauma.<ref>Griselda Pollock, ''Encounters in the Virtual Feminist Museum: Time, Space and the Archive''. Rutledge, 2007.</ref> There has also been a historical revisiting of early cinema screenings, practices and spectatorship modes by writers Tom Gunning, [[Miriam Hansen]] and Yuri Tsivian.

In ''Critical Cinema: Beyond the Theory of Practice'' (2011), Clive Meyer suggests that 'cinema is a different experience to watching a film at home or in an art gallery', and argues for film theorists to re-engage the specificity of philosophical concepts for cinema as a medium distinct from others.<ref>{{Citation | title= Critical Cinema: Beyond the Theory of Practice | first= Timothy | last= Laurie | journal=Media International Australia | volume= 147 | page= 171 | year= 2013 | doi= 10.1177/1329878X1314700134 | s2cid= 149797284 | url= https://www.academia.edu/2763909}}</ref>