Narrative, Apparatus, Ideology

by Philip Rosen

Smartly selected and organized, the essays in this anthology introduce several central issues in film theory, namely, the classical narrative text, oppositional and avant-garde cinema, subject positioning, the cinematic apparatus, and ideology. Written by seminal scholars, including Christian Metz, Jean-Louis Baudry, Stephen Heath, Peter Wollen, Laura Mulvey, and Noël Burch, as well as such leading thinkers as Roland Barthes, Julia Kristeva, and Jean-François Lyotard, these works utilize a number of approaches in their analyses, particularly structuralism, poststructuralism, psychoanalysis, feminism, neoformalism, Marxism, and semiotics. Divided into sections, the anthology features introductions to each group of essays outlining the major assumptions, ideas, and arguments of the articles and situating them within the history of film theory, narrative analysis, and social and cultural theory.

Genres: Film, Nonfiction, College

549 pages, Paperback

First published October 15, 1986

Reviews

[Grace Burns · Rating 5 out of 5]

“Ultimately, the meaning of woman is sexual difference, the absence of the penis as visually ascertainable, the material evidence on which is based the castration complex essential for the organization of entrance to the symbolic order and the law of the father. Thus the woman as icon, displayed for the gaze and enjoyment o;f men, the active controllers of the look, always threatens to evoke the anxiety ti originally signified. “

“The presence of woman is an indispensable element of spectacle in normal narrative film, yet her visual presence tends to work against the development ofa story line, to freeze the flow of action in moments of erotic contemplation. This alien presence then has to be integratedinto cohesion with the narrative. “

“An active/passive heterosexual division of labor has similarly controlled narrative structure. According to the princip es of the ruling ideology and the physical structures that back ti up, the male figure cannot bear the burden of coalesce; she isn o longer the bearer of guilt but a perfect product, whose body, stylized and fragmented by closeups, is the content of the film and the direct recipient of the spectator's look.”

[William West]

While the era of apparatus theory has come and gone, and while there were clearly short comings in its apprach, I think this general line of thinkng has been unduly maligned and I thing can still speak to many issues in media theory.

[Ryan Akagi · Rating 2 out of 5]

I had to read one chapter for a presentation and it made me want to kill myself. How is it possible that I have to spend two fucking hours on one page in order to understand anything that's being written? I usually dont have any issues with complex texts as I regularly read them for my degree but this one is beyond horrible. That one particular chapter about a movie analysis i had to read is utter shit. I am honestly more mad at my teacher for picking that chapter than at the guy who wrote it.

[Derek Baldwin · Rating 4 out of 5]

Collection of film theory essays from a variety of perspectives. My personal favourite is Laura Mulvey's "The Gaze" - a real classic. (I may have misremembered the title!)