Film, In Theory
The BFI Education Department and Film Culture
Film, In Theory
The BFI Education Department and Film Culture
Description
Film, In Theory offers the first sustained history of the formation of modern film studies in Britain. It balances unpublished archival materials from the BFI archive and interviews with key figures from the era, including Laura Mulvey, Colin MacArthur, Jacqueline Rose, Judith Williamson, and many more, with an approach rooted in cultural and intellectual history to tell the story of the BFI's fresh and invigorating approach to film studies.
The book tells the story of the institute's pioneering education programme, spearheaded by Paddy Whannel. It also details the remarkable work undertaken by Screen journal, including first-hand accounts of the writing and editing of Laura Mulvey's hugely influential essay on visual pleasure and narrative cinema. During this period of cultural and intellectual experimentation, the theoretical borders were open and key figures at the BFI borrowed from a remarkably wide range of sources spanning aesthetics, Marxism, French theory, and the Frankfurt School. Film Studies emerged amidst an artistic and intellectual tide where the films of Jean-Luc Godard, the re-discovery of Hollywood, the structuralism of Claude Lévi-Strauss, the semiology of Roland Barthes, and the politics of the 'New Left' combined and collided to intoxicating effect.
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Table of Contents
1. Before Hollywood: What Was Film Appreciation?
2. Film Culture: The Appointment of Paddy Whannel
3. A Vivid Impulse: The Appointment of Peter Wollen
4. Give Me A Sign: The Cinema One Series
5. Fractures in the Edifice: The Departure of Whannel and Wollen
6. Screen Journal
7. The Afterlives of Film Studies
Bibliography
Index
Product details
| Published | Jan 22 2026 |
|---|---|
| Format | Ebook (Epub & Mobi) |
| Edition | 1st |
| Pages | 176 |
| ISBN | 9781839026348 |
| Imprint | Bloomsbury Academic |
| Illustrations | 26 bw illus |
| Publisher | Bloomsbury Publishing |
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