Favorite movie theorist

Who is your favorite movie theorist and your favorite work of his. Im talking people like andré bazin or koulechov or eisenstein and others.

Straub-Huillet (Writings)
Ruiz (the site with his translated diaries)
Godard (various videos)
Everyone in the russian school

what is a movie theorist?

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My own work:

www.thecinematicm.wordpress.com

I was initially inspired by the Soviet Schools, but then diverged when I thought of cinema as an algebraic equation. Out of that I started working on creating various projects: creating a cinematic notation, pushing montage to extremes (montage within montage within montage, etc.), borrowing concepts from other disciplines, (language, philosophy, math and science, etc.) and finding not "narrative" equivalents but "aesthetical" ones more based within the mise-en-scene/edit and their counter-balancing dynamics. I was also a huge fan of concepts of infinity. Again, not narratively speaking of course, that to me was a bit too... "done." But more in line with infinity in audio-visual mise-en-scene and edit itself...

... The only reason why I didn't keep it up as I did years ago was I suffered madness and I was in and out of mental hospitals... really took a toll on me... but the work is still there, fresh, and interesting if you wish to check it out... I hope to get back to where I left off years ago. I wanted to make film more of a science than anything else. I wasn't satisfied with people blindly claiming: "This aesthetic works because..." without a ********* proof of it. What I loved about the Soviets was the Kuleshov Workshops, they really tried to "prove" aesthetically what was working and what wasn't... and I think it lead to better cinema and certainly greater progress in understanding this language called "cinema." I really want to get into a space where I'm doing this again and can go into film educationally. I want to be a "film scientist/artist." Not some sleazy-ass film maker going into the "game" of it all to make a buck. My only interest is to expand the language, and provide proof via experimentation and a scientific method. That would make me very happy...

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Imagine an eye unruled by man-made laws of perspective, an eye unprejudiced by compositional logic, an eye which does not respond to the name of everything but which must know each object encountered in life through an adventure of perception. How many colors are there in a field of grass to the crawling baby unaware of 'Green'?

-Stan Brakhage

It is someone who share his thoughts on movies. He will also answer questions. For example, André Bazin though that cinéma was realism and the best at it were the neo-realist directors.And because those directors used a lot of long shot, Mr Bazin though long shots were the most realistic types of shot (the less you cut, the closer you are to achieve <<human look>>) but it was later contested. For example, Walter Murch say that our vision do not cut but is still fragmented. So for him, long shots aren't the most realistic type of shots. This is an example among so many other.

So everyone on this website is a movie theorist?

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I’m here only on Mondays, Wednesdays & Fridays. That’s why I’m here now.

Not me. I have theories about physics and cosmology. I go to movies for enjoyment. I'm sure that directors, writers and producers have something that might count as a theory, but to me, it's a style. Theory is as irrelevant to movies as recipes on how to make tasty cabbage.

Can anyone recommend any books? I have one somewhere around here. If I find it, I'll post it.. (and maybe one day, I'll actually read it!)

I think you're confused about the meaning of "theory" in this context

I don't think I am. I know what a theory is and a movie style isn't one of them.

Film theory =/= an individual interpretation of what a certain movie means/says

On the other hand, style is an inherent facet in a few major theories of cinema.

Who needs a theory of what a movie is about? If a theory IS needed, then the movie didn't communicate very well.

Movie theories seem like something made up for a university course that needs to justify its funding.

I literally just said that this specifically isn't what film theory is. "Theory" doesn't deal with individual films or their meanings/lore/analyses.

This can be said about virtually any university course of study. It's a non-statement.

Yeah, "film theory" here means thinking about how and why cinema as a whole works as an art form. Just because it's been overtaken by people to refer to singular interpretations of different films doesn't change that.

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Iro's Top 100 Movies v3.0

That's what I mean about the university thing. If you need to have a theory about why movies work, then they don't. In most actual sciences, a theory is less about somebody expounding on something and much more about a body of knowledge that is all but absolutely proven, like the Cell Theory or the Theory of Relativity.

If I go to a movie and I need a long explanation about why it's a good movie or how I should analyze it, then, that would imply that it does NOT communicate its story clearly. I try to view all movies knowing as little as I can, aside from a couple sentences summarizing the plot so I can pick one from another, specifically because I don't want to go in, knowing what it's about or how a critic thinks I should see it. A one minute trailer is my favorite intro. If I come out thinking that I need to read up on this to see what somebody else thinks it means, and if they have a starkly different view from me, then I probably won't think that it's a favorite.

This is what film theory, literary theory, and art theory all are....

Amazingly, you are still stuck on the idea that theory focuses on individual films, or that its the product of criticism. At this point i just hope you're trolling.

Not really. I'm thinking about how a theory is an embracing concept that should apply to an individual film, which would follow the rules or principles of the theory, kind of like how the freezing temperature of water changes with atmospheric pressure. If it doesn't have some application that goes from the general to the individual, then it's not much of a theory.

I'd be curious to hear what you would think of as elements of a theory of movies.

The general is the theory, the individual is criticism.

Serious question: are you a child?

Eh... maybe this will help bridge the gap:
Music theory is the historical context and mathematical structure of music. This includes measurable chord structures (one, three, five, seventh, ninth, and all the variations between), the division of time and rhythm (whole notes, half, quarter, eight, triplets, etc.), structured chord progressions (some styles of music fall into more genre-specific chord progressions like rock and roll or blues vs. classical), dynamics, instrumentation, composition, and on and on the academic world goes graphing out rules and observed practices to make sense of what works, what doesn't and why. Then there's the individual criticism on specific works that can (or cannot) use those theories as measurements of success, or at least of evaluation. Sure. It's academic. But, like Miranda Priestly in The Devil Wears Prada said of Andrea Sach's indifference to the two shades of blue when selecting a belt for a fashion shoot:

This “stuff”? Oh, okay. I see. You think this has nothing to do with you.

You go to your closet and you select out, oh I don’t know, that lumpy blue sweater, for instance, because you’re trying to tell the world that you take yourself too seriously to care about what you put on your back. But what you don’t know is that that sweater is not just blue, it’s not turquoise, it’s not lapis, it’s actually cerulean.

You’re also blithely unaware of the fact that in 2002, Oscar de la Renta did a collection of cerulean gowns. And then I think it was Yves St Laurent, wasn’t it, who showed cerulean military jackets? And then cerulean quickly showed up in the collections of eight different designers. Then it filtered down through the department stores and then trickled on down into some tragic “casual corner” where you, no doubt, fished it out of some clearance bin. However, that blue represents millions of dollars and countless jobs and so it’s sort of comical how you think that you’ve made a choice that exempts you from the fashion industry when, in fact, you’re wearing the sweater that was selected for you by the people in this room. From a pile of “stuff.”

My guess is, the topic here is similar to music theory in some of that.

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I'm a fan of Andre Bazin too, I don't necessarily agree with everything that he says but it's always fascinating and he has great in-depth knowledge of the history of cinema. I would say I've moved more away from realism towards an interest in formalism.

Jean-Luc Godard I find fascinating too and love listening too, reading, watching his work which you could make an argument for all being relating to film theory. Anything from the old Cahiers du Cinema I normally find to be of some value, Truffaut's conversations with Hitchcock are great.

Beyond that I don't have too much to add, I find most modern critics are uninteresting bar a handful. I like Jonathan Rosenbaum and Michael J. Anderson who although not necessarily theorists themselves, have a rich knowledge of history and relate their own analysis to film history and theory.

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