The “Three Ages” of Cinema Studies and the Age to Come

Abstract

The october 1999 job list prepared by the society for cinema studies has just appeared: fifty-one teaching positions involving film. What does it mean that only ten of these are situated in designated film programs, while thirty-six are hosted by departments of literature, primarily English? It means, among other things, that departments of literature are redefining and deregulating themselves. They may have cautiously welcomed film for a half century but hardly at this scale: fifty-one open positions suggest hundreds of positions permanently in place and thousands of students studying this subject each year. The confidence the humanities shows in this field is shared by most of my students, who are younger than cinema studies and must sense it to be, if not august, at least well established, rather as English seemed when I majored in it and assumed it to be as old as England. However, any census of course catalogs reveals cinema's uncertain location and function from campus to campus, posing questions of general expectations and standards—indeed, putting in question the definition of cinema studies. Evidently universities want to offer film. Bravo! But in what manner and for what purpose? What “qualifies” the hundreds of applicants applying for these fifty-one positions? Where did they gain their expertise or self-confidence?

A Study on MUBI’s Economic and Symbolic Capital as a New Cinephile Space in the Digital Age

“…This process, particularly the new environment that accompanied the events of 1968 and the counterculture era, marked a turning point for cinephilia culture. Under the pressure of new political priorities, film theory rejected the perceived structure of cinephilia in favor of stricter scientific methods, and the study of cinephilia was disrupted (Andrew, 2000).…”

Loaded Canons: Contemporary Film Canons, Film Studies, and Film Discourse

“…The cultural reception politics of a film therefore takes precedence over the film itself. “And so just as the obligatory viewing list of key films and auteurs has proliferated into an unmonitored web of audiovisual artifacts, so intensive readings are discounted by reception studies in favor of accounts of the uses made of films in given situations by given groups of users” says Andrew (347). It is hard (but not impossible) then to see canon formation making a resurgence in Film Studies if the film itself is not evaluated as a singular text.…”

“…In another corner of the ever‐expanding field, however, Andrew sees the steady march away from totalizing “Grand Theory” with calls for “middle‐level research” and “piecemeal theorizing” that hearken a return to the film text as a starting point (Andrew 347; Bordwell and Carroll 27). Such moves seem to signal of a resurgence return of criticism as a beginning means toward modest theorization.…”

Contemporary Australian Film Theory and Criticism

“…These factors, alongside the emerging discourse of university metrics and competitions such as the recent Excellence in Research for Australia (ERA) journal rankings exercise, have seen an unparalleled internationalism in 'Australian' film studies. Part of the 'terrain', as Kouvaros (1997) terms it, is addressed by Dudley Andrew (2000), who sees the present era of film studies marked not only by the legacy of the past, but also by a new 'market economy' of tangible outcomes and ranked publications. For Australians, these final actions to academicise film studies have brought with them the kinds of considered publishing imperatives that Kouvaros saw Australian film studies as being subjected to in 1997.…”