film theory

Question 1

Mary Ann Doane’s 3 types of space

Answer 1

diegesis: sound within the interior world of the film; non-diegetic: visible screen space but exterior to film world; acoustical space of the viewer

Question 2

Andrew Sarris’ auteur theory of the 1960s

Answer 2

director has a personality or signature, and films have an internal meaning developed between director and material

Question 3

Adorno and Horkheimer’s culture industry

Answer 3

products of culture economy appear to be artwork but are the driven by profit interests as the commodification of culture/human consciousness

Question 4

Marshall McLuhan’s notion of medium

Answer 4

the medium is the message, meaning that the medium is just as powerful as the message in shaping how the text is received

Question 5

Stuart Hall’s notion of encoding and decoding

Answer 5

traditional model of sender/message/receiver is no longer sufficient to understand how audience is an active ideological participant in text’s meaning

Question 6

Laura Mulvey’s notion of the male gaze

Answer 6

the patriarchal subconscious influences how we consume film as active male viewer and passive female actor

Question 7

Susan Sontag’s against interpretation

Answer 7

replaces content analysis (dulled by the mass production of modernity) with formalist analysis (more focused on visual composition, style, and aesthetics)