(1921), and Ricciotto Canudo’s (1911) an experimental The Birth of the Sixth Art prose style that owes more to contemporary modernisms than to the realist epistemology of, say, linguistic or semiotic modes of film interpretation and critique. Though Balázs cites comparative linguistics as a possible model for a of ‘gesturology’ screen performance (p. 97), his own writing only begins to emulate that discipline’s realist idiom in the formal grammar that he attempts in his 1930 Spirit of Film. Visible by contrast, is notable for, among other features, its stylistic borrowings from Man, Expressionism, including second-person address (the we come in?’ of the ‘May prologue) and a mood or voice that is typically declarative, exclamatory, interrogative or even imperative, as in the have to tell you you must’ of his opening demand to ‘I … aestheticians that film be accorded chapter in the great aesthetic systems’ (p. 3). ‘a … In his influential theorization of the relation between film criticism or theory and the screen image, Christian Metz notes broadly projective character of the ‘the relation the cinema writer often maintains to his [sic] object’. Recognizing the generative function of film criticism its productive capacity in relation to cinematic – meaning and affect Metz famously dubs film writing cinema’s third machine’: – ‘the an engine of textual production, then, that is fuelled by the desire of the critic to maintain a object relation’ with the medium of film. In Metz’s Lacanian ‘good account, the cinema figures as a of the imaginary the definitive imprint ‘technique … of a stage before the Oedipus complex [and of] the exclusive relation to the mother’. What he calls cinematic writing is based in an initial move on the critic ‘idealisation’: falls in love with the film, and produces writing that, in its crudest form, subsists in discourse only as fantasy, uninterpreted dream’. The move into film theory ‘an proper, however, demands an Oedipal separation from this maternal imaginary; thus the film writer must follow the Law of the Father by the beneficial image’, ‘break[ing]
(1921), and Ricciotto Canudo’s The Birth of the Sixth Art (1911) an experimental prose style that owes more to contemporary modernisms than to the realist epistemology of, say, linguistic or semiotic modes of film interpretation and critique. Though Balázs cites comparative linguistics as a possible model for a ‘gesturology’ of screen performance (p. 97), his own writing only begins to emulate that discipline’s realist idiom in the formal grammar that he attempts in his 1930 Spirit of Film. Visible Man, by contrast, is notable for, among other features, its stylistic borrowings from Expressionism, including second-person address (the ‘May we come in?’ of the prologue) and a mood or voice that is typically declarative, exclamatory, interrogative or even imperative, as in the ‘I have to tell you … you must’ of his opening demand to aestheticians that film be accorded ‘a chapter … in the great aesthetic systems’ (p. 3). In his influential theorization of the relation between film criticism or theory and the screen image, Christian Metz notes ‘the broadly projective character of the relation the cinema writer often maintains to his [sic] object’. Recognizing the generative function of film criticism – its productive capacity in relation to cinematic meaning and affect – Metz famously dubs film writing ‘the cinema’s third machine’: an engine of textual production, then, that is fuelled by the desire of the critic to maintain a ‘good object relation’ with the medium of film. In Metz’s Lacanian account, the cinema figures as a ‘technique of the imaginary … the definitive imprint of a stage before the Oedipus complex [and of] the exclusive relation to the mother’. What he calls cinematic writing is based in an initial move on ‘idealisation’: the critic falls in love with the film, and produces writing that, in its crudest form, subsists in discourse only as fantasy, ‘an uninterpreted dream’. The move into film theory proper, however, demands an Oedipal separation from this maternal imaginary; thus the film writer must follow the Law of the Father by ‘break[ing] the beneficial image’,
Screen_dossier_final_EC.docx