"Building upon the wide range of selections and the extensive historical coverage that marked previous editions, this new compilation stretches from the earliest attempts to define the cinema to the most recent efforts to place film in the contexts of psychology, sociology, and philosophy, and to explore issues of gender and race. Reorganized into eight sections - each comprising the major fields of critical controversy and analysis - this new edition features reformulated introductions and biographical headnotes that contextualize the readings, making the text more accessible than ever to students, film enthusiasts, and general readers alike. The seventh edition also integrates exciting new material on feminist theory, queer cinema, and global cinema, as well as a new section, "Digitization and Globalization," which engages important recent developments in technology and world cinema.".

These two volumes examine a significant but previously neglected moment in French cultural history: the emergence of French film theory and criticism before the essays of André Bazin. Richard Abel has devised an organizational scheme of six nearly symmetrical periods that serve to "bite into" the discursive flow of early French writing on the cinema. Each of the periods is discussed in a separate and extensive historical introduction, with convincing explications of the various concepts current at the time. In each instance, Abel goes on to provide a complementary anthology of selected texts in translation. Amounting to a portable archive, these anthologies make available a rich selection of nearly one hundred and fifty important texts, most of them never before published in English.

Critical Visions in Film Theory is a new book for a new generation, embracing groundbreaking approaches in the field without ignoring the history of classical film theory. The study of film theory has changed dramatically over the past 30 years with innovative ways of looking at classic debates in areas like film form, genre, and authorship, as well as exciting new conversations on such topics as race, gender and sexuality, and new media. Until now, no film theory anthology has stepped forward to represent this broader, more inclusive perspective. Critical Visions also provides the best guidance for students, giving them the context and the tools they need to critically engage with theory and apply it to their film experiences.

The first part of a planned three-volume work devoted to mapping the transnational history of Australian film studies, Australian Film Theory and Criticism, Volume 1 provides an overview of the period between 1975 and 1990, during which the discipline first became established in the academy, tracing critical positions and personnel.

Brought up to date with an expanded range of selections, extended historical coverage, and a dedicated pluralistic commitment, the third edition of this highly popular text on film aesthetics features major additions of contemporary topics in film theory--including psychoanalytic, feminist, and Marxist approaches--and new essays on television, horror films, and experimental movie making. Of the 53 selections, 13 are new. The section "Kinds of Film" has been retitled "Film Genres" and concentrates exclusively on the distinctions within a single type of film: classical Hollywood narrative cinema. The final section, now called "Film: Psychology, Society, and Ideology" is substantially revised to take into account film's relationship to its consumers: how films shape or reflect cultural attitudes, reinforce or reject dominant modes of cultural thinking, and stimulate or frustrate people's needs and drives. Throughout the book chapter introductions have been rewritten to reflect today's concerns. Current and comprehensive, the book that The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism called "the best collection available on the disparate comments in the fields of film theory and criticism" is now even better.