Leo Enticknap wrote: >Barry Salt had it just right in his opening chapters to 'Film Style and Technology: History and Analysis' (one of the most valuable, if not the most valuable work of film-related scholarship ever produced, IMHO) in pointing out that a lot of the conclusions that these methodologies produce are fundamentally undermined by empirical historical research based on hard evidence. OK, history and historiography may be harder work - you actually have to go and find things out, rather than sit in an office armchair dreaming up polysyllabic jargon. But personally I find that our understanding of cinema is informed more effectively by analysis of hard information regarding a film's production and reception than speculation as to what Freud thinks happened to the director's mother or a pathological urge to bring down the bourgeois elite. Quite so. I can't help sending along my comment to a couple of friends (Bill Krohn of 'Cahiers du Cinema', and Dr Tag Gallagher) when I sent them a copy of Weddle's article yesterday: >seriously, for me this confirms schop's point about the difference between percepts (checkable) and concepts (not so, except against other concepts), and the vital necessity of 'looking to see' >conceptualisers can just go on and on (like brannigan lecturing), without ever touching base in checkable, verifiable reality >krohn, of course, [in 'Hitchcock au travail'/'Hitchcock at Work'] exemplifies the checker par excellence (I don't mind flattering my friends, though that's mainly when, as here, I believe that what I say is true!) - Ken Mogg (Ed., 'The MacGuffin'). Website: http://www.labyrinth.net.au/~muffin ---- Online resources for film/TV studies may be found at ScreenSite http://www.ScreenSite.org