RE: film studies born out of literary studies
 
Thanks to Mike Frank for being frank about his bio.  Clearly you do have a
textual bias, as I do, as many of us do, based on the political power of
English/Lit Departments, in the development of film studies and theory.
Teaching film now in a theater dept., after receiving my PhD (and beginning my
teaching) in an English/Comp. Lit. dept., I see many theater scholars trying to
save their discipline by avoiding the ties to film and TV.  English departments
are not so threatened (the job market there is even starting to improve),
because of all those required composition courses (which I taught, too).  So,
the politics of big English and fragile theater (and other fine arts) programs
has ironically led to film being justified and taught as an "art" through
literature studies and semiotic theory, mostly.
 
Now I do use semiotic theory, especially Julia Kristeva's psychoanalytic version
of it, to analyze film and theater.  I also teach courses that compare text
(drama and novels) to film/video.  (I won't enter that debate here.)  But I also
feel that semiotic views of film and theater as "text" tend to project a
literary analysis onto the work, and that there are many other ways film is
perceived.
 
Anything can be called a "text" if it is "read."  When I was a grad student in
English we joked about writing our dissertations about the ashtray as cultural
artifact.  But perhaps because I have made--the art work of theater and film (or
at least video drama)--I'm curious about what's missing in all analytic
approaches.
 
Mark Pizzato
 
----
To signoff SCREEN-L, e-mail [log in to unmask] and put SIGNOFF SCREEN-L
in the message.  Problems?  Contact [log in to unmask]