Film 2000 Test 2

Front 1

Apparatus theory associated with…

Back 1

onature of film projection,
ovideo playing,
odarkness of theatre/lightness of daytime tv,
otextual component of what is screened,
opsychic mechanism engaged

Front 2

(apparatus theory) identification…

Back 2

spectator becomes part of the apparatus that was made for them

Front 3

Apparatus theory Derived from

Back 3

semiotics and psychoanalytic ideology and critique

Front 4

(Apparatus theory) metz 4 points

Back 4

o(semiotic, revive semiotics, psychoanalysis) hidden meanings
o Cinematic institution is not just the cinematic industry, but also “mental machinery” – another industry which spectators accustomed to cinema… which has adapted them to the consumption of films
o Agrees with Baudry (analogy between screen and mirror, and how it reenacts the pre-oedipal moment of identification)
o Disagrees in the sense that the cinema does not reflect back the spectator’s own image

Front 5

Lacan and Althusser ( did not write about cinema)*** 4 points

Back 5

o Meeting point is at the mirror phase when the infant is put in front of a mirror and realizes that he is whole and detached from everyone else.
o Process of viewing is linked to the illusion of a solid ego given by the mirror phase
o Spectators are blinded by the lens. They, like the films they watch, are filled with discourse unknowable to themselves

Front 6

Althusser (Marxist)(5 points)

Back 6

o Social assumptions about apparatus theory come from him
o Sees the economic base of apparatus theory as the productive forces and the relations of production.
o RSA – repressive state apparatus - The work is done by sanction and interdiction (police, courts, prisons etc). Bodies that enforce law to order
o ISA – ideological state apparatus – religious and educational institutions, family, cultural. Follow law because of ideological pressure.
o Ideology: “representation of the imaginary relationship of individuals to their real conditions of existence”
 Ex ideology of religious faith = illusionary, but alludes to reality

Front 7

Baudry (more?)(5 points)

Back 7

o Experience of watching a film would be best understood as a set of objects (technology of cinema and the narrative), plus the relations to those objects (credulity, identification and fantasy)
o Film’s capacity to be both an “impression of real” and “more than the real”
o ***made the connection of apparatus theory (Althusser) and psychoanalysis (Lacan) bottom
o Cinema is an illusion of movement that we mistake for actual movement. It is a surrogate of our desire.
o When our vision roams freely, the world exists for it

Front 8

Main critique (5 points)

Back 8

o By female scholars claiming that there is a failure to distinguish between the experiences + psychic mechanisms between male and female spectators
o No mechanism for predicting just how the spectators process the info
o Very mechanistic mode of inquiry
o Did not take into non-visual aspect. i.e. sound
o Application of Lacanian theory is not always correct

Front 9

Positive aspects

Back 9

o Emphasis on questions of ideology and the interplay of the machine, text, culture, person guaranteed that film theory would not be caught in formalism of much literary criticism
o Points out that there is a problem with the exclusive concentration on representation. Materiality and perception they too have their place