Interpreting Films – Studies in the Historical Reception of American Cinema - Hardcover

Staiger, J

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0691047979 ISBN 13: 9780691047973

Publisher: Princeton University Press, 1992

Synopsis

Employing a wide range of examples from "Uncle Tom's Cabin" and "Birth of a Nation" to "Zelig" and "Personal Best", Janet Staiger argues that the historical examination of spectators' responses to films can make a valuable contribution to the history, criticism and philosophy of cultural products. She maintains that as artifacts, films do not contain immanent meanings, that differences among interpretations have historical bases, and that these variations are due to social, political and economic conditions as well as the viewers' constructed images of themselves. After proposing a theory of reception study, the author demonstrates its application mainly through analyzing the varying responses of audiences to certain films at specific moments in history. The author pays attention to how questions of class, gender, sexual preference, race and ethnicity enter into film viewers' interpretations. Her analysis reflects recent developments in post-structuralism, cognitive psychology, psychoanalysis and cultural studies, and includes a discussion of current reader-response models in literary and film studies as well as an alternative approach for thinking about historical readers and spec

Edition details

• Publisher: Princeton University Press
• Publication date: 1992
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0691047979
• ISBN 13: 9780691047973
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 290