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From: rshapiro@arris.com (Richard Shapiro)
Newsgroups: soc.feminism
Subject: feminism and film theory
Message-ID: <1990Dec5.163108.1483@arris.com>
Date: 5 Dec 90 16:31:08 GMT
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In article <15746@reed.UUCP> abosse@reed.UUCP (Arno Bosse) writes:
>I've just joined this group and noticed the recent postings on Feminist Film
>Theory. One recent book which I've found to be interesting and illuminating
>is Teresa de Laurentis' "Alice Doesn't". She picks up where early theorists
>such as Mulvey or Silverman left off. Another is Tania Modleski's "The Women
>who Knew Too Much" NY Methuen 1988.


These are both excellent books. 

"Alice Doesn't" can be pretty tough going for someone without a good
background in current literary theory (semiotics etc), but it has
become something of a standard reference in the field.  She doesn't
exactly pick up where Silverman leaves off -- these two theorists are
contemporaries, working from fairly different starting points (de
Lauretis from semiotics, Silverman from Lacanian psychoanalysis).

Modleski is a much clearer writer, and the Hitchcock book (mentioned
above) is great, probably the best short volume on Hitchcock I've
read. She does much to dismantle his reputation as a misogynist film
maker. 

Film theory has been a central aspect of theoretical feminism, at
least in the Enlish-speaking world. There are numerous other books on
feminist film theory. A few notable ones (other than Silverman's The
Acoustic Mirror and de Lauretis' Alice Doesn't):



  Women in Film Noir, ed. Anne Kaplan

  A short volume of essays which discuss the gender problems
  exemplified in film noir. Essential reading.


  Feminism and Film Theory, ed. Constance Penley
 
  A useful overview, with important early articles by Pam Cook and
  Claire Johnston; Laura Mulvey's famous article on narrative cinema
  and gendered spectatorship; and other articles, mostly in the
  Camera Obscura style (Penley is, or was, an editor of Camera
  Obscura).


  The Desire to Desire, Mary Ann Doane
  
  An excellent book (actually a collection of articles) on the
  "woman's film" of the 1930s and 1940s. This addresses the spectator 
  question from a very different perspective, by focusing on movies
  that were explicitly marketed to a female audience.


The journal Camera Obscura (subtitled "a journal of feminism and film
theory" or something similar) is also consistently interesting
reading. Available from Johns Hopkins University Press in Baltimore
(though it's edited out of the Univ. of Rochester).


rs


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