rshapiro@arris.com (Richard Shapiro) (12/06/90)
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