Film studies
Film studies is the interdisciplinary study of cinema, examining films through their histories, forms, theories, industries, and cultural contexts.
Film theory: A body of ideas explaining how films work, mean, and affect viewers. It supplies concepts for analyzing cinema beyond plot and subject matter.
Mise-en-scène: The arrangement of actors, settings, props, lighting, and costume within a film’s frame. It directs attention to the designed elements visible within each shot.
Early cinema: The diverse moving-image practices and film industries that developed from the late nineteenth century through the 1910s. Its variety challenges accounts that treat cinema as a fixed form from the outset.
André Bazin: A French film critic and theorist known for writing on realism, photographic images, and cinematic form. His defense of realism remains a touchstone in debates over film style.
Auteur theory: An approach that treats a director’s recurring choices as a source of coherence across films. It offers one way to connect close analysis with questions of creative authorship.
Film criticism: The interpretation and evaluation of films in essays, reviews, and other forms of commentary. It connects close attention to individual movies with public arguments about their value.
Cinematography: The creation of motion-picture images through camera placement, lenses, lighting, and exposure. It links visual style to the practical choices that shape a film’s images.
Silent film: Films made before synchronized recorded dialogue became standard, often accompanied by live music or narration. Its visual storytelling and exhibition practices shaped early film scholarship.
Sergei Eisenstein: A Soviet filmmaker and theorist who developed influential ideas about montage. His films and writings made editing a subject of systematic theoretical debate.
Star studies: The study of screen performers’ images, careers, and cultural meanings across films and media. It traces how performance and publicity shape a movie’s meanings beyond the screen.