INTERPRETATIONS

Paradigms of film theory — Francesco Casetti’s theoretical classification

Among the few histories of film theory one work stands out in particular — Teorie del cinema. 1945-1990 by Francesco Casetti, a book that studies basic determinants of film theories. In his earlier studies Casetti had already outlined the ambition of theoreticians to affirm film art and analysed other important questions of the early theory. Later on, following Christian Metz, he noticed the difference between the internal observation of film art and the external studies of psychological, sociological, economical, and other dimensions of film (studied with the help of different sciences). Similar to Metz, in 1984, Dudley Andrew recognized the difference between theories that viewed film as a group of examples to which one can apply already systematic categories (semiotic, psychoanalitic, ideological), and theories that observed cinema as the original outcome for all questions. In his book, Casetti analyses »ontological« theories of film that, under the influence of André Bazin, dealt with basic defining of the nature of film. Second group of film theories that Casetti had entitled »methodological theories«, introduced the question of the choice of a particular perspective that subsequently strongly influences identification of data and the conclusions. The third group of theories determined the research of specific fields of research. However, Casetti stresses the importance of enjoyment in the research, the quality of questions asked and the consistency of answers.

Robert Riesinger