Film Theory and Criticism: Introductory Readings Review

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(More customer reviews)If you're looking to get into film studies, this is THE essential anthology to buy. I've seen pretty much every major anthology of film theory out right now and this is without a doubt the most comprehensive of the lot.
First, a word of warning: one review indicates that the essays are difficult and this is very true. "Introductory Readings" is slightly misleading because this collection isn't aimed at someone completely new to the field. Some of these essays (particularly those by Metz and Deleuze) assume quite a bit of knowledge on topics such as Lacanian psychoanalytic theory and postmodern critical theory. It's really not a "film appreciation guide" in any way. Those are out there and they're great at what they do, but this is different. It's a collection on some of the most important theoretical essays in the field.
It's now in the 6th edition and there are a fair amount of new essays. I'm not sure that it's worth upgrading if you have a recent edition though. I definitely wouldn't discard your 5th edition, as this edition drops at least three or four essays in favor of newer ones.
A couple things are noteworthy: first, there is now a presence of Deleuze, an omission that seemed curious until now. Second, there is a wider range of ideas now. The best example is Jeff Sconce's article on new critical approaches to exploitation cinema. I always felt this collection slightly favored historic theoretical works (e.g. Eisenstein, Pudovkin) over newer approaches, but the inclusion of writers such as Sconce help to balance the collection out.
I can't recommend this collection highly enough. There is a very good reason that every intro to film theory course uses this anathology. No serious film student should be without this.

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Since publication of the first edition in 1974, Film Theory and Criticism has been the most widely used and cited anthology of critical writings about film. Extensively revised and updated, this sixth edition highlights both classic texts and cutting edge essays from more than a century of thought and writing about the movies. Editors Leo Braudy and Marshall Cohen have reformulated the book's sections and their introductions in order to lead students into a rich understanding of what the movies have accomplished, both as individual works and as contributions to what has been called "the art form of the twentieth [and now twenty-first] century." Building upon the wide range of selections and the extensive historical coverage that marked previous editions, this new compilation stretches from the earliest attempts to define the cinema to the most recent efforts to place film in the contexts of psychology, sociology, and philosophy, and to explore issues of gender and race. The sixth edition features several new essays that discuss the impact of digital technology on the traditional conceptions of what films do and how they manage to do it. Additional selections from the important works of Gilles Deleuze round out sections dealing with the theories of such writers as Sergei Eisenstein, André Bazin, and Christian Metz, among others. New essays also strengthen sections dealing with the idea of "excess" in film, film spectatorship, the horror genre, and feminist criticism. Film Theory and Criticism, 6/e, is ideal for undergraduate and graduate courses in film theory and criticism.

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