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Author(s): D. N. Rodowick
Source: October, Vol. 122 (Fall, 2007), pp. 91-109
Published by: The MIT Press
Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/40368491
Accessed: 22-09-2019 06:02 UTC
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An Elegy for Theory*
D. N. RODOWICK
From the late 1960s and throughout the 1970s, the institutionalization of
cinema studies in universities in North America and Europe became identified
with a certain idea of theory. This was less a "theory" in the abstract or natural sci-
entific sense than an interdisciplinary commitment to concepts and methods
derived from literary semiology, Lacanian psychoanalysis, and Althusserian
Marxism, echoed in the broader influence of structuralism and post-structuralism
on the humanities.
However, the evolution of cinema studies since the early 1980s has been
marked both by a decentering of film with respect to media and visual studies and
by a retreat from theory. No doubt this retreat had a number of salutary effects: a
reinvigoration of historical research, more sociologically rigorous reconceptualiza-
tions of spectatorship and the film audience, and the placement of film in the
broader context of visual culture and electronic media. But not all of these inno-
vations were equally welcome. In 1996, the Post-Theory debate was launched by
* This essay was originally prepared as a keynote lecture for the Framework conference on "The
Future of Theory," Oklahoma State University, Stillwater, November 3-4, 2006. I would like to thank
Brian Price for his invitation and perceptive comments. I would also like to thank the participants at
the Radcliffe Exploratory Seminar on "Contesting Theory," co-organized by Stanley Cavell, Tom
Conley, and myself at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, May 4-5, 2007 - including Richard
Allen, Sally Banes, Dominique Bluher, Edward Branigan, Noel Carroll, Francesco Casetti, Joan Copjec,
Meraj Dhir, Allyson Field, Philip Rosen, Vivian Sobchack, Malcolm Turvey, and Thomas Wartenberg -
for their challenging discussions of these and other matters.
OCTOBER 122, Fall 2007, pp. 91-109. © 2007 October Magazine, Ltd. and Massachusetts Institute of Technology
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92 OCTOBER
David Bordw
Theory as in
and Carroll i
subject to inv
ously, other
by analytic p
debates emer
1990s and the
Confusing "t
edgment that
absence of qu
advised. To w
standards; it
knowing. In
theory, but r
of the human
mological and
A brief look
Retrospectivel
associated wi
Already in 192
compass of ar
cation of theo
German philo
method and e
would rarely s
film theory.
"Theory," ho
cept. One find
speculation, o
activity; in Ar
was not only
of life or mode of existence.2
1. Bela Balazs, Der sichtbare Mensch (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 2001). The original citation is:
"Die Theorie ist, wenn auch nicht das Steuerruder, doch zumindest der Kompass einer Kunstentwicklung.
Und erst wenn ihr euch einen Begriff von der guten Richtung gemacht habt, durft ihr von Verirrungen
reden. Diesen BegrifF: die Theorie des Films, musst ihr euch eben machen" (p. 12). Balazs does, however,
associate this theory with a "film philosophy of art" (p. 1).
2. On the question of ethics as the will for a new mode of existence, see Pierre Hadot, What Is
Ancient Phibsopy?, trans. Michael Chase (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2002). An influ-
ence on Michel Foucault's later works on the "care of the self," Hadot argues that the desire for a philo-
sophical life is driven first by an ethical commitment or a series of existential choices involving the
selection of a style of life where philosophical discourse is inseparable from a vision of the world and
the desire to belong to a community.
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An Elegy for Theory 93
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94 OCTOBER
epistemologic
tual framewo
there is an id
Alternatively
respect to de
by self-descr
those stateme
my own appro
that the cond
knowledge. E
order and dis
objects, inven
cal strategies
and variable discursive contexts.
As a first move, it might indeed seem strange to associate theory with history.
Introducing a series of lectures at the Institute for Historical Research at the
University of Vienna in 1998, 1 astonished a group of students by asserting that film
theory has a history, indeed multiple histories. Here the analytic approach to the
ory, on one hand, and sociological and archaeological approaches on the other,
part ways. The fact of having a history already distinguishes film theory, and indeed
all aesthetic theory, from natural scientific inquiry, for natural and cultural phe
nomena do not have the same temporality. Aesthetic inquiry must be sensitive t
the variability and volatility of human culture and innovation; their epistemologie
derive from (uneven) consensus and self-examination of what we already know an
do in the execution of daily life. Examination of the natural world may presume
teleology where new data are accumulated and new hypotheses refined in model-
ing processes for which, unlike human culture, we have no prior knowledge.
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An Elegy for Theory 95
5. See especially Bordwell's introduction to Cinema and Cognitive Psychology, "A Case for
Cognitivism," iris 5, no. 2 (1989), pp. 11-40. Here I am especially interested in Bordwell's characteriza-
tion of theory as "good naturalization."
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96 OCTOBER
By 1989, ho
cognitivism
three particu
pulling back
on film's int
turn from ps
sion as groun
Finally, his r
conceptual co
selves and th
Thus, Bordw
abstract con
disappears in
Moreover, th
they execute
the same heuristics to model different films.
6. Ironically, one consequence of this appeal, strongly implicit in Carroll's contribution, is that
film theory does not yet exist. Carroll, for example, criticizes both classical and contemporary film
theory according to three basic arguments: they are essentialist or foundationalist, taking films as
examples of a priori conditions; they are doctrine driven rather than data driven, meaning not sus-
ceptible to empirical examination and verification; and finally, they deviate to widely from film-based
problems, that is, the concrete particularity of filmic problems disappears when they are taken up to
illustrate broader concepts of ideology, subjectivity, or culture. Characterized by "ordinary standards of
truth" as a regulative ideal, good theory seeks causal reasoning, deduces generalities by tracking regu-
larities and the norm, is dialectical and requires maximally free and open debate, and, finally, is char-
acterized by fallibilism. In this sense, good theory is "historical" in the sense of being open to revision
through the successive elimination of error. In this respect, middle-level research presents the provi-
sional ground for a theory or theories of film projected forward in a teleology of debate, falsification,
and revision. The "post" in Post-Theory is a curious misnomer, then. For what has been characterized
as Theory is epistemologically invalid, and, ironically, what comes after may only appear after a period
of long debate and revisionism. A legitimate film theory remains to be constructed, the product of an
indefinite future.
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An Elegy for Theory 97
7. In a so-far-unpublished essay, "Film Theory and the Philosophy of Science," Meraj Dhir has pre-
sented an excellent defense of Carroll's position.
8. For related arguments, see Richard Allen's essay, "Cognitive Film Theory, in Wittgenstein, Theor
and the Arts, pp. 174-209.
9. Bertrand Russell's 1914 essay "On Scientific Method in Philosophy" presents a succinct defin
tion of this ideal: "A scientific philosophy such as I wish to recommend will be piecemeal and tentative
like other sciences; above all, it will be able to invent hypotheses which, even if they are not wholly tru
will yet remain fruitful after the necessary corrections have been made. This possibility of successi
approximations of the truth is, more than anything else, the source of the triumphs of science, and to
transfer this possibility to philosophy is to ensure a progress in method whose importance it would be
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98 OCTOBER
in the human
over to scienc
it would seem
scientific ide
There is the im
it draws on c
outside of th
ophy." Cons
scientific mo
not yet exist,
studies thus
concerns bo
humanities an
phy wants to
of science. At
teristic of th
scientifically
epistemologic
Throughout
science as a c
tested term.
philosophy o
both. Importa
his Philosophi
the humanitie
The interest
general, conc
asserting tha
Philosophicu
conception o
natural scienc
be the only m
of philosophy
on "theory" a
However, my
phy of the hu
almost impossibl
and Co., 1918), p
which Carroll su
and one must es
theory then adva
further tested, r
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An Elegy for Theory 99
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100 OCTOBER
humanistic i
degree of prio
cinema is a h
that form th
edge of these
them in the f
coherent and
ment in the a
plausibility is
already know
beyond the cr
However, wha
might more a
we could ach
aside "theory"
ties, and, inde
I would prefe
for theory I h
the English se
can be both p
addition, it c
one's favor.) C
why, in conte
love it?
We must fir
peting episte
concept has b
shores of scie
Initially, this
the late Witt
questioned th
the humaniti
logical perfec
ancient task of
to much soul
to find and re
theoria, as re
Wittgenstein
renewed dialo
ion themselves
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An Elegy for Theory 101
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102 OCTOBER
philosophy. He
be distinguish
humanities a f
that we may co
Deleuze 's cine
philosophy m
sophical work
creation of Co
Image become
world. The sec
presentation o
Deleuze ends
Already in 198
ema, seeming
separate from
of concepts.
For theory too is something which is made, no less than its object. . . .
A theory of cinema is not "about" cinema, but about the concepts that
cinema gives rise to and what are themselves related to other concepts
corresponding to other practices. . . . The theory of cinema does not
bear on the cinema, but on the concepts of cinema, which are no less
practical, effective or existent than cinema itself. . . . Cinema's con-
cepts are not given in cinema. And yet they are cinema's concepts, not
theories about cinema. So that there is always a time, midday-midnight,
when we must no longer ask ourselves, "What is cinema?" but "What is
philosophy?" Cinema itself is a new practice of images and signs, whose
theory philosophy must produce as a conceptual practice.11
A slippage is obvious here with theory standing in for philosophy. But that being
said, what does Deleuze wish to imply in complaining that the contemporary
moment is weak with respect to creation and concepts? The most replete response
comes from the most obvious successor to the problems raised in the cinema
books - Deleuze and Felix Guattari's What Is Philosophy?
For Deleuze and Guattari, the three great domains of human creation are
art, philosophy, and science. These are relatively autonomous domains, each of
which involves acts of creation based on different modes of expression - percep-
tual, conceptual, or functional. The problem confronted in What Is Philosophy? is
knowing how philosophical expression differs from artistic or scientific expres-
sion, yet remains in dialogue with them. Percepts, concepts, and functions are
different expressive modalities, and each may influence the other, but not in a way
11. Gilles Deleuze, Cinema 2: The Time-Image, trans. Hugh Tomlinson and Robert Galeta
(Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1989), p. 280.
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An Elegy for Theory 103
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104 OCTOBER
oriented by a
and so a conne
of thought is
ideas emerge
what it means
to express tho
what Deleuze
thought, but
autonomous s
catenatio. Th
thought as a s
action, or crea
The importa
complete acc
and show how
that is, how th
losophy in th
that the imag
the terrain f
thought and
movements, b
junctions of p
implies a conc
constructions
art's ideas. It
make a necess
There is also
image and con
Nietzschean e
evaluation. "T
sense to a thin
a thing."14 W
Nietzsche, bu
word and Del
not the being
of being that a
express for us
philosophers,
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A n Elegy for Theory 105
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106 OCTOBER
highest powers
contemporary
of creation, it
need concepts
closer to art, an
philosophy that
innovations we
further, that t
while nonethele
That art may
between Deleuze
are not studies
phy first and
studies of film
daily life of the
ent ways, bot
being in the wo
philosophy, an
exemplifies this
of cinema. At
and time in re
neither as an ef
is the aesthetic
should one say
the direct phil
signs, of proble
Cavell present
problems of on
losophy of and
the concerns of
Cavell's philoso
iterations of th
cally, namely,
moral perfecti
panion or exem
important Cave
to say that art
way of thinking
represented by
responses to th
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An Elegy for Theory 107
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108 OCTOBER
confronts the p
disappointmen
ity - all we can
The second res
my current m
haps primarily
standing, of k
tific attitude
variable. What
the powers of
the problem t
moral freedom
characterize h
ject to causal r
creatures we a
phy's task is
change in the
Therefore, in
of skepticism
lem of evaluat
anticipation of
come my mor
changing it an
Nietzsche, or F
disappointmen
us peace. Alter
pointment an
desire for self
finality. "In E
"there is no qu
taking the ne
self that is alw
wrong to righ
sociability."18
This idea for
and melodramas of the unknown woman. The interest of film here is to show it as
the ordinary or quotidian expression of the deepest concerns of moral philoso-
phy. And just as Wittgenstein sought to displace metaphysical expression into
ordinary language and daily concerns, film brings moral philosophy into the con-
text of quotidian dramatic expression:
18. Stanley Cavell, Cities of Words: Pedagogical Letters on a Register of the Moral Life (Cambridge, Mass.:
Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2004), p. 13.
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An Elegy for Theory 109
19. Ibid., p. 6.
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