The Oxford Handbook of Film Theory

Kyle Stevens is the author of Mike Nichols: Sex, Language, and the Reinvention of Psychological Realism. His work has appeared in Critical Inquiry, Cultural Critique, Journal of Cinema and Media Studies, Adaptation, Critical Quarterly, New Review of Film and Television Studies, World Picture, and several edited collections.

Introduction: The Very Thought of Theory
Kyle Stevens

Section I: Meta-theory

Chapter 1
A Machine for Killing Time
Tom Gunning

Chapter 2
Interested and Disinterested Judgments: Film Theory and the Valences of the Aesthetic
Daniel Morgan

Chapter 3
Moral Philosophy and the Moving Image
Brian Price

Chapter 4
Film|Video|Essay
Domietta Torlasco

Chapter 5
The Medium Matters! In Defense of Medium-Specificity in Classical Film Theory
Malcolm Turvey

Chapter 6
In Defense of Psychoanalytic Film Theory
Damon R. Young


Section II: Film Theory's Project of Emancipation

Chapter 7
Film Theory as Ideology Critique (After Trump)
Nico Baumbach

Chapter 8
Buddhism and Film Theory: Beyond a Legacy
Victor Fan

Chapter 9
Feminist Film Theory on the Brink of Laughter
Maggie Hennefeld

Chapter 10
Theory for the Masses; or, Toward a Vernacular Criticism
Noah Isenberg

Chapter 11
"The Fold of Old Wounds": Daughters of the Dust, Eve's Bayou, and Mississippi Damned as Cinematic Black Feminist Theory
Kara Keeling


Section III: Apparatus and Perception

Chapter 12
Lesbian Photographers: Affect and Cinematic Self-Discovery
Marta Figlerowicz

Chapter 13
Notes on Some Forms of Repetition
Homay King

Chapter 14
Empiricism and Film Theory: On the Moviola's Political Ontology
Davide Panagia

Chapter 15
Film Theory and Machine Vision
Antonio Somaini

Chapter 16
Headphones, Cinematic Listening, and the Frame of the Skull
Kyle Stevens


Section IV: Audiovisuality

Chapter 17
The Audio-Visual Non-relation and the Digital Break
Luka Arsenjuk

Chapter 18
The composer of musique concrète wields a camera
Michel Chion
Translated by Claudia Gorbman

Chapter 19
The Many Bodies of the Dancer-Actress: Towards A Kinesics of Film Acting
Usha Iyer

Chapter 20
Documentary Listening Habits: From Voice to Audibility
Pooja Rangan

Chapter 21
Audiovisual Rhythm and its Spectator: Moonlight as Example
Rick Warner



Section V: How Close is Close Reading?

Chapter 22
Contesting the White Gaze: Black Film and Post-Cinematic Spectatorship
Caetlin Benson-Allott

Chapter 23
In Other Words: Film and the Spider Web of Description
Timothy Corrigan

Chapter 24
Women's Hands and the Cinematic Cut: The Work of Montage in Man With a Movie Camera, Klute, and The Piano
David Gerstner

Chapter 25
Standing Up Too Close or Back Too Far? A Slanted History of Close Film Analysis
Adrian Martin

Chapter 26
On Fire: When Fashion Meets Cinema
Marketa Uhlirova

Chapter 27
When and Where Does a Film Begin? Putting Films in Context
Amy Villarejo



Section VI: The Turn to Experience

Chapter 28
The Affective Turnabout's Fair Play
Sarah Keller

Chapter 29
An Invention With a Future: Collective Viewing, Joint Deep Attention, and the ongoing Value of the Cinema
Julian Hanich

Chapter 30
Those Who Have: The Impersonality of Film Theory
John David Rhodes

Chapter 31
On the Impersonality of Experience: Psychoanalysis, Interiority, and the Turn to Affect
Scott Richmond

Chapter 32
Cinematic Experience: From Moving Images to Virtual Reality
Robert Sinnerbrink