AbstractsLanguage, Literature & Linguistics

Film Language & Emerging Cyber Analysis: The Radical Video Essay

by Eugenia Hannon




Institution: Savannah College of Art and Design
Department: Cinema Studies
Degree: MA
Year: 2015
Keywords: Thesis (M.A.)  – Cinema Studies; Savannah College of Art and Design  – Department of Cinema Studies
Record ID: 2059317
Full text PDF: http://ecollections.scad.edu/iii/cpro/DigitalItemViewPage.external?sp=1002733


Abstract

The following thesis will deal with the implications of the Internet within film criticism, specifically, how this new technological apparatus allows a kind of film study that has heretofore been impossible: the video essay. I will argue that these essays are able to reveal a critical essence traditional academic writing cannot convey. Specifically, I will investigate the two established video essay modes, explanatory and poetic, finally arguing that the poetic mode exemplifies the capabilities of this new digital criticism. To this end, I will analyze Laura Mulvey’s Gentlemen Prefer Blondes remix in order to fully illustrate the theoretic potential of the poetic mode, and how this new way of seeing film is an essential part of the future of film criticism. Keywords: Internet, video essay, deconstruction, post-structuralism, the remix, film criticism, film theory, Laura Mulvey