The film as a sense-making machine: Peter Wollen and the British structuralism in the 1970s
Authors
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David Leonardo Oubiña
Universidad de Buenos Aires; CONICET
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4770-5476
Abstract
This article retrieves the proposals of British cine-structuralism and examines Peter Wollen’s ideas in his book Signs and Meaning in the Cinema that played a crucial role in the constitution of a new critical perspective. Drawing from Claude Lévi-Strauss' anthropology, the British structuralists from the 1970s conceived films as a system of messages ruled by a code. Facing the risks implied in the “cult of personality” (as it could be verified in the notion of auteur proposed by Cahiers du cinéma in the 1950s), the critics associated with the journal Screen worked on the materiality of forms, conceiving the authorial figure as a consequence –not as the origin– of the work. Wollen's book embodies that moment of transition where the figure of the spectator is revalued and begins to perform a central role in art and communication studies.Keywords:
Journal Screen, British cine-structuralism, Claude Lévi-Strauss, Peter WollenReferences
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Wollen, P. (1972). Signs and Meaning in the Cinema. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.
Wollen, P. (1982). Readings and Writings: Semiotic Counter-strategies. Londres: Verso Books.
Wood, R. (2006). Personal Views: Explorations in Film. Detroit. Wayne State University Press.
Becker, H. (2008). Los mundos del arte, Buenos Aires: Universidad Nacional de Quilmes.
Bickerton, E. (2009). A Short History of Cahiers du cinéma. Londres: Verso.
Brewster, B. (1971). “Structuralism in Film Criticism”. Screen 12(1), 49-58.
Bolas, T. (2009). Screen Education. From Film Appreciation to Media Studies. Bristol: Intellect Books.
Caughie, J. (1990). Theories of Authorship. Londres: Routledge.
De Baecque, A. (1991). Histoire d’une revue (Tome I: À l’assault du cinéma 1951-1959 y Tome II: Cinéma, tours détours 1959-1981). París: Cahiers du cinéma.
Eckert, Ch. (1973). “The English Cine-Structuralists”. Film Comment, 9(3), 46-51.
Gibbs, J (2013). The Life of mise en scène. Visual Style and British Film Criticism, 1946-78. Manchester: Manchester University Press.
Harvey, S. (1978). May ’68 and Film Culture. Londres: British Film Institute.
Heath, S. (1981). Questions of Cinema. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.
Hedling, E. (2003). “Lindsay Anderson: Sequence and the Rise of Auterism in 1950s Britain”, en Mackillop, I. & Sinyard, N. (eds.) (2003). British Cinema in the 1950s: A Celebration. Manchester: Manchester University Press.
Henderson, B. (1973). “Critique of Cine-Structuralism (Part I)”. Film Quarterly, 27(1), 25-34. doi:10.2307/1211450.
Kitses, J. (1969). Horizons West. Anthony Mann, Budd Boetticher, Sam Peckinpah: Studies of Authorship within the Western. Londres: Thames & Hudson.
Lévi-Strauss, C (1998). Las estructuras elementales del parentesco. Barcelona: Paidós.
Lévi-Strauss, C. (1987). Antropología estructural, México D. F.: Paidós.
Lévi-Strauss, C. (1972a). “El estudio estructural del mito”, en Leach, E. (comp.). Estructuralismo, mito y totemismo. Buenos Aires: Nueva visión.
Lévi-Strauss, C. (1972b). “La gesta de Asdiwal”, en Leach, E. (comp.). Estructuralismo, mito y totemismo, Buenos Aires: Nueva visión.
Lévi-Strauss, C. (1968). Mitológicas I: Lo crudo y lo cocido, México D. F.: Fondo de Cultura Económica.
Lovell, A. (1969). “Robin Wood. A Dissenting View”. Screen, 10(2), 42-55. https://doi.org/10.1093/screen/10.2.42.
Mascarello, F. (2001). “A screen-theory e o espectador cinematográfico: un panorama crítico”. Novos olhares 8, 13-28.
Mulvey, L. (1975). “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema”, Screen 16 (3), 6-18.
Murray, J. (1971). “Robin Wood and the Structural Critics”. Screen, 12(3), 101-110. https://doi.org/10.1093/screen/12.3.101.
Nowell-Smith, G. (2003). Luchino Visconti. Londres: British Film Institute.
Robins, K. (1979). “Althusserian Marxism and Media Studies: The Case of Screen”. Media, Culture and Society 1(4), 355-370.
Rodowick, D. (1994). The Crisis of Political Modernism. Criticism and Ideology in Contemporary Film Theory. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Rodowick, D. (2012). “Foreword to the Fifth Edition”, en Wollen, P. Signs and Meaning in the cinema. Londres: Palgrave Macmillan.
Roggen, S. (2013). “No Quarterly Can Be Too Personal: How Sequence Provided a Pragmatic Alternative to the Politique des Auteurs”. Journal of British Cinema and Television 10(2), 340-357.
Rohmer, É. (2010). Le celluloïd et le marbre (suivi d’un entretien inédit avec Noël Herpe et Philippe Fauvel). París: Éditions Léo Scheer.
Rosen, P. (1977). “Screen and the Marxist Project in Film Criticism”. Quarterly Review of Film Studies 2(3), 273-287.
Rosen, P. (2008). “Screen and 1970s Film Theory”, en Nash, M. (ed.), Screen Theory Culture. Hampshire: Palgrave MacMillan.
Solanas, F. & Getino, O. (1973). Cine, cultura y descolonización. Buenos Aires: Siglo XXI.
Spivak, G. (1985). “Can the Subaltern Speak? Speculations on Widow-Sacrifice”. Wedge 7/8, 120-130.
Truffaut, F. (1954a). “Sir Abel Gance”. Arts, 479, 1-7.
Truffaut, F. (1954b). “Une certaine tendance du cinéma français”. Cahiers du cinema, 31, 15-29.
Wollen, P. (1972). Signs and Meaning in the Cinema. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.
Wollen, P. (1982). Readings and Writings: Semiotic Counter-strategies. Londres: Verso Books.
Wood, R. (2006). Personal Views: Explorations in Film. Detroit. Wayne State University Press.
