Modernism and Film
- LAST REVIEWED: 29 November 2022
- LAST MODIFIED: 30 March 2015
- DOI: 10.1093/obo/9780199791286-0162
- LAST REVIEWED: 29 November 2022
- LAST MODIFIED: 30 March 2015
- DOI: 10.1093/obo/9780199791286-0162
Introduction
This entry has particular parameters that should be understood at the outset. It covers only those critical works in cinema history, theory, and criticism that have self-consciously used the term “modernism” in their titles or abstracts. This limit was established because, from a certain perspective, almost all of film history can be viewed from the perspective of modernism, and almost all of its critics and theorists have drawn on modernist theory in examining it. Although sometimes the terms “avant-garde” and “experimental” are used as synonyms for “modernist” (see the Oxford Bibliographies article “Avant-Garde and Experimental Film”). Furthermore, the term “modernism” is sometimes used interchangeably with the term “modernist” and thereby conflated with it. For the purposes of this entry, only the former is relevant. Modernism here refers to a particular discursive style pioneered in the modern age (understood as late 19th to early 20th century)—not coincidentally the era in which the cinema appeared. On the other hand, modernity is a more sociological term that describes this particular historical period and its attendant cultural shifts (e.g., industrialization, electrification, urbanization, technological advance). Although all films are “modern” (in the sense that they were produced in the modern era), not all are modernist. To qualify for this designation, the films must display certain characteristics (among them, a commitment to the new and a rejection of the past, fragmentation, lack of plot, generic and stylistic innovation, anti-illusionism, anti-realism, formal complexity, etc.) that we associate with modernism in the other arts (for instance, literature [e.g., Virginia Woolf], painting [e.g., Pablo Picasso], theater [e.g., Bertolt Brecht], and dance [e.g., Martha Graham]). All the references discussed here self-consciously engage and announce their engagement with this discursive sense of modernism, examining works from its early heyday and continuing into the contemporary era, with films (and occasionally related photographic works) that still bear its traces. Questions of modernity may, of course, arise in conjunction with investigations of modernism. Given constraints of space, this entry cannot, however, include all writings on those we might deem modernist directors (e.g., monographs on Dziga Vertov, Jean Epstein, Jean-Luc Godard, Robert Bresson, Sergei Eisenstein, Ingmar Bergman, Walter Ruttmann, and Federico Fellini). See also the Oxford Bibliographies articles “Avant-Garde and Experimental Film,” “Surrealism and Film,” and “American Independent Cinema.”
General Overview
These volumes provide overviews of what defines modernism in film. In an encyclopedia entry, Wood 2011 explores international modernist films in the 1920s and 1930s, highlighting German, American, French, and Russian films. Giovacchini 2001 considers how modernist American films of the 1930s were interested with leftist political activity. Pomerance 2006 is a large, extensive anthology with articles by major critics who discuss an international range of modernist films and theories, beginning with early cinema and moving into the contemporary era.
Giovacchini, Saverio. Hollywood Modernism: Film and Politics in the Age of the New Deal. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2001.
NNNFocusing on the 1930s, Giovacchini discusses how European émigré cineastes produced a modernist cinema that took an anti-fascist perspective and formed a community in Los Angeles of artists, intellectuals, activists, and film workers.
Pomerance, Murray, ed. Cinema and Modernity. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2006.
NNNIn these original essays, and taking an historic and international perspective, scholars examine connections between film, modernism, and modernity. Films considered include Detour, Shock Corridor, The Last Laugh, Experiment in Terror, The Great Dictator, Leave Her to Heaven, The Talented Mr. Ripley, Eyes Wide Shut, Sunrise, The Crowd, The Shape of Things to Come, and The War of the Worlds.
Wood, Michael. “Modernism and Film.” In The Cambridge Companion to Modernism. Edited by Michael Levenson, 268–283. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2011.
DOI: 10.1017/CCOL9781107010635
NNNWood examines where modernism appears and its broad characteristics, exploring examples of German, American, French, and Russian films of the 1920s and 1930s, paying particular attention to the importance and effects of montage and editing to convey the modernist aesthetic. He also investigates issues of illusion and perception in modernist film.
Users without a subscription are not able to see the full content on this page. Please subscribe or login.
How to Subscribe
Oxford Bibliographies Online is available by subscription and perpetual access to institutions. For more information or to contact an Oxford Sales Representative click here.
Article
- 2001: A Space Odyssey
- Accounting, Motion Picture
- Acting
- Action Cinema
- Adaptation
- Advertising and Promotion
- African American Cinema
- African American Stars
- African Cinema
- AIDS in Film and Television
- Akerman, Chantal
- Allen, Woody
- Almodóvar, Pedro
- Alphaville
- Altman, Robert
- American Cinema, 1895-1915
- American Cinema, 1939-1975
- American Cinema, 1976 to Present
- American Independent Cinema
- American Independent Cinema, Producers
- American Public Broadcasting
- Anderson, Wes
- Animals in Film and Media
- Animation and the Animated Film
- Anime
- Arbuckle, Roscoe
- Architecture and Cinema
- Argentine Cinema
- Aronofsky, Darren
- Art Cinema
- Arzner, Dorothy
- Asian American Cinema
- Asian Television
- Astaire, Fred and Rogers, Ginger
- Australian Cinema
- Auteurism
- Authorship, Television
- Avant-Garde and Experimental Film
- Bachchan, Amitabh
- Battle of Algiers, The
- Battleship Potemkin, The
- Bazin, André
- Bergman, Ingmar
- Bernstein, Elmer
- Bertolucci, Bernardo
- Bigelow, Kathryn
- Biopics
- Birth of a Nation, The
- Blade Runner
- Blockbusters
- Brakhage, Stan
- Brando, Marlon
- Brazilian Cinema
- Breaking Bad
- Bresson, Robert
- British Cinema
- Broadcasting, Australian
- Buffy the Vampire Slayer
- Burnett, Charles
- Buñuel, Luis
- Cameron, James
- Campion, Jane
- Canadian Cinema
- Capra, Frank
- Carpenter, John
- Casablanca
- Cassavetes, John
- Cavell, Stanley
- Censorship
- Chan, Jackie
- Chaplin, Charles
- Children in Film
- Chinese Cinema
- Cinecittà Studios
- Cinema and Media Industries, Creative Labor in
- Cinema and the Visual Arts
- Cinematography and Cinematographers
- Cinephilia
- Citizen Kane
- City in Film, The
- Cocteau, Jean
- Coen Brothers, The
- Colonial Educational Film
- Color
- Comedy, Film
- Comedy, Television
- Comics, Film, and Media
- Computer-Generated Imagery (CGI)
- Copland, Aaron
- Coppola, Francis Ford
- Copyright and Piracy
- Corman, Roger
- Costume and Fashion
- Cronenberg, David
- Cuban Cinema
- Cult Cinema
- 3D Cinema
- Dance and Film
- de Oliveira, Manoel
- Dean, James
- Deleuze, Gilles
- Denis, Claire
- Deren, Maya
- Design, Art, Set, and Production
- Detective Films
- Dietrich, Marlene
- Digital Media and Convergence Culture
- Directors
- Disability
- Disney, Walt
- Doctor Who
- Documentary Film
- Downton Abbey
- Dreyer, Carl Theodor
- Eastern European Television
- Eastwood, Clint
- Ecocinema
- Eisenstein, Sergei
- Elfman, Danny
- Epic Film
- Essay Film
- Ethnographic Film
- European Television
- Exhibition and Distribution
- Exploitation Film
- Fairbanks, Douglas
- Fan Studies
- Fantasy
- Fellini, Federico
- Festivals
- Film Aesthetics
- Film and Literature
- Film Guilds and Unions
- Film, Historical
- Film Noir
- Film Preservation and Restoration
- Film Theory and Criticism, Science Fiction
- Film Theory Before 1945
- Film Theory, Psychoanalytic
- Finance Film, The
- Ford, John
- French Cinema
- Game of Thrones
- Gance, Abel
- Gangster Films
- Garbo, Greta
- Garland, Judy
- German Cinema
- Gilliam, Terry
- Global Television Industry
- Godard, Jean-Luc
- Godfather Trilogy, The
- Godzilla
- Greek Cinema
- Griffith, D.W.
- Hammett, Dashiell
- Haneke, Michael
- Hawks, Howard
- Haynes, Todd
- Hepburn, Katharine
- Herrmann, Bernard
- Herzog, Werner
- Hindi Cinema, Popular
- Hitchcock, Alfred
- Hollywood Studios
- Holocaust Cinema
- Homeland
- Hong Kong Cinema
- Horror-Comedy
- Hsiao-Hsien, Hou
- Hungarian Cinema
- Icelandic Cinema
- Immigration and Cinema
- Indigenous Media
- Industrial, Educational, and Instructional Television and ...
- Invasion of the Body Snatchers
- Iranian Cinema
- Irish Cinema
- Israeli Cinema
- It Happened One Night
- Italian Americans in Cinema and Media
- Italian Cinema
- Japanese Cinema
- Jazz Singer, The
- Jews in American Cinema and Media
- Keaton, Buster
- King Kong
- Kitano, Takeshi
- Korean Cinema
- Kracauer, Siegfried
- Kubrick, Stanley
- Lang, Fritz
- Latin American Cinema
- Latina/o Americans in Film and Television
- Lee, Ang
- Lee, Chang-dong
- Lee, Spike
- Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and Queer (LGBTQ) Cin...
- Lord of the Rings Trilogy, The
- Los Angeles and Cinema
- Lubitsch, Ernst
- Lumet, Sidney
- Lupino, Ida
- Lynch, David
- Mad Men
- Marker, Chris
- Martel, Lucrecia
- Marxism
- Masculinity in Film
- Media, Community
- Media Ecology
- Melodrama
- Memory and the Flashback in Cinema
- Metz, Christian
- Mexican Film
- Micheaux, Oscar
- Ming-liang, Tsai
- Minnelli, Vincente
- Miyazaki, Hayao
- Méliès, Georges
- Modernism and Film
- Monroe, Marilyn
- Mészáros, Márta
- Music and Cinema, Classical Hollywood
- Music and Cinema, Global Practices
- Music, Television
- Music Video
- Musicals
- Musicals on Television
- Narrative
- Native Americans
- New Media Art
- New Media Policy
- New Media Theory
- New York City and Cinema
- New Zealand Cinema
- Opera and Film
- Ophuls, Max
- Orphan Films
- Oshima, Nagisa
- Ozu, Yasujiro
- Panh, Rithy
- Pasolini, Pier Paolo
- Passion of Joan of Arc, The
- Peckinpah, Sam
- Pedagogy
- Philosophy and Film
- Photography and Cinema
- Pickford, Mary
- Planet of the Apes
- Poems, Novels, and Plays About Film
- Poitier, Sidney
- Polanski, Roman
- Polish Cinema
- Politics, Hollywood and
- Pop, Blues, and Jazz in Film
- Pornography
- Postcolonial Theory in Film
- Potter, Sally
- Prime Time Drama
- Psycho
- Queer Television
- Queer Theory
- Race and Cinema
- Radio and Sound Studies
- Ray, Nicholas
- Ray, Satyajit
- Reality Television
- Reenactment in Cinema and Media
- Regulation, Television
- Religion and Film
- Remakes, Sequels and Prequels
- Renoir, Jean
- Repo Man
- Resnais, Alain
- Romanian Cinema
- Romantic Comedy, American
- Rossellini, Roberto
- Russian Cinema
- Saturday Night Live
- Scandinavian Cinema
- Scorsese, Martin
- Scott, Ridley
- Searchers, The
- Seinfeld
- Sennett, Mack
- Sesame Street
- Shakespeare on Film
- Silent Film
- Simpsons, The
- Singin’ in the Rain
- Sirk, Douglas
- Soap Operas
- Social Class
- Social Media
- Social Problem Films
- Soderbergh, Steven
- Sound Design, Film
- Sound, Film
- Spanish Cinema
- Spanish-Language Television
- Spielberg, Steven
- Sports and Media
- Sports in Film
- Stand-Up Comedians
- Star Trek
- Star Wars
- Stardom
- Stop-Motion Animation
- Streaming Television
- Sturges, Preston
- Surrealism and Film
- Taiwanese Cinema
- Talk Shows
- Tarantino, Quentin
- Tarkovsky, Andrei
- Television Audiences
- Television Celebrity
- Television, History of
- Television Industry, American
- Theater and Film
- Theory, Cognitive Film
- Theory, Critical Media
- Theory, Feminist Film
- Theory, Film
- Theory, Trauma
- Touch of Evil
- Transnational and Diasporic Cinema
- Trinh, T. Minh-ha
- Truffaut, François
- Turkish Cinema
- Twilight Zone, The
- Twin Peaks
- Varda, Agnès
- Vertigo
- Vertov, Dziga
- Video and Computer Games
- Video Installation
- Violence and Cinema
- Virtual Reality
- Visconti, Luchino
- Von Sternberg, Josef
- Von Stroheim, Erich
- von Trier, Lars
- War Film
- Warhol, The Films of Andy
- Waters, John
- Wayne, John
- Weerasethakul, Apichatpong
- Weir, Peter
- Welles, Orson
- Whedon, Joss
- Whiteness
- Wilder, Billy
- Williams, John
- Wire, The
- Wiseman, Frederick
- Wizard of Oz, The
- Women and Film
- Women and the Silent Screen
- Wong, Anna May
- Wong, Kar-wai
- Woo, John
- Wood, Natalie
- Yimou, Zhang
- YouTube
- Yugoslav and Post-Yugoslav Cinema
- Zinnemann, Fred
- Zombies in Cinema and Media