View source for Marxist film theory

{{Short description|Form of film theory concerning Marxism}}
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{{Marxism|Aspects}}
'''Marxist film theory''' is an approach to [[film theory]] centered on concepts that make a political understanding of the medium possible. <ref>Mike Wayne (ed.), ''Understanding Film: Marxist Perspectives'', Pluto Press, 2005, p. 24.</ref>{{FV|date=December 2023|reason=Cited source never references "Marxist film theory"}} An individual studying a Marxist representation in a film, might take special interest in its representations of [[Social stratification|political hierarchy]] and [[Social justice|social injustices]].<ref>{{Cite web |date=2014-08-27 |title=Marxist Theory on Films |url=https://www.filmtheory.org/marxist-theory-on-films/ |access-date=2025-03-04 |website=Film Theory |language=en-US}}</ref>

== Overview ==
[[Sergei Eisenstein]] and many other Soviet filmmakers in the 1920s expressed ideas of [[Marxism]] through film. The [[Hegelian dialectic]] was considered best displayed in film editing through the [[Kuleshov Experiment]] and the development of [[Soviet montage theory|montage]].<ref>{{Cite book |last=Shlapentokh |first=Dmitry |doi=10.4324/9780429338670 |title=Soviet Cinematography 1918–1991 |last2=Shlapentokh |first2=Vladimir |date=2021-12-08 |publisher=Routledge |isbn=978-0-429-33867-0 |location=New York}}</ref> While this [[structuralism|structuralist]] approach to Marxism and filmmaking was used, the more outspoken complaint that the Russian filmmakers had, was with the [[Literary technique|narrative]] structure of the [[United States cinema]].{{citation needed|date=December 2023}}

Eisenstein's solution was to shun narrative structure by eliminating the individual [[protagonist]] and tell stories where the action is moved by the group and the story is told through a clash of one image against the next (whether in composition, motion, or idea) so that the audience is never lulled into believing that they are watching something that has not been worked over.<ref name=":0">{{Cite book |last=Bordwell |first=David |title=The Cinema of Eisenstein |date=2020-10-08 |publisher=Routledge |isbn=978-1-003-07080-1 |location=New York |doi=10.4324/9781003070801/cinema-eisenstein-david-bordwell}}</ref> Eisenstein himself was accused by the Soviet authorities under [[Joseph Stalin]] of "formalist error", of highlighting form as a thing of beauty instead of portraying the worker nobly.<ref name=":0" />

French Marxist film makers, such as [[Jean-Luc Godard]], employed radical editing and choice of subject matter as well as subversive parody to heighten class consciousness and promote Marxist ideas.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Godard: Images, Sounds, Politics |url=https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1352825.Godard |access-date=2024-04-22 |website=Goodreads |language=en}}</ref> [[Situationist International|Situationist]] film maker [[Guy Debord]], author of ''[[The Society of the Spectacle]]'', began his film ''In girum imus nocte et consumimur igni'' with a radical critique of the spectator who goes to the cinema to forget about their dispossessed daily life.{{citation needed|date=December 2023}} Situationist film makers produced a number of important films, where the only contribution by the situationist film cooperative was the sound-track.  In ''[[Can dialectics break bricks?]]'' (1973), a [[Media of the People's Republic of China|Chinese]] [[Kung Fu]] film was transformed by redubbing into an epistle on [[state capitalism]] and [[Proletarian]] revolution. The intellectual technique of using capitalism's own structures against itself is known as [[détournement]].{{citation needed|date=December 2023}}

== See also ==
* [[Karl Marx in film]]
* [[Screen theory]], a Marxist-psychoanalytic film theory associated with the British journal ''[[Screen (journal)|Screen]]'' in the 1970s

== References ==
{{reflist}}

== Bibliography ==
* {{cite journal|last=Forsyth|first=Scott|year=1997|url=https://socialistregister.com/index.php/srv/article/view/5692|title=Marxism, Film and Theory: From the Barricades to Postmodernism|journal=[[Socialist Register]]|volume=33|pages=265–287|issn=0081-0606}}
* {{Cite book|first=Anne|last=Kornbluh|year=2019|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=SLGRDwAAQBAJ|title=Marxist Film Theory and Fight Club|publisher=[[Bloomsbury Academic]]|isbn=9781501347320}}
* {{cite book | last=James | first=David E. | title=Allegories of Cinema | publisher=Princeton Univ. Press | publication-place=Princeton, N.J | date=1989 | isbn=978-0-691-04755-3 | author-link = David E. James }}

{{Filmstudies}}

[[Category:Marxist theory]]
[[Category:Film theory]]


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