Introduction

Summary

This volume is a collection of some of my critical analyses of selected films and videoworks – what I call moving images. Written between 1971 and 1990, most of these essays (though not all) are of the nature of what is often called “close readings.” This is not a label that I endorse, since I do not think that film is a language, and hence I do not believe that films are read (closely or otherwise). Thus, I prefer to say that these articles are close analyses of individual films (where “close” is meant to signal an attention to detail).

My inclination to approach films in this way undoubtedly reflects the concerns that attended my entry into the field of film studies. And though I no longer believe all of the things that predisposed me toward close analysis back then, perhaps the best way to begin to introduce these essays is to remind readers of some of the prejudices that influenced me, and people like me, when I started studying film professionally.

That began in 1970 when I enrolled in the Cinema Studies Department at New York University. The NYU department was, at that time, in the process of having its Ph.D. program accredited. The NYU program was one of the first of its kind in the United States – an academic department of film history and theory, without a practical filmmaking wing.