Laura Murray: The End of Film Studies?

Laura Murray: The End of Film Studies?

I will be accused of sensationalism for this headline, but I plead not guilty. In a fascinating position paper on copyright, the Film Studies Association of Canada explains how their discipline arose relatively recently, when the videocassette made widespread and repeated access to films possible. Before that, detailed analysis of films was very difficult, because once films left theatres they effectively disappeared. But the VCR allowed people to play the same scene over and over, attending to minute detail the way only music scholars and literary scholars had been able to do before. Digital technologies have continued this process. As FSAC says, “We are able to move quickly from one image to another, allowing for effective comparisons and contrasts to be made, encouraging students to become even more discerning in their critical analyses of visual material.” Copying and format shifting allow for multimedia media analysis, where the “quotes” appear alongside the critique. Universities and their students spend a lot of money on films and equipment in order to do such work.