Ian Aitken – författare

European Film Theory and Cinema explores the major film theories and movements within European cinema since the early 1900s. An original and critically astute study, it considers film theory within the context of the intellectual climate of the last two centuries. Ian Aitkin focuses particularly on the two major traditions that dominate European film theory and cinema: the "intuitionist modernist and realist" tradition and the "post-Saussurian" tradition. The first originates in a philosophical lineage that encompasses German idealist philosophy, romanticism, phenomenology, and the Frankfurt School. Early intuitionist modernist film culture and later theories and practices of cinematic realism are shown to be part of one continuous tradition. The post-Saussurian tradition includes semiotics, structuralism, and post-structuralism.

Documentary film is cinema’s oldest form, dating back to the medium’s invention at the turn of twentieth century. From cinema’s earliest days, important documentary films and film-makers have emerged continuously and, today, interest in documentary film remains substantial, and is rapidly growing. Standing conferences have been instituted, and new scholarly journals and festivals devoted to the genre are blossoming. Indeed, documentary film culture flourishes, particularly in the developing world and in non-democratic states. China’s burgeoning underground documentary film movement, for example, has garnered much critical attention in recent years.Documentary Film is a new title in Routledge’s Major Works series, Critical Concepts in Media and Cultural Studies. It meets the need for an authoritative reference work to enable users to navigate and make sense of the subject’s large literature and the continuing explosion in research output. Compiled by Ian Aitken (who also edited Routledge’s landmark Encyclopedia of the Documentary Film (2006)), this collection brings together in four volumes the foundational and the very best cutting-edge scholarship on documentary film.Documentary Film includes a full index and comprehensive introductions, newly written by the editor, which place the collected material in its historical and intellectual context. It is an essential work of reference and is destined to be valued by scholars and advanced students as a vital research tool.

The Concise Routledge Encyclopedia of the Documentary Film is a fully international reference work on the history of the documentary film from the Lumière brothers' Workers Leaving the Lumière Factory (1885) to Michael Moore's Fahrenheit 911 (2004). Previously published in three volumes, entries have been edited and updated for the new, concise edition and three new entries have been added on: India, China and Africa. The Concise Routledge Encyclopedia of the Documentary Film:Discusses individual films and filmmakers including little-known filmmakers from countries such as India, Bosnia, China and others Examines the documentary filmmaking traditions within nations and regions, or within historical periods in places such as Iran, Brazil, Portugal, and JapanExplores themes, issues, and representations in documentary film including human rights, modernism, homosexuality, and World War I, as well as types of documentary film such as newsreels and educational filmsElaborates on production companies, organizations, festivals, and institutions such as the American Film Institute, Ceylon Tea Propaganda Board, Hot Docs (Toronto), and the World Union of DocumentaryDescribes styles, techniques, and technical issues such as animation, computer imaging, editing techniques, IMAX, music, and spoken commentaryBringing together all aspects of documentary film, this accessible concise edition provides an invaluable resource for both scholars and students. With film stills from key films, this resource provides the decisive entry point into the history of an art form.

Best known for his documentaries such as Drifters, North Sea, and Housing Problems, John Grierson was the most important figure in the British documentary film movement and one of the most influential of British film theorists.This major assessment of Grierson and the documentary film movement examines the intellectual and aesthetic influences on his work, focusing on the material he produced in the inter-war years and comparing the idealistic strain of Grierson’s social commentary with other social reformists such as the Next Five Years Group and writers like Orwell and Priestley. Underlining the link between film and reform, the book clarifies the meaning and significance of Grierson’s ideas and the historical role of the documentary film movement. Originally published in 1990.

‘Realist film theory and cinema’ embraces studies of cinematic realism and 19th century tradition, the realist film theories of Lukács, Grierson, Bazin and Kracauer, and the relationship of realist film theory to the general field of film theory and philosophy. This is the first book to attempt a rigorous and systematic application of realist film theory to the analysis of particular films.The book suggests new ways forward for a new series of studies in cinematic realism, and for a new form of film theory based on realism. It stresses the importance of the question of realism both in film studies and in contemporary life.Aitken’s work will be of interest to scholars and advanced students of film studies, literary studies, media studies, cultural studies and philosophy.

Lukácsian film theory and cinema explores Georg Lukács’ writings on film. The Hungarian Marxist critic Georg Lukács is primarily known as a literary theorist, but he also wrote extensively on the cinema. These writings have remained little known in the English-speaking world because the great majority of them have never actually been translated into English – until now. Aitken has gathered together the most important essays and the translations appear here, often for the first time.This book thus makes a decisive contribution to understandings of Lukács within the field of film studies, and, in doing so, also challenges many existing preconceptions concerning his theoretical position. For example, whilst Lukács’ literary theory is well known for its repudiation of naturalism, in his writings on film Lukács appears to advance a theory and practice of film that can best be described as naturalist.Lukácsian film theory and cinema is divided into two parts. In part one, Lukács’ writings on film are explored, and placed within relevant historical and intellectual contexts, whilst part two consists of the essays themselves.This book will be of considerable interest to scholars and students working within the fields of film studies, literary studies, intellectual history, media and cultural studies. It is also intended to be the final volume in a trilogy of works on cinematic realism, which includes the author’s earlier European film theory and cinema (2001), and Realist film theory and cinema (2006).

Described as the ‘lost genre’, the tradition of documentary film making in Hong Kong is far less known than its martial arts films. However documentary film has always existed in Hong Kong and often trenchantly represents its troubled relationship to itself, China and the west.Including the period of colonial film-making, the high points of television documentary and the tradition of independent documentary film-making, this book is the first to present a comprehensive study of this lost genre. It explores the role of public-service television (including representations of the massacre at Tiananmen Square) and presents critical analysis of key films. Based on original archival research, it will be an invaluable resource for students and academics who work in the fields if film studies, colonial studies and Hong Kong cinema.

This book explores the ways in which the British official film was used in Malaya/Malaysia, Singapore and Hong Kong from 1945 to the 1970s. Aitken uncovers how the British official film, and British official information agencies, adapted to the epochal contexts of the Cold War and end of empire. In addition to an extensive introduction, which touches on a number of critical issues related to the post-war British official film, the book provides an account of how the tradition of film-making associated with the British documentary film movement spread into the region during the post-war period, and how that tradition was contested by a ‘Colonial Office’ tradition of film-making. The volume concludes by covering the rise of television in the region within the context of developing post-colonial authoritarian states in Singapore and Malaysia, and the continuation of colonial authoritarianism in Hong Kong.

The Concise Routledge Encyclopedia of the Documentary Film is a fully international reference work on the history of the documentary film from the Lumière brothers' Workers Leaving the Lumière Factory (1885) to Michael Moore's Fahrenheit 911 (2004). Previously published in three volumes, entries have been edited and updated for the new, concise edition and three new entries have been added on: India, China and Africa. The Concise Routledge Encyclopedia of the Documentary Film:Discusses individual films and filmmakers including little-known filmmakers from countries such as India, Bosnia, China and others Examines the documentary filmmaking traditions within nations and regions, or within historical periods in places such as Iran, Brazil, Portugal, and JapanExplores themes, issues, and representations in documentary film including human rights, modernism, homosexuality, and World War I, as well as types of documentary film such as newsreels and educational filmsElaborates on production companies, organizations, festivals, and institutions such as the American Film Institute, Ceylon Tea Propaganda Board, Hot Docs (Toronto), and the World Union of DocumentaryDescribes styles, techniques, and technical issues such as animation, computer imaging, editing techniques, IMAX, music, and spoken commentaryBringing together all aspects of documentary film, this accessible concise edition provides an invaluable resource for both scholars and students. With film stills from key films, this resource provides the decisive entry point into the history of an art form.

Best known for his documentaries such as Drifters, North Sea, and Housing Problems, John Grierson was the most important figure in the British documentary film movement and one of the most influential of British film theorists.This major assessment of Grierson and the documentary film movement examines the intellectual and aesthetic influences on his work, focusing on the material he produced in the inter-war years and comparing the idealistic strain of Grierson’s social commentary with other social reformists such as the Next Five Years Group and writers like Orwell and Priestley. Underlining the link between film and reform, the book clarifies the meaning and significance of Grierson’s ideas and the historical role of the documentary film movement. Originally published in 1990.

World, Time, Film addresses the issue of how film represents reality through a focus on ‘philosophical realist’ theory, adopting an ‘externalist’ position in relation to cognition, arguing that what is environmentally external shapes what is internally cognitive.The book begins by exploring relation between subject and world in relation to the concept of Umwelt, and then by covering revisions of that concept. French naturalist and realist traditions of art and film are explored in relation to this. The book then applies ideas drawn from extended mind theory to an understanding of the relation between minded subject and world, and to issues of time and temporal experience.Each theory chapter is followed by a linked chapter applying the theory to film, making this one of the first books to apply concepts and theories drawn from philosophical realism and externalism to film in a systematic manner.

From the 1910s to the emergence of structuralism and post-structuralism in the 1960s, the writings of John Grierson, Siegfried Kracauer, André Bazin and Georg Lukács dominated realist film theory. In this critical anthology, the first collection to address their work in one volume, a wide range of international scholars explore the interconnections between their ideas and help generate new understandings of this important, if neglected, field. Challenging preconceptions about ‘classical’ theory and the nature of realist representation, and in the process demonstrating how this body of work can be seen as a cohesive theoretical model, this invaluable collection will help return the realist paradigm of film theory to the forefront of academic enquiry.

Described as the ‘lost genre’, the tradition of documentary film making in Hong Kong is far less known than its martial arts films. However documentary film has always existed in Hong Kong and often trenchantly represents its troubled relationship to itself, China and the west.Including the period of colonial film-making, the high points of television documentary and the tradition of independent documentary film-making, this book is the first to present a comprehensive study of this lost genre. It explores the role of public-service television (including representations of the massacre at Tiananmen Square) and presents critical analysis of key films. Based on original archival research, it will be an invaluable resource for students and academics who work in the fields if film studies, colonial studies and Hong Kong cinema.

Based on rare archival documents and films, this anthology is the first to focus primarily on the use of official and colonial documentary films in the South and South-East Asian regions. Drawing together a range of international scholars, the book sheds new light on historical, theoretical and empirical issues pertaining to the documentary film, in order to better comprehend the significant transformations of the form in the colonial, late colonial and immediate post-colonial period. Covering diverse geographical and colonial contexts in countries like Singapore, Malaysia, the Philippines and Hong Kong, and focusing on under-researched or little-known films, it demonstrate the complex set of relations between the colonisers and the colonised throughout the region.

Based on rare archival documents and films, this anthology is the first to focus primarily on the use of official and colonial documentary films in the South and South-East Asian regions. Drawing together a range of international scholars, the book sheds new light on historical, theoretical and empirical issues pertaining to the documentary film, in order to better comprehend the significant transformations of the form in the colonial, late colonial and immediate post-colonial period. Covering diverse geographical and colonial contexts in countries like Singapore, Malaysia, the Philippines and Hong Kong, and focusing on under-researched or little-known films, it demonstrate the complex set of relations between the colonisers and the colonised throughout the region.

The issue of cinematic realism is important because the issue of realism, of the relationship between representation and reality, is important. If some forms of representation are closer to reality – however defined – than others, then this may also be the case with forms of filmic representation. In this book, Ian Aitken links the issue of cinematic realism to important questions concerning human experience, analysing the close similarity between the film image and visual perception, and how different theories of realism have sought to uncover the way film’s relation to reality can be understood.Focusing on the writings of Georg Lukács and Siegfried Kracauer, Cinematic Realism is a comprehensive exploration of cinematic realist theory.

The issue of cinematic realism is important because the issue of realism, of the relationship between representation and reality, is important. If some forms of representation are closer to reality however defined than others, then this may also be the case with forms of filmic representation. In this book, Ian Aitken links the issue of cinematic realism to important questions concerning human experience, analysing the close similarity between the film image and visual perception, and how different theories of realism have sought to uncover the way film's relation to reality can be understood.Focusing on the writings of Georg Lukacs and Siegfried Kracauer, Cinematic Realism is a comprehensive exploration of cinematic realist theory.