Högskolan i Skövde

This book revisits cinema from a Marxist perspective, which has been marginalised by mainstream film studies for over three decades. It argues that the supposed ‘end of history’, marked by the comprehensive triumph of capitalism and the ‘end of cinema’, calls for revisiting Marx’s writings in order to analyse film theories, histories and practices.  It pays particular attention to the phenomena, which were previously rarely tackled from a Marxist perspective, such as classical Hollywood cinema and amateur filmmaking.  The authors examine such aspects of film as the use of humour, the problem of adaptation and translation, the relationship between sound and image and the use of music and silence in film. Apart from Marx, they refer to the works of Benjamin, Bloch, Adorno, Brecht, Rancière, Hardt and Negri, Sviták and Kosík, to name just a few. In common with Marx, they also argue for combining theory with history and practice.