Editing Film theory (section)

{{Short description|Conceptual frameworks for understanding the nature of cinema}}
{{for|the YouTube channel Film Theory|MatPat}}
'''Film theory''' is a set of scholarly approaches within the [[academic]] [[discipline]] of [[film studies|film or cinema studies]] that began in the 1920s by questioning the formal [[essentialism|essential attributes]] of [[film|motion pictures]];<ref>Gledhill, Christine; and Justine Flores, Andrei Bobis, Rovin Macatangay editors. ''Reinventing Film Studies''. Arnold & Oxford University Press, 2000.</ref> and that now provides conceptual frameworks for understanding [[film]]'s relationship to [[reality]], the other [[art]]s, individual viewers, and [[society]] at large.<ref>Mast, Gerald; and Marshall Cohen, editors. <u>Film Theory and Criticism: Introductory Readings, Third Edition.</u>Oxford University Press, 1985.</ref> Film theory is not to be confused with general [[film criticism]], or [[film history]], though these three disciplines interrelate. Although some branches of film theory are derived from [[linguistics]] and [[literary theory]],<ref>Pieter Jacobus Fourie (ed.), ''Media Studies: Content, audiences, and production'', Juta, 2001, p. 195.</ref> it also originated and overlaps with the [[philosophy of film]].<ref>[http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/film "Philosophy of Film" by Thomas Wartenberg – first published 2004; substantive revision m 2008. ''Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy''].</ref>