在宏大理論外思索電影研究

電影理論是電影研究的重要組成部分，但對它的思考可以有很多種。 我們一則可以認為它是取材自有關社會、政治、文化或人類心志理論 的一套信念，然後再將這套信念應用到電影的特定領域，姑且可稱其為『宏大理論』，或可把它叫做一個空降方法。但如果我們將理論建構 視為一種活動，一種以電影的普遍性所提出的問題的推演，我們可能 會取得更大的進展。這種方式是從我們自身所熟悉的特定事物出發，然後在回答所提出問題的時候引入各種對立的框架。這是一種比較中間層面的方法，沒有失去理論構想，但運用的概念是緊緊圍繞電影的 具體問題。 David Bordwell, the most cited film scholar in English, Chinese, French, Danish and many other languages, has been a regular visitor to the Hong Kong International Film Festival since the early 1990s. This year we had the opportunity to talk to him about the formation of film studies as a recognized academic discipline in the United States. We discussed the subject’s later diffusion driven by the “grand theory” of psychoanalysis, structural linguistics, neo-Marxism, feminism, queer theory, and cultural studies in the humanities. Instead of paying heed to the top-down model of grand theory, Bordwell suggested we take a different approach and see it as an accumulative, “progressive” intellectual undertaking. This progressive undertaking organizes itself around a problem-based agenda that seeks answers to clarify key issues in film as a communicative and industrial enterprise.