This book proposes an interpretive strategy by which religious film-analysts can develop the kind of analysis that engages with and critiques both cultural and religious practice. In their study of religion and film, religious film-analysts have tended to privilege religion. Uniquely, this study treats the two disciplines as genuine equals, by regarding both liturgy and film as representational media. Steve Nolan argues that, in each case, subjects identify with a represented 'other' which joins them into a narrative where they become participants in an ideological 'reality'. Finding many current approaches to religious film-analysis lacking, "Film, Lacan and the Subject of Film" explores the film theory other writers ignore, particularly that mix of psychoanalysis, Marxism and semiotics - often termed Screen theory - that attempts to understand how cinematic representation shapes spectator identity.
Using translations and commentary on Lacan not originally available to Screen theorists, Nolan returns to Lacan's contribution to psychoanalytic film theory and offers a sustained application to religious practice, examining several 'priest films' and real-life case study to expose the way liturgical representation shapes religious identity. "Film, Lacan and the Subject of Film" proposes an interpretive strategy by which religious film-analysts can develop the kind of analysis that engages with and critiques both cultural and religious practice.
- ISBN10 082642760X
- ISBN13 9780826427601
- Publish Date 23 July 2009 (first published 1 January 2009)
- Publish Status Active
- Publish Country GB
- Publisher Bloomsbury Publishing PLC
- Imprint Continuum International Publishing Group Ltd.
- Format Hardcover
- Pages 232
- Language English