More on the Literature Review: The Introduction

 The Study of Surfaces:
  
    As William Rothman suggests, film is a "medium of surfaces" but one that also contains "mysterious depths, of the inner, the invisible" (xxv).  The screen marks a boundary between "reality" and cinematic representation, but that boundary blurs as film increasingly merges with popular culture and society.  Society reflects the images it sees reflected across the screen as a representation of itself, entangling the origin of societal constructs and behavior with its supposed representation.  As Guy Debord argues in the eighth point in the first chapter of his The Society of the Spectacle, reality and the image on screen are inseparable:

The spectacle cannot be abstractly contrasted to concrete social activity. Each side of such a duality is itself divided. The spectacle that falsifies reality is nevertheless a real product of that reality. Conversely, real life is materially invaded by the contemplation of the spectacle, and ends up absorbing it and aligning itself with it. Objective reality is present on both sides. Each of these seemingly fixed concepts has no other basis than its transformation into its opposite: reality emerges within the spectacle, and the spectacle is real. This reciprocal alienation is the essence and support of the existing society. (1.8)

The study of the "spectacle," then, is simultaneously a study of life.  With the birth of film criticism comes both a commentary on a mass media produced technology and "social activity."
    Rothman argues that if we are to understand film's impact on society, knowledge of film experience must be brought to "consciousness" (9).  This is the role of film criticism-to articulate what it is we experience through film.  From Rothman's perspective, the audience's response to movies has been a "mystery" since the beginning of film history (9).  In the thirties and forties, film was a prominent part of American culture, and yet public discourse about it was practically nonexistent (Rothman 9).  It wasn't until the fifties and sixties that film began to get its due and the modern American film critic finally emerged as an integral part of the movie business.

Works Cited:

Debord, Guy. The Society of the Spectacle. New York, 1994. Print.

Rothman, William. The "I" of the Camera: Essays in Film Criticism, History, and Aesthetics. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge UP, 2004. Print.