Cinema and Spectatorship is the first book to focus on the history and roleof the spectator in contemporary film studies. Judith Mayne examines howspectatorship... » 

Cinema and Spectatorship is the first book to focus on the history and roleof the spectator in contemporary film studies. Judith Mayne examines howspectatorship emerged in the 1970s as one of the major preoccupations of filmtheorists particularly in relation to theories of the subject drawn frompsychoanalysis and semiotics. She suggests that while 1970s film theoryinsisted on the separation between the cinematic subject and actual filmviewers interest in spectatorship has been characterized by a very realfriction between subjects and viewers. She evaluates challenges to andrevisions of 1970s theory from feminist analyses of female spectatorship tohistorical explorations of how the filmspectator relationship is shaped byparticular cultural factors.In the first section Mayne examines three theoretical models of spectatorshipthe perceptual the institutional and the historical. The second sectionpresents case studies which focus on textual analysis the disrupting genrestargazing and finally the audience itself. Specific topics include theplace of the spectator in The Picture of Dorian Gray the construction ofBette Daviss star persona fantasies of race and film viewing in Field ofDreams and Ghost and gay and lesbian audiences as critical audiences.Cinema and Spectatorship provides a thoruogh and accessible overview of thiscomplex fragmented and often controversial area of film theory. «