Abstract

What is the current state of film studies? How do you enter this field from a media studies background? Is it worthwhile for media scholars to engage in this neighboring field? Can you get a grasp of the key issues, theoretical currents, and analytical approaches consulting a limited number of publications? I will try to answer these questions in an extensive review essay on four fairly recent film studies books. The (British and American) books approach the field on different levels. Two introductory textbooks supply the basics for beginning students. An anthology of ‘classical’ texts provides an overview of the various theoretical and methodological currents. And a reader with key figures in the field offers state of the art research in search of ‘really useful theory’. This material is of great interest to media studies scholars. As the authors of the books considered here acknowledge, film studies can no longer afford to ignore its interdisciplinary location, intersecting with neighboring disciplines such as media studies and cultural studies, in an engagement with film as popular and mass culture.