Clayton George Wickham - final thesis

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neoformalists attempt to place onto a reading of the text. But with McCabe’s vocal
identification with and application of Marxist criticism and “theory”, it is difficult
not to make a similar accusation of him. The difference here is that McCabe and the
theorists, particularly sociopolitical theorists, use their ideology to deconstruct a text,
where neoformalists use their ideology to choose their methodology – a
methodology which attempts to view a film without an ideological tint, and
understand the film by an observation of its mechanics.
Additionally, theorists appear to consider ideological analyses key to
considering questions of value. See McCabe’s more recent statement: “It is of
course the case that there are a variety of sociological and formal enquiries, from
Moretti’s distant readings to Bordwell and Thomson’s (sic.) statistical analysis of
classic Hollywood, which must, by their very methodology, ignore questions of
value.” (McCabe 2011; 9) [parentheses mine] This is not only contrary to the
writing of Bordwell, for example 4 , but Berliner’s monograph is wholly dedicated to
observing form in order to understand why films are valued. As Berliner points out
in Hollywood Incoherent “if Francis Ford Coppola could take a book by Mario Puzo
commonly regarded as pulp (even by Puzo) and, with minimal thematic changes,
turn it into what most commentators and filmgoers consider one of the best movies
of the decade, then ideology and social relevance cannot be fundamental to artistic
value.” (17) [parentheses in original]
What I find, to this point, to be the most scathing indictment of formalism can
be found in Matthew Flisfeder’s work on Žižek’s theory of film. While Flisfeder
evokes the cognitivist work of Carroll and Prince (2012; 36-39), the main source of
4 See Bordwell’s blog entry Unsteadicam Chronicles, where he observes the formal qualities of The
Bourne Ultimatum (2007; dir. Greengrass) as an intensification of the elements of intensified
continuity, and compares it to other texts to place a value judgement upon the film