An analysis of the logic of film criticism with special reference to film study courses in schools

The distinctive concepts, relationships between concepts, criteria and procedures for judgement-making which constitute the logic of film criticism have been left largely unexplored. As a consequence, film critics and film teachers, lacking an understanding of the distinot body of concepts and procedures characteristic of this form of discourse, have been unable to offer convincing justifications for critical judgements on the one hand, and f o r the belief that film study i s properly an educational activity on the other. In each case, factors or principles extrinsic to the internal logic of film criticism have been offered as justifications. It is shown that the search for justifications for both aesthetic and educational judgements which appeal to necessary formal or moral principles, or to the consequences believed to follow from an experiencing of films, cannot withstand analysis. A critical scourse in the arts i s properly effected by presenting descriptions of the works, expressed i n terms of, and justified with reference to, those concepts and criteriadistinctive of the form of art i n question. It is argued that the work of the English film critic, Robin Wood, and some recent semiological studies on the nature of meaning i n films, represent the beginnings of a clarification of the logic of film criticism. The matter is of central importance to the form and purpose of film study courses. If, to be counted as educational, an activity must be concerned with judgements publicly testable for truth or appropriateness, and if such judgements can occur only within the logical structure of a form of knowledge or discourse, then film teaching can properly be termed educational only if film study courses are informed by an understanding of the logic of film criticism. It follows then that Robin Wood's criticism and the small body of semiological work at present available could well serve as the source of this understanding