Screen theory

Screen theory is a Marxist-psychoanalytic film theory associated with the British journal Screen in the 1970s.

The theoreticians of the "screen theory" approach — Colin MacCabe, Stephen Heath and Laura Mulvey — describe the "cinematic apparatus" as a version of Althusser's Ideological State Apparatus (ISA). According to screen theory, it is the spectacle that creates the spectator and not the other way round. The fact that the subject is created and subjected at the same time by the narrative on screen is masked by the apparent realism of the communicated content.

Screen theory origin's can be traced to the essay's "Mirror Stage" by Lacan and Miller's "Suture: Elements of the Logic of the Signifier".

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