ABSTRACT
Noël Carroll (1947– ) is one of the most influential philosophers of art of his generation. He has PhDs in both film studies and philosophy and has written about many topics in aesthetics in addition to film, including other arts, such as literature and dance, as well as more general topics, such as the definition of art. Although his work is influential and frequently discussed in the realm of analytic aesthetics, it has been harshly criticized or ignored in much of the mainstream film studies community, due to Carroll's rejection of theories commonly utilized in that field. His early work focuses on critiques of previous film theorists, including continental theorists who dominated film studies in the 1970s and 1980s. By Carroll's own admission, his goal is to sweep the table clean of these theories and encourage new film scholars to take a wholly different approach. In Post-Theory (coedited with David Bordwell), Carroll criticizes film scholars for their use of large-scale or “Grand” theories, such as Lacanian psychoanalysis and Althussarian Marxism. He argues that these theories are usually taken as axiomatic and their frameworks are used to generate film interpretations rather than to investigate the validity of the theories themselves. Carroll also argues that these “Grand” theories have several problems per se. First, they are not only essentialist but also have “every indication of being false” (Bordwell and Carroll 1996: 39). Second, they are used dogmatically to exclude broad areas of inquiry from film studies. Finally, they conflate film theorizing with film interpretation (albeit interpretation laden with “theoretically derived jargon”), whereas the two are distinctly different activities.
