ABSTRACT
Proposing that we conceptualize the cinematic frame in terms of the processes it enacts rather than its formal or material properties, this chapter explores how an expansive notion of framing as a process of organization and delimitation can be traced across the history of film theory. The chapter maps the ways in which a range of prominent conceptualizations of cinematic organization and delimitation have taken shape within diverse social, historical, and cinematic contexts and in dialogue with a broader interdisciplinary discourse on frames and framing. Such mapping reveals various ways in which formal and material modes of cinematic organization and delimitation have long been imbricated with psychic and social forms of organization and delimitation.
