Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Hong Kong, 1999.

Thesis--New York University. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 284-292).

Thesis--University of California, Los Angeles. / Bibliography: leaves 204-208.

Thesis (M. Phil.)--University of Hong Kong, 2010. / Includes filmography and bibliographical references (leaves 137-144). Also available in print.

Thesis--University of California, Santa Cruz. / Photocopy of typescript. Ann Arbor, Mich. : University Microfilms International, 1980. -- 21 cm.

Thesis (M.S.)--University of Wisconsin--Madison, 1963. / Typescript. eContent provider-neutral record in process. Description based on print version record. Includes bibliographical references (leaves [80]-85)

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Ohio State University, 2005. / Title from first page of PDF file. Includes bibliographical references (p. 221-234).

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Ohio State University, 2005. / Available online via OhioLINK's ETD Center; full text release delayed at author's request until 2010 Nov 30

Lukacs has addressed the problem of how to portray the complete human self in relation to nineteenth-century European literature. Between the aesthetics of naturalism and psychologism, realism, he argues, represents a "true, solution-bringing third way." Naturalism fails to portray the complete human self because it depicts social being at the expense of private being; similarly but conversely, psychologism fails because it depicts private being at the expense of social being. Realism represents a solution to the problem because it renders both the social and private being of characters. Although Lukacs arrives at a notion of realism based on close readings of novels by Balzac and Tolstoy, I believe his approach can contribute to our understanding of aesthetics in the modern European cinema. Implicit in Lukacs's approach is the dialectical triad of thesis, antithesis and synthesis; naturalism and psychologism are synthesized to produce realism. I adopt the form but not the content of this triplicity in order to argue that various realisms in the modern European cinema--the "neo-neorealisms" of Fellini and Pasolini, the "spiritual realism" of Bresson, the "theatrical realisms" of Godard and Fassbinder, and the "neorealistic expressionism" of Herzog--are the result of syntheses between various objective and subjective aesthetics. There is not just a realism, as Lukacs implies; nor is realism necessarily a synthesis of naturalism and psychologism. Rather, I argue that there are multiple, historically-contingent realisms, all of which are the result of syntheses between objective and subjective aesthetics--whatever those aesthetics might be. In addition, I argue that filmmakers in the modern European cinema are motivated to employ "both/and" as opposed to "either/or" aesthetics for the same reason as their nineteenth-century literary counterparts: they are striving to portray the complete human self. And yet, they are undertaking this task at a time when the notion of a complete human self is no longer theoretically tenable. Thus, in addition to considering how each filmmaker portrays (or attempts to portray) the complete human self (even if only from the standpoint of irony or nostalgia), I also consider why the notion of a complete human self is (still) compelling.

This dissertation examines the space of U.S. film criticism between 1996 and 2006 and the effects of shifting taste hierarchies and diffusion of cultural authority of critics during this time. I argue that the taste hierarchies which marked much of U.S. culture in the twentieth century - such as highbrow, middlebrow, and lowbrow - are increasingly amorphous due to transformations in art, society, and cultural evaluation since the 1960s. Film, which has always straddled high/low categories, continues to be at the center of these alterations. In the 1960s and onwards, understandings of art and mass culture became more pluralistic and views of criticism as a respected social utility declined. These changes in attitude were coupled with an increased reliance by the public on more communal and consumer-oriented forms of authority, such as box-office figures and polls. As notions of art (and film as art) were democratized, film criticism was decentralized, which contributed to the erosion in the cultural authority of film critics. I trace these permutations between 1996-2006, a time which was marked by continually renegotiated ideas of taste and an industrial increase in niche marketing and subcultural appropriation. In addition, U.S. film culture began to feel the effects of a long-simmering splintering into three distinct, often insular, and sometimes antagonistic discourses: the film industry, journalistic film reviewers, and academic critics. First, the project assesses film criticism's shifting role in the increasingly mutable bounds of cultural taste hierarchies, then details changes in the how the industry dealt with critics, and the perceived gap between the tastes of the public and that of critics. The study then examines examined how the internet engendered a democratization of film criticism by fostering a new generation of non-professional fan-critics who challenged professional critical hierarchies, while also opening up new avenues of distribution to and communication with readers for professional critics. Finally, the dissertation discusses issues of contemporary canon-making in popular and academic fields, and their impact on the idea of a collective film history.