About the Book

European cinema has always been loosely associated with a certain sensibility, a fleeting yet recognizable European "structure of feeling." Over the last twenty years, the debate over the identity of European cinema has shifted its focus from the question "What is the identity of European cinema?" (How does it differ from other world cinemas?) to "What is European identity in cinema?" or, more specifically, "What identities are represented in European cinema?" In post-Cold War Europe, the global flow of capital and population has shifted borders, decoupled citizenship from nationality, and established a pan-European audience with a common set of concerns rather than a common culture.

This new volume in the AFI Film Readers series presents a long overdue reassessment of European cinema and film theory, and explores how a new Europe and a new European cinema have informed one another. In this collection of newly commissioned essays, established and emerging film scholars including Thomas Elsaesser, Tom Conley, Warren Buckland, and Noël Carroll, explore a wide range of topics including the philosophical origins of European film theory, the challenges it poses to dominant interpretations of realism and theatricality in cinema, inquiries into the "Europeanness" of European film theory, its relationship with contemporary politics and culture, and the "culture wars" between Continental and Analytical film theory.