Reflections on The Cinema Hypothesis: A response to Alain Bergala

Abstract

This article engages in debate with Alain Bergala's The Cinema Hypothesis. It selects four topics for discussion. The article agrees with Bergala's arguments for the importance of (film) art in education as a productively subversive practice, and that engagement with film should be a creative process, in the viewing and interpretation of film as well as in film-making. It disputes Bergala's opposition to language-isms, arguing for the value of multimodal semiotics as a way for students to understand the structures of the moving image. It also disputes Bergala's efforts to insulate film from other media, arguing that, in a world of proliferating transmedia narrative, educators and students benefit from exploring representations and structures between and across media.