Introduction

Abstract

Deleuze concludes his two volumes on cinema with a short reflection on the relationship between film and theory. He argues that ‘a theory of cinema is not about cinema, but about the concepts that cinema gives rise to and which are themselves related to other concepts’ (Deleuze 1989: 280). In this brief statement we find a comment that summarises one of the most significant turns that film theory has taken in recent times. These theoretical developments have become more focused on the idea that what resonates in cinema is far more than the elements of the films themselves, and to understand what cinema is, and how it operates, we must turn to these wider issues.