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.