Crit. and Theory.......

Attending a party this weekend, i ran into a couple of philosophy students. Both grads, one is (or was) a teacher's assistant for a 'philosophy in film' course (which unfortunately was never offered when i needed credits for my minor). Upon questioning him on assigned viewings, the words "film theory" came out of his mouth. I inquired more, stating my personal investment in the subject. However, he never spoke beyond this term, as if film theory was a definable practice that could be imparted in fifty words or less, rather than an ongoing discourse. Merely alluding to it, in my mind, conveyed nothing. Now, keg parties are not the kind of venues where one should be confrontational, nor does one have the mental capacity to deliberate, let alone construct a coherent sentence, (groups of drunken studious types tend to speak in maxims whilst grinning at one another) so I let it drop. [I was annoyed anyway, hearing how they spoke about their undergrads.]

I was considering, in agreement with Eagleton's essay, if film theory, like literature, is merely (to quote Barthes) "what gets taught." Thinking about it further, I can't get the assumption out of head that what this philosophy student was really talking about was "film criticism" (in his case, critics citing continental philosophy and applying it to particular filmic texts) and not film theory at all, of which there is also, like literary theory, no "pure" form. That is, any argument on how the medium functions nor how it is interpreted gets sidestepped by theories circulating outside of the medium, in part because there are so many strategies that can be applied. [sociology, anthropology, physics, optics, historical, socio-historical, psychoanalytic, feminist, gender, race and post-colonial theories, semiotics...............................]

Reflecting on current readings (Bill Nichols' Blurred Boundaries, in particular) there are times when i have to discern between theoretical and outright polemical statements, or rather, distinguishing between expert knowledge and educated opinion. This leads me to certain questions: Understanding that there is hardly a sharp difference, what are the key distinctions between "doing theory" and "doing criticism"? Is it simply a question of magnitude?

Let's discuss.