Derrida and British film theory
pp. 184-194
in: John Brannigan, Ruth Robbins, Julian Wolfreys (eds), Applying: to Derrida, Berlin, Springer, 1996Abstract
Every version of contemporary theory has taken the form of a break with the belief that texts should be judged primarily as reflections of the real. Much the same kind of argument has had to be worked through on specific terms for each particular instance. Roland Barthes, for example, sustains a long campaign to show that the novel should not be thought of as imitating the real but rather as producing "the effect of the real". Several critics, including Norman Bryson in Vision and Painting (Bryson 1983), have discussed the Quattrocento tradition to establish that even the most life-like image ensues from specific modes of visual representation.
