Videographic film studies and the analysis of camera movement

Although camera movement is universally acknowledged as a crucial cinematographic operation, the discipline of film studies has had trouble approaching it as a theoretical subject. Compared to montage, which establishes a firm and explicit sense of relation, camera movement implies flowing developments, gradual and continual shifts that are difficult to describe and interpret. This article argues that the emerging practice of videographic film studies as championed by Kevin B. Lee and others opens up new ways of dealing with this phenomenon. With its capacities to display movement and comment on it at the same time, but also by simultaneously showing different shots and sequences, the juxtaposition of moving imaging as an epistemic and aesthetic gesture now appears on the scene.