[CfSD Article 2021]: Thematic Criticism and Its Fundamental Forms

The following is a slightly edited and reformatted backup of my article for the Centre for Social Development blog in 2021. I cannot find an archive of the original. I wanted to preserve it but with better wording. The original essay also used a different referencing style; I have converted it to the Harvard style to be more consistent with my other essays for this blog.

Additionally, I used Fight Club (Fincher, 1999) as one of my key examples. However, I overlooked that Renegade Cut - whose video I cited in my section on The Incredibles (Bird, 2004) - also briefly discussed the potential interpretations of Fight Club that I mentioned. In the interest of transparency and sufficient attribution, the feminist and Marxist readings of Fight Club I mentioned come from Renegade Cut.

While I otherwise present my article as published in 2021, I would not attempt to fit the different types of thematic criticism into a finite number of categories if I discussed the topic today, as such a methodology risks presenting an incomplete taxonomy as definitive.

Introduction: What is Thematic Criticism?

Room 237 (Ascher, 2012) is a documentary about the various interpretations of the horror film The Shining (Kubrick, 1980) up to and including the infamous conspiracy theories around the film’s (and Kubrick’s other films’) supposedly hidden meanings. This documentary illuminates not only the ubiquitous desire among subsets of film enthusiasts to determine what a film is “secretly (even and especially singularly) about” but also the crucial flaw in this mode of film interpretation: that a single film can express multiple meanings. A deeper and more nuanced understanding of a film requires a framework that considers more than one possible interpretation whether to debunk conflicting arguments or to dimensionalise the analysis.

What a film is about is a question that emerges all the time in film academia, film criticism, and audience discourse. When someone centres their discussion of a film (or the film’s significance) around what it is about - the “theme” - they are doing what Thomas Elsaesser and Warren Buckland call thematic criticism (Elsaesser and Buckland, 2015, p. 117-118).

Thematic criticism is (as is clear from reading Elsaesser and Buckland) complex and nuanced in ways that film academia and film criticism usually reflect, but that audience discourse sometimes - not always, sometimes - overlooks. A thematic analysis can take several forms that, to varying degrees, manifest in all discourse surrounding film themes. Here, I offer definitions of three basic forms of thematic analysis, which I call mono-thematic, poly-thematic and contra-thematic.

Mono-Thematic Analysis

This is perhaps the most basic form of thematic analysis upon which the more complex forms often build. The framework of what I call mono-thematic analysis interprets a film according to one singular theme. As with all forms of analysis (thematic or otherwise), it ideally considers the composition of the text and how the key elements collectively communicate the theme.

Mono-thematic analysis often fits with a basic application of auteur theory - as in, asking what singular meaning the director intends to convey according to the individual critic. Since, according to auteurism, the director is the orchestrating figure in cinema (Sarris, 1962, p. 1), auteurist mono-thematic analysis considers how the director deliberately composes the text to convey the desired theme.

Take the film They Live (Carpenter, 1988) as an example. In this film, a drifter named “Nada” (Roddy Piper) discovers a plot by extraterrestrials to control humanity with subliminal messages, keeping them docile consumers. A common interpretation of the film is that its theme is an indictment of the consumerist hyper-capitalist culture of 1980s America; among the subliminal messages the aliens broadcast in the film are “buy”, “consume”, and “this [money] is your god.”

They Live is a prime subject of auteurist thematic analysis because director John Carpenter has stated in interviews that he intended the film to be a commentary on the unregulated capitalism of Ronald Reagan’s America (Carpenter, cited in Clark, 2013). In other words, the authorial intent of the director corresponds with the audience’s common interpretation of the film’s theme.

Poly-Thematic Analysis

The second fundamental form of thematic analysis is what I call poly-thematic analysis. Going a step beyond the single-theme focus of mono-thematic analysis, poly-thematic analysis interprets a film according to two or more themes. In this framework, one theme might derive from elements of the text distinct from those of the other theme(s), or multiple themes might derive from the same or similar elements of the text.

In poly-thematic analysis, the themes of a film might coexist without any other direct connection to one another beyond being themes of the same film (especially if they derive from different elements of the text) or they might complement each other (especially if they derive from the same or similar elements of the text.) Used in conjunction with one another, poly-thematic analysis dimensionalises an auteurist reading since the different themes may or may not always be deliberate. In this framework, the auteur (or simply the text) communicates multiple themes which, in turn, dimensionalises the text.

One might apply a poly-thematic analysis to a film like Fight Club (Fincher, 1999). One potential theme one might read from Fight Club is that the “crisis of masculinity” drives some insecure men to compensate with outward violence (“We're a generation of men raised by women.”) But another potential theme one might also read from Fight Club is that consumer culture has reduced human beings to mere surfaces, driving them to extremities in the quest to feel truly alive again (“The things you own end up owning you.”)

Contra-Thematic Analysis

The third most basic form of thematic analysis is essentially an extension of poly-thematic analysis. What I call contra-thematic analysis similarly interprets a film according to two or more themes, but contra-thematic analysis is distinct in that the themes conflict with each other. Multiple critics can interpret multiple conflicting themes from the same film (Eslaesser and Buckland, 2015, p. 119). Subject to the strength of the argument, these readings can be valid at once.

As with a poly-thematic analysis that produces complementary or unconnected themes, a contra-thematic analysis can derive contradictory themes from the same or different elements of the same text. It also leans further towards subverting auteur theory because it can derive themes that oppose the theme(s) that the auteur intended to convey.

One film that is ripe for a contra-thematic analysis is The Incredibles (Bird, 2004). A common interpretation of The Incredibles - and one that director Brad Bird rejects - is that it conveys objectivist themes because (among other things) the superheroes are “naturally” superior to ordinary humans. However, the superheroes are also selfless and altruistic - qualities that objectivism explicitly rejects (Rengade Cut, 2018).

The director’s rejection of the objectivist theme of the film does not necessarily negate an objectivist reading of the film. Equally, however, it is reductive to call The Incredibles entirely “an objectivist film” since there are elements of the film that communicate anti-objectivist themes. In this way, contra-thematic analysis can be seen to decentralise the director as the sole arbiter of a film’s meaning.

Conclusion: Which Form is “Ideal”?

A thematic criticism in any of its forms, much like any other analytical framework, produces the best results when suitably applied to a given text. There is no “best” form of thematic criticism just as there is no “best” analytical framework in general. Ultimately, it is relative to the scope and depth of the study in question and the text that is central to that study.

It is also important to note that the different forms of thematic criticism are not mutually exclusive. As mentioned earlier, mono-thematic analysis is an important prerequisite for poly-thematic (or contra-thematic) analysis. Depending on the length and scope of the writing in question, a particularly deep and nuanced study might utilise two or three of these forms.

FILMOGRAPHY

Fight Club (1999). Directed by David Fincher [Film]. Germany/USA: Twentieth Century Fox.

Incredibles, The (2004). Directed by Brad Bird [Film]. USA: Buena Vista Pictures.

Room 237 (2012). Directed by Rodney Ascher [Film]. USA: IFC Films.

Shining, The (1980). Directed by Stanley Kubrick [Film]. UK/USA: Warner Bros.

They Live (1988). Directed by John Carpenter [Film]. USA: Universal Pictures.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Book

Elsaesser, T. and Buckland, W. (2002) Studying Contemporary American Film: A Guide to

Movie Analysis. New York: Arnold.

Magazine Article

Sarris, A. (1962) ‘Notes on the Auteur Theory in 1962’, Film Culture, 27, pp. 1-8.

Newspaper Article

Clark, N. (2013) ‘John Carpenter: ‘They Live’ was about ‘giving the finger to Reagan’’, Los Angeles Times, 11 May. Available at: https://web.archive.org/web/20150918224930/http://herocomplex.latimes.com/movies/john-carpenter-they-live-was-about-giving-the-finger-to-reagan/#/0 (Accessed: 15 October 2021).

Video on YouTube

Renegade Cut (2018) The Incredibles - Ayn Rand and Objectivism. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XPBOfW7ocK0 (Accessed: 15 October 2021).