Page 54 - Decoding Culture

THE WAY WE WERE 47

point by subjecting their films to detailed critical evaluation. In
some cases that work, too, was overtly influenced by the Leavisite
tradition. So, for example, in detailed textual studies of the films of
Howard Hawks and Alfred Hitchcock the then Leavis-influenced
critic Robin Wood (1968, 1969) sought to demonstrate the profun­
dity, the organicism, the universal significance of their work. Not
averse to making strong claims - 'Vertigo seems to me to be
Hitchcock's masterpiece to date, and one of the four or five most
profound and beautiful films the cinema has yet given us' (Wood,
1969: 71) - Wood set for film criticism the same high standards of
detailed analysis that the Leavisite tradition had applied to litera­
ture. But, once more, as a contemporary discussion of Wood's
work put it, [ tlhe result is a critical method which avoids develop­
'
ing an analytic and evaluative apparatus' (Lovell, 1969: 44) .
Again and again in the 1960s this theme emerges, both in the
lively debate that distinguished the world of film studies, and in
more general considerations of culture. As a new generation
reacted against the received wisdom of the past, they increasingly
recognized that it was not just the elitism of mass culture views
that was at fault. It was also - perhaps even above all - their empiri­
cism that confounded any attempt to stand back from the process
of analysis itself and debate the terms in which understanding of
culture was to be constructed. 'The call was for theory. Theory
which would locate cultural phenomena in the larger context of
which they were a part. Theory which would provide a fresh and
less restrictive understanding of communication. Theory which
would underwrite a method of analysis capable of the fine dis­
criminations necessary if interpretation and meaning construction
were to be understood. In a word, a theory which would draw
together into one body of thought the growing interest in the var­
ious languages of modern culture. But, in the enthusiasm to meet
these challenges few noticed that the term 'theory' was rapidly

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