Rascaroli, Laura. “The Essay Film: Problems, Definitions, Textual Commitments.” Framework: The Journal of Cinema and Media 49.2 (2008): 24–47.

From the beginning, Rascaroli recognises that the essay film is an emerging style that is ‘encountered with ever-increasing frequency’ due to the rise of unorthodox, personal, reflexive, ‘new’ documentaries. Despite the fact that the essay film is also ‘immensely popular for both artistic and intellectual innovation’, Rascaroli states that it is a genre/form that is under-theorised – perhaps because of its’ explosion into the world of non-fiction film.

The author then continues to discuss how it can be argued that essay films may not even belong to a genre. I believe this point is completely contradictory because the whole article is about defining the essay film, which is essentially categorising and assigning the ‘traits’ of a genre to essay films.

It’s strange that people talk about categorising the film essay but then Rascaroli goes on to raise all the conflicting definitions of film essays and what they are from other theorists before her. It almost challenges the credibility of her journal because her ideas of what a film essay is is constantly being challenged by what others have said before her. Which also raises the question as to what others will say in the future, challenging her arguments.

Ultimately, it still remains relatively unclear what an essay film is, how it can be distinctly characterised and whose theory will be proven correct.