Film theory is an academic discipline that aims to explore the essence of the cinema and provides conceptual frameworks for understanding film's relationship to reality, the other arts, individual viewers, and society at large. Film theory is not to be confused with general film criticism, though there can be some crossover between the two disciplines.

French philosopher Henri Bergson's Matter and Memory (1896) has been cited as anticipating the development of film theory during the birth of cinema. Bergson commented on the need for new ways of thinking about movement, and coined the terms "the movement-image" and "the time-image". However, in his 1906 essay L'illusion cinématographique (in L'évolution créatrice), he rejects film as an exemplification of what he had in mind. Nonetheless, decades later, in Cinéma I and Cinema II (1983–1985), the philosopher Gilles Deleuze took Matter and Memory as the basis of his philosophy of film and revisited Bergson's concepts, combining them with the semiotics of Charles Sanders Peirce.

David Andrew Leo Fincher (born August 28, 1962) is an American film and music video director who is known for his dark and stylish thrillers, such as Seven (1995), The Game (1997), Fight Club (1999), Panic Room (2002), and Zodiac (2007). Fincher received Academy Award nominations for Best Director for his 2008 film The Curious Case of Benjamin Button and his 2010 film The Social Network, which also won him the Golden Globe and the BAFTA for Best Director. His most recent film is 2011's The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, an English-language adaptation of Stieg Larsson's novel of the same name.

Fincher was born on August 28, 1962 in Denver, Colorado, the son of Claire Mae (née Boettcher), a mental health nurse who worked in drug addiction programs, and Howard Kelly Fincher, who worked as a bureau chief for Life under the name Jack Fincher. When Fincher was two years old, the family moved to San Anselmo in Marin County, California. Fincher moved to Ashland, Oregon in his teens, where he graduated from Ashland High School. Inspired by Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, Fincher began making movies at age eight with an 8 mm camera. Fincher eschewed the film school route, getting a job loading cameras and doing other hands-on work for John Korty’s Korty Films. He was later hired by Industrial Light & Magic in 1983, where he worked on productions for Twice Upon a Time, Star Wars: Episode VI – Return of the Jedi, and Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom. In 1984, he left ILM to direct a commercial for the American Cancer Society, that would show a fetus smoking a cigarette. This quickly brought Fincher to the attention of producers in Los Angeles and he was given the chance to direct the documentary The Beat of the Live Drum featuring Rick Springfield in 1985. Though he would continue to direct spots for companies like Revlon, Converse, Nike, Pepsi, Sony, and Levi's, Fincher soon discovered music videos and went on to direct many promos.

Benjamin Géza Affleck-Boldt (born August 15, 1972), better known as Ben Affleck, is an American actor, film director, writer, and producer. He became known with his performances in Kevin Smith's films such as Mallrats (1995), Chasing Amy (1997), and Dogma (1999). Affleck won an Academy Award and a Golden Globe Award for the screenplay for Good Will Hunting (1997), which he co-wrote with Matt Damon, and has appeared in lead roles in such popular hits as Armageddon (1998), Pearl Harbor (2001), Changing Lanes (2002), The Sum of All Fears (2002), Daredevil (2003), Hollywoodland (2007) and State of Play (2009).

Affleck is a critically acclaimed filmmaker. He directed Gone Baby Gone (2007) and The Town (2010), playing the lead in the latter. He has worked with his younger brother, actor Casey Affleck, on several projects, including Good Will Hunting and Gone Baby Gone.

Affleck has been married to Jennifer Garner since June 2005. They have two daughters, Violet and Seraphina, and a son, Samuel. He dated the actress Gwyneth Paltrow in 1998. His relationship with actress/singer Jennifer Lopez attracted worldwide media attention, in which Affleck and Lopez were dubbed "Bennifer". The two broke up in 2004.