This book investigates the complex, often contradictory relationship between the influential French critic Roland Barthes and the medium of cinema. Philip Watts, a scholar of French literature and culture, examines how Barthes navigated the tension between cinema as a tool for ideological manipulation and its potential as a site for critical subversion. By analyzing Barthes's writings, Watts constructs a framework that situates the critic's personal aesthetic appreciation of film against his broader sociological critiques of mass media spectacle.

Scholars and film theorists frequently cite this work as a precise examination of Barthes's evolving stance on visual culture. Readers often note the academic density of the prose, which assumes a foundational knowledge of structuralist and post-structuralist thought.