Since its inception, cinema has evolved into not merely a 'reflection' but an indispensable index of human experience - especially our experience of time's passage, of the present moment, and, most importantly perhaps, of the past, in both collective and individual terms. In this volume, Kilbourn provides a comparative theorization of the representation of memory in both mainstream Hollywood and international art cinema within an increasingly transnational context of production and reception. Focusing on European, North and South American, and Asian films, Kilbourn reads cinema as providing the viewer with not only the content and form of memory, but also with its own directions for use: the required codes and conventions for understanding and implementing this crucial prosthetic technology - an art of memory for the twentieth-century and beyond.

About the Author

Russell J.A. Kilbourn is Assistant Professor of English and Film Studies at Wilfrid Laurier University.

Reviews

"Cinema, Memory Modernity: The Representation of Memory from the Art Film to Transnational

Cinema is a detailed, insightful and, at times, brilliantly perceptive view of this difficult and expansive subject. Kilbourn's choices are certainly representative of memory in post-World War II cinema.[...] Kilbourn's analysis of memory in the cinema, an ongoing theoretical debate often full of incompatibilities and abstractions, is lucidly argued in relation to the ideas of the theorists with whom he either agrees or disagrees. This book provides an engaging read for those who are interested in this aspect of cinema, but will also appeal to scholars of modernity and philosophy at the same time". --Alphaville: Journal of Film and Screen Media

In his book Kilbourn "offers a subtle and fascinating account of the cinematic representation of the problem of memory." --Mark Furstenau, University of Toronto Quarterly

"Cinema, Memory, Modernity alternates between mourning the passing of the 'modern' moment of art cinema and a feisty denunciation of a global post-modern malaise in which subjective meanings have become disguised as collectively globalized through an ever-present visuality." --Adrian Perez Melgosa, SUNY Stony Brook

Book Information
ISBN 9780415520300
Author Russell J.A. Kilbourn
Format Paperback
Page Count 288
Imprint Routledge
Publisher Taylor & Francis Ltd
Weight(grams) 530g