Films fill our imagination with figures, figurines, and talismans. They ceaselessly rework the same archetypes and invent troubling prototypes - especially when they establish a deeper relationship to reality. How do we understand these presences that are both so characteristic and so diverse in cinema? How does film deal with bodies, movements, and gestures? Why are we so drawn to these shadows, silhouettes, and hypothetical beings? What organizes the figurative values at work in a film? How do cinematic creatures circulate from film to film and image to image? How does film articulate the links between the abstract and figurative? Is it possible to write a history of figurative forms? Starting from films themselves and works that are both classical (Sergei Eisenstein, Roberto Rossellini, Orson Welles) and contemporary (Abel Ferrara, Brian DePalma, Patricia Mazuy), celebrated (Robert Bresson, John Cassavetes, Ken Jacobs, Paul Sharits) and overlooked (Al Razutis, Jean Genet, Monte Hellman, and John Travolta), from auteurs as well as aesthetic questions (representations of dance, the naked body, character development...), the essays in this volume, most available for the first in English, aim to open a field that has been neglected by analysis, while also suggesting the tools necessary to understanding figurative phenomena specific to cinema.

These wide-ranging essays covering an array of film genres and styles propose a method of cinematic analysis and interpretation that foregrounds film's formal and plastic qualities.

About the Author

Nicole Brenez is a professor of film studies at the University of Paris 3/Sorbonne Nouvelle and the Director of the Department "Analyse et Culture cinematographique" at Paris' film school La Femis since 2017. She has curated avant-garde film series at the Cinemathequefrancaise since 1996 and is the author and editor of numerous books on film.

Reviews

"This is the most valuable volume by a French cinephile in English to have appeared since the translations of Andre Bazin and Serge Daney-a book that I believe filmgoers will still be learning from half a century from now. Brenez's originality is as stupefying as her erudition." -Jonathan Rosenbaum, American film critic, USA.

"At last, one of the true classics of 1990s film theory and analysis is available in English, superbly translated. This influential book redefines our formal, cultural, and historical understanding of cinema and related visual arts. Bridging popular genres and avant-garde experiments, it offers an open, speculative approach. An essential reference."-Adrian Martin, Monash University, Australia.

"This dazzling collection of essays, which brim with ideas and insights in relation to a wide variety of films and filmmakers, confirmed Nicole Brenez as one of the most original and exciting writers on cinema of her generation. It is wonderful that it is now available to an anglophone readership." -Michael Witt, Professor of Cinema, University of Roehampton, UK.

Book Information
ISBN 9781839987809
Author Ted Fendt
Format Hardback
Page Count 260
Imprint Anthem Press
Publisher Anthem Press
Weight(grams) 454g
Dimensions(mm) 229mm * 153mm * 26mm