Overview
This book offers a novel understanding of the epistemological strategies that are mobilized by the essay film, and of where and how such strategies operate. Against the backdrop of Adorno's discussion of the essay form's anachronistic, anti-systematic and disjunctive mode of resistance, and capitalizing on the centrality of the interstice in Deleuze's understanding of the cinema as image of thought, the book discusses the essay film as future philosophy-as a contrarian, political cinema whose argumentation engages with us in a space beyond the verbal. A diverse range of case studies discloses how the essay film can be a medium of thought on the basis of its dialectic use of audiovisual interstitiality. The book shows how the essay film's disjunctive method comes to be realized at the level of medium, montage, genre, temporality, sound, narration, and framing-all of these emerging as interstitial spaces of intelligence that illustrate how essayistic meaning can be sustained, often in contexts of political, historical or cultural extremity. The essayistic urge is not to be identified with a fixed generic form, but is rather situated within processes of filmic thinking that thrive in gaps.
Full Product Details
Author: Laura Rascaroli (Professor of Film and Screen Media, Professor of Film and Screen Media, Univerity College Cork)
Publisher: Oxford University Press Inc
Imprint: Oxford University Press Inc
Dimensions:
Width: 15.50cm
, Height: 1.80cm
, Length: 23.10cm
Weight: 0.376kg
ISBN: 9780190238254
ISBN 10: 0190238259
Pages: 224
Publication Date: 15 June 2017
Audience:
College/higher education
,
Professional and scholarly
,
Tertiary & Higher Education
,
Professional & Vocational
Format: Paperback
Publisher's Status: Active
Availability: To order
Stock availability from the supplier is unknown. We will order it for you and ship this item to you once it is received by us.
Reviews
Laura Rascaroli confirms her position as a leading scholar on the history and critical expression of the essay film. The originality of her argument and the insights provided by case studies also mirror the energy and elegance of the essayistic approach. The 'antisystematic resistance' exemplified by the essay film bring forth the political and engaging function of a thinking image. -- Malin Wahlberg, Stockholm University
Whether considering Aleksandr Sokurov's Elegy of a Voyage (2001) or the experimental films of Harun Farocki, Rascaroli delivers detailed, sharply observant insights. With its international focus, this book offers perhaps the best overview to date on the subject. --G. A. Foster, CHOICE Laura Rascaroli confirms her position as a leading scholar on the history and critical expression of the essay film. The originality of her argument and the insights provided by case studies also mirror the energy and elegance of the essayistic approach. The 'antisystematic resistance' exemplified by the essay film bring forth the political and engaging function of a thinking image. -- Malin Wahlberg, Stockholm University
Author Information
Laura Rascaroli is Professor of Film and Screen Media at University College Cork, Ireland. She is the author and editor of several volumes, including The Personal Camera: Subjective Cinema and the Essay Film (2009), Crossing New Europe: Postmodern Travel and the European Road Movie (2006), co-written with Ewa Mazierska, and Antonioni: Centenary Essays (2011), co-edited with John David Rhodes. She is the General Editor of Alphaville: Journal of Film and Screen Media.
