Overview

Many films and novels defy our ability to make sense of the plot. While puzzling storytelling, strange incongruities, inviting enigmas and persistent ambiguities have been central to the effects of many literary and cinematic traditions, a great deal of contemporary films and television series bring such qualities to the mainstream—but wherein lies the attractiveness of perplexing works of fiction? This collected volume offers the first comprehensive, multidisciplinary, and trans-medial approach to the question of cognitive challenge in narrative art, bringing together psychological, philosophical, formal-historical, and empirical perspectives from leading scholars across these fields.

Full Product Details

Author:   Steven Willemsen ,  Miklós Kiss
Publisher:   Berghahn Books
Imprint:   Berghahn Books
ISBN:  

9781805393146

ISBN 10:   1805393146
Pages:   408
Publication Date:   01 April 2024
Audience:   Professional and scholarly ,  Professional & Vocational
Format:   Paperback
Publisher's Status:   Active
Availability:   In Print  
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Table of Contents

Introduction Steven Willemsen and Miklós Kiss Part I: THE ATTRACTIONS OF COGNITIVE CHALLENGE IN (POST-)CLASSICAL NARRATIVES & GENRE FICTION Chapter 1. Aesthetics and ‘Active Discovery’: The Pleasure of Moderate Cognitive Challenge in Mass Art Todd Berliner Chapter 2. Narration, Implicature, and the Deceptive Puzzle Film Warren Buckland Chapter 3. Cognitive Challenge in Complex Science Fiction: Knowledge, Reason and Threat in Narratives of Time Travel and Extraterrestrial Contact Hilary Duffield Chapter 4. Strange Loops and Nonhuman Realities: Complex Narrative Faces the Climate Crisis Marco Caracciolo Part II: MESMERIZED MINDS & BODIES: ART-CINEMA & MODERNIST AESTHETICS Chapter 5. The Puzzling Film Environments of Fellini’s 8½ Steffen Hven Chapter 6. 2 or 3 Things? Polyphony, Cognitive Challenge and Aesthetic Pleasure in Godard’s (Counter) Cinema Maria Poulaki Chapter 7. Embodying Fragmentation in Film: The Spatio-temporal Logic of Cinematic Modernism Maarten Coëgnarts Chapter 8. The Most Difficult Riddle András Bálint Kovács Part III: NOVEL PLEASURES IN CONTEMPORARY SERIAL TELEVISION: FROM COMPLEXITY TO CONFUSION Chapter 9. Multiform Television Matthew Campora Chapter 10. ‘I Can’t Keep Track of Any of It Anymore’: Cognitive Challenge and Other Aesthetic Appeals in Community Jason Gendler Chapter 11. How Not to Comprehend Television: Notes on Complexity and Confusion Jason Mittell Part IV: READING, VIEWING, ENGAGING: CONCEPTUALIZING THE PLEASURES OF BEING CHALLENGED Chapter 12. Challenges of Enjoying Morally Ambiguous Character Drama: The Dexter Case Ed S. Tan, Monique Timmers, Claire M. Segijn, Suzanna J. Opree, Guus Bartholomé Chapter 13. The Fascination of Failure: On Predictability, Unpredictability and Postdictability in Art Marina Grishakova Chapter 14. Expressive Challenge and the Metaphoricity of Literary Reading Don Kuiken Chapter 15. Who Likes Complex Films? Personality and Preferences for Narrative Complexity Steven Willemsen, Katalin Bálint, Frank Hakemulder, Miklós Kiss, Elly Konijn, Kirill Fayn Index

Reviews

“Puzzling Stories is a remarkable volume which presents theoretically advanced essays—which sometimes are themselves cognitive challenges for the reader—and consistently good analyses of a great variety of complex fictions… This collection is of exceptional quality. Meticulously edited, it is a welcome addition to the growing literature on narrative complexity.” • Projections “Puzzle films have often been thought to be marginal and eccentric parts of our media landscape. But they stand revealed in this diverse collection as important prototypes for wide-ranging innovation in cinema and television. These ingenious and lively essays harvest the insights of recent work on puzzling narratives to show that contradiction, anomaly, and impossibility have been central to screen storytelling for decades. From The Philadelphia Story through 8 ½ and the work of Godard, up to Twin Peaks’ hallucinatory third season and other instances of complex TV, the authors show that rigorous reflection on puzzle films can illuminate central questions of narrative construction and reception.” • David Bordwell, University of Wisconsin--Madison

Author Information

Steven Willemsen is Assistant Professor in Arts, Culture and Media at the University of Groningen and Senior Researcher at the Max Planck Institute for Empirical Aesthetics in Frankfurt. He is co-author of Impossible Puzzle Films: A Cognitive Approach to Contemporary Complex Cinema (with Miklós Kiss, Edinburgh University Press, 2017).

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