On the Figure in General and the Body in Particular: Figurative Invention In Cinema

Nicole Brenez; Ted Fendt

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On the Figure in General and the Body in Particular

On the Figure in General and the Body in Particular

Figurative Invention In Cinema

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Nicole Brenez, Université Sorbonne Nouvelle - Paris 3
Translated by Ted Fendt

Publisher:: Anthem Press
Online publication date:: February 2024
Print publication year:: 2023
Online ISBN:: 9781839987823

Subjects:: Film, Film, Media, Mass Communication, Media, Mass Communication

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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.

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On the Figure in General and the Body in Particular

Figurative Invention In Cinema

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Contents

Frontmatter
pp i-iv

Contents
pp v-vi

Acknowledgements
pp vii-viii

Introduction
pp ix-xxx

Part I - Figurative Economies
pp 1-2

Chapter 1 - Why Must The Dead be Killed? Observations on John Woo
pp 3-20

Chapter 2 - Clapitalism: Jack Smith
pp 21-22

Chapter 3 - “Unusual Approach to Bodies”: Robert Bresson With Jean Eustache, Philippe Garrel and Monte Hellman
pp 23-32

Chapter 4 - Sketch/Skip/Excessive Synthesis: Jacques Tourneur's Cat People, Dario Argento's Suspiria and John Mctiernan's Predator
pp 33-40

Part II - Adventures of the Classical Body in Modern Cinema
pp 41-42

Chapter 5 - S. M. Eisenstein, Bella Figura and Formal Deflagration
pp 43-52

Chapter 6 - Anti-Bodies: Examples of the Classical Body in the Work of Jean Genet, Rainer Werner Fassbinder and Gus Van Sant
pp 53-70

Chapter 7 - Short Circuit: Michael Cimino’S Heaven's Gate
pp 71-72

Part III - New Abstractions in Figurative Invention
pp 73-74

Chapter 8 - The Contemporary Character
pp 75-82

Chapter 9 - Visual Being: Citizen Kane
pp 83-94

Chapter 10 - “Cause It Sounds More French”: On a Secondary Character In Maurice Pialat's Police
pp 95-98

Chapter 11 - Theft: Robert Bresson’s Pickpocket
pp 99-100

Part IV - Summonses: Figures of the Actor
pp 101-102

Chapter 12 - The Actor as Affective Citizen
pp 103-112

Chapter 13 - Lassie, Unfaithful To Dogs: Fred M. Wilcox's Lassie Come Home
pp 113-114

Chapter 14 - “Die for Mr. Jensen”: John Cassavetes’ A Woman Under The Influence
pp 115-122

Part V - Image Circuits
pp 123-124

Chapter 15 - Travolta and Himself: Dance and Circulation of Images—Fantasy, Phantasma and Fantasmata
pp 125-146

Chapter 16 - Thirst: Barbara Loden's Wanda
pp 147-148

Chapter 17 - The Visual Study: The Forces Of Cinematic Form
pp 149-170

Chapter 18 - The First Shot: Philippe Garrel’s Liberté, La Nuit
pp 171-172

Chapter 19 - Anti-Oedipus: John Woo's Heroes Shed no Tears
pp 173-176

Part VI - Theoretical Invention
pp 177-178

Chapter 20 - “As You Are”: Representation and Figuration, Questions of Terminology in the Work of Barthes, Eisenstein, Benjamin and Epstein
pp 179-192

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On the Figure in General and the Body in Particular

Figurative Invention In Cinema

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