Essays on the Essay Film

Erscheinungsjahr 2017
ISBN: 978-0-231-17267-7
Verlag: Columbia University Press

Buch, Englisch, 392 Seiten, Print PDF, Format (B × H): 151 mm x 228 mm, Gewicht: 546 g

Reihe: Film and Culture Series

The essay—with its emphasis on the provisional and explorative rather than on definitive statements—has evolved from its literary beginnings and is now found in all mediums, including film. Today, the essay film is, arguably, one of the most widely acclaimed and critically discussed forms of filmmaking around the world, with practitioners such as Chris Marker, Hito Steyerl, Errol Morris, Trinh T. Minh-ha, and Rithy Panh. Characteristics of the essay film include the blending of fact and fiction, the mixing of art- and documentary-film styles, the foregrounding of subjective points of view, a concentration on public life, a tension between acoustic and visual discourses, and a dialogic encounter with audiences.

This anthology of fundamental statements on the essay film offers a range of crucial historical and philosophical perspectives. It provides early critical articulations of the essay film as it evolved through the 1950s and 1960s, key contemporary scholarly essays, and a selection of writings by essay filmmakers. It features texts on the foundations of the essay film by writers such as Hans Richter and André Bazin, contemporary positions by Phillip Lopate and Michael Renov, and original essays by filmmakers themselves, including Laura Mulvey and Isaac Julien.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Alter, Nora M.

Corrigan, Timothy

Fachgebiete

• Geisteswissenschaften Theater- und Filmwissenschaft | Andere Darstellende Künste Filmwissenschaft, Fernsehen, Radio Filmtheorie, Filmanalyse
• Geisteswissenschaften Theater- und Filmwissenschaft | Andere Darstellende Künste Filmwissenschaft, Fernsehen, Radio Filmgattungen, Filmgenre

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Introduction, by Nora M. Alter and Timothy CorriganPart I. Foundations 1. "On the Nature and Form of the Essay", by Georg Lukács2. The Man Without Qualities, by Robert Musil3. "On the Essay and Its Prose", by Max Bense4. "The Essay as Form", by Theodor W. Adorno5. "Preface to The Collected Essays of Aldous Huxley", by Aldous HuxleyPart II. The Essay Film Through History6. "The Film Essay: A New Type of Documentary Film", by Hans Richter7. "The Future of Cinema", by Alexandre Astruc 8. "Bazin on Marker", by André Bazin Part III. Contemporary Positions9. "In Search of the Centaur: The Essay-Film", by Phillip Lopate10. "The Political Im/Perceptible in the Essay Film: Farocki's Images of the World and the Inscription of War", by Nora M. Alter11. "Essay Questions", by Paul Arthur12. "The Electronic Essay", by Michael Renov13. "The Essay Film: Problems, Definitions, Textual Commitments", by Laura Rascaroli14. "Of the History of the Essay Film: Vertov, to Varda", by Timothy Corrigan15. "The Cinema and the Essay as a Way of Thinking", by Raymond Bellour 16. "The Essay Film: From Film Festival Favorite to Flexible Commodity Form?", by Thomas ElsaesserPart IV. Filmmakers on the Essayistic17. "Performing Borders: Transnational Video", by Ursula Biemann18. "Proposal for a Tussle", by Jean-Pierre Gorin19. "The Essay as Conformism? Some Notes on Global Image Economies", by Hito Steyerl20. "On Writing the Film Essay", by Lynne Sachs21. "Tramp Steamer", by Ross McElwee22. "The ABCs of the Film Essay", by Harun Farocki and Christa Blümlinger23. "Riddles as Essay Film", by Laura Mulvey24. "Certain Obliquenesses", by Renée Green25. "Essay Documentary: The disembodied narrator and an unclaimed image that floats through space and time", by Rea Tajiri26. "From Ten Thousand Waves to Lina Bo Bardi, via Kapital", by Isaac JulienBibliographyIndex

Über Autor(innen)

Nora M. Alter is professor of film and media studies in the School of Theater, Film and Media Arts at Temple University. She is author of Vietnam Protest Theatre: The Television War on Stage (1996), Projecting History: German Nonfiction Cinema, 1967–2000 (2002), and Chris Marker (2006), and co-editor (with Lutz Koepnick) of Sound Matters: Essays on the Acoustics of Modern German Culture (2004).

Timothy Corrigan is professor of cinema studies, English, and history of art in the department of English at the University of Pennsylvania. His books include A Cinema Without Walls: Movies and Culture After Vietnam (1991), New German Film: The Displaced Image (1994), The Essay Film: From Montaigne, After Marker (2011), and (with Patricia White) The Film Experience: An Introduction (2004).