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Cinematic vitalism : film theory and the question of life / Inga Pollmann.
- Format:
- Book
- Author/Creator:
- Pollmann, Inga, author.
- Series:
- Film theory in media history
- Film Theory in Media History
- Language:
- English
- Subjects (All):
- Vitalism.
- Motion pictures--Philosophy.
- Motion pictures.
- Vitalism--In motion pictures.
- Physical Description:
- 256 pages : illustrations ; 24 cm.
- Other Title:
- Film theory and the question of life
- Place of Publication:
- Amsterdam : Amsterdam University Press 2017.
- Summary:
- This book draws new connections between twentieth-century German and French film theory and practice and vitalist conceptions of life from biology and philosophy. Inga Pollmann shows how the links between the two created a modernist, experimental, and cinematic strand of vitalism in and around the movie theatre. Articulated by film theorists, filmmakers, biologists and philosophers, this cinematic vitalism maps out connections among human beings, milieus, and technologies that continue to structure our understanding of film.
- Contents:
- Introduction: 'The sanguine, pulsating, enterprising modern life': Cinema and Vitalism
- Taking Life for a Spin p. 9
- Turn-of-the-century Vitalism and Philosophy of Life p. 20
- Early Film Theory p. 27
- Cinematic Vitalism p. 34
- 1 Vitalism and Abstraction p. 47
- Rhythm and Non-Organic Life from Hans Richter to Sergei Eisenstein
- The Reinvention of Cinema in Abstract Film p. 47
- A Universal Language p. 50
- Bergson, Intuition, and Art p. 59
- Setting Form into Motion: Scroll Paintings and Empathy p. 65
- The Transition to Film p. 78
- Back into Matter: from Abstraction to Montage p. 86
- 2 New Worlds p. 97
- Uexküll's Umwelt Theory at the Movies
- Forays p. 97
- A Meditation on Mediated Dogs p. 103
- The Agony of the Starfish: Uexküll's Chronophotography p. 114
- Of Ticks and Humans p. 123
- Against Anthropocentrism: Umwelt and Cinema p. 127
- A Necessary Field of Action: Benjamin, Umwelt, and Play p. 136
- Painlevé's Cinema of Bewilderment p. 147
- 3 The Interweaving of World and Self p. 163
- Transformations of Mood in Expressionist and Kammerspiel Film
- The Mediation of a Dog's World p. 163
- A Brief Aesthetic History of Stimmung p. 168
- Turn-of-the-Century Stimmung and Cinema: Georg Simmel and Hugo von Hofmannsthal p. 174
- Balázs, Kammerspielfilm, and Expressionism p. 182
- The Kammerspiel Film: Naturalist Plots and Progressive Aesthetics p. 195
- 4 Open Bodies, Open Stories p. 207
- Evolution, Narration, and Spectatorship in Post-war Film Theory
- The Axolotl and Cinema: Bazin, Bergson, and Evolution p. 209
- Cinema's Milieu p. 221
- Life and the Temporalities of Film and Painting p. 229
- Post-Apocalyptic Life: Kracauer's Theory of Film p. 237.
- Notes:
- Includes bibliographical references and index.
- Local Notes:
- Acquired for the Penn Libraries with assistance from the Anne and Joseph Trachtman Memorial Book Fund.
- ISBN:
- 9789462983656
- 9462983658
- OCLC:
- 985678619
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