Film directors and emotion : an affective turn in contemporary American cinema / Darragh Greene and Graham Price.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Greene, Darragh, uthor.

Price, Graham (Lecturer in Irish literature), author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Emotions in motion pictures.

Affect (Psychology) in the performing arts.

Motion picture producers and directors--United States.

Motion picture producers and directors.

Motion pictures--Production and direction.

United States.

Motion pictures--Production and direction--United States.

Motion pictures.

Motion pictures--United States--History.

History.

Physical Description:

vii, 193 pages ; 23 cm

Place of Publication:

Jefferson, North Carolina : McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers, [2020]

Summary:

Cinema is an affective medium. Films move us to feel wonder, joy, and love as well as fear, anger, and hatred. Today, we are living through a new age of sensibility when emotion is given priority over reason. Hollywood produces movies that employ cheap manipulative tricks to make audiences cry, feel good, or jump in fright. Yet, there is a counter-cultural current in contemporary American cinema that offers a more nuanced treatment of emotion. Both aesthetically and eidetically, this new cinema of affect allows viewers to make up their own minds about what they feel and think. This book focuses on key films by important auteur-directors--David Fincer, Bryan Singer, Christopher Nolan, Kathryn Bigelow, Richard Linklater, Barry Jenkins, Greta Gerwig, and Pete Docter--who are to the forefront of this new cinema. Without ever being dogmatic, these directors' films offer their audiences a glimpse at strategies for relating to, and entering into being with, others in a manner that can be regarded as profoundly ethical. Employing affect theory, Jungian analytical psychology, and Hegelian dialecticism, this book explores how these filmmakers anatomize affect, showing how it functions in the creation or degradation of character and society.

Contents:

1 David Fincher's Feelings: From Apathy to Zest p. 11

2 Bryan Singer's Strange Cinema of Freaks and Outsiders p. 37

3 Christopher Nolan: Mastering Fear, Rage and Death p. 70

4 Kathryn Bigelow and the War on Terror p. 101

5 Richard Linklater, Barry Jenkins, Greta Gerwig: Cinematic Coming-of-Age Narratives p. 125.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Includes filmography.

ISBN:

9781476668895

1476668892

OCLC:

1133654770