Kafkaesque cinema / Angelos Koutsourakis.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Koutsourakis, Angelos, author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Kafka, Franz, 1883-1924--Influence.

Kafka, Franz.

Motion pictures--Philosophy.

Motion pictures.

Motion pictures and literature.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (xiii, 306 pages) : illustrations (black and white), digital, PDF file(s)

Edition:

First edition.

Place of Publication:

Edinburgh : Edinburgh University Press, 2024.

Summary:

For all its familiarity as a widely used term, 'Kafkaesque cinema' remains an often-baffling concept that is poorly understood by film scholars. Taking a cue from Jorge Luis Borges' point that Kafka has modified our conception of past and future artists, and André Bazin's suggestion that literary concepts and styles can exceed authors and 'novels from which they emanate', this monograph proposes a comprehensive examination of Kafkaesque Cinema in order to understand it as part of a transnational cinematic tradition rooted in Kafka's critique of modernity, which, however, extends beyond the Bohemian author's work and his historical experiences. Drawing on a range of disciplines in the Humanities including film, literary, and theatre studies, critical theory, and history, Kafkaesque Cinema will be the first full-length study of the subject and will be a useful resource for scholars and students interested in film theory, World Cinema, World Literature, and politics and representation.

Contents:

Frontmatter

Contents

Figures

Acknowledgements

Notes on the Text

Introduction

Part I ‘Modernity’s Objective Spirit’

Chapter 1 Anxious Humour and Alienating Labour

Chapter 2 Bureaucracy

Chapter 3 Social Alienation

Chapter 4 The Work of Art as Alienating Labour: Barton Fink (1991) and the End of Jewish Modernity

Part II Fascism and its Legacies

Chapter 5 Fernando Arrabal and the Persistence of the Spanish Civil War

Chapter 6 Memories from the Holocaust in Central Europe

Chapter 7 Parables of Underdevelopment

Part III Stalinist Terror

Chapter 8 Memories from the Rákosi Era

Chapter 9 Politicising the Absurd

Chapter 10 Jewish Purges

Part IV Late Capitalist Contradictions

Chapter 11 Behaviourist Surveillance

Chapter 12 Post-Fascism

Chapter 13 The Anthropocene Crisis

Epilogue

Bibliography

Index

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Description based on print version record.

ISBN:

1-4744-9898-1