Darwin's screens : evolutionary aesthetics, time and sexual display in the cinema / Barbara Creed.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Creed, Barbara, author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Evolution in motion pictures.

Sexual role in motion pictures.

Darwin, Charles, 1809-1882.

Darwin, Charles.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (192 pages)

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

Carlton, Victoria, Australia : Melbourne University Press, 2009.

Summary:

Darwin's Screens addresses a major gap in film scholarship—the key influence of Charles Darwin's theories on the history of the cinema. Much has been written on the effect of other great thinkers such as Freud and Marx but very little on the important role played by Darwinian ideas on the evolution of the newest art form of the twentieth century. Creed argues that Darwinian ideas influenced the evolution of early film genres such as horror, the detective film, science fiction, film noir and the musical. Her study draws on Darwin's theories of sexual selection, deep time and transformation, and on emotions, death, and the meaning of human and animal in order to rethink some of the canonical arguments of film and cinema studies.

Contents:

Intro

Title

Contents

Acknowledgements

Introduction

1 Darwin, early cinema and the origin of uncanny narrative forms

2 Darwin's pre-cinematic eye: evolution and metamorphosis in Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde

3 The future of evolution: science fiction, deep time and alien species

4 Evolutionary aesthetics: the Hollywood musical as Darwinian mating game

5 The Darwinian gaze: sexual display, sexual selection and the femme fatale

6 Devolutionary aesthetics and the early detective film: in search of the 'missing link'

7 The unheimlich Pacific of popular film: Darwin's surreal imagination

8 What do animals dream of? Or King Kong as Darwinian screen animal

9 A Darwinian love story: Oshima's Max Mon Amour

References

Index

Copyright.

Notes:

Description based on print version record.

ISBN:

9780522860023

0522860028

OCLC:

1089009914