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The Essay Film

Dialogue, Politics, Utopia
Series: Nonfictions
Book Hero Magic crafted this summary to help describe this book. While it's new and still learning, it may not be perfect - your feedback is welcome! Summary
The Essay Film explores the evolving form of essay cinema and its complex relationship to subjectivity, aesthetics, and the world. Combining national cinemas and interdisciplinary approaches, it examines how essay films question, investigate, and reflect upon fiction, documentary, and digital forms. From pioneers like Dziga Vertov and Chris Marker to contemporary auteurs such as Claire Denis and Terrence Malick, the volume considers the essay film as a process, experience, and experiment that engages with individual and collective crises.
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Format: Paperback / softback
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Book Hero Magic created this recommendation. While it's new and still learning, it may not be perfect - your feedback is welcome! IS THIS YOUR NEXT READ?

This book is ideal for scholars, students, and cinephiles interested in film theory, experimental cinema, and interdisciplinary cultural studies.

Book Hero thinking about your next read

The essay film as a visual form raises new questions about the construction of the subject, its relationship to the world, and the aesthetic possibilities of cinema. This volume examines the potential of the essayistic to question, investigate, and reflect on all forms of cinema.

Book Hero Magic formatted this description to make it easier to read. While it's new and still learning, it may not be perfect - your feedback is welcome! Description

With its increasing presence in a continuously evolving media environment, the essay film as a visual form raises new questions about the construction of the subject, its relationship to the world, and the aesthetic possibilities of cinema. In this volume, authors specialising in various national cinemas (Cuban, French, German, Israeli, Italian, Lebanese, Polish, Russian, American) and critical approaches (historical, aesthetic, postcolonial, feminist, philosophical) explore the essay film and its consequences for the theory of cinema while building on and challenging existing theories.

Taking as a guiding principle the essay form's dialogic, fluid nature, the volume examines the potential of the essayistic to question, investigate, and reflect on all forms of cinemaโ€”fiction film, popular cinema, and documentary, video installation, and digital essay.

A wide range of filmmakers are covered, from Dziga Vertov (Man with a Movie Camera, 1928), Chris Marker (Description of a Struggle, 1960), Nicolรกs Guillรฉn Landriรกn (Coffea Arรกbiga, 1968), Pier Paolo Pasolini (Notes for an African Oresteia, 1969), Chantal Akerman (News from Home, 1976) and Jean-Luc Godard (Notre musique, 2004) to Nanni Moretti (Palombella Rossa, 1989), Mohammed Soueid (Civil War, 2002), Claire Denis (L'Intrus, 2004) and Terrence Malick (The Tree of Life, 2011), among others. The volume argues that the essayistic in filmโ€”as process, as experience, as experimentโ€”opens the road to key issues faced by the individual in relation to the collective, but can also lead to its own subversion, as a form of dialectical thought that gravitates towards crisis.

Series: Nonfictions

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  • The Essay Film
    With its increasing presence in a continuously evolving media environment, the essay film as a visual form raises new questions about the construction of the subject, its relationship to the world, and the aesthetic possibilities of cinema. In this volume, authors specialising in various national cinemas (Cuban, French, German, Israeli, Italian, Lebanese, Polish, Russian, American) and critical approaches (historical, aesthetic,...
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    $4999
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    Ships in 3-4 weeks
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    Frederick Wiseman is America's foremost chronicler of public institutions. His films have focused on city, state, and local governments; hospitals; asylums; creative organizations and museums; schools; libraries; and more. In recent years, Wiseman's work has reached a new level of popularity, with films such as In Jackson Heights (2015), Monrovia, Indiana (2018), and City Hall (2020) all earning widespread acclaim....
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Book Hero Magic summarised reviews for this book. While it's new and still learning, it may not be perfect - your feedback is welcome! HOW HAS THIS BEEN REVIEWED?

Dan Geva, from Haifa University and a documentary filmmaker, praises the book for moving cinema studies beyond traditional genres, offering a profound and well-researched reflection on the philosophical depths of filmmaking. He highlights its clear and insightful approach to the spiritual and intellectual scope of the essay film, describing the collection as a key milestone for ongoing critical debate.

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Book Details

INFORMATION

ISBN: 9780231176958

Publisher: Columbia University Press

Format: Paperback / softback

Date Published: 08 November 2016

Country: United States

Imprint: Wallflower Press

Illustration: 24 b&w illustrations

Contributors:

  • Edited by Elizabeth Papazian
  • Edited by Caroline Eades

Audience: Tertiary education

DIMENSIONS

Width: 152.0mm

Height: 229.0mm

Weight: 250g

Pages: 216

About the Author

Elizabeth A. Papazian is associate professor of Russian and film studies at the University of Maryland, College Park. She is the author of Manufacturing Truth: The Documentary Moment in Early Soviet Culture (2009). Caroline Eades is associate professor of French and film studies at the University of Maryland, College Park. She is the author of Le Cinema post-colonial francais (2006).

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