Seeing Films Politically (SUNY series in Radical Social and Political Theory) - Hardcover

Zavarzadeh, Mas'ud

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0791405265 ISBN 13: 9780791405260

Publisher: State University of New York Press, 1991

Synopsis

In this bold political rethinking of contemporary film theory, Zavarzadeh overturns the dominant concepts that fetishize film as a work of art or simple entertainment. He demonstrates how aesthetic notions obscure the ideological effects produced by viewing films, particularly the production of the spectator as the subject of social class. Seeing films, he argues, is part of the political struggle over cultural intelligibilities, subjectivities, and representations. One of the book's analytical innovations is its concept of renarrating: a reading strategy that displays the logic of the film, showing that it is not so much a unique aesthetic articulation as it is the common logic of the dominant ideology. In a series of brilliant readings of recent films, the book constructs a critical space for the reader to not only see the culturally visible tale of the film―the one that legitimates the existing reality, the status quo―but also to see the other, suppressed tale that (de)narrates the social contradictions arising from exploitation and class rule.

About this title

About the Author

Mas'ud Zavarzadeh was educated in Middle Eastern, European, and American universities and teaches critical theory at Syracuse University. He has written on postmodern critical theory and is the author of Mythopoeic Reality and coeditor of Theory, Pedagogy, Politics.

Edition details

• Publisher: State University of New York Press
• Publication date: 1991
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0791405265
• ISBN 13: 9780791405260
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 267