Feeling Cinema: Emotional Dynamics in Film Studies - Hardcover

Laine, Tarja

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 144116815X ISBN 13: 9781441168153

Publisher: Continuum, 2011

Synopsis

There is an upsurge of interest in contemporary film theory towards cinematic emotions. Tarja Laine's innovative study proposes a methodology for interpreting affective encounters with films, not as objectively readable texts, but as emotionally salient events. Laine argues convincingly that film is not an immutable system of representation that is meant for (one-way) communication, but an active, dynamic participant in the becoming of the cinematic experience.

Through a range of chapters that include Horror, Hope, Shame and Love - and through close readings of films such as The Shining, American Beauty and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Laine demonstrates that cinematic emotions are more than mere indicators of the properties of their objects. They are processes that are intentional in a phenomenological sense, supporting the continuous, shifting, and reciprocal exchange between the film's world and the spectator's world. Grounded in continental philosophy, this provocative book explores the affective dynamics of cinema as an interchange between the film and the spectator in a manner that transcends traditional generic patterns.

About this title

Review:

Tarja Laine's "Feeling Cinema" is a remarkably eloquent and accomplished contribution to the growing wave of theoretical work on our affective and emotional engagement with film. Not only does Laine develop excellent analyses of the copious theoretical literature on cinematic emotion, she offers a powerful and persuasive way of conceptualising our aesthetic experience of film as an 'emotional event'. Her perspicuous theoretical discussions of key emotions are elaborated via nuanced critical reflections on the 'emotional core' of selected films spanning horror, thriller, art house, and romance genres. "Feeling Cinema" is thus enlightening and engaging reading for anyone student, theorist, or cinephile wanting to understand the emotional power of movies.

Robert Sinnerbrink, Senior Lecturer in Philosophy, Macquarie University, Sydney

About the Author:

Tarja Laine is Assistant Professor of Film Studies at the University of Amsterdam in the Netherlands. She is the author of Shame and Desire: Emotion, Intersubjectivity, Cinema (2007).

About this edition

• Publisher: Continuum
• Publication date: 2011
• ISBN 10: 144116815X
• ISBN 13: 9781441168153
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 192