Pictures of the Mind

Ramona Fotiade

ISBN 10: 3039111299 / ISBN 13: 9783039111299

Published by Peter Lang, Peter Lang Jul 2018, 2018

About this Item

Neuware -Pictures of the Mind is the first integrated study of Surrealist photography and film, assessing the impact of early experimental practice and theoretical discourse on prominent post-war trends in art house cinema. Roland Barthes¿s interpretation of the photographic image, alongside Jacques Derridäs concepts of spectrality and trace, underscore an exploration of the recurrent references to the phantomatic aspect of photography and film in Surrealist theoretical writings and practice. The analysis uses Derridäs account of the uncanny to shed light on the Surrealist conception of photographic and film images as mental constructs, or pictures of the mind, rather than mere visual representations. This leads to a consideration of the similarities between the Surrealist conception of beauty as fixed-explosive and Gilles Deleuze¿s theory of the time-image as applied to Luis Buñuel¿s films. Ultimately, the impact of Surrealism on post-war cinema is assessed as part of a wider consideration of the status of photographic and filmic images in the age of digital cinema. The elaboration of an aesthetics of spectrality in early Surrealism is shown to have had lasting implications for a range of post-war filmmakers such as Chris Marker, Maya Deren, Nelly Kaplan, Federico Fellini, Andrei Tarkovsky, Jan Svankmajer, Akira Kurosawa, Alejandro Jodorowsky, Guillermo del Toro, Guy Maddin, Terry Gilliam and David Lynch.Books on Demand GmbH, Überseering 33, 22297 Hamburg 386 pp. Englisch.

Seller Inventory # 9783039111299

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Pictures of the Mind
• Publisher: Peter Lang, Peter Lang Jul 2018
• Publication Date: 2018
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 3039111299
• ISBN 13: 9783039111299
• Binding: Taschenbuch
• Condition: Neu
• Dimensions: 225W x 150H x 21D millimeters 225 millimeters width by 150 millimeters height by 21 millimeters depth
• Weight: 541 grams

About this title

Synopsis

Pictures of the Mind is the first integrated study of Surrealist photography and film, assessing the impact of early experimental practice and theoretical discourse on prominent post-war trends in art house cinema. Roland Barthes’s interpretation of the photographic image, alongside Jacques Derrida’s concepts of spectrality and trace, underscore an exploration of the recurrent references to the phantomatic aspect of photography and film in Surrealist theoretical writings and practice. The analysis uses Derrida’s account of the uncanny to shed light on the Surrealist conception of photographic and film images as mental constructs, or pictures of the mind, rather than mere visual representations. This leads to a consideration of the similarities between the Surrealist conception of beauty as fixed-explosive and Gilles Deleuze’s theory of the time-image as applied to Luis Buñuel’s films. Ultimately, the impact of Surrealism on post-war cinema is assessed as part of a wider consideration of the status of photographic and filmic images in the age of digital cinema. The elaboration of an aesthetics of spectrality in early Surrealism is shown to have had lasting implications for a range of post-war filmmakers such as Chris Marker, Maya Deren, Nelly Kaplan, Federico Fellini, Andrei Tarkovsky, Jan Svankmajer, Akira Kurosawa, Alejandro Jodorowsky, Guillermo del Toro, Guy Maddin, Terry Gilliam and David Lynch.

About the Author

Ramona Fotiade is Senior Lecturer in French at the University of Glasgow. She has written extensively on Surrealist and experimental cinema and contributed to The Surreal House exhibition at the Barbican Art Gallery in 2010 with articles on film and architecture. She is the author of the Ciné-file film guide to À bout de souffle (2013).