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Foucault at the Movies

Patrice Maniglier author Dork Zabunyan author Clare O'Farrell translator

Format:Hardback

Publisher:Columbia University Press

Published:7th Sep '18

Currently unavailable, and unfortunately no date known when it will be back

Foucault at the Movies cover

Michel Foucault’s work on film, although not extensive, compellingly illustrates the power of bringing his unique vision to bear on the subject and offers valuable insights into other aspects of his thought. Foucault at the Movies brings together all of Foucault’s commentary on film, some of it available for the first time in English, along with important contemporary analysis and further extensions of this work.

Patrice Maniglier and Dork Zabunyan situate Foucault’s writings on film in the context of the rest of his work as well as within a broad historical and philosophical framework. They detail how Foucault’s work directly or indirectly inspired both film critics and directors in surprising ways and discuss his ideas in relation to significant movements within film theory and practice. The book includes film reviews and discussions by Foucault as well as his interviews with the prestigious film magazine Cahiers du cinéma and other journals. Also included are his dialogues with the noted French feminist writer Hélène Cixous and film directors Werner Schroeter and René Féret. Throughout, Foucault and those he is in conversation with reflect on the relationship of film to history, the body, power and politics, knowledge, sexuality, aesthetics, and institutions of internment. Foucault at the Movies makes all of Foucault’s writings on film available to an English-speaking audience in one volume and offers detailed, up-to-date commentary, inviting us to go to the movies with Foucault.

Foucault at the Movies is an effectively translated and admirably assembled work of film scholarship and philosophical history . . . Foucault’s thoughts on film are fascinating yet also offer a more genial look at the famed philosopher. -- Mike McClelland * Spectrum Culture *
To accept this volume's invitation 'to go to the movies with Foucault' is to find oneself ushered to a seat from which the screen ahead looks dazzlingly different. * Times Literary Supplement *
Here is a collection to excite the archaeological imagination. -- Thomas Beard * Film Comment *
This volume will prove useful not only to anyone who teaches or studies Foucault, but also to those interested in Continental philosophy and film studies. * Choice *
Foucault at the Movies is a challenging yet satisfying read that bridges a considerable gap in film and philosophy. Well-researched, its overarching strength is the location of film within Foucault’s archaeological and genealogical project. This book will prove to be pivotal reading for anyone interested in the intersections of film-philosophy and film history and will doubtlessly titillate Foucault scholars interested in a synthesis of these lesser-known writings. -- Kyler Chittick * Foucault Studies *
Like all of his great interviews, Foucault at the Movies presents Foucault speaking in his own voice. We find Foucault saying that “the art of living” means that psychology must be killed; that the body must be dismantled; that memory must function without remembering; and that passion is more interesting than love. Foucault at the Movies is an invaluable addition to our understanding of Foucault’s thought. -- Leonard Lawlor, Penn State University
Michel Foucault’s writings have led many of us to think differently. Do his observations on film introduce us to fresh ways of seeing? If philosophers have primarily studied discourses of truth, perhaps they need to give equal consideration to the overpowering fabrication of regimes of fiction, especially those of our cinematic culture. Is Fascism comprehensible apart from the images of Leni Riefenstahl’s Triumph of the Will? Foucault at the Movies is a stimulating engagement with a frequently overlooked contribution from the French thinker. -- James Bernauer, Boston College

ISBN: 9780231167062

Dimensions: unknown

Weight: unknown

264 pages