Death and the Moving Image: Ideology, Iconography and I

Michele Aaron

Published by Edinburgh University Press 2014

Death and the Moving Image

Ideology, Iconography and I

Michele Aaron

https://doi.org/10.1515/9780748630479

Overview
Contents

About this book

Winner of the 2015 Kraszna-Krausz Best Moving Image Book Award

Examines the representation of death and dying in mainstream cinema

Death and the Moving Image reveals the ambivalent place of death in twentieth and twenty-first century culture: the ongoing split between its over- and under-statement, between its cold, bodily, realities and its fantastical, transcendental and, most importantly, strategic depictions. Our screens are steeped in death’s dramatics: in spectacles of glorious sacrifice or bloody retribution, in the ecstasy of agony, but always in the promise of redemption. This book is about the staging of these dramatics in mainstream Western film and the discrepancies that fuel them and are, by return, fuelled by them. Exploring the impact of gender, race, nation or narration upon them, this groundbreaking study isolates how mainstream cinema works to bestow value upon certain lives, and specific socio-cultural identities, in a hierarchical and partisan way.

Key Features

Examines the formal, psychological and political exchange between cinema and death
Accessible 'before, during, after' structure: of death's presence as narrative promise, physical event and spectatorial reaction.
Considers how filmmaking practice or visual medium affect the representation of death and its cultural significance

Topics

Frontmatter Publicly Available Download PDF	i
Contents Publicly Available Download PDF	v
Figures Publicly Available Download PDF	vii
Acknowledgements Publicly Available Download PDF	viii
Introduction: Everywhere and Nowhere Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	1
Part I Before – Flirting with Death
1 Self-endangerment and the Subject of Film Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	17
2 Cinema and Suicide Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	40
3 Sacrifice and Spectatorship in Context Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	69
Part II During – Depicting Death
4 The Cinematic Language of Dying Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	99
5 Grammar Lessons: Dying and Difference Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	127
6 Watching Others Die: Spectatorship, Vulnerability and the Ethics of Being Moved Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	155
Part III After – Responding to Death
7 At Last: Towards a Cinema of No Return Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	181
Notes Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	199
Bibliography Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	223
Filmography Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	245
Index Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	251

(Deutsch)

Language: English
Publisher: Edinburgh University Press
Audience: College/higher education;
Pages
- Main content: 272
Illustrations
- Other: 10 B/W illustrations
Keywords: Film, Media & Cultural Studies

eBook

Published: January 28, 2014
ISBN: 9780748630479