Drive in Cinema: Essays on Film, Theory and Politics Marc James Leger (Independent Scholar) 9781783204854

Drive in Cinema offers Zizek-influenced studies of films made by some of the most engaging and influential filmmakers of our time, from avant-garde directors Jean-Luc Godard, Werner Herzog, Alexander Kluge, Pier Paolo Pasolini and Vera Chytilova, to independent filmmakers William Klein, Oliver Ressler, Hal Hartley, Olivier Assayas, Vincent Gallo, Jim Jarmusch and Harmony Korine. These essays in critical cultural theory present interdisciplinary perspectives on the relations between art, film and politics. How does filmic symbolization mediate intersubjective social exchange? What are the possibilities for avant-gardism today and how does this correspond to what we know about cultural production after capitalism's real subsumption of labour? How have various filmmakers communicated radical ideas through film as a popular medium? Drive in Cinema pursues Lacanian ethics to avenues beyond the academic obsession with cultural representation and cinematic technique. It will be of interest to anyone who is concerned with film's potential as an emancipatory force.

About the Author

Marc James Leger is an independent scholar living in Montreal. He is author of Brave New Avant Garde and the Neoliberal Undead, and is editor of Culture and Contestation in the New Century and The Idea of the Avant Garde - and What it Means Today.

Reviews

'Marc James Le ger's Drive in Cinema is a vivid and compelling account from the front lines of post-avant-garde and popular cinema, bringing into view a politics of cinematic form in the wake of the long drawn out crisis of revolutionary film since the 1970s. If one wanted to distinguish today's neoliberal moment of film criticism from the 1970s - the partisan professionalized radical film theory of Screen, etc - this is where you'll find it.'

-- John Roberts, author of Revolutionary Time and the Avant-Garde

'Marc James Le ger's Drive in Cinema is precisely what we need in film theory today. More than just a reading of cinema, it attends to the urgent necessity of thinking film and art beyond the more common formalist varieties that continue to dominate, and to the urgency of emancipatory politics in the new age of austerity. The essays collected here demonstrate with brilliance why Le ger is one of our leading writers on avant-garde art and culture. A pleasure to read!'

-- Matthew Flisfeder, author of The Symbolic, the Sublime, and Slavoj Z iz ek's Theory of Film

'Drive in Cinema is concerned broadly with artists and filmmakers who exemplify the 'triple A' of avant-gardism: the antagonist, activist and agonist relationships between everyday life, art, theory and politics. This original and challenging contribution, an extremely readable and well-researched text, will be recognized by readers and filmmakers alike as a powerful intervention into the space of cinematic studies.'

-- Bruce Barber, author of Trans/Actions: Art, Film and Death



Book Information
ISBN 9781783204854
Author Marc James Leger
Format Paperback
Page Count 308
Imprint Intellect Books
Publisher Intellect Books
Weight(grams) 494g
Dimensions(mm) 229mm * 178mm * 16mm