The ordinary man of cinema by Schefer, Jean Louis

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The ordinary man of cinema (#4ROOL39)

by Schefer, Jean Louis
Paperback — 2016
Dewey: 791.436; Audience: Adult
Description: 223 pages : illustrations; 23 cm

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Product Overview
From Follett
Originally published as "L'homme ordinaire du cinema" in French by Editions Gallimard, Paris, 1980.;Includes bibliographical references (pages 219-221).;Preface -- The gods. Devil dolls -- The mummy -- The jealousy of freaks -- Lost horizons -- The inhuman woman -- The maid on the telephone -- Occupation: Bouvard and Pecuchet -- Laurel and Hardy: brother and sister -- The clown of Heraclitus -- The white orgy -- The black orgy (The slaves and the painting) -- The object -- The shroud -- The sausage -- Chickens -- The likeness -- The burlesque body -- The death of Nero -- The death of Nero with a character -- The phonograph -- The ideal being can only be seen through the eyes of a criminal -- From The book of Satan -- Burlesque 2 -- The chubby one at the theater -- The road map -- Nana -- The smoke -- Shadows -- In front of the house -- The room -- The carriage, the veins -- The criminal life (The film). The criminal life -- The lesson of darkness -- The wheel of images -- The wheel -- The human face.;Translated from the French. "When it was first published in French in 1980, The Ordinary Man of Cinema signaled a shift from the French film criticism of the 1960s to a new breed of film philosophy that disregarded the semiotics and post-structuralism of the preceding decades. Schefer describes the schizophrenic subjectivity the cinema offers us: the film as a work projected without memory, viewed by (and thereby lived by) a subject scarred and shaped by memory. The Ordinary Man of Cinema delineates the phenomenology of movie-going and the fleeting, impalpable zone in which an individuals personal memory confronts the cinemas ideological images to create a new way of thinking. It is also a book replete with mummies and vampires, tyrants and prostitutes, murderers and freaksfigures that are fundamental to Schefers conception of the cinema, because the worlds that cinema traverses (our worlds, interior and exterior) are worlds of pain, unconscious desire, decay, repressed violence, and the endless mystery of the body. Fear and pleasure breed monsters, and such are what Schefers emblematic "ordinary man" seeks and encounters when engaging in the disordering of the ordinary that the movie theater offers him. Among other things, Schefer considers "The Gods" in 31 brief essays on film stills and "The Criminal Life" with reflections on spectatorship and autobiography. While Schefers book has long been standard reading in French film scholarship, until now it has been something of a missing link to the field (and more broadly, French theory) in English. It is one of the building blocks of more widely known and read translations of Gilles Deleuze (who cited this book as an influence on his own cinema books) and Jacques Ranciere."--Provided by publisher.
From the Publisher

The first English translation of a foundational work in cinema studies and the philosophy of film.

When it was first published in French in 1980, The Ordinary Man of Cinema signaled a shift from the French film criticism of the 1960s to a new breed of film philosophy that disregarded the semiotics and post-structuralism of the preceding decades. Schefer describes the schizophrenic subjectivity the cinema offers us: the film as a work projected without memory, viewed by (and thereby lived by) a subject scarred and shaped by memory. The Ordinary Man of Cinema delineates the phenomenology of movie-going and the fleeting, impalpable zone in which an individual's personal memory confronts the cinema's ideological images to create a new way of thinking.

It is also a book replete with mummies and vampires, tyrants and prostitutes, murderers and freaks--figures that are fundamental to Schefer's conception of the cinema, because the worlds that cinema traverses (our worlds, interior and exterior) are worlds of pain, unconscious desire, decay, repressed violence, and the endless mystery of the body. Fear and pleasure breed monsters, and such are what Schefer's emblematic "ordinary man" seeks and encounters when engaging in the disordering of the ordinary that the movie theater offers him. Among other things, Schefer considers "The Gods" in 31 brief essays on film stills and "The Criminal Life" with reflections on spectatorship and autobiography.

While Schefer's book has long been standard reading in French film scholarship, until now it has been something of a missing link to the field (and more broadly, French theory) in English. It is one of the building blocks of more widely known and read translations of Gilles Deleuze (who cited this book as an influence on his own cinema books) and Jacques Ranci re.

Product Details
  • Publication Date: September 16, 2016
  • Format: Paperback
  • Dewey: 791.436
  • Description: 223 pages : illustrations; 23 cm
  • Tracings: Cavitch, Max, translator. ; Grant, Paul, translator. ; Wedell, Noura, translator.
  • ISBN-10: 1-58435-185-3
  • ISBN-13: 978-1-58435-185-6
  • LCCN: 2016-298043
  • Follett Number: 4ROOL39
  • Audience: Adult