Cinema and Anachronism: The Mummy, the Crystal, the Atlas

(Hardback)

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This book establishes a starting point toward a theory of the anachronism of cinematic images through an exploration of existing films, theories, and discourses concerning the temporality of images that have shaped the history of cinema.
Daniele Dottorini examines the cinematic form as a specific way of working with the temporality of the image through a confrontation with the history of both the image and the discourses that have reflected on it, particularly within the contemporary sphere. The image is always, he argues, in a sense spectral, phantasmal, and open it is a field of tensions which has the unique ability to form connections to other images, epochs, gazes, and visions of the past. By building on the work of scholars and artists that have come before him, including Warburg, Pasolini, Deleuze, Benjamin, Godard, and Herzog, among many others, Dottorini positions the image as not only and not even primarily a datapoint to be analyzed, but as a form that is constantly moving, changing, and forming new connections. Ultimately, this book constitutes a significant contribution to our understanding of the image as a path built through encounters and comparisons, which is but one facet of establishing a history of cinema as a story of returns and survivals.

Reviews

Images in films can be photographically produced or digitally composed. They can register the real or be saturated with internal contradictions and paradoxes. Image sequences can track continuing actions or jump abruptly across times and places. They can capture the past visually and present the visually unreal or impossible. Daniele Dottorini develops a systematic account of the kinds of shocks, surprises, and meanings that are uniquely presentable on film. His work will be indispensable for thinking about the full range of films powers. * Richard Eldridge, Charles and Harriett Cox McDowell Professor Emeritus of Philosophy, Swarthmore College, USA *

Author Bio

Daniele Dottorini is Associate Professor of Cinema, Photography, Radio, Television, and Digital Media at the University of Calabria, Italy.