Roland Barthes and Film: Myth, Eroticism and Poetics

Description

Suspicious of what he called the spectator’s “sticky” adherence to the screen, Roland Barthes had a cautious attitude towards cinema. Falling into a hypnotic trance, the philosopher warned, an audience can become susceptible to ideology and “myth”. In this book, Patrick Ffrench explains that although Barthes was wary of film, he engaged deeply with it. Barthes’ thought was, Ffrench argues, punctuated by the experience of watching films – and likewise his philosophy of photography, culture, semiotics, ethics and theatricality have been immensely important in film theory. Focusing particularly on the essays ‘The Third Meaning’ and ‘On Leaving the Cinema’ and the acclaimed book Camera Lucida, Ffrench examines Barthes’ writing and traces a persistent interest in films and directors, from Fellini and Antonioni, to Eisenstein, the Marx Brothers and Hitchcock. Ffrench explains that although Barthes found pleasure in “leaving the cinema” – disconnecting from its dangerous allure by a literal exit or by forcefully breaking the trance – he found value in returning to the screen anew. Barthes delved beneath the pull of progressing narrative and the moving image by becoming attentive to space and material aesthetics. This book presents an invaluable reassessment of one of the most original and subtle thinkers of the twentieth-century: a figure indebted to the movies. Cover Half title Series page Title Copyrights Contents List of Figures Acknowledgments Abbreviations INTRODUCTION Chapter 1 FILM AS MYTH AND FORM The Face as Object The Space of the Theatre The Visible Surface of Things Toward the Photogram Chapter 2 FILMOLOGY AND SEMIOLOGY Barthes and Filmology Semiologies of the Image Barthes and Cahiers du Cinéma: The 1963 Interview Semiology and Cinema: The Image et Son Interview Pesaro 1966 Chapter 3 THE THIRD MEANING Barthes, Cahiers, and Tel Quel Obvious and Obtuse The Big Toe The Filmic Gesture and Tableau Fetishist? Chapter 4 BEYOND “THE THIRD MEANING” The Photogram: Sylvie Pierre Suppressed Emotion: Georges Didi-Huberman Out of Frame: Raymonde Carasco and Gilles Deleuze The Film-Work: Thierry Kuntzel Toward the Punctum: Photography in Cahiers Chapter 5 LEAVING THE CINEMA Film as Jouissance: Figure and Voice A Different Imaginary Ravishment Chapter 6 PHOTOGRAPHY, NOT CINEMA? “This has been”: The Radical Difference between Photography and Cinema Blurring the Radical Difference Chapter 7 DEAR ANTONIONI Loving Vigilance The Possibility of Happiness in the Modern World Barthes and Antonioni in China The Hum of Language CONCLUSION Barthes’ Cinema Bibliography Index