Uncanny Cinema: Agonies of the Viewing Experience

Description

Murray Pomerance's latest book explores an encyclopedic range of films and television shows to demonstrate the difficulty of conveying the experience of viewing cinema through words and the medium of text. From On the Waterfront to Marriage Story, Uncanny Cinema illuminates that words and writing are in perilous waters when applied to cinema, similar to ungestured talk. The book begins with this problem using Julian Jaynes’s thoughts on vocality and imagination before delving into three exploratory ‘movements’ arranged to alternately challenge, inspire, and confound the reader to question if we know what we think we know or even see what we think we see. The viewer is faced with disturbances, ruptures, and surprises that occur during the viewing experience, which Pomerance analyzes to stretch the sense of what we do and do not (or, possibly, cannot) know, particularly as we think, talk, and write about cinema. Half Title Title Page Copyright Page Contents Acknowledgments: For My Teachers Prelude: Bright Experience Part I: Lost Voyagers Chapter 1: Sidestepping Chapter 2: Unforgettable Chapter 3: Banquet Chapter 4: Plastic Surgery Chapter 5: Registrations Chapter 6: Great Expectations Chapter 7: Naming of Parts Chapter 8: A Flicker Chapter 9: Being Alive Chapter 10: For Your Eyes Only Chapter 11: Hands Chapter 12: A Logical Gasp Chapter 13: Vigil Chapter 14: Privileged Chapter 15: Ting-a-ling-a-ling Chapter 16: Unheard Voices Chapter 17: Remote Control Part II: Spectator, Watch Thyself Chapter 18: Paranoia Chapter 19: Quote Me Chapter 20: The Magic Touch Chapter 21: Exeunt omnes Chapter 22: Throw It Away Chapter 23: Who Are You? Chapter 24: The Walking Cure Chapter 25: The Picture Dances Chapter 26: Taboo Chapter 27: Only Connect Chapter 28: The Impatient Chapter 29: At the Party Chapter 30: O! Chapter 31: A Sight for Sore Eyes Part III: The One-Eyed Stranger Chapter 32: It’s Like This Chapter 33: Taking Off Chapter 34: Topographies Chapter 35: Forget Me Not Chapter 36: Inspired Chapter 37: Shades in the Dark Chapter 38: The Jitters Chapter 39: Irrational Space Chapter 40: Spaced Out Chapter 41: Rabbit Chapter 42: M’m! M’m! Good! Chapter 43: Brotherly Love Chapter 44: The Star’s Twin Chapter 45: Wink Wink Chapter 46: Filmic Is Filmic Chapter 47: Read This Chapter 48: Time This Postscriptum:: Must I Know What I See? References Index