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Genre Trouble and Extreme Cinema

Film Theory at the Fringes of Contemporary Art Cinema

  • Book
  • © 2017

Overview

Authors:
  1. Troy Bordun

    1. Trent University, Peterborough, Canada

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  • Develops a novel approach to contemporary film theory by building a bridge between seemingly incompatible scholars and concepts
  • Highlights the significance of extreme cinema for film theory, genre theory, and film history
  • Links the study of film theories of the senses to film genre theory, establishing new parallels between Linda Williams’s “body genres” and contemporary iterations of them, with particular attention paid to the burgeoning field of pornography studies
  • Includes supplementary material: sn.pub/extras

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Table of contents (9 chapters)

  1. Front Matter

    Pages i-xiii
    Download chapter PDF

  2. Introduction: Genre Trouble and Extreme Cinema

    • Troy Bordun
    Pages 1-28

  3. Carlos Reygadas, the Avant-Garde, and the Senses

    • Troy Bordun
    Pages 29-65

  4. !Que Viva México!: Reygadas as Documentarian

    • Troy Bordun
    Pages 67-98

  5. I Don’t Know It When I See It: Catherine Breillat’s Pornography

    • Troy Bordun
    Pages 99-122

  6. Horrible Pornography: Fat Girl (À Ma Soeur!, 2001)

    • Troy Bordun
    Pages 123-163

  7. On-Screen and Off-Screen Flesh and Blood: Performance, Pornography, Spectatorship

    • Troy Bordun
    Pages 165-198

  8. Reframing Spectatorship Theory with Extreme Cinema

    • Troy Bordun
    Pages 199-215

  9. Conclusion: Know Genre, No Trouble

    • Troy Bordun
    Pages 217-229

  10. Erratum to: Genre Trouble and Extreme Cinema

    • Troy Bordun
    Pages E1-E1

  11. Back Matter

    Pages 231-244
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Keywords

About this book

This volume re-evaluates theories of genre and spectatorship in light of a critic-defined tendency in recent art cinema, coined ‘extreme cinema’. In Genre Trouble and Extreme Cinema, Bordun argues that the films of Mexican director Carlos Reygadas and French director Catherine Breillat expand generic classifications. Bordun contends that their films make it apparent that genre is not established prior to the viewing of a work but is recollected and assembled by spectators in ways that matter for them in both personal and experiential terms. The author deploys contemporary film theories on the senses, both phenomenological and affect theory, and partakes in close readings of the films’ forms and narratives. The book thus adds to the present literature on extreme cinema and film theory, yet sets itself apart by fully deploying genre theory alongside the methodological and stylistic approaches of Stanley Cavell, Vivian Sobchack, Laura U. Marks, and Eugenie Brinkema.

Reviews

“Genre Trouble and Extreme Cinema is a fearless and writerly exploration of films that defy easy modes of generic classification—an impulse and a practice that too often diminishes the insights and effects of the films that we nevertheless want most to prize. Bordun takes us directly to the work itself and offers refreshingly nuanced readings of the films of Breillat and Reygadas. Through beautifully detailed close readings, Bordun shows us the films in all of their sophistication while teaching us something even greater: namely, how to regard our complexity. He is reminding us of the value of staying with the things we do not understand, how to resist our impulse to assimilate too quickly, too completely, what we do not yet comprehend—or think we cannot fathom—to what we think we already know. Is this not what we want serious art and serious criticism to do?” (Brian Price, University of Toronto, Canada)

Authors and Affiliations

  • Trent University, Peterborough, Canada

    Troy Bordun

About the author

Troy Bordun is a contract instructor in Sociology and Cultural Studies at Trent University in Ontario, Canada.



Bibliographic Information

  • Book Title: Genre Trouble and Extreme Cinema

  • Book Subtitle: Film Theory at the Fringes of Contemporary Art Cinema

  • Authors: Troy Bordun

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-65894-0

  • Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan Cham

  • eBook Packages: Literature, Cultural and Media Studies, Literature, Cultural and Media Studies (R0)

  • Copyright Information: The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2017

  • Hardcover ISBN: 978-3-319-65893-3Published: 05 December 2017

  • Softcover ISBN: 978-3-319-88125-6Published: 04 September 2018

  • eBook ISBN: 978-3-319-65894-0Published: 10 November 2017

  • Edition Number: 1

  • Number of Pages: XIII, 244

  • Number of Illustrations: 13 illustrations in colour

  • Topics: Genre, Film Theory, Arts

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