Mapping Precarity in Contemporary Cinema and Television : Chronotopes of Anxiety, Depression, Expulsion/Extinction

This book examines a corpus of films and TV series released since the global financial crisis, addressing them as emblematic expressions of our age of precarity. The analysis of the motifs and characters of these case studies is built around notions originating from Mikhail Bakhtin’s literary theory and, in particular, the concept of chronotope, affirming the material and dynamic connection between form and content in artistic experience. This book observes how precarious lives are enacted in forms of spatio-temporal compositions which carry conceptual and ethical challenges for their viewers. This book falls within the film-philosophy framework and, although primarily directed to an academic audience, it provides an interdisciplinary account of the notion of cinematic precarity. It puts the embodied analysis of viewers’ ethical participation in close dialogical relationship with a philosophical and sociological examination of current dynamics of inequality and exclusion. Mapping Precarity in Contemporary Cinema and Television Preface References Acknowledgements Contents Part I: Anxiety Chapter 1: Introduction: A Film-Philosophy for the Age of Precarity The Economy of Precarity Anxious, Depressed, and Disposable/Extinct Lives on Screen Is There Something Our Bodies Can Do? Chapter Outlines and Limitations References Chapter 2: Sorry to Bother You: Visualising the (Embodied) Soul at Work References Chapter 3: From Welfare to Workfare: I, Daniel Blake and The Measure of a Man References Chapter 4: Fish Tank: Cinematic Performances of Femininity References Chapter 5: Himizu: The Precarisation of Education and Social Relations References Chapter 6: Black Mirror and Nosedive: Becoming Algorithm References Part II: Depression Chapter 7: Kelly Reichardt: Film Chronotopes of the Precarious Northwest References Chapter 8: Italian Peripheral Cinema: Boys Cry and Don’t Be Bad References Chapter 9: Gig Workers and Emotional Labour: Sorry We Missed You, Araby, Two Days, One Night References Chapter 10: Social Reproduction and Cinematic Care-Work: The Cases of Roma and The Chambermaid References Chapter 11: China Is Purest Capitalism: The Cinema of Jia Zhangke References Part III: Expulsion/Extinction Chapter 12: Parasite, or The Economy of Massacre References Chapter 13: Border as Method and Precarious Cinematic Citizenships: Mediterranea, Wind River, and Junction 48 References Chapter 14: Extraction and Confinement in Show Me a Hero and Orange Is the New Black References Chapter 15: Expulsed Childhoods: A Ciambra and The Florida Project References Chapter 16: Cinematic Memories of an Infected Planet: Beasts of the Southern Wild References Chapter 17: Conclusions References Index