Shame and Desire (Rethinking Cinema) Volume 3 of Rethinking cinema

Shame and Desire defines the contemporary cinematic experience in terms that go beyond the visual. Adopting an intersubjective perspective on film studies, the author maintains that the dialectical poles of subject and object, seeing and being seen no longer seem to be valid. We are now surrounded by images that look back at us provocatively, seductively, indifferently; and not only in movies, but also in art, television, the city, in chance encounters, and in our private relationships. Taking her cue from Jean-Paul Sartre, the author shows how emotions exemplify the way in which we are 'forced' to see ourselves through the eyes of others, unable to escape an identity that is imposed upon us from the outside but nevertheless resides 'in the flesh' - in the affective operations of the body and the senses. To illustrate her account of the intersubjective dynamics and affective bonds of cinema, the author explores the contemporary aesthetic investment in the emotional in the work of filmmakers such as Lars von Trier, Michael Haneke and Eija-Liisa Ahtila. This book proposes an insight into the ways in which we are engaged with visual displays and the look with which they respond to our looking Cover......Page 1 Table of Contents......Page 7 INTRODUCTION. Intersubjectivity in Film Studies......Page 9 Emotions and Intentionality......Page 14 Intersubjectivity in the Cinematic Experience......Page 18 The Course of the Argument......Page 23 What Is Intersubjectivity?......Page 29 The Returned Look......Page 33 Masochistic Intimacy......Page 36 Violent Confrontations......Page 45 Voyeuristic Shame......Page 49 Reciprocal Intersubjectivity......Page 54 Dialectical Spectatorship......Page 61 Sense of Communality......Page 65 Triadic Communality......Page 70 Idiotic Communities......Page 73 Intersubjectivity and Solidarity......Page 76 Otherness Within......Page 85 Images of Abjection......Page 93 Love and Abjection......Page 101 The Bodily Subject......Page 109 Carnal Perception......Page 114 Inside/Outside......Page 118 Intersubjectivity, Sexuality and Gender......Page 126 Conclusion......Page 139 References......Page 143 Index......Page 151