The Desiring-Image : Gilles Deleuze and Contemporary Queer Cinema

The Desiring-image Yields New Models Of Queer Cinema Produced Since The Late 1980s, Based On Close Formal Analysis Of Diverse Films As Well As Innovative Contributions To Current Film Theory. The Book Defines Queer Cinema Less As A Specific Genre Or In Terms Of Gay And Lesbian Identity, But More Broadly As A Kind Of Filmmaking That Conveys Sexual Desire And Orientation As Potentially Fluid Within Any Individual's Experience, And As Forces That Can Therefore Unite Unlikely Groups Of People Along New Lines, Socially, Sexually, Or Politically. The Films Driving This Analysis Range From Celebrated Fixtures Of The New Queer Cinema Of The 1990s (including Cheryl Dunye's The Watermelon Woman And Todd Haynes's Velvet Goldmine) To Sexually Provocative Films Of The Same Era That Are Rarely Classified As Queer (david Cronenberg's Dead Ringers And Naked Lunch) To Breakout Films By 21st-century Directors (rodney Evans's Brother To Brother, John Cameron Mitchell's Shortbus). To Frame These Readings And To Avoid Heterosexist Assumptions In Other Forms Of Film Analysis, The Desiring-image Revisits The Work Of The Philosopher Gilles Deleuze, Whose Two Major Works On Cinema Somehow Never Address The Radical Ideas About Desire He Expresses In Other Texts. This Book Brings Those Notions Together In Innovative Ways, Making Them Clear And Accessible To Newcomers And Field Specialists Alike, With Clear, Illustrated Examples Drawn From A Wide Range Of Movies Extending Beyond The Central Case Studies. Thus, The Desiring-image Speaks To Readers Interested In Queer And Gay/lesbian Studies, In Film Theory, In Feminist And Sexuality Scholarship, And In Theory And Philosophy, Putting Those Discourses Into Rich, Surprising Conversations With Popular Cinema Of The Last 30 Years. -- Publisher's Description. Introduction -- Beyond Gay: Dead Ringers And Queer Perceptions -- Hard Bodies And Sex Blobs: Deterritorializing Desire In Naked Lunch And Shortbus -- Something In Her Face: Queering The Affection-image In The Watermelon Woman -- Brother To Brother And Adventures In Queer Crystallography -- Crystal-queer Economies: Beau Travail -- Theses On Philosophy Of Queer History: Velvet Goldmine -- Conclusion. Nick Davis. Includes Bibliographical References And Index. MuPDF error: syntax error: invalid key in dict MuPDF error: syntax error: invalid key in dict MuPDF error: syntax error: invalid key in dict MuPDF error: syntax error: invalid key in dict MuPDF error: syntax error: invalid key in dict MuPDF error: syntax error: invalid key in dict MuPDF error: syntax error: invalid key in dict MuPDF error: syntax error: invalid key in dict MuPDF error: syntax error: invalid key in dict Cover 1 Contents 8 Acknowledgments 10 Abbreviations 14 Introduction: The Desiring-Image 18 The Triple Womb 18 Queering the Cinema Books 22 New Queer Is . . . New Queer Ain’t 25 Seven Pillars of Schizo Homo Pomo 28 A Word on Orientations, or Around 1991 42 Preview of Coming Attractions 45 1. “Beyond Gay”: Dead Ringers and Queer Perceptions 50 “We’ re Just Not Sure What Kind It Is” 50 Dissenting from “A Dissenting View” 55 Mutant Textuality 57 Perceptions of Perception: Movement, Time, Subtraction 60 Perceptions and Desire: Types of Flows 62 Out-of-Fields and the Desiring-Image 64 The Desiring-Images of Dead Ringers 66 First Out-of-Field: The Mantles vs. the World 68 Second Out-of-Field: The Love that Keeps Almost Speaking Its Name 70 Third Out-of-Field: The Triple Womb and the “Either . . . or . . . or . . . ” 73 Fourth Out-of-Field: Impulse and Immanence 78 The Desiring-Image as Relation-Image 82 2. Hard Bodies and Sex-Blobs: Deterritorializing Desire in Naked Lunch and Shortbus 85 Innaresting Sex Arrangements 85 Peaks, Sheets, and Series 89 “Everything Is Permitted”: Incompossibilities of Desire 92 Schizos and Counterpublics 94 If on a Summer’s Night a Sex-Blob 97 Sounds, Stutters, and Scatterplots 101 A Kafk a High or a New Low?: Quandaries of the Minor 104 Shortbus: The Queer Politics of “Actual” Sex 111 Does This Bus Only Make One Stop? 116 3. “Something in Her Face”: Queering the Affection-Image in The Watermelon Woman 121 Who Is She, and What Is She to You? 121 The Riddle of the Lesbian Affection-Image 125 Like Clockwork, or How to Make a Face 128 Facing Elsie, and the Mystery of the Other Person 130 Black Lesbians and Their Others 134 Peaks of Present, or What Ever Happened to Lesbian Community? 137 Sheets of Past and Centers of Indetermination 140 A Single Face, Implying Multitudes 146 Deflective Unities and Oracular Chores 148 Faces in the Crowd 150 Facing Forward 153 4. Brother to Brother and Adventures in Queer Crystallography 157 Queer Crystallography 157 Crystals, Then and Now 161 The Four Types 165 Looking for Bruce / Looking for Perry 175 Through a Crystal-Image, Darkly 183 What’s Sex Got to Do with It? 185 5. Crystal-Queer Economies: Beau travail 189 What’s Money Got to Do with It? 189 The Oyster and the Book in Blood 193 The Broken Compass and the Three Economies 195 Beau travail, or the Ambiguities 201 Compound Crystals 208 Bachelors and Belles Transitions 214 6. Theses on a Philosophy of Queer History: Velvet Goldmine 221 Changing the World and Changing Ourselves 221 Angels, Aliens, and Orphans 228 Point A to Point B 233 Wild Cards and Unexpected Critiques 241 Toward Productive Ends 247 The Minors and the Miners 251 Conclusion: The Pin and the Pearl 262 Glossary 266 A 266 C 267 D 267 F 268 I 268 L 268 M 268 O 269 P 269 R 269 S 270 T 270 Notes 272 Works Cited 310 Index 324 A 324 B 324 C 325 D 326 E 326 F 327 G 327 H 327 I 327 J 327 K 327 L 327 M 328 N 328 O 328 P 328 Q 329 R 329 S 329 T 329 V 330 W 330 Y 330 Z 330 The Desiring-Image yields new models of queer cinema produced since the late 1980s, based on close formal analysis of diverse films as well as innovative contributions to current film theory. The book defines "queer cinema" less as a specific genre or in terms of gay and lesbian identity, but more broadly as a kind of filmmaking that conveys sexual desire and orientation as potentially fluid within any individual's experience, and as forces that can therefore unite unlikely groups of people along new lines, socially, sexually, or politically. The films driving this analysis range from celebrated fixtures of the New Queer Cinema of the 1990s (including Cheryl Dunye's The Watermelon Woman and Todd Haynes's Velvet Goldmine) to sexually provocative films of the same era that are rarely classified as queer (David Cronenberg's Dead Ringers and Naked Lunch) to breakout films by 21st-century directors (Rodney Evans's Brother to Brother, John Cameron Mitchell's Shortbus). To frame these readings and to avoid heterosexist assumptions in other forms of film analysis, The Desiring-Image revisits the work of the philosopher Gilles Deleuze, whose two major works on cinema somehow never address the radical ideas about desire he expresses in other texts. This book brings those notions together in innovative ways, making them clear and accessible to newcomers and field specialists alike, with clear, illustrated examples drawn from a wide range of movies extending beyond the central case studies. Thus, The Desiring-Image speaks to readers interested in queer and gay/lesbian studies, in film theory, in feminist and sexuality scholarship, and in theory and philosophy, putting those discourses into rich, surprising conversations with popular cinema of the last 30 years. This book argues for a new, Deleuzian model of queer cinema as it emerged in the wake of AIDS. This model moves away from identity-based or politically fixed definitions of queerness, arguing instead for desire itself as an expansive, mutable, and abundantly generative force, on par with Deleuze’s theorizations of cinematic movement and time. This premise allows us to designate as “queer” a wide range of films that formally and thematically convey both the centrality and unpredictability of desire within individual and collective experiences, and with various political implications. Overt investments in LGBT representation recede somewhat as primary criteria in classifying a film as queer, as do the avowed sexualities of the filmmakers. Furthermore, these arguments allow us to read questions of desire into Deleuze’s strangely de-eroticized volumes on cinema; to posit desire as a bridge across some conceptual gulfs between Deleuze’s movement-image and time-image, especially as they relate to history, aesthetics, and politics; and to consider queer cinema as a “minor cinema,” echoing Deleuze and Guattari’s notion of minor art. The Desiring-Image thus furnishes novel contributions to Deleuzian theory and new rejoinders to the most familiar rubrics for studying queer cinema. The book hones these claims via sustained readings of key films by leaders of the New Queer Cinema (Todd Haynes, Cheryl Dunye), by famed auteurs excluded from or loosely annexed to that movement (David Cronenberg, Claire Denis), and by emergent 21st-century talents (Rodney Evans, John Cameron Mitchell), while simultaneously unpacking Deleuze’s tough, idiosyncratic lexicon of cinematic terms The Desiring-Image redefines queer cinema as a kind of filmmaking that conveys sexuality and desire as fundamentally fluid for all people, exceeding familiar stories and themes in many LGBT movies. This text redefines queer cinema as a kind of filmmaking that conveys sexuality and desire as fundamentally fluid for all people, exceeding familiar stories and themes in many LGBT movies