Deathwatch - American Film, Technology, and the End of Life

While cinema is a medium with a unique ability to watch life and write movement, it is equally singular in its portrayal of death. The first study to unpack American cinemas long history of representing death, this book considers movie sequences in which the process of dying becomes an exercise in legibility and exploration for the camera and connects the slow or static process of dying to formal film innovation throughout the twentieth century.

List of contents

AcknowledgmentsIntroduction: An Elusive Passage1. Mortal Recoil: Early American Execution Scenes and the Electric Chair2. Posthumous Motion: The Deathwork of Narrative Editing3. Echo and Hum: Death's Acoustic Space in the Early Sound Film4. Seconds: The Flashback Loop and the Posthumous Voice5. Terminal Screens: Cinematography and Electric DeathCoda: End(ings)NotesBibliographyIndex

About the author

C. Scott Combs is associate professor of English at St. John's University in New York City.

Summary

The first study to unpack American cinema’s long history of representing death

Report

"Genuinely exciting and brimming with original insights. Given cinemas eternal fascination with death, coupled with film theorys obsessive need to explore the crossroads of photographic representation and the end of life, Combss ambitious attempts to interweave these concerns are welcome and illuminating." - Adam Lowenstein, author of Shocking Representation: Historical Trauma, National Cinema, and the Modern Horror Film

Product details

• Authors: C Scott Combs, C. Scott Combs, C. Scott (Assistant Professor Combs, Combs C. Scott
• Publisher: Columbia University Press
• Languages: English
• Product format: Paperback / Softback
• Released: 21.10.2014
• EAN: 9780231163477
• ISBN: 978-0-231-16347-7
• No. of pages: 288
• Series: Film Culture; Film and Culture Series; Film Culture; Film & Culture (COUP)
• Subjects: Humanities, art, music > Philosophy > General, dictionaries; Non-fiction book > Music, film, theatre; SOCIAL SCIENCE / Death & Dying, ART / Film & Video, Film, TV & radio, Philosophy: aesthetics, United States of America, USA, PERFORMING ARTS / Film / History & Criticism, PERFORMING ARTS / Film / Direction & Production, Film history, theory or criticism