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The first major survey of Lyotard's contribution to film theory, combining his original essays with new critical works by leading scholars
This collection presents, for the first time in English, Jean-François Lyotard's major essays on film: 'Acinema', 'The Unconscious as Mise-en-scène', 'Two Metamorphoses of the Seductive in Cinema' and 'The Idea of a Sovereign Film'. Then, eight critical essays by philosophers and film theorists examine Lyotard's film work and influence across two sections: 'Approaches and Interpretations' and 'Applications and Extensions'. These works are complemented by an introductory essay by leading French scholar Jean-Michel Durafour on Lyotard's film-philosophy, an overview of Lyotard's practical film projects written by his collaborators Claudine Eizykman and Guy Fihman, and the synopsis for a later film project
Memorial Immemorial, which Lyotard proposed but was not produced.
Jean-François Lyotard was the most significant aesthetician of the poststructuralist generation, but this dimension of his thought is only recently beginning to receive the attention it deserves in the English-speaking world. He devoted a number of essays to film, and was involved in making several experimental short films. Lyotard's reflections on film offer a perspective which seeks to do justice to it as an art by focusing on its aesthetic, material qualities. His work in this area remains a largely untapped resource, with the potential for inaugurating exciting new directions in film-philosophy.
Contributors
Kiff Bamford, Leeds Beckett University, UK
Keith Crome, Manchester Metropolitan University, UK
Jean-Michel Durafour, University Paris-Est, France
Claudine Eizykman, University of Paris 8, France
Guy Fihman, University of Paris 8, France
Julie Gaillard, Emory University, USA
Jon Hackett, St Mary's University, UK
Vlad Ionescu, Hasselt University, Belgium
Graham Jones, Federation University, Australia
Peter W. Milne, Seoul National University, South Korea
Lisa Trahair, New South Wales, Australia
Susana Viegas, Nova University of Lisbon (NOVA), Portugal and Deakin University, Australia
James Williams, Deakin University, Australia
List of contents
Foreword
Susana Viegas and James Williams
Editor's Introduction
Graham Jones and Ashley Woodward
Cinema Lyotard: An Introduction
Jean-Michel Durafour
LYOTARD'S ESSAYS ON FILM
Acinema
The Unconscious as Mise-en-scène
Two Metamorphoses of the Seductive in Cinema
The Idea of a Sovereign Film
APPROACHES AND INTERPRETATIONS
Imaginary Constructs? A Libidinal Economy of the Cinematographic Medium
Julie Gaillard
Lyotard, Gorgias and the Art of Seduction
Keith Crome
Authorisation: Lyotard's Sovereign Image
Peter W. Milne
APPLICATIONS AND EXTENTIONS
Discourse, Figure, Suture: Lyotard and Cinematic Space
Jon Hackett
On Dialogue as Performative Art Criticism
Vlad Ionescu
Give Me a Sign: An Anxious Exploration of Performance on Film, Under Lyotard's Shadow
Kiff Bamford
How Desire Works: A Lyotardian Lynch
Graham Jones and Ashley Woodward
Aberrant Movement and Somatography in the Hysterical Films of Roméo Bosetti
Lisa Trahair
APPENDICES
1. Lyotard's Film Work
Claudine Eizykman and Guy Fihman
2.
Memorial Immemorial
Jean-François Lyotard
3. Lyotard Filmography
4. Bibliography
Index
About the author
Graham Jones is Lecturer in Creative Writing, Literary Studies and Media and Communications at Federation University, Australia. He is the author of
Lyotard Reframed (I.B.Tauris, 2013), co-author of
Deleuze's Philosophical Lineage (Edinburgh University Press, 2009) and
Deleuze's Philosophical Lineage II (Edinburgh University Press, 2019), and co-editor of
Acinemas: Lyotard's Philosophy of Film (Edinburgh University Press, 2017). His research interests include French poststructuralist philosophy, phenomenology and cybernetics.Ashley Woodward is Lecturer in Philosophy at the University of Dundee and is a founding member of the Melbourne School of Continental Philosophy. He is the author and editor of a number of books, including Lyotard and the Inhuman Condition: Reflections on Nihilism, Information and Art (Edinburgh University Press, 2016), Gilbert Simondon: Being and Technology (Edinburgh University Press, 2012) and Nihilism in Postmodernity: Lyotard, Baudrillard, Vattimo (The Davies Group, 2009).
Summary
This collection presents, for the first time in English, all of Lyotard s major essays on film, an introductory essay by the leading French scholar on Lyotard s film-philosophy, an overview of Lyotard s practical film projects written by his collaborators, and a selection of critical essays by philosophers and film theorists.
