The Film Cheat - Screen Artifice and Viewing Pleasure

Zusatztext More Sprezzatura theorizing from one of the most exciting and iconoclastic film scholars writing today. A thoroughly original focus on a topic that, previously undiscussed, is revealed as incredibly significant to the realism debate in media studies more generally, once Pomerance identifies it. Informationen zum Autor Murray Pomerance is an independent scholar living in Toronto, Canada, and Adjunct Professor in the School of Media and Communication at RMIT University, Melbourne, Australia. He is the author of The Hitchcock Quartet ( An Eye for Hitchcock, A Dream of Hitchcock, A Voyage with Hitchcock, and A Silence from Hitchcock); Uncanny Cinema: Agonies of the Viewing Experience (Bloomsbury, 2022); Color It True: Impressions of Cinema (Bloomsbury, 2022); The Film Cheat: Film Artifice and Viewing Pleasure (Bloomsbury, 2020); Virtuoso: Film Performance and the Actor’s Magic (Bloomsbury, 2019); Cinema, If You Please: The Memory of Taste, the Taste of Memory (Bloomsbury, 2018) , and many other volumes including, with Matthew Solomon, The Biggest Thing in Show Business: Living It Up with Martin & Lewis (2024). Pomerance’s fiction has appeared in The Paris Review, New Directions, The Kenyon Review, and elsewhere; he is the author of Grammatical Dreams, A King of Infinite Space , and other books. Zusammenfassung Murray Pomerance, venerated film scholar, is the first to take on the 'cheat' in film, where 'cheating' constitutes a collection of production, performance, and structuring maneuvers intended to foster the impression of a screen reality that does not exist as presented. This usually calls for a suspension of disbelief in the viewer, but that rests on the assumption that disbelief is problematic for viewership, and that we must find some way to “suspend” or “disconnect” it in order to allow for the entertainment of the fiction in its own terms. The Film Cheat explores forty-five aspects of the 'cheat,' analyzing classic films such as Singin’ in the Rain and Chinatown , to more contemporary films like The Revenant and Baby Driver , with Pomerance engaging his encyclopedic knowledge of film history to point out numerous instances of suspensions of disbeliefs. Whether or not Gene Kelly is actually dancin' in the rain, or if Elliott is really flying on his bicycle carrying E.T., these cheats are what make movie magic.Elegantly weaving the narrative for one to dip into at random or to read from cover to cover, Pomerance turns things upside down so that the audience actually finds pleasure in the cheat itself, pleasure in the disbelief. To see the elegant fake, the supremely accomplished simulacrum is a pleasure in its own right, indeed one of the fundamental pleasures of cinema. Inhaltsverzeichnis Preamble: The Viewer as "Mark" Of Scripts 1. Yesterdays2. Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow3. Narrative Transparency4. The Cheating Cut5. Narrative Opacity6. The Narrator Hides7. Taxi Cheat8. And Here Endeth my Tale9. Only Pretending10. Keeping Minutes Of Performing 11. Monster!12. A Star, Not a Star13. Pain14. Measuring Up15. Privacy16. Signed17. Keyed Up18. Don't Believe It19. "I Love You"20. Surrender Of Cameras 21. Corral22. Show Me23. On the Road24. "Good Cinematography"25. "Look at the Picture"26. Peek-a-Boo27. Moving On28. Behind the Camera Behind29. All the Way Not to Holland Of Scenes 30. No There There31. Where are We?32. Walk on the Wild Side33. Happy Trails34. The Thing35. Heist36. The Reality Effect37. Stand-ins38. A Superheroic Universe Of Cuts 39. Believe in Me40. Over Thames41. Something is Happening42. Veni creator spiritus 43. "Bite the Dust"44. Reflect on That45. Presence and Presentation46. By Contrast47. The Blood Effect48. Our Cheating Heart: Not an IntroductionBibl...

About the author

Murray Pomerance is an independent scholar living in Toronto, Canada, and Adjunct Professor in the School of Media and Communication at RMIT University, Melbourne, Australia. He is the author of The Hitchcock Quartet (An Eye for Hitchcock, A Dream of Hitchcock, A Voyage with Hitchcock, and A Silence from Hitchcock); Edge of the Screen (Bloomsbury, 2024); Uncanny Cinema: Agonies of the Viewing Experience (Bloomsbury, 2022); Color It True: Impressions of Cinema (Bloomsbury, 2022); The Film Cheat: Film Artifice and Viewing Pleasure (Bloomsbury, 2020); Virtuoso: Film Performance and the Actor’s Magic (Bloomsbury, 2019); Cinema, If You Please: The Memory of Taste, the Taste of Memory (Bloomsbury, 2018), and many other volumes including, with Matthew Solomon, The Biggest Thing in Show Business: Living It Up with Martin & Lewis (2024). Pomerance’s fiction has appeared in The Paris Review, New Directions, The Kenyon Review, and elsewhere; he is the author of Grammatical Dreams, A King of Infinite Space, and other books.

Product details

• Authors: Murray Pomerance
• Publisher: Bloomsbury Academic
• Languages: English
• Product format: Hardback
• Released: 31.10.2020
• EAN: 9781501364990
• ISBN: 978-1-5013-6499-0
• No. of pages: 384
• Subjects: Humanities, art, music > Art > Theatre, ballet; Media Studies, PERFORMING ARTS / Acting & Auditioning, PERFORMING ARTS / Film / Genres / General, PERFORMING ARTS / Film / History & Criticism, Acting techniques, Film Theory & Criticism, Film history, theory or criticism