Davina Quinlivan is an independent critic and writer, as well as part-time lecturer in Film Studies at King's College, London and Kingston University.

As The Place of Breath in Cinema unfolds, Quinlivan documents how an expansive notion of "breathing" makes filmmakers as disparate as Egoyan, Cronenberg, and von Trier into a coherent set. They telegraph different aspects of her governing trope but coalesce, too, around shared questions. Meanwhile, the book’s arc and its prose operate like the alveoli in the lungs: with every potent parallel or counter-intuitive provocation, but even when a claim feels over-stretched or under-illustrated, Quinlivan’s ideas achieve an impressive alchemy. She turns images that might read one way into vessels for very different and generative thoughts. Distinctive, unpredictable, and eager for readers to test its frameworks against other subjects (Campion? Kunuk? Ceylan? Kawase?), The Place of Breath in Cinema reimagines breathing, the literal act of invigoration, and thereby fosters its intellectual equivalent.

Davina Quinlivan is an independent critic and writer, as well as part-time lecturer in Film Studies at King's College, London and Kingston University.

As The Place of Breath in Cinema unfolds, Quinlivan documents how an expansive notion of "breathing" makes filmmakers as disparate as Egoyan, Cronenberg, and von Trier into a coherent set. They telegraph different aspects of her governing trope but coalesce, too, around shared questions. Meanwhile, the book’s arc and its prose operate like the alveoli in the lungs: with every potent parallel or counter-intuitive provocation, but even when a claim feels over-stretched or under-illustrated, Quinlivan’s ideas achieve an impressive alchemy. She turns images that might read one way into vessels for very different and generative thoughts. Distinctive, unpredictable, and eager for readers to test its frameworks against other subjects (Campion? Kunuk? Ceylan? Kawase?), The Place of Breath in Cinema reimagines breathing, the literal act of invigoration, and thereby fosters its intellectual equivalent.

Davina Quinlivan is an independent critic and writer, as well as part-time lecturer in Film Studies at King's College, London and Kingston University.

As The Place of Breath in Cinema unfolds, Quinlivan documents how an expansive notion of "breathing" makes filmmakers as disparate as Egoyan, Cronenberg, and von Trier into a coherent set. They telegraph different aspects of her governing trope but coalesce, too, around shared questions. Meanwhile, the book’s arc and its prose operate like the alveoli in the lungs: with every potent parallel or counter-intuitive provocation, but even when a claim feels over-stretched or under-illustrated, Quinlivan’s ideas achieve an impressive alchemy. She turns images that might read one way into vessels for very different and generative thoughts. Distinctive, unpredictable, and eager for readers to test its frameworks against other subjects (Campion? Kunuk? Ceylan? Kawase?), The Place of Breath in Cinema reimagines breathing, the literal act of invigoration, and thereby fosters its intellectual equivalent.