Keywords in Subversive Film / Media Aesthetics

"Keywords is no list of PC jargon, but rather an almost Borgesian carnival of concepts that inspires something akin to hope. Flipping through these pages is like being at a party where the brightest, most passionate thinkers and dreamers have gathered to celebrate the role of the critical imagination as a tool for genuine social change." James Schamus, Oscar-nominated screenwriter (Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon) and Professor, Columbia University "Keywords offers a scintillating coffee-house style conversation about radical aesthetics and film. With seemingly effortless erudition, the book leads the reader through hundreds of illuminating concepts and filmic examples that crisscross the usual geographic and disciplinary boundaries, in an intellectual experience both enjoyable and informative. A subversive tour de force." Stephen Duncombe, Associate Professor, New York University "The thrillingly expansive field of vision of this astonishing book synthetically gathers up multiple media, cultures and historical eras as part of an energizing project whose ultimate objective is nothing less than profound social transformation through art and culture." Girish Shambu, film blogger and Associate Professor, Canisius College

Robert Stam is University Professor at New York University. He has authored, co-authored and edited 17 books on film, cultural theory, national cinema, and postcolonial studies. His books include Francois Truffaut and Friends (2006), Literature through Film (2005), Film Theory: An Introduction (2000), and Tropical Multiculturalism (1997). He is co-author, with Ella Shohat, of Race in Translation (2012), Flagging Patriotism (2006), and Unthinking Eurocentrism (1994). Richard Porton is the author of Film and the Anarchist Imagination (1999) and editor of Dekalog 3: On Film Festivals (2009). One of the editors of Cineaste magazine, his work on film has appeared in Cinema Scope, Sight & Sound, and The Daily Beast. Leo Goldsmith is a PhD candidate in the Department of Cinema Studies at New York University. He is the Film Editor of The Brooklyn Rail.

Acknowledgments vii Introduction 1 1 An Aesthetics of the Commons 29 The Aesthetic Commons 30 From Columbus to Indigenous Media 32 First Peoples, First Features 37 The Storytelling Commons 42 Revisionist Adaptation and the Literary Commons 47 Cultural Indigenization 53 The Archival Commons and the Ab]original Musical 58 2 The Upside]Down World of the Carnivalesque 68 The Peoples Second Life 68 Sacred Parody 72 Festive]Revolutionary Practices 76 Unruly Women 79 Polymorphous Celebrations 83 Stand]up Comedy and Nuclear Catastrophe 86 Contemporary Fools 90 Pedagogic Humor and Provocation 94 Tropes of Social Inversion 98 Offside Cinema 100 3 Political Modernism and Its Discontents 107 The Two Avant]Gardes 108 The Brechtian Legacy 110 Beyond Brecht 120 The Affective]Corporeal Turn 126 The Rediscovery of Pleasure 133 The Legacy of the V]Effect 136 Political Cinema in the Age of the Posts 139 4 The Transmogrification of the Negative 145 An Aesthetic of Mistakes 146 Third Cinema: From Hunger to Garbage 148 Sublime Detritus 154 The Recombinant Sublime 158 Anthropophagic Modernism 161 Situationist Dtournement 165 Culture Jamming 168 Neo]Situationism and the Aesthetics of Failure 171 Media Jujitsu 175 The New Kino]Eye: Vision Machines 178 5 Hybrid Variations on a Documentary Theme 185 The FictionDocumentary Continuum 185 Murderous Reenactments 189 The Mediatic Spectrum 193 From Representation to Self]Presentation 199 The Strategic Advantages of Hybridization 206 Performative Films 211 The Essay Film and Mockumentaries 215 6 Hollywood Aristotelianism, the Fractured Chronotope, and the Musicalization of Cinema 225 Hollywood Aristotelianism: the Orthodox Chronotope 225 Alternatives to Aristotle: the Menippean Strain 233 Pop Culture Anachronism and the Chronotope of the Road 239 Baroque Modernism and the Marvelous American Real 244 Trance]Modernism 246 Contrapuntal Variations 251 Transformative Becomings 258 The Shape]Shiftings of Popular Culture 266 Metaphysical Cine]Poetry 268 7 Aesthetic/Political Innovation in the Digital Era 276 Beyond Accelerationism: Digital Montage and Duration 282 Tools of Engagement: Interactivity and Digital Dtournement 285 IRL Subversions: Tactical Media and Digital Materialism 288 In Guise of a Conclusion 292 Index 298