Thomas Austin is Reader in Media & Film at the University of Sussex, UK. He is the author of Hollywood, Hype and Audiences: Selling and Watching Popular Film in the 1990s (2002) and Watching the World: Screen Documentary and Audiences (2007); and co-editor of Contemporary Hollywood Stardom (2003) and Rethinking Documentary: New Perspectives, New Practices (2008).

Aki Kaurismaki is a remarkable, complex auteur too often overlooked in Anglophone scholarship, and this vibrant new collection of essays seeks to redress that misfortune as well as fill in the gaps of extant work on the Finnish master. The book breaks new ground by closely connecting Kaurismaki's aesthetics—his distinctive mise-en-scène, cinematography, editing, and sound design (particularly with music)—to the much discussed, left-wing populist political messaging in his films. The editor, Thomas Austin, has curated a group of essays that dialogue with one another in refreshing ways while each scholar builds a unique and cogent position, illuminating diverse aspects of Kaurismaki's oeuvre; from his use of Brechtian distanciation, irony, and anachronism, to his ambivalent treatment of global capitalism and even the working classes he celebrates.

• List of ContributorsAcknowledgmentsIntroduction Thomas Austin Part 1: Time and Space Chapter 1: Temporality in Kaurismäki: Anachronism, Allusion, Tableau Thomas Austin Chapter 2: Three Ecologies of Kaurismäki Pietari Kääpä Chapter 3: Beyond the Edges of the Frame: The Invisible in Aki Kaurismäki’s Films Lara PerskiChapter 4: Kaurismäki and Japan Eija Niskanen Part 2: Tone and Point of View Chapter 5: The Camera’s Ironic Point of View: Notes on Strange and Comic Elements in the Films of Aki Kaurismäki Jaakko Seppälä Chapter 6: Dreamers and Other Sentimental Fools: Money, Solidarity and Ambivalent Populism in the Films of Aki Kaurismäki Panos Kompatsiaris Chapter 7: The Cultural Techniques of Gesture in Aki Kaurismäki’s Proletarian Trilogy Angelos KoutsourakisChapter 8: Kaurismäki’s Musical Moments: Genre, Irony, Utopia, Redemption Andrew Nestingen Part 3: Performance Chapter 9: Levels of typification in Aki Kaurismäki’s Drifting Clouds Henry Bacon Chapter 10: Masquerading, Underacting, and Screen Performances in Hamlet Goes Business Ulrike Hanstein Chapter 11: Deadpan Dogs: Kaurismäki’s Canine Comedies Michael Lawrence FilmographyBibliographyIndex

Thomas Austin is Reader in Media & Film at the University of Sussex, UK. He is the author of Hollywood, Hype and Audiences: Selling and Watching Popular Film in the 1990s (2002) and Watching the World: Screen Documentary and Audiences (2007); and co-editor of Contemporary Hollywood Stardom (2003) and Rethinking Documentary: New Perspectives, New Practices (2008).

Aki Kaurismaki is a remarkable, complex auteur too often overlooked in Anglophone scholarship, and this vibrant new collection of essays seeks to redress that misfortune as well as fill in the gaps of extant work on the Finnish master. The book breaks new ground by closely connecting Kaurismaki's aesthetics—his distinctive mise-en-scène, cinematography, editing, and sound design (particularly with music)—to the much discussed, left-wing populist political messaging in his films. The editor, Thomas Austin, has curated a group of essays that dialogue with one another in refreshing ways while each scholar builds a unique and cogent position, illuminating diverse aspects of Kaurismaki's oeuvre; from his use of Brechtian distanciation, irony, and anachronism, to his ambivalent treatment of global capitalism and even the working classes he celebrates.

• List of ContributorsAcknowledgmentsIntroduction Thomas Austin Part 1: Time and Space Chapter 1: Temporality in Kaurismäki: Anachronism, Allusion, Tableau Thomas Austin Chapter 2: Three Ecologies of Kaurismäki Pietari Kääpä Chapter 3: Beyond the Edges of the Frame: The Invisible in Aki Kaurismäki’s Films Lara PerskiChapter 4: Kaurismäki and Japan Eija Niskanen Part 2: Tone and Point of View Chapter 5: The Camera’s Ironic Point of View: Notes on Strange and Comic Elements in the Films of Aki Kaurismäki Jaakko Seppälä Chapter 6: Dreamers and Other Sentimental Fools: Money, Solidarity and Ambivalent Populism in the Films of Aki Kaurismäki Panos Kompatsiaris Chapter 7: The Cultural Techniques of Gesture in Aki Kaurismäki’s Proletarian Trilogy Angelos KoutsourakisChapter 8: Kaurismäki’s Musical Moments: Genre, Irony, Utopia, Redemption Andrew Nestingen Part 3: Performance Chapter 9: Levels of typification in Aki Kaurismäki’s Drifting Clouds Henry Bacon Chapter 10: Masquerading, Underacting, and Screen Performances in Hamlet Goes Business Ulrike Hanstein Chapter 11: Deadpan Dogs: Kaurismäki’s Canine Comedies Michael Lawrence FilmographyBibliographyIndex