Guido Kirsten - Böcker

This volume brings together renowned scholars and early career-researchers in mapping the ways in which European cinema —whether arthouse or mainstream, fictional or documentary, working with traditional or new media— engages with phenomena of precarity, poverty, and social exclusion. It compares how the filmic traditions of different countries reflect the socioeconomic conditions associated with precarity, and illuminates similarities in the iconography of precarious lives across cultures. While some of the contributions deal with the representations of marginalized minorities, others focus on work-related precarity or the depictions of downward mobility. Among other topics, the volume looks at how films grapple with gender inequality, intersectional struggle, discriminatory housing policies, and the specific problems of precarious youth. With its comparative approach to filmic representations of European precarity, this volume makes a major contribution to scholarship on precarity and the representation of social class in contemporary visual culture. Watch our book talk with the editors Elisa Cuter, Guido Kirsten and Hanna Prenzel here: https://youtu.be/lKpD1NFAx2o

This volume brings together renowned scholars and early career-researchers in mapping the ways in which European cinema —whether arthouse or mainstream, fictional or documentary, working with traditional or new media— engages with phenomena of precarity, poverty, and social exclusion. It compares how the filmic traditions of different countries reflect the socioeconomic conditions associated with precarity, and illuminates similarities in the iconography of precarious lives across cultures. While some of the contributions deal with the representations of marginalized minorities, others focus on work-related precarity or the depictions of downward mobility. Among other topics, the volume looks at how films grapple with gender inequality, intersectional struggle, discriminatory housing policies, and the specific problems of precarious youth. With its comparative approach to filmic representations of European precarity, this volume makes a major contribution to scholarship on precarity and the representation of social class in contemporary visual culture. Watch our book talk with the editors Elisa Cuter, Guido Kirsten and Hanna Prenzel here: https://youtu.be/lKpD1NFAx2o

Unlike editing, découpage does not take place after the film has been shot, but before. The French term refers to the breakdown of a scene into a sequence of shots. In order to translate the written screenplay into film language, cinematographers and directors employ a genuinely cinematic way of thinking—a thinking in sequences of moving images and sounds, including the camera setups, movements, and shot sizes. Découpage is thus crucial in shaping a film’s specific form. Using the tools of conceptual history, Guido Kirsten traces the term’s evolution from its emergence in the 1910s through the eventful film history of the twentieth century until its recent rediscovery. By differentiating layers of meaning and discussing important shifts in the concept’s evolution, this book improves the understanding of key film theoretical texts, whose meaning has been distorted by mistranslation, and shows how a deeper reflection of découpage promises to enrich the analysis of contemporary moving image media.