Laleen Jayamanne – författare

Laleen Jayamanne examines the major works of leading Indian film director, Kumar Shahani, and explores the reaches of modernist film aesthetics in its international form. More than an auteur study, Jayamanne approaches Shahani's films conceptually, as those that reveal cinema's synaesthetic capabilities, or "cinaesthesia." As the author shows, Shahani's cinematic project entails a modern reformulation of the ancient oral tradition of epic narration and performance in order to address the contemporary world, establishing a new cinematic expression, "an epic idiom." As evidenced by his films, constructing cinematic history becomes more than an archival project of retrieval, and is instead a living history of the present which can intervene in the current moment through sensory experiences, propelling thought.

Laleen Jayamanne examines the major works of leading Indian film director, Kumar Shahani, and explores the reaches of modernist film aesthetics in its international form. More than an auteur study, Jayamanne approaches Shahani's films conceptually, as those that reveal cinema's synaesthetic capabilities, or "cinaesthesia." As the author shows, Shahani's cinematic project entails a modern reformulation of the ancient oral tradition of epic narration and performance in order to address the contemporary world, establishing a new cinematic expression, "an epic idiom." As evidenced by his films, constructing cinematic history becomes more than an archival project of retrieval, and is instead a living history of the present which can intervene in the current moment through sensory experiences, propelling thought.

Toward Cinema and Its Double brings together Laleen Jayamanne's discussions of Australian films, Sri Lankan films, European art films, silent film comedy, contemporary American films, and her own films. While some of her essays are based on formal film analysis, others include more theoretically based ways of considering films. In her studies, Jayamanne employs Walter Benjamin's and Theodor Adorno's concept of mimesis, and Gilles Deleuze's theses on cinematic time and movement as tools for thinking about the cinematic experience in new ways.Toward Cinema and Its Double addresses a number of issues that have been crucial areas of contention in film studies over the last 20 years—from the role of women both in front of and behind the camera, to the position of the postcolonial subject. Jayamanne demonstrates how arguments over these issues might be inflected in specific ways by specific practices in specific films. In addition, she places all these particularities in time—the time of the critic as well as that of the filmmaker. This collection contains work done over a span of 20 years, and rather than try to efface this time of writing by (re)presenting everything from a single, achieved final viewpoint, it demonstrates the way Jayamanne's own thoughts about film in general, and the various films discussed, have changed over the course of time.

Poetic Cinema and the Spirit of the Gift in the Films of Pabst, Parajanov, Kubrick and Ruiz explores the poetic thinking of these master filmmakers. It examines theoretical ideas, including Maori anthropology of the gift and Sufi philosophy of the image, to conceive film as abundant gift. Elaborating on how this gift may be received, this book imagines film as our indispensable mentor - a wild mentor who teaches us how to think with moving images by learning to perceive evanescent forms that simply appear and disappear.