Signatures of the Visible"The visual is essentially pornographic," writes Fredric Jameson, "films ask us to stare at the world as though it were a naked body." In Signatures of the Visible, one of America's most influential critics explores film and the culture surrounding it, interrogating the relationship between the imaginative screen world and the historical world onto which it is projected. By seeking the historical dimension of the visual, Jameson evaluates the power of the filmic form as a vehicle for the critique of culture and the diagnosis of social life. Jameson pursues this investigation through readings of politics, class, allegory, magic realism, and "the historical" in such films as Diva, The Shining, and Dog Day Afternoon. Throughout the book, he is concerned with the relationship between the achievements and limits of contemporary film theory itself, "a relationship," he argues, "which allows one to take the temperature of history itself." |
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aesthetic allegorical American art deco artist auteur auteur theory autonomy become bourgeois called camera capitalism class consciousness classical collective color commodity concept consciousness contemporary criticism cultural revolution dialectical distinct documentary Dog Day Afternoon dramatic emergence episode event existential experience expression fantasy fiction figure filmic filmmaker formal Frankfurt School function genre grasped high modernism historical Hitchcock Hitler Hollywood ideological individual interpretation Jack Nicholson kind language logic longer magic realism Marxism mass culture matter meaning Meanwhile mediation mode modernism modernist movie narrative narrative paradigms nostalgia film novel object older paradigm particular period photographic political possibility postmodern problem production Psycho reality reification relationship representation repressed Rothman's seems sense situation social space specific stage stereotypes structure style stylistic suggest Syberberg theory thing tion traditional transformation ultimate Utopian various viewer visual whole