Kate Ince

Winner of the British Association of Film, Television and Screen Studies Best Book Prize 2018 Since the 1980s the number of women regularly directing films has increased significantly in most Western countries; in France, Claire Denis and Catherine Breillat have joined Agnès Varda in gaining international renown, while British directors Lynne Ramsay and Andrea Arnold have forged award-winning careers in feature film. This new volume in the “Thinking Cinema” series draws on feminist philosophers and theorists from Simone de Beauvoir on to offer readings of a range of the most important and memorable of these films from the 1990s and 2000s, focusing as it does so on how the films convey women's lives and identities. Mainstream entertainment cinema traditionally distorts the representation of women, objectifying their bodies, minimizing their agency, and avoiding the most important questions about how cinema can "do justice" to female subjectivity. Kate Ince suggests that the films of independent women directors are progressively redressing the balance, reinvigorating both the narratives and the formal ambitions of European cinema. Ince uses feminist philosophers to interpret such films as Sex Is Comedy, Morvern Callar, White Material, and Fish Tank anew, suggesting that a philosophical understanding of female subjectivity as embodied and ethical should underpin future feminist film study.

Female Subjectivities in Contemporary Women’s Cinema

The Body and the Screen

Alex Hughes

Jennifer Birkett

This fascinating study explores the pleasures and torments of love and sexuality as depicted in the works of six important French women writers: Rachilde, Colette, Leduc, Wittig, Cixous and Duras. Historically, erotic literature has been dominated by male writers. Feminist critics have argued that its central motifs of voyeurism, sadomasochism, incest and violence to women's bodies are governed by the unconscious fantasies and prejudices of a patriarchal sociocultural order. The contributors question how this sociocultural order has affected the erotic writing of the women writers studied. They explore the opportunities for, and constraints on, women's erotic writing in the early to mid-twentieth century through the works of Rachilde, Colette and Leduc. This is contrasted with the writing of prominent contemporary authors -- Wittig, Cixous and Duras -- to reveal new developments and diversification within the genre. The focus throughout is on how these writers deal with erotic language and rhetoric, their treatment of traditional themes of eroticism, and -- most vital to recent feminist criticism and theory -- their vision of the female body and women's sexual pleasure. The book provides key insights into the development of women's erotic discourse throughout this century and the diversity that characterizes it.

Women's Desiring Writing, 1880-1990

French Erotic Fiction

Orlan is a French multimedia and performance artist whose performances ... have consisted of cosmetic surgery .. remaining conscious during cosmetic surgery photographing, filming and broadcasting"--P. 1

Millennial Female

Orlan

Bringing together seminal writings on Beckett from the 1950s and 1960s with critical readings from the 1980s and 1990s, this collection is inspired by a wide variety of literary-theoretical approaches and covers the whole range of Beckett's creative work. Following an up-to-date review and analysis of Beckett criticism, fifteen extracts of Beckett criticism are introduced and set in context by editors' headnotes. The book aims to make easily accessible to students and scholars stimulating and innovative writing on the work of Samuel Beckett, representing the wide range of new perspectives opened up by contemporary critical theory: philosophical, political and psychoanalytic criticism, feminist and gender studies, semiotics, and reception theory.

Samuel Beckett

This is the fullest study to date of this little-known French director, the co-founder of the Cinémathèque française, and the first book on Franju in English since 1967. Enjoying his real debut as a director in 1948 with his notorious documentary about Parisian abattoirs Le Sang des bêtes, Franju went on to make thirteen more courts métrages and eight longs métrages, including his horror classic Les Yeux sans visage. A full introduction and conclusion set Franju's directorial career in the context of his lifelong commitment to France's cinema institutions.

Georges Franju

‘Georges Franju' is the fullest study to date of this little-known French director, the co-founder of the Cinémathèque française, and the first book on him in English since 1967. Born in 1912, but only enjoying his real debut as a director in 1948 with his notorious documentary about Parisian abattoirs 'Le Sang des bêtes', Franju went on to make thirteen more courts métrages and eight longs métrages, including his horror classic 'Les Yeux sans visage'. Ince takes a new approach to Franju's films, investigating the areas of genre and gender, and grouping the films thematically rather than chronologically. A chapter on Franju's cinematic aesthetics offers a new synthesis of existing writings, combined with the author's responses to the films. A full introduction and conclusion set Franju's directorial career in the context of his lifelong commitment to France's cinema institutions. 'Georges Franju' will be essential reading on Franju, and of great interest to researchers, academics and students in film studies

Kate Ince

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