Peter Brunette

Kar-wai Wong

Exploring Wong Kar-wai's groundbreaking use of sound and visual technique to create a new form of cinema

Wong Kar-wai

Michael Haneke

In this book, Peter Brunette analyzes the theatrical releases of Austrian film director Michael Haneke, including The White Ribbon, winner of the 2009 Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival. Perhaps best known to U.S. audiences for Caché, The Piano Teacher, and his remake of his own disturbing Funny Games, Haneke has consistently challenged critics and film viewers to consider their own responsibility for what they watch when they seek to be "merely" entertained by such studio-produced Hollywood thrillers. Brunette highlights Haneke's brilliant use of uncompromising visual and aural techniques to express complex themes. His most recent films contain what has become his hallmark: a moment of violence or shock that is not intended to be exploitative, but that nevertheless goes beyond the conventional boundaries of most art cinema. Lauded for graphically revealing the powerful influence of contemporary media on social behavior, his films offer a chilling critique of contemporary consumer society. Brunette discusses Haneke's major releases in English, French, and German, including the film that first brought him to international attention, Benny's Video. The first full-length study of Haneke's work in any language, this book also includes an interview with the director that explores his motivations and methods.

David Wills

Representing some of the most innovative thinking in the various arts disciplines, these contributions offer important challenges to existing disciplinary orthodoxies.

Art, Media, Architecture

Deconstruction and the Visual Arts

Tom Bishop

Kristin Ross

Grey Art Gallery & Study Center

Shelley Rice

Michèle C. Cone

Pittsburgh Center for the Arts

Thomas W.. Sokolowski

A collection of essays on the quotidian in philosophy, cinema, theater, photography, and other visual arts in postwar France, published in conjunction with an exhibition of contemporary French artists at the Grey Art Gallery of New York University in spring 1997. Includes many color photos. No index. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

The Quotidian in Postwar French Culture

The Art of the Everyday

Wong Kar-Wai traces this immensely exciting director's perennial themes of time, love, and loss, and examines the political implications of his films, especially concerning the handover of former British colony Hong Kong to the People's Republic of China. This book is the first in any language to cover all of Wong's work, from his first film, As Tears Go By, to his most recent, the still unreleased 2046. It also includes his best?known, highly honored films, Chungking Express, Happy Together, and above all, In the Mood for Love. Most importantly, Peter Brunette describes the ways in which Wong's supremely visual films attempt to create a new form of cinema by relying on stunning, suggestive visual images and audio tracks to tell their story, rather than on traditional notions of character, dialogue, and plot. The question of Wong Kar-wai's use of genre film techniques in art films is also explored in depth.

Peter Brunette

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