IndieFilm

About time I posted something new, after a gap of all-but a year, so an update here on my next book, which is The Cinema of Discomfort: Disquieting, Awkward and Uncomfortable Experiences in Contemporary Art and Indie Film. This is now almost finished and due for delivery in October, for publication next year by Bloomsbury. A blurb follows:

How do we understand types of cinema that offer experiences of discomfort, awkwardness or disquieting uncertainty? This book examines a number of examples of such work at the heart of contemporary art and indie film. While the commercial mainstream tends to offer comforting viewing experiences – or moments of discomfort that exist largely to be overcome – The Cinema of Discomfort analyses films in which discomfort is offered in a sustained manner. Cinema of this kind confronts us with material such as distinctly uncomfortable sexual encounters. It invites us into uncertain relationships with awkward and sometimes unlikable characters. It presents us with challenging behaviour or what are presented as uncomfortable realities. It often refuses information on which to base judgments. More discomfortingly, cinema of this kind tends to provoke uncertainty at the level of what emotional responses were are encouraged to have towards difficult, sometimes controversial, characters or events. 

The Cinema of Discomfort examines a number of case-studies, including films by Todd Solondz (US), Ulrich Seidl (Austria), Yorgos Lanthimos (Greece), Athina Rachel Tsangari (Greece), Roy Andersson (Sweden), Ruben Östlund (Sweden) Joanna Hogg (UK), Maren Ade (Germany) and Rick Alverson (US). Offering close textual analysis of the manner in which discomfort is generated, it also asks how we should understand the appeal of such work to certain viewers and how the existence of films of this kind can be explained, as products of both their socio-cultural context – locally and within broader understandings of late modernity or neoliberalism – and the more particular institutional realms of art and indie film.

Very pleased with the finished cover design for my new book, Positioning Art Cinema: Film and Cultural Value, now due out at the end of this month. A copy of the descriptive blurb is included below. I’m also very grateful to those who provided wonderfully supportive quotations for the cover or inside, also copied below as they might not be legible in the image.

Art cinema occupies a space in the film landscape that is accorded a particular kind of value. From films that claim the status of harsh realism to others which embody aspects of the tradition of modernism or the poetic, art cinema encompasses a variety of work from across the globe.

But how is art cinema positioned in the film marketplace, or by critics and in academic analysis? Exactly what kinds of cultural value are attributed to films of this type and how can this be explained? This book offers a unique analysis of how such processes work, including the broader cultural basis of the appeal of art cinema to particular audiences.

Geoff King argues that there is no single definition of art cinema, but a number of distinct and recurrent tendencies are identified. At one end of the spectrum are films accorded the most ‘heavyweight’ status, offering the greatest challenges to viewers. Others mix aspects of art cinema with more accessible dimensions such as uses of popular genre frameworks and ‘exploitation’ elements involving explicit sex and violence. Including case studies of key figures such as Michael Haneke, PedroAlmodóvar and Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne, this is a crucial contribution to understanding both art cinema itself and the discourses through which its value is established.

‘For too long, the term “art cinema” has suffered from slippery, I-knowit-when-I-see-it usage. Incisively and intrepidly, Geoff King dissects thiscontested category, deliberating on the diverse, yet codified ways ofattributing cultural value to film drama.’
Mattias Frey, Professor of Film and Media, University of Kent, UK‘

Here’s a book film studies has long needed. Geoff King is sensitive tonuances of both text and context and he introduces fruitful terms like the“heavyweight” film. Essential reading for anyone interested in art cinema!’
Michael Z. Newman, Associate Professor and Chair,Department of Journalism, Advertising, and Media Studies,University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, USA

‘With Positioning Art Cinema, Geoff King deftly executes a delicateintellectual maneuver: writing nonjudgmentally about critical judgments.The book navigates the subjective and contradictory terminology thatsurrounds a range of films, filmmakers and modalities framed as distinctfrom perceived mainstream entertainments. Never drifting into schematictaxonomy, King shrewdly unpacks the proliferating categories thatscholars, critics and filmmakers themselves have used to assign culturalvalue to cinema.’
Mark Gallagher, Associate Professor of Film and Television Studies,University of Nottingham, UK‘

‘Following his leading work in the fields of Hollywood blockbusters,American independent cinema and quality Hollywood films, Geoff Kinghere shifts his attention to the often vaguely defined and understood fieldof art cinema. Through questioning established critical orthodoxies andwith the help of his trademark close textual analysis of key recent titles,Positioning Art Cinema does a great job in laying bare the complex,culturally determined and often unspoken assumptions that help elevatethis type of cinema to the top of cultural hierarchies. Superbly researchedand utterly readable, the book will appeal to both experts in the field andart film novices.’
Yannis Tzioumakis, Reader in Film and Media Industries,University of Liverpool, UK

I’m delighted to be able to report that I’ve managed to get the original title restored for my forthcoming book on art cinema, which will now be called Positioning Art Cinema: Film and Cultural Value, which represents the focus of the book much better than the bland ‘Art Cinema’ main title that was previously insisted on the publisher. This was the rather fortunate fall-out, for me, of the recent take-over of I B. Tauris by Bloomsbury.

What follows is a draft cover blurb for the book, which is due out at the end of October. Should be able to post a cover image soon.

Positioning Art Cinema: Film and Cultural Value offers a unique examination of the way art cinema is positioned in the film landscape and how its cultural value is established. It explores a range of types of art cinema and its framing within critical and academic discourse, seeking to explain the broader socio-cultural basis of its appeal to particular audiences.

Geoff King argues that there is no single definition of art cinema, but a number of distinct and recurrent tendencies are identified. At one end of the spectrum are films accorded the most ‘heavyweight’ status, offering the greatest challenges to viewers. Others mix aspects of art cinema with more accessible dimensions such as uses of popular genre frameworks and ‘exploitation’ elements involving explicit sex and violence. Including case studies of films such as Michael Haneke’s Hidden, Béla Tarr’s The Turin Horse and PedroAlmodóvar’s All About My Mother, this is a crucial contribution to understanding both art cinema itself and the usually taken-for-granted bases on which it is accorded cultural value.