by Des O'Rawe (Author)
Regarding the real develops an original approach to documentary film, focusing on its aesthetic relations to visual arts such as animation, assemblage, photography, painting and architecture. Throughout, the book considers the work of figures whose preferred film language is associative and fragmentary, and for whom the documentary is an endlessly open form; an unstable expressive phenomenon that cannot help but interrogate its own narratives and intentions.
Combining close analysis with cultural history, the book re-assesses the influence of the modern arts in subverting structures of realism typically associated with the documentary. In the course of its discussion, it charts a fascinating path that leads from Len Lye to Hiroshi Teshigahara, and includes along the way figures such as Joseph Cornell, Johan van der Keuken, William Klein, Jean-Luc Godard, Jonas Mekas and Raymond Depardon.
Front Jacket
Regarding the real delineates formal and cultural contexts for the study of documentary film and its relationship to visual art forms (namely, animation, assemblage, painting, photography and architecture). It contends that encounters between visual artists and documentary film practices have produced radical ways of articulating film language and understanding the culture of modernity. Through a series of related case studies, the book demonstrates the importance of documentary to an understanding of the relations between the cinema and the other modern arts. Taking its bearings from forms of writing that encourage a creative symbiosis between criticism and art, Regarding the real is written in an engagingly essayistic style. Throughout, it charts a fascinating path that leads from Len Lye to Hiroshi Teshigahara, and considers along the way films by figures such as Joseph Cornell, Johan van der Keuken, William Klein, Jean-Luc Godard, Jonas Mekas and Raymond Depardon. This book will appeal to students and academics in documentary film studies and indeed anyone committed to informed and imaginative film criticism. It will be of particular value to new or more advanced students of the documentary and those interested in understanding how film relates to other art forms.
Back Jacket
Regarding the real delineates formal and cultural contexts for the study of documentary film and its relationship to visual art forms (namely, animation, assemblage, painting, photography and architecture). It contends that encounters between visual artists and documentary film practices have produced radical ways of articulating film language and understanding the culture of modernity. Through a series of related case studies, the book demonstrates the importance of documentary to an understanding of the relations between the cinema and the other modern arts.
Taking its bearings from forms of writing that encourage a creative symbiosis between criticism and art, Regarding the real is written in an engagingly essayistic style. Throughout, it charts a fascinating path that leads from Len Lye to Hiroshi Teshigahara, and considers along the way films by figures such as Joseph Cornell, Johan van der Keuken, William Klein, Jean-Luc Godard, Jonas Mekas and Raymond Depardon.
This book will appeal to students and academics in documentary film studies and indeed anyone committed to informed and imaginative film criticism. It will be of particular value to new or more advanced students of the documentary and those interested in understanding how film relates to other art forms.
Author Biography
Des O'Rawe teaches Film Studies in the School of Creative Arts, Queen's University of Belfast
Number of Pages: 208
Dimensions: 0.7 x 7.7 x 5 IN
Publication Date: May 22, 2018
