Zoological Surrealism: The Nonhuman Cinema of Jean Painlevé

ISBN-13: 9781517902162 / Angielski / Miękka / 2019 / 384 str.

James Leo Cahill

Opis

An archive-based, in-depth analysis of the surreal nature and science movies of the pioneering French filmmaker Jean Painlevu00e9Before Jacques-Yves Cousteau, there was Jean Painlevu00e9, a pioneering French scientific and nature filmmaker with a Surrealistu2019s eye. Creator of more than two hundred films, his studies of strange animal worlds doubled as critical reimaginations of humanity. With an unerring eye for the uncanny and unexpected, Painlevu00e9 and his assistant Geneviu00e8ve Hamon captured oneiric octopuses, metamorphic crustaceans, erotic seahorses, mythic vampire bats, and insatiable predatory insects. Zoological Surrealism draws from Painlevu00e9u2019s early oeuvre to rethink the entangled histories of cinema, Surrealism, and scientific research in interwar France. Delving deeply into Painlevu00e9u2019s archive, James Leo Cahill develops an account of u201ccinemau2019s Copernican vocationu201d-how it was used to forge new scientific discoveries while also displacing and critiquing anthropocentric viewpoints. From Painlevu00e9u2019s engagements with Sergei Eisenstein, Georges Franju, and competing Surrealists to the historiographical dimensions of Jean Vigou2019s concept of social cinema, Zoological Surrealism taps never-before-examined sources to offer a completely original perspective on a cutting-edge filmmaker. The first extensive English-language study of Painlevu00e9u2019s early films and their contexts, it adds important new insight to our understanding of film while also contributing to contemporary investigations of the increasingly surreal landscapes of climate change and ecological emergency.