Claude Chabrol's Aesthetics of Opacity

ISBN-13: 9780748692606 / Angielski / Miękka / 2017 / 368 str.

Catherine Dousteyssier-Khoze

Opis

Claude Chabrol's cinema is generally associated with a specific type of psychological thriller, one set in the French provinces and fascinated with murder, incest, fragmented families, unstable spaces and inscrutable female characters. But Chabrol's films are both deceptively accessible and deeply reflexive, and in this innovative reappraisal of his filmography Catherine Dousteyssier-Khoze explores the Chabrol who was influenced by Balzac, Magritte and Stanley Kubrick. Bringing to the fore Chabrol's 'aesthetic of opacity', the book deconstructs the apparent clarity and comfort of his chosen genre, encouraging the viewer to reflect on the relationship between illusion and reality, and the status of the film image itself.

Spis treści

List of illustrations; Acknowledgements; Introduction; Chapter 1: Contexts and Influences; Chapter 2: Chabrol and Genres; Chapter 3: The Human Beast; Chapter 4: Family Secrets; Chapter 5: Chabrolean spaces as heterotopias of crisis; Chapter 6: Through the Looking Glass: Chabrol’s ‘crystal-image’; Conclusion: Towards an Aesthetics of Visual Opacity