Examines disorientation and confusion, and their theoretical implications, in contemporary narrative film Explores the relationship between orientation and disorientation for the film viewer Defends a flexible and responsive form of criticism that is not without method but that tailors its method to the demands of the film in question Outlines the history and theory of the rhetorical figure of metalepsis and of the concept of figuration, both of which suggest many possibilities for further research in film Critically discusses a very wide range of texts in film criticism, film theory,...

Argues that the experience of the ordinary film viewer and the investigations of the film scholar or film philosopher are not necessarily so far apart. In Haunting the World, Dominic Lash tries to show that taking films seriously in no way interferes with the pleasure we get from watching them. The book draws its title from the philosopher Stanley Cavell, who saw "haunting the world" as something we are all prone to and who claimed that cinema's relationship with this tendency is both an "importance" and a "danger" of film. Specifically, Lash proposes that the work of Cavell and of the...