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Cinephilia and the Adventure for Existential Health
Recomposing Subjectivity at the Cinema
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Book Presentation:
Exploring how art cinema cultivates existential health through the films of Olivier Assayas
This book proposes that cinephilia can facilitate existential health, which makes palpable the potential for subjectivity to be recomposed through meaningful encounters with cinema. Cinephilia and the Adventure for Existential Health: Recomposing Subjectivity at the Cinema draws on the ethos of psychoanalyst Félix Guattari and thinks with select films from director Olivier Assayas—including Clouds of Sils Maria and Personal Shopper—to theorize how the cinema can be invested with therapeutic value. Adam Szymanski engages the history of psychoanalytic film theory, excavates its long-standing concern with the production of spectatorial subjectivity, and challenges pathologizing understandings of cinema spectatorship couched in identification, fetishism, and voyeurism. By embracing the indeterminacy of the cinematic experience and the adventurous disposition of cinephilia, the book allies itself to the pursuit of collective health, challenging the logic of medical power in favor of life’s indeterminate quality.
About the Author:
ADAM SZYMANSKI is the author of Cinemas of Therapeutic Activism: Depression and the Politics of Existence.
Press Reviews:
"Szymanski makes illuminating forays into domains of psychology and psychoanalytic practice otherwise unexplored in contemporary film theory or film-philosophy." —Scott Krzych, Colorado College
"In this adventurous rethinking of the application of psychological theories to cinema, Szymanski articulates the unthought known of true cinephiles: that our love of cinema is a ‘therapeutic alliance’ allowing us to continually reimagine our relationship with the world." —Christian Keathley, Middlebury College
See the publisher website: Northwestern University Press
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