Blur
Published on 6. January 2026
Book
Paperback/Softback
144 pages
978-1-5315-1173-9 (ISBN)
Description
In cinema, blurriness is usually intended to go unnoticed. When it appears it is either considered an error - a mistake of focus or a technological failure - or a background effect of shallow focus intended to offset a defined image. As Martine Beugnet argues, however, blur is an essential feature of the cinema, possessing its own properties and affordances, and capable of powerful effects.
Examining an array of notable examples of blurriness from horror to art cinema and experimental film, and including the works of the Lumiere brothers, Josef von Sternberg, Agnes Varda and many others, she develops a taxonomy of blurs, from speed and motion blur to the hand-held, "shaky camera" blur common in contemporary digital cinema. These wide-ranging instances all return the viewer to the sensorial and material qualities of the moving image.
In the face of technological developments that valorize sharpness as an indicator of progress, blur stands as a provocative reminder of the value of uncertainty-a sign of the irreducible mystery at the heart of the filmic image.
Examining an array of notable examples of blurriness from horror to art cinema and experimental film, and including the works of the Lumiere brothers, Josef von Sternberg, Agnes Varda and many others, she develops a taxonomy of blurs, from speed and motion blur to the hand-held, "shaky camera" blur common in contemporary digital cinema. These wide-ranging instances all return the viewer to the sensorial and material qualities of the moving image.
In the face of technological developments that valorize sharpness as an indicator of progress, blur stands as a provocative reminder of the value of uncertainty-a sign of the irreducible mystery at the heart of the filmic image.
Reviews / Votes
"Beugnet's ingenious insights seep like a fog into once-crisp categories of film analysis, unsettling notions of blur as visual deficiency. Near-sighted characters, formless smudges, teary and weary vision, and perspectival and atmospheric distortions energize this compelling love song to the affordances of and cinematic predisposition toward visual chaos, vagueness, uncertainty and confusion. Clearly, it's the perfect moment for both cinema and blur." - Karen Redrobe, author of Crash: Cinema and the Politics of Speed and StasisMore details
Series
Edition
New edition
Language
English
Place of publication
New York
United States
Edition type
New edition
Product notice
Paperback (trade)
Illustrations
14 color illustrations
Dimensions
Height: 172 mm
Width: 123 mm
Thickness: 10 mm
Weight
110 gr
ISBN-13
978-1-5315-1173-9 (9781531511739)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Persons
Martine Beugnet (Author)
Martine Beugnet is Professor in Visual Studies at the Universite Paris Cite and a member of ECHELLES, a CNRS research institute. In English, she is the author of Cinema and Sensation (2007, 2012) and Claire Denis (2004), coauthor of Proust at the Movies (2005), and coeditor of Indefinite Visions: Cinema and the Attractions of Uncertainty (2017).
Lindsay Turner (Translator)
Lindsay Turner is Associate Professor of English and Creative Writing at Case Western Reserve University. She is the author of two collections of poetry and has translated books by Stephane Bouquet, Eric Baratay, Souleymane Bachir Diagne, Anne Dufourmantelle, Richard Rechtman, Ryoko Sekiguchi, and others.
Martine Beugnet is Professor in Visual Studies at the Universite Paris Cite and a member of ECHELLES, a CNRS research institute. In English, she is the author of Cinema and Sensation (2007, 2012) and Claire Denis (2004), coauthor of Proust at the Movies (2005), and coeditor of Indefinite Visions: Cinema and the Attractions of Uncertainty (2017).
Lindsay Turner (Translator)
Lindsay Turner is Associate Professor of English and Creative Writing at Case Western Reserve University. She is the author of two collections of poetry and has translated books by Stephane Bouquet, Eric Baratay, Souleymane Bachir Diagne, Anne Dufourmantelle, Richard Rechtman, Ryoko Sekiguchi, and others.
Content
Prologue (Myopia) 1
In Praise of Indistinction 7
Blur's Paradox: Images That Kill, 18 *
High-Definition Blur, 20
Definition 24
Aesthetics of Blur 26
Rain, Mist, Fog 29
Focus 34
Alfred Hitchcock: Blur, or the Staging of Desire, 36 *
Alain Cavalier: Seeing Closer, 41 * Seeing [and]
Touching, 43 * The Tactile Eye, 46
Motion Blur 49
Speeds, 50 * Slow Motion [Jean-Luc Godard], 55 *
Shakiness [Sally Potter], 60 *
Interlacings [Leighton Pierce], 64
Reveries of the Image 68
Photogenie of Melancholy 75
The Painterly and the Formless 82
Pictorialism [Josef von Sternberg], 82 * The Appeal of
Abstraction [Michelangelo Antonioni], 89 *
Toward Formlessness, 92 * Limbo [Gus Van Sant], 94 *
Photogenie of Memory, 99
Technology Has No Rules 103
Notes 107
Figures 119
In Praise of Indistinction 7
Blur's Paradox: Images That Kill, 18 *
High-Definition Blur, 20
Definition 24
Aesthetics of Blur 26
Rain, Mist, Fog 29
Focus 34
Alfred Hitchcock: Blur, or the Staging of Desire, 36 *
Alain Cavalier: Seeing Closer, 41 * Seeing [and]
Touching, 43 * The Tactile Eye, 46
Motion Blur 49
Speeds, 50 * Slow Motion [Jean-Luc Godard], 55 *
Shakiness [Sally Potter], 60 *
Interlacings [Leighton Pierce], 64
Reveries of the Image 68
Photogenie of Melancholy 75
The Painterly and the Formless 82
Pictorialism [Josef von Sternberg], 82 * The Appeal of
Abstraction [Michelangelo Antonioni], 89 *
Toward Formlessness, 92 * Limbo [Gus Van Sant], 94 *
Photogenie of Memory, 99
Technology Has No Rules 103
Notes 107
Figures 119