Visconti
Insights Into Flesh and Blood
Published on 30. October 2008
Book
Hardback
168 pages
978-0-8047-5740-9 (ISBN)
Description
Something needs to be changed-be it through the revolutionary overthrow of social conditions, the liberating force of passion, the contemplation and creation of works of art, or the exploration of an unresolved past. Luchino Visconti's films are models for the failure of such attempts. They show that this failure arises whenever people cling to possibilities that stand opposed to the reality of their lives. Does Adorno not write: "The place of utopia is blocked off by possibility, never by immediate reality"? Visconti: Insights into Flesh and Blood draws on aesthetics, film theory, and practical philosophy to propose an original interpretation of the melodramas of a great European director. In the encounter with Visconti's art, we come to see that something has changed already.
Reviews / Votes
"Duettmann's fine study is one of those rare books that combine the conceptual rigor of the philosopher with the aesthetic sensitivity of the artist in order to yield a text both highly illuminating and poetic in its own way. Visconti: Insights into Flesh and Blood is much more than a conventional study of a canonical Italian filmmaker: it is an original work situated at a level of analytical subtlety and sustained reflection that make it one of the most interesting books of aesthetic theory in recent years." -Gerhard Richter, University of California at DavisMore details
Edition
New edition
Language
English
Place of publication
Palo Alto
United States
Target group
College/higher education
Professional and scholarly
Edition type
New edition
Product notice
Cloth
Dimensions
Height: 223 mm
Width: 148 mm
Thickness: 20 mm
Weight
323 gr
ISBN-13
978-0-8047-5740-9 (9780804757409)
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
Alexander Garcia Duettmann is Professor of Philosophy and Visual Culture at Goldsmiths (University of London). He is the author of At Odds with AIDS: Thinking and Talking about a Virus (Stanford, 1997), Between Cultures: Tensions in the Struggle of Recognition (Verso, 2000), The Memory of Thought: An Essay on Adorno and Heidegger (Continuum 2002), and Philosophy of Exaggeration (Continuum, 2007).
Content
@fmct:Contents @toc2:1 Intention and Aesthetic Seriousness 1 2 In Cinematic Circles 000 3 Obstructive Possibilities; or, Reality as Utopia 000 4 Recognition of a Change 000 Envoi 000 Afterword: On the Genesis of Insights into Flesh and Blood 000 @toc4:Notes 000 Filmography 000 Index 000