
In Broad Daylight
Movies and Spectators After the Cinema
Gabriele Pedulla(Author)
Verso Books (Publisher)
Will be published approx. on 6. June 2012
Book
Hardback
182 pages
978-1-84467-853-2 (ISBN)
Description
From plasma screens to smartphones, today moving images are everywhere. How have films adapted to this new environment? And how has the experience of the spectator changed because of this proliferation? In Broad Daylight investigates one of the decisive shifts in the history of Western aesthetics, exploring the metamorphosis of films in the age of individual media, when the public is increasingly free but also increasingly resistant to the emotive force of the pictures flashing around us. Moving deftly from philosophy of mind to film theory, from architectural practice to ethics, from Leon Battista Alberti to Orson Welles, Gabriele Pedulla examines the revolution that is reshaping the entire system of the arts and creativity in all its manifestations.
Reviews / Votes
Charming and highly readable ... the book is well observed and gives a concise sense of what may be at stake in the current technological transformations of film viewing. * Artforum * Insights abound, and the author's facility with so many different disciplines-from ancient Greek philosophy to 20th century semiotics-will ensure that casual filmgoers and academics alike find something salient to ponder in Pedulla's treatise. * Publishers Weekly * Technical reproducibility of the work of art and anatomy of the society of the spectacle: Pedulla's book is the first to take a real step forward from the analyses of Walter Benjamin and Guy Debord. -- Paolo Virno, author of <i>A Grammar of the Multitude</i> A welcome shift in focus ... A compelling archeology of the darkened spectatorial space, ranging back to Greek antiquity and the Renaissance. -- Jonathan Crary, Columbia University A novel film theory ... Thanks to the reasoned revelations of Pedulla we see just how challenged-if not endangered-audiovision has become in the century before us. -- Thomas Harrison, UCLA A surprising journey between present and past, theory and history, places and narratives, Pedulla's book casts new light (daylight?) to show where post-cinema stands today. -- Francesco Casetti, Yale University Fascinating ... A lucid analysis that considers everybody, from the pure cinephile to the household consumer, to understand who we were, who we are today, and above all where we are likely to end up. -- Tiberia De Matteis * Il Temp * An intelligent and penetrating book. -- Marco Belpoliti * La Stampa * A courageous book, which through an exacting analysis demolishes the fetishism of the work of art. -- Andrea Di Consoli * L'Unita * A book both lovely and useful ... an example of engaged criticism that aims to explode the inveterate stereotypes of cinephilia. -- Massimo Raffaeli * Il manifesto-Alias * A Copernican Revolution. -- Franco Cordelli * Il Corriere della Sera * Going to the cinema used to be the only way you could watch a film. Now you can do it anywhere. Pedulla's interesting little book announces that the age of the cinema theatre as the form's primary 'aesthetic device' is over. -- Steven Poole * Guardian * [Pedulla's] concise, surprising essay... is worked up to via a careful engagement with Stanley Cavell on tragedy and Serge Daney on the question of the ethical position available to the post-cinematic viewer. * Sight & Sound *More details
Language
English
Place of publication
London
United Kingdom
Product notice
Unsewn / adhesive bound
Paper over boards
With dust jacket
Dimensions
Height: 216 mm
Width: 144 mm
Thickness: 25 mm
Weight
360 gr
ISBN-13
978-1-84467-853-2 (9781844678532)
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
Other editions
Additional editions

E-Book
06/2012
1st Edition
Verso
€33.39
Available for download

E-Book
06/2012
2nd Edition
Verso Books
from
€37.09
Available for download
Person
Gabriele Pedulla (Rome, 1972) is professor of Contemporary Literature at the University of Rome 3 and visiting professor at Stanford. His books include a biography of the partisan-writer Beppe Fenoglio, a monograph on Machiavelli's theory of conflict, a co-edited three volume Atlas of Italian Literature and a best-selling anthology of partisan short stories, Racconti della Resistenza. For his first book of fiction, the prize-winning collection of short stories, Lo spagnolo senza sforzo (Spanish Made Simple) he was selected as one of the 10 best Italian writers under 40 by the literary supplement of Il Sole 24 Ore.