The reality of film

In formulating a notion of filmic reality, The Reality of Film offers a novel way of understanding our relationship to cinema. It argues that cinema need not be understood in terms of its capacities to refer to, reproduce or represent reality, but should be understood in terms of the kinds of realities it has the ability to create.

The Reality of Film investigates filmic reality by way of six key film theorists: André Bazin, Christian Metz, Stanley Cavell, Gilles Deleuze, Slavoj Žižek and Jacques Rancière. In doing so, it provides comprehensive introductions to each of these thinkers, while also debunking many myths and misconceptions about them. Along the way, a notion of filmic reality is formed that radically reconfigures our understanding of cinema.

This book is essential reading for film scholars, students and philosophers of film, while it will also appeal to graduate students and specialists in other fields.

List of illustrations
Introduction: On the reality of film
1. Beyond political modernism
2. Realism, reality and authenticity
3. The imaginary as filmic reality
4. A reality beyond imagining
5. Cinema produces reality
6. Filmic reality and ideological fantasy
7. Filmic reality and the aesthetic regime
Afterward
Bibliography