Corporeality in Early Cinema Viscera, Skin, and Physical Form [Paperback]

Corporeality in Early Cinemainspires a heightened awareness of the ways in which early film culture, and screen praxes overall are inherently embodied. Contributors argue that on- and offscreen (and in affiliated media and technological constellations), the body consists of flesh and nerves and is not just an abstract spectator or statistical audience entity.

Audience responses from arousal to disgust, from identification to detachment, offer us a means to understand what spectators have always taken away from their cinematic experience. Through theoretical approaches and case studies, scholars offer a variety of models for stimulating historical research on corporeality and cinema by exploring the matrix of screened bodies, machine-made scaffolding, and their connections to the physical bodies in front of the screen.

Marina Dahlquist is Associate Professor of Cinema Studies at Stockholm University. She is editor ofExporting Perilous Pauline: Pearl White and the Serial Film Craze.

Doron Galili is Research Fellow in the Department of Media Studies at Stockholm University.

Jan Olsson is Professor of Cinema Studies and former Head of Department at Stockholm University. He is author ofHitchcock ? la Carte.

Valentine Robert is Lecturer in Film Studies at the University of Lausanne. She is editor (with Laurent Le Forestier and Fran?ois Albera) ofLe Film sur l'art. Entre histoire de l'art et documentaire de creation.

General Introduction / Marina Dahlquist, Doron Galili, Jan Olssen, and Valentine Robert

Part I: Impossible Bodies

Introduction

1. The Impossible Body of Early Cinema / Tom Gunning

2. Ovidian Violence: George M?li?s Explosive Screen Bodies / Vito Adriaensens

3. The Body under the Scalpel in the Illustrated Press and the Cinema / J?r?my Houill?re, Translated by Timothy Barnard

4. Ghosts and their Nationality in the Fin De Si?cle Mal“Y