Memory and Imagination in Film Scorsese, Lynch, Jarmusch, Van Sant

Lombardo expands upon the intuitions of Baudelaire, proposing a new understanding of cinephilia as the interplay of the memory and the imagination of both filmmakers and spectators. Films by Scorsese, Lynch, Jarmusch and Van Sant are presented as imaginative uses of the history of cinema, as well as the histories of painting, music, literature and photography. Quotations, allusions, and more complex stylistic devices combine to become conscious or unconscious re-elaborations of works from the past and the present. The question of spectators' participation is discussed at length, alongside detailed analysis that aims to disentangle the various elements within specific film sequences.

Patrizia Lombardo has taught at Princeton University and the University of Pittsburgh, USA. She now teaches French, comparative literature and film, and leads the project 'Affective Dynamics and Aesthetic Emotions', at the Swiss Center for Affective Sciences at the University of Geneva, Switzerland. Her publications include The Three Paradoxes of Roland Barthes; Cities, Words and Images: From Poe to Scorsese; (with Rallo Ditche and Fontanille) Dictionnaire des passions littéraires; (with Saetre and Gullestad) Exploring Textual Action; and (with Saetre and Zanetta) Exploring Text and Emotion.

List of Figures
Acknowledgments
Abbreviations
Introduction
PART I: THE WONDER OF CINEMA: SCORSESE
1.Living in Manhattan in the 19th Century
2.Memory and Astonishment in Shutter Island
3.Style and Signature in Film
4.Bazin, Bresson and Scorsese: Performatives in Film
Intermezzo
5.Jim Jarmusch's Philosophy of Composition
PART II: EXPERIMENTING TIME AND SPACE: VAN SANT AND LYNCH
6.Minimalist Aesthetics in Gerry
7.Space and Long Takes in Paranoid Park
8.Lives on film: Gus Van Sant's Milk
9.David Lynch: Painting in Film
Filmography
Bibliography
Notes