Secret Cinema Gnostic Vision in Film

In a society obsessed with video games and the internet, people love to watch on the big screen what they watch on small screens: virtual images that seem more real than the day's boring occurrences. Wilson's book is attuned to the material attraction of the movies, those gorgeous lights and lolling shadows, but also the film's spiritual invitations, the gaps between pictures, and the empty spaces at the heart of life. In films ranging from Agnes of God and American Beauty to the Matrix, Pleasantville, and Total Recall, Secret Cinema examines the ways that movies conduct us into a secret world of knowledge that redeems us from the tedium of our everyday lives. Films included in book: Agnes of God, A.I., Altered States, American Beauty, Angel Heart, Bicentennial Man, Blade Runner, Blue Velvet, Creator, D.A.R.Y.L., Dead Man, Dark City, Donnie Darko, EdTV, Excalibur, eXistenZ, Gods and Monsters, Harry Potter and the Sorceror's Stone, Iron Giant, Jacob's Ladder, Making Mr. Right, The Matrix, The Ninth Gate, Pleasantville, Robocop, Short Circuit, Thirteenth Floor, Total Recall, The Truman Show, Vanilla Sky.