Life 24x a Second: Cinema, Selfhood, and Society

by Elsie Walker

Overview

Life 24x a Second highlights the life-sustaining and life-affirming power of cinema. Author Elsie Walker pays particular attention to pedagogical practice and students' reflections on what the study of cinema has given to their lives. This book provides multiple perspectives on cinema that matters for the deepest personal and social reasons-from films that represent psychological healing in the face of individual losses to films that represent humanitarian hope in the face of global crises. Ultimately, Walker shows how cinema that moves us emotionally can move us toward a better world.

Life 24x a Second makes the case for cinema as a life force in uplifting and widely relatable ways. Walker zeroes in on films that offer hope in relation to the Black Lives Matter movement (Imitation of Life, 1959, and BlacKkKlansman, 2018); contemporary feminism (Nobody Knows, 2004); rite-of-passage experiences of mortality and mourning (Ikiru, 1952, and A Star Is Born, 2018), and first-love grief (Call Me by Your Name, 2017, and Portrait of a Lady on Fire, 2019). Life 24x a Second invites readers to reflect on their own unique film-to-person encounters along with connecting them to others who love cinematic lessons for living well.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780197600924
Publisher:	Oxford University Press
Publication date:	12/12/2023
Pages:	232
Product dimensions:	8.90(w) x 6.30(h) x 1.10(d)

About the Author

Elsie Walker is Professor of Cinema Studies at Salisbury University. She is the author of Hearing Haneke: The Soundtracks of a Radical Auteur and Understanding Sound Tracks Through Film Theory, and editor of Literature/Film Quarterly, the longest-standing international journal about adaptation studies.

Table of Contents

1. Introduction: Cinema is Life

2. Black Lives Matter, “Talking Back,” and the Life of BlacKkKlansman

3. Levels of Listening to Nobody Knows: Uniting Personal Experience, Pedagogical Practice, and Social Purpose

4. HeartMath: Listening to the “organ of fire” and Dancer in the Dark

5. Hearing Life in the Midst of Death: Psychological Healing within Life of Pi, Ikiru, and A Star Is Born

6. Turning the Microphone Around: Hearing from Alumni

7. Life After Life: rehearing Call Me By Your Name and Portrait of a Lady on Fire

Index
Bibliography

Editorial Reviews

"No recent book on cinema has moved me so deeply as Life 24x a Second has moved me, from its opening reflections on lifeshocks to its profoundly resonant conclusions on what films can teach us about living wholehearted lives as friends, parents, teachers, and students. In a dazzling testament to her twenty years of award-winning teaching experience, Walker privileges her students' voices, and in so doing offers astonishing explorations of cinema's real-world value - specifically, why the medium matters in relation both to one's most personal concerns and to our society's most pressing problems. At once compassionate and incisive, Life 24x a Second is a defibrillator to the heart." — Katherine Spring, Wilfrid Laurier University

"the book provides an unusually intimate engagement with its author, but this courageous intimacy is part of the project. Walker finds life, connection, and compassion in cinema—qualities also found in this wonderful book." — Choice

From the Publisher