Iconoclasm in European Cinema: The Ethics and Aesthetics of Image Destruction

by Chiara Quaranta

Overview

Exploring anti-mimesis and image destruction in Western European films, Iconoclasm in European Cinema: The Ethics and Aesthetics of Image Destruction offers the first comprehensive study of philosophical iconoclasm in cinema. Drawing on continental philosophy of the image, medieval theology and recent developments in film ethics, it investigates the aesthetic and ethical significance of destroying certain film images, both literally (via damages to the filmstrip) and metaphorically (through blank screens, altered motion and disruptive sounds). Analysing the work of various filmmakers, the book considers iconoclastic gestures against the film image’s ability to mimetically represent contents on the verge of the invisible and the ineffable. This book demonstrates that the overlooked issue of iconoclasm in film is essential for understanding contemporary attitudes towards images and argues that cinematic iconoclasm can encourage an ethics of (in)visibility by questioning the limits of our right to see and show something on a screen.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781474494465
Publisher:	Edinburgh University Press
Publication date:	05/30/2025
Pages:	240
Product dimensions:	6.14(w) x 9.21(h) x 0.00(d)

About the Author

Chiara Quaranta is Teaching Fellow in Film Studies at the University of Edinburgh

Table of Contents

Figures

Acknowledgements

Introduction

Prologue: The Eikōn-Eidōlon Dichotomy from Plato to Film

Part I. Cinematic Iconoclasm as Critique: The Image as Eidōlon

Chapter 1. Aural Cinema: Isidore Isou’s Traité de bave et d’éternité

Chapter 2. An Aesthetics of Displeasure: Guy Debord’s Destructive Oeuvre

Chapter 3. Towards a Radical Voice: Carmelo Bene’s Our Lady of the Turks

Chapter 4. In Search of a True Image: Jean-Luc Godard’s Histoire(s) du cinéma

Part II. Cinematic Iconoclasm as an Ethics of (In)visibility: The Eikōn as Iconoclastic

Chapter 5. Impossible Encounters: Marguerite Duras’s Le Navire Night

Chapter 6. Blind Vision, Aural Resonances: Derek Jarman’s Blue

Chapter 7. Crumbling Faces: Ingmar Bergman’s Cries and Whispers

Chapter 8. Blocks of Suffering: Krzysztof Kieślowski’s Three Colours: Blue

Conclusion: A Communal Vision through Broken Images

Notes

Glossary

Bibliography

Filmography

Editorial Reviews

Iconoclasm in European Cinema is an extremely useful guide for thinking about the nature of moving images as processual apparatuses, never constricted or reduced to their apparent representational function,
but rather to be intended as experiential and dialogical means of signification.

Film-Philosophy - Francesco Sticchi

Through detailed and engaging readings of select films—by Bene, Bergman, Debord, Duras, Godard, Isou, Jarman, and Kieślowski—Chiara Quaranta demonstrates impressively how the destruction of the image within European cinema can be generative of an enabling ethics which foregrounds the importance of listening and imagining in the film experience.

Sarah Cooper

Brimming with sharp insights and concise observations, Chiara Quaranta’s scintillating and exquisitely interdisciplinary study engages with a broad range of canonical works of art cinema and the avant—garde to analyze how the destruction of images can be a productive practice both artistically and ethically.

Asbjørn Grønstad