ReFocus: The Films of Claire Denis

by Peter Sloane (Editor)

Overview

ReFocus: The Films of Claire Denis comprises 14 original works of criticism from world leading Denis scholars and early career researchers.With contributors from as far afield as Canada and Australia, the collection offers a global perspective on Denis’ films. It includes an accessible introduction for those new to Denis studies, providing biographical details, an overview of thematic interests, and a brief survey of the most salient and influential trends in Denis scholarship. The first collection of scholarly essays on Denis, and the first major work of criticism on one of the contemporary period’s most influential and renowned directors for almost a decade, ReFocus: The Films of Claire Denis is a timely and important contribution to Denis studies and to transnational cinema studies more broadly.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781399511209
Publisher:	Edinburgh University Press
Publication date:	10/17/2023
Series:	ReFocus: The International Directors Series
Pages:	320
Product dimensions:	6.14(w) x 9.21(h) x 0.63(d)

About the Author

Peter Sloane is Senior Lecturer and Programme Director in English at the University of Buckingham, UK.

Table of Contents

Introduction: Ambiguous Transgressions - Peter Sloane

1. L’eau Life: the Hydrous and Haptic Cinema of Claire Denis - Rowena Santos Aquino

2. Good Work or Exploitation? Beau Travail and 35 Rhums and the Fear of Individualism - Kyle Barrett

3. A Thing on a Friday Night: Objects and Desire in Vendredi Soir - Helena Gurfinkel

4. ‘A lover's hand? A breath, An abyss’: Aloneness in Claire Denis - Peter Sloane

5. Claire Denis, Corporeality and New Weird - Elif Sendur

6. The Limits of Life: experimentation, bodily consent, and bioethics in Trouble Every Day (2001), and High Life (2018) - Amy C. Chambers

7. Trans-generic Dramas of Nondisclosure: Equilibrium, the ‘General Viewer’ and the Refusal of Meaning in the Films of Claire Denis - Stuart Innes Molloy

8. Writing Female Desire: From Vendredi soir to Avec Amour et Acharnement - Kristin Hole

9. In the Cracks: Claire Denis’ Cinematic Choreographies - Danica van de Velde

10. Stars and Acting in Claire Denis’s Films since 2010 - Douglas Morrey

11. Life imitates Art: the intimacy of family in the work of Claire Denis and Yasujiro Ozu - Kate Taylor-Jones

12. ‘The Stranger and the Surprise: Hospitality, Community, and Coming to Our Senses in Vendridi soir - Jacob Hovind

13. Claire Denis’s Beaux Familles - Daniel Dufournaud

Editorial Reviews

This collection of insightful chapters develops current scholarship on Claire Denis’ work in the light of thought-provoking concepts such as "hydropoetics", the "New Weird", and "languorous temporality". With subtle attention to the specificities of each film, they provide a new and stimulating access to Denis’ unique oeuvre as a whole.

Caroline Eades

This beautifully wide-ranging collection approaches Claire Denis’ films through an impressively diverse set of methodologies. Thinking across dimensions of ethics and otherness, the body and its environments, the familial and the worldly, ReFocus: The Films of Claire Denis opens exciting new ways to encounter this rich body of work.

Rosalind Galt