In 'The Cinematic Body', Steven Shaviro proposes a radical new approach to film viewing. Moving between Jerry Lewis and Andy Warhol, between Fassbinder's gay sex icons and George Romero's flesh-eating zombies, 'The Cinematic Body' cuts across disciplinary boundaries and seeks to engage new currents in critical thought.
Shaviro radically critiques the Lacanian model currently popular in film theory and film studies, arguing that model's obsessive emphasis on the phallus, castration anxiety, sadistic mastery, ideology, and the structure of the signifier. In this groundbreaking volume, Shaviro effectively communicates a sense of the inescapable ambivalences and intensities of contemporary culture, ultimately affirming a thoroughly postmodern sensibility
CONTENTS: Film Theory and Visual Fascination: Appendix - Deleuze and Guttari's Theory of Sexuality * Contagious Allegories: George Romero * Comedies of Abjection: Jerry Lewis * Bodies of Fear: David Cronenberg * Masculinity, Spectacle, and the Body of 'Querelle' * Warhol's Bodies * A Note on Bresson * Conclusions