Intimacy in Cinema

Though intimacy has been a wide concern in the humanities, it has received little critical attention in film studies. This collection of new essays investigates both the potential intimacy of cinema as a medium and the possibility of a cinema of intimacy where it is least expected.
As a notion defined by binaries—inside and outside, surface and depth, public and private, self and other—intimacy, because it implies sharing, calls into question the boundaries between these extremes, and the border separating mainstream cinema and independent or auteur cinema. Following on Thomas Elsaesser’s theories of the relationship between the intimacy of cinema and the cinema of intimacy, the essays explore intimacy in silent and classic Hollywood movies, underground, documentary and animation films; and contemporary Hollywood, British, Canadian and Australian cinema from a variety of approaches.

David Roche is a professor of film studies at the Université Toulouse Jean Jaurès. He has published articles on horror cinema, and Darren Aronofsky, Tim Burton, David Cronenberg, Emir Kusturica, Sergio Leone, David Lynch and Quentin Tarantino. He lives in Montpellier, France.
Isabelle Schmitt-Pitiot is an associate professor at the Université de Bourgogne. Her interests include cinema and TV series. She has published articles on Woody Allen, John Ford and John Huston. She lives in Dijon, France.

Edited by David Roche and Isabelle Schmitt-Pitiot
Format: softcover (6 x 9)
Pages: 244
Bibliographic Info: 22 photos, notes, bibliography, index
Copyright Date: 2014
pISBN: 978-0-7864-7924-5
eISBN: 978-1-4766-1711-4
Imprint: McFarland

Table of Contents


Acknowledgments  v

“I feel different inside”: An Introduction to Intimacy in English Language Cinema (David Roche and Isabelle ­Schmitt-Pitiot)  1

Touch and Gesture: On the Borders of Intimacy (Thomas Elsaesser)  17

Exposing and Threatening Female Intimacy and Sexuality: How Traffic in Souls Depicts the White Slave Trade in New York (Clémentine ­Tholas-Disset)  34

Fictions of Intimacy and the Intimacy of Fiction: “Going into people’s houses” and the Remediation of 1920s Film Reception (Fabrice Lyczba)  46

The Impossible Sex Life of Couples in the Screwball Comedy (Grégoire Halbout)  61

Intimacy Shared in Laughter and Tears: Brief Encounter and The Seven Year Itch (Raphaëlle Costa de Beauregard)  73

The Intimate Gaze: (Deviant) Uses of the Subjective Camera in Lady in the Lake and La Femme défendue (Christophe Gelly)  84

Shooting Stars and Poet Friends in My Bedroom: Domestic and Poetic Intimacy in Pull My Daisy (Céline Murillo)  94

Public Confessions in American Revolution 2 (Zachary Baqué)  105

The Limits of Hypermasculinity: Intimacy in American Science Fiction Films of the 1980s (Marianne ­Kac-Vergne)  119

“I’ve got you under my skin”: No Exit from Insane Intimacy in Bug (Christophe Chambost)  133

Filming Fantasy, Imitating the Intimate in Eyes Wide Shut (Yann Roblou)  146

J. Edgar: Staging Secrecy (Anne-Marie ­Paquet-Deyris)  156

Intrusions of the Other: Intimacy in the Films of Atom Egoyan (Jean-François Baillon)  165

Hidden Worlds and Unspoken Desires: Terence Davies and Autobiographical Discourse (Wendy Everett)  179

“Extimacy” and Embodiment in Hunger and Shame (Isabelle Le Corff)  192

Keira’s Kiss: The Affordance of “Kissability” in the Film Experience (Adriano D’Aloia)  202

Melancholy, Empathy and Animated Bodies: Pixar vs. Mary and Max (Richard Neupert)  215

About the Contributors  225

Index  229

“outstanding”—Cercles.