Additional information
by Maud Ceuterick (Author)
Fifty years of feminist thought have made the idea that women stay at home while men dominate the streets seem outdated; nevertheless, Ceuterick argues that theoretical considerations of gender, space, and power in film theory remain limited by binary models. Looking instead to more fluid models of spatial relations inspired by Sara Ahmed, Rosi Braidotti, and Doreen Massey, this book discovers wilful, affirmative, and imaginative activations of gender on screen. Through close, micro-analysis of historic European Messidor (Alain Tanner, 1979) and contemporary world cinema: Vendredi Soir (Claire Denis, 2002), Wadjda (Haifaa Al-Mansour, 2012), and Head-On (Fatih Akin, 2004), this book identifies affirmative aesthetics: light, texture, rhythm, movement and sound, all of which that participate in a rewriting of bodies and spaces. Ultimately, Ceuterick argues, affirmative aesthetics can challenge the gender categories and power structures that havebeen thought to determine our habitation of cars, homes, and city streets. Wilful women drive this book forward, through their movement and stillness, imagination and desire, performance and abjection.
Back Jacket
While the idea of women who stay at home and men who dominate the streets may seem outdated, binary considerations of gender, space, and power still proliferate in contemporary cinema. This open access book adopts a fluid approach to space designed to accommodate wilful, affirmative, and imaginative perspectives of gender on screen. Through close analysis, or micro-analysis, of Messidor (Alain Tanner, 1979), Vendredi Soir (Claire Denis, 2002), Wadjda (Haifaa Al-Mansour, 2012), and Head-On (Fatih Akin, 2004), this book looks for light, textures, rhythms, movement, and sound that give shape to affirmative forms, forms that contribute to rewriting bodies and spaces--such as cars, homes, and city streets--that reject traditional gender and power structures. Wilful women drive this book forward, through movement and pauses, imagination and desire, persistence and dissimulation, eroticism, performance and abjection.
Author Biography
Maud Ceuterick is a Marie Sklodowska-Curie research fellow in Digital Culture at the University of Bergen, Norway. She has previously published on the 'road movie' genre, gender and domesticity in transnational cinema, and space tourism in film.
