Description
Book SynopsisThis book follows the hybrid and contradictory history of magic realism through the writings of three key figures art historian Franz Roh, novelist Alejo Carpentier, and cultural critic Fredric Jameson drawing links between their political, aesthetic, and philosophical ideas on art's relationship to reality.
Magic realism is vast in scope, spanning almost a century, and is often confused with neighbouring styles of literature or art, most notably surrealism. The fascinating conditions of modernist Europe are complex and contradictory, a spirit that magic realism has taken on as it travels far and wide. The filmmakers and writers in this book acknowledge the importance of feeling, atmosphere, and mood to subtly provoke and resist global capitalism. Theirs is the history of magic-realist cinema. The book explores this history through the modernist avant-garde in search of a new theory of cinematic magic realism. It uncovers a resistant, geopolitical form of world cinem
Table of Contents
Foreword: Magic realism – The chronicle of a discourse ; 1. Introduction ; 2. Magischer Realismus and the ‘demon fantastic’: painting, photography, film ; 3. Ethno-magic-realist documentary: ecstatic practice ; 4. Lo real maravilloso americano: prismatic reality and the screen ; 5. Magic realism: the prehensile toe – Jameson, Magritte, and affect ; 6. ‘Soviet magic realism’ and world cinema ; 7. Hyperreality, understatement, atmosphere, and ambivalence; Coda
