Description
Book SynopsisFocuses on how select cinemas from Eastern Europe and the Balkans critique the neoliberal integration of Europe whose failures fuel the rise of nationalism and right-wing politics. By politicizing art cinema from the regions, this book asks fundamental questions about film, aesthetics, and ideology.
Trade Review"Forging upstream against critical currents, Samardzija’s book stubbornly holds out for the principle of aesthetic hope, extracted from the carapace of political modernism with a set of sharp theoretical tools. Within the unique neither-quite-West-nor-anymore-East terrain of Europe’s post-communist countries, he finds a set of films capable of giving shape to the 'post-communist malaise' by capturing and making visible the gap between the expired promises of universal utopia and the disenchantments and exclusions of neoliberal Euro markets. His ingenious close readings bring the revisionist contours of such latent hope to light." -- Nataša Durovicová * co-editor of World Cinemas, Transnational Perspectives *
Table of ContentsContents
Introduction
1 Eastern European New Waves and Political Modernism
2 What Happens After the End of History?
Part I From Communism to Capitalism
Part II From Capitalism to Nationalism
3 Slow Cinema and The Escape From Capitalist Realism
Part I The Materiality of Cinematic Time from Andrei Tarkovsky to Béla Tarr
Part II Cristi Puiu Between Slow Cinema and Transcendental Style
4 Theo Angelopoulos, Greece, and The Ends of Europe
Part I A New Collective Dream
Part II Cinema As Past and Future
Conclusion
Acknowledgements
Index
