The book proposes a new perspective on avant-garde cinema, utilising approaches from intermediality to explore how the spirit of experimentation, a hallmark of historical avant-garde and post-war artistic movements, is still present in contemporary filmmaking today.
The volume explores how contemporary avant-garde filmmakers have brought innovation to modern cinema. Filmmakers, such as, Jean-Luc Godard, Lars von Trier, and Alexander Sokurov and their contemporary works will be analyzed, reflecting on their experimentation with cinematic techniques and the mixing of the film medium with other media, such as literature, theatre, and painting. Important research questions considered throughout the book include: How do intermedial experiments convey meaning in films? What is the impact on the spectator of the mixing of various media forms in cinema? And how are the contemporary films of Jean-Luc Godard, Lars von Trier, and Alexander Sokurov innovative and experimental? The book is devoted to all these themes and provides a thorough analysis of contemporary films examined through an intermedial perspective.
Providing a comprehensive analysis of contemporary avant-garde filmmaking from an intermedial perspective, this book will be of interest to graduate students and scholars working in intermedial studies, film and media studies, and cultural studies.
Table of Contents
Dedication
Acknowledgments
1. Introduction: European Avant-garde Cinema
2. Intermediality in Cinema
3. Jean-Luc Godard: Intermediality and Genre Hybridity in his Late Films
4. Stillness in Motion: Intermedial Encounters in Alexander Sokurov’s Films
5. Cinema as Theatrical Space in Lars von Trier’s Films
6. Conclusion: The Politics of Intermediality
Biography
Loukia Kostopoulou is a Senior Teaching and Research Fellow at the School of French, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki where she teaches film studies, audiovisual adaptation, and audiovisual translation at both undergraduate and graduate level. She is also a researcher and coordinator of the Media Research Group (at AUTh SemioLab). She has been a Visiting Scholar to several academic institutions, among which the Department of Multimedia and Graphic Arts at Cyprus University of Technology, and New Bulgarian University. She has completed a postdoctoral research project at the Department of Journalism and Mass Communications AUTh in the field of European avant-garde cinema. She is co-editor of The Fugue of the Five Senses and the Semiotics of the Shifting Sensorium (Hellenic Semiotic Society, 2019), New Paths in Theatre Translation and Surtitling (Routledge, forthcoming), Transmedial Perspectives on Humour and Translation: From Page to Screen to Stage (Routledge, forthcoming), and Managing Editor of Punctum. International Journal of Semiotics.
"This captivating book offers a thorough exploration of intermediality in 20th century filmmaking, examining how three renowned filmmakers have utilized a range of media forms to push the boundaries of traditional cinema and create new, immersive experiences for audiences. Through insightful analysis and thoughtful commentary, readers will discover how these filmmakers used intermedial experiments to innovate cinema and create a thrilling, multi-sensory experience for the viewer. With its scholarly rigour and fresh insights, this book is a must-read for advanced graduate students and scholars in film and media studies, cultural studies, translation studies and avant-garde studies." - Frederic Chaume, Universitat Jaume I, Spain
"Loukia Kostopoulou’ s study on intermediality in European avant-garde cinema is a cohesive investigation into how literature, theater and painting are ingeniously employed as modes of experimentation in modern filmmaking. Through its perceptive use of contemporary film examples, by Jean-Luc Godard, Lars von Trier, and Alexander Sokurov, it provides critical and constructive material that, while is an invaluable resource in the scholarly field, is also accessible to upper-level undergraduate and graduate students." - Evripides Zantides, Cyprus University of Technology
