Towards a Film Theory from Below: Archival Film and the Aesthetics of the Crack-Up

Cover
Half Title
Series Page
Title Page
Copyright Page
Contents
Figures
Acknowledgments
Introduction: What Is Film Theory from Below?
	Four Theoretical Pillars
		1. Theory as Micro-Perspective
		2. Theory as Archival Experience
		3. Theory as Theoria
		4. Theory as Videographic Practice
	Starting from a Detail
	Operating Between Materiality and Figuration
	Thinking Through the Crack-Up
		1. The Crack-Up as Persistence
		2. The Crack-Up as Paradox
		3. The Crack-Up as Surface
	The Life Cycle of the Crack-Up
Chapter 1: Keep That Image Burning: The Color Veil and the Cinema That Never Stops Ending
	The Mummy Complex and the Death Drive of Cinema
	Slow Decay versus Vibrant Creation
	Decasia and the Horror of Hybrid Matter
	Seeing the World-Without-Us Frame by Frame
	Coda: The Death of Cinema Extended into Eternity
Chapter 2: Do Archivists Dream of Electric Horses?: Static Electricity and the Quadruple Logic of Indexicality
	Cinematic Indexicality and Its Relation to Reality
	Between Trace and Deixis
	Pleasures and Threats of Static Electricity
	Horse Racers Struck by Lightning
	Coda: In Praise of Impure Reality
Chapter 3: Trembling Meaning: Camera Instability and Transduction in Archival Moving Images
	Transduction as a Mechanism of Distribution and (Meta)Stability
	Image Instability—Technological Problem or Aesthetic Potentiality?
	The Black Wave (Dis)Appearing Between the Frames
	Coda: Towards a Transductive Film Scholarship
Chapter 4: The Milestone That Never Happened: The Scratched Kiss and the Failed Beginning of Czech Cinema
	The Archive Effect of Cinematic Firsts
	The Limits of Nostalgia
	The Powers of the False
	Scratch That Kiss
		1. Scratches as Indices
		2. Scratches as Cuts
		3. Scratches as Events
	Coda: Never Happening, Always Repeating
Chapter 5: Touching the Film Object with Surgical Gloves: Frankensteinian Frames and the Fragile Malleability of Cinematic Faces
	Approaching Films Haptically
	The (Im)Possibility of Videographic Touching
	The Cinematic Face as Frankenstein’s Monster
	Coda: The Perks of Touching the Untouchable
Chapter 6: Shaping the Unshapeable?: Videographic Deformation and the First Frames of Czech Cinema
	Breaking the Film Object
	Frames Caught Between Then and Now
	Coda: Towards Videographic Archival Editions?
Conclusion: Digital Kříženecký Off the Scale?
Bibliography
Filmography
Supplements
Index