Deathwatch

While cinema is a medium with a unique ability to watch life and write movement, it is equally singular in its portrayal of death. The first study to unpack American cinemas long history of representing death, this book considers movie sequences in which the process of dying becomes an exercise in legibility and exploration for the camera and connects the slow or static process of dying to formal film innovation throughout the twentieth century.

Autorentext

C. Scott Combs is associate professor of English at St. John's University in New York City.

Klappentext

While cinema is a medium with a unique ability to "watch life" and "write movement," it is equally singular in its portrayal of death. The first study to unpack American cinema's long history of representing death, this book considers movie sequences in which the process of dying becomes an exercise in legibility and exploration for the camera and connects the slow or static process of dying to formal film innovation throughout the twentieth century.

Zusammenfassung
The first study to unpack American cinemaâ™s long history of representing death

Inhalt

AcknowledgmentsIntroduction: An Elusive Passage1. Mortal Recoil: Early American Execution Scenes and the Electric Chair2. Posthumous Motion: The Deathwork of Narrative Editing3. Echo and Hum: Death's Acoustic Space in the Early Sound Film4. Seconds: The Flashback Loop and the Posthumous Voice5. Terminal Screens: Cinematography and Electric DeathCoda: End(ings)NotesBibliographyIndex