Exploring the dead/alive figure in such films as The Ring, American Beauty , and The Elephant Man , Vincent Hausmann charts the spectacular reduction of psychic life and assesses calls for shoring up psychic/social spaces that transfer bodily drives to language.

"A thrilling maelstrom of critical theory, film and media analysis, and visual cultural studies. In an electrifying descent into the insides of quasi-film genres from melodrama to horror and science fiction, Hausmann brings back a timeless work of film theory at once past, present, and future in its address. An energetic work that resists the paralyses of any given moment, Hausmann's work remains vigorously out of time and place, outstanding in every dimension it enters." - Akira Mizuta Lippit, Chair, Division of Critical Studies, School of Cinematic Arts, University of Southern California"An enduring contribution to film studies. Films, Hausmann argues, rehearse the history of their modes of production via direct allusion to optical technologies. Hausmann reaps uncommon rewards through close and informed reading of visual form." - Tom Conley, Abbott Lawrence Lowell Professor, Departments of Romance Languages and Visual/Environmental Studies, Harvard University

Autorentext
VINCENT J. HAUSMANN is an Associate Professor of English at Furman University, South Carolina, USA.

Inhalt
Introduction: Cinema, Technologies of Visibility, and the Reanimation of Desire Envisioning the (W)hole World Behind Things in Sam Mendes's American Beauty Burning Transmission: Stilling Psychic Space in Gore Verbinski's The Ring Turning into Another Thing: David Lynch's The Elephant Man Inscribing the Dream of Otherness at the End of the World Conclusion: Up with Dead People?