Film After Film. J. Hoberman

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      FILM AFTER FILM

      Or, What Became of 21st-Century Cinema?

      J. Hoberman

      First published by Verso 2012

      © J. Hoberman 2012

      All rights reserved

      The moral rights of the author have been asserted

      1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2

      Verso

      UK: 6 Meard Street, London W1F 0EG

      US: 20 Jay Street, Suite 1010, Brooklyn, NY 11201

       www.versobooks.com

      Verso is the imprint of New Left Books

      eISBN 978-1-7816-8068-1

      British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

      A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

      Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

      Hoberman, J.

      Film after film : or, what became of 21st-century cinema? / J. Hoberman.

      p. cm.

      Includes bibliographical references and index.

      ISBN 978-1-84467-751-1 (hardback : alk. paper)

      1. Motion pictures—History—21st century. 2. Motion pictures—Reviews. 3. Digital

       media—Philosophy. I. Title.

      PN1993.5.A1H58 2012

      791.43009’05—dc23

      2012015580

      CONTENTS

       Preface

       Part I: A Post-Photographic Cinema

       1 The Myth of “The Myth of Total Cinema”

       2 The Matrix: “A Prison for Your Mind”

       3 The New Realness

       4 Quid Est Veritas: The Reality of Unspeakable Suffering

       5 Social Network

       6 Postscript: Total Cinema Redux

       Part II: A Chronicle of the Bush Years

       7 2001: After September 11

       8 2002: The War on Terror Begins

       9 2003: Invading Iraq

       10 2004: Bush’s Victory

       11 2005: Looking for the Muslim World

       12 2006: September 11, the Anniversary

       13 2007: What Was Iraq and Where?

       14 2008: The Election

       Part III: Notes Toward a Syllabus

       15 In Praise of Love (Jean-Luc Godard, 2001)

       16 Avalon (Mamoru Oshii, 2001)

       17 Avant-Garde Goes Digital: *Corpus Callosum, Cotton Candy, and Razzle Dazzle

       18 Russian Ark (Alexander Sokurov, 2002)

       19 Ten (Abbas Kiarostami, 2002)

       20 Goodbye, Dragon Inn (Tsai Ming-liang, 2002)

       21 Dogville (Lars von Trier, 2003)

       22 The World (Jia Zhangke, 2004)

       23 Battle in Heaven (Carlos Reygadas, 2005)

       24 The Death of Mr. Lazarescu (Cristi Puiu, 2005)

       25 Day Night Day Night (Julia Loktev, 2006)

       26 Southland Tales (Richard Kelly, 2006)

       27 Inland Empire (David Lynch, 2006)

       28 Between Darkness and Light (After William Blake) (Douglas Gordon, 1997/2006)

       29 LOL (Joe Swanberg, 2006)

       30 Flight of the Red Balloon (Hou Hsiao-hsien, 2007)

       31 Hunger (Steve McQueen, 2008)

       32 Opening ceremonies, Beijing Olympics (August 8, 2008)

       33 Carlos (Olivier Assayas, 2010)

       34 The Strange Case of Angelica (Manoel de Oliveira, 2010)

       35 Once Upon a Time in Anatolia (Nuri Bilge Ceylan, 2011)

       Index

      PREFACE

      It may seem absurd, barely a decade into the millennium, to