The Emergence of Cinematic Time: Modernity, Contingency, the ArchiveHailed as the permanent record of fleeting moments, the cinema emerged at the turn of the nineteenth century as an unprecedented means of capturing time--and this at a moment when disciplines from physics to philosophy, and historical trends from industrialization to the expansion of capitalism, were transforming the very idea of time. In a work that itself captures and reconfigures the passing moments of art, history, and philosophy, Mary Ann Doane shows how the cinema, representing the singular instant of chance and ephemerality in the face of the increasing rationalization and standardization of the day, participated in the structuring of time and contingency in capitalist modernity. At this book's heart is the cinema's essential paradox: temporal continuity conveyed through "stopped time," the rapid succession of still frames or frozen images. Doane explores the role of this paradox, and of notions of the temporal indeterminacy and instability of an image, in shaping not just cinematic time but also modern ideas about continuity and discontinuity, archivability, contingency and determinism, and temporal irreversibility. A compelling meditation on the status of cinematic knowledge, her book is also an inquiry into the very heart and soul of modernity. |
Contents
Chapter 1 The Representability of Time | 1 |
Freud Marey and the Cinema | 33 |
Chapter 3 The Afterimage the Index and the Accessibility of the Present | 69 |
Chapter 4 Temporal Irreversibility and the Logic of Statistics | 108 |
Chapter 5 Dead Time or the Concept of the Event | 140 |
The Emergence of Cinematic Time | 172 |
Chapter 7 The Instant and the Archive | 206 |
Notes | 235 |
| 267 | |
| 279 | |
Other editions - View all
The Emergence of Cinematic Time: Modernity, Contingency, the Archive Mary Ann Doane Limited preview - 2002 |
The Emergence of Cinematic Time: Modernity, Contingency, the Archive Mary Ann Doane Limited preview - 2002 |
The Emergence of Cinematic Time: Modernity, Contingency, the Archive Mary Ann Doane Limited preview - 2002 |
Common terms and phrases
actuality afterimage allowed analysis appears archive associated attempt becomes Benjamin body camera century chance cinema claims classical concept constituted contingency crucial death desire determinism diegesis direct discontinuity discourse discussion duration early editing effect emerges energy event Execution experience fact fascination figure film frame Freud function hand hence historical human idea impression individual insistence instant instantaneous irreversibility knowledge legibility limit linked logic Marey Marey’s mark Mass meaning measure mechanical memory method moment motion move movement narrative nature Nevertheless nineteenth object operation origin particular past Peirce photographic physics Pleasure Principle position possibility precisely present Press produced pure rationalization record refers relation represent representation scene screen seems sense shot significance simply space spectator statistics structure takes temporality theory thermodynamics thinking tion trace trans transformation ultimately University University Press vision York