Cinema

Alain Badiou was Chair of the Department of Philosophy at the École Normale Supérieure in Paris and is one of the leading philosophers in France today. His many books include Being and Event and The Century.

• Acknowledgments viiiForeword ix1 "Cinema Has Given Me So Much" 12 Cinematic Culture 213 Revisionist Cinema 344 Art and its Criticism 405 The Suicide of Grace: Le Diable probablement 486 A Man Who Never Gives In 507 Is the Orient an Object for the Western Conscience? 548 Reference Points for Cinema's Second Modernity 589 The Demy Affair 6410 Switzerland: Cinema as Interpretation 6711 Interrupted Notes on the French Comedy Film 7212 Y a tellement de pays pour aller 7713 Restoring Meaning to Death and Chance 8214 A Private Industry, Cinema is also a Private Spectacle 8615 The False Movements of Cinema 8816 Can a Film Be Spoken About? 9417 Notes on The Last Laugh 10018 "Thinking the Emergence of the Event" 10519 The Divine Comedy and The Convent 12920 Surplus Seeing: Histoire(s) du cinéma 13221 Considerations on the Current State of Cinema 13822 The Cinematic Capture of the Sexes 15123 An Unqualified Affirmation of Cinema's Enduring Power 16224 Passion, Jean-Luc Godard 16625 "Say Yes to Love, or Else be Lonely": Magnolia 17626 Dialectics of the Fable: The Matrix 19327 Cinema as Philosophical Experimentation 20228 On Cinema as a Democratic Emblem 23329 The End of a Beginning: Tout va bien 24230 The Dimensions of Art: Forgiveness 25231 The Perfection of the World, Improbable yet Possible 258Notes 261

"Fascinating ... every word of Badiou's writing radiates with a pronounced sense of exuberance for cinema, and presents the convincing case that it is the liveliest of the seven arts."—Film International"Provides brilliant, in-depth analyses on the techniques, styles, and themes of several films."—Publishers Weekly"The chance to truly and fully understand the nature of cinema through the eyes of someone who is clearly one of its most passionate advocates."—Morning Star"Badiou's unfashionable militancy is sure to continue to generate a degree of mock not-this-again head-scratching from the guardians of sober academic scholarship in the humanities, as well as from whoever might be assigned to review Badiou in say, The New York Review of Books."—Los Angeles Review of Books"While a thorough reading of this book is an intellectual investment, I would highly recommend it, particularly to those interested in the pursuit of cultural renewal by artistic means."—Englewood Review of Books"There is an aphoristic concision to Badiou's thinking that is capable of producing moments of true enlightenment."—Review 31"These rich and diverse pieces are all ostensibly concerned with cinema, but are ultimately far more profound than often their occasion would demand. Providing an important exploration of politics, esthetics, the visible, and cinema's relation to thinking and procedures of decision, this volume gives the reader of Badiou a sense of this major thinker's intellectual development. Spitzer's translation of this volume is a careful and meticulous rendering of Badiou's thought."—Claire Colebrook, Penn State University"Since the 1950s Badiou has written in excess of thirty essays on cinema. It is clear that film has been a constant companion in his articulation of art as a form of truth-making event, the creation of unworldly truths. This collection brings these writings together in English for the first time, allowing us to see just how important film is for Badiou’s philosophy of the event."—John Mullarkey, Kingston University, London