Miraculous Realism

Niels Niessen is a Researcher in Arts and Culture at Radboud University Nijmegen, the Netherlands.

• ContentsList of IllustrationsA North Wind, or The Miracle of Cannes 1999Introduction: A Critical Fairy Tale1 Hunting for Easter Eggs in Rosetta and L'humanitéA Normal Life | humanity with a small h | The Acting/Acted Body | Of Little Flies and Burned-Out Priests |a north wind | Game Over, or The Moral of the Story2 Coal-Fired Dreams, the Cinéma du NordThe Nord | From Pays Noir to Euroregion | BetweenUtopia and Dystopia: Wallonia in the Cinema | Not Paris:Nord-Pas-de-Calais in the Cinema | Conclusion | OfGiants, Angels, and Humans3 Cinéma du Nord, a Euregional CinemaTransnational Coproduction | Argument | Terre d'Images:Northern French Cinema within French National Cinema |Yes We Cannes: Francophone-Belgian Cinema in Its WalloonManifestation | At the Crossroads of Europe | Google,Van Gogh, the Louvre-Lens, and a Terril of CoatsExcursion: From the Nord, with Love4 New Realism after the Modern CinemaWhat Is Realism? | Neorealism | From Neo to New:Miraculous Realism | The Modern Cinema | The Acting/Acted Image| The Question of Grace in FrancophoneEuropean Film PhilosophyEpilogue: PosthumanismAcknowledgmentsNotesFilms ReferencedBibliographyIndex

"…the broad approach of Miraculous Realism signals Niessen's laudable, and largely successful effort to examine this titular phenomenon at the broadest level; while the Cinéma du Nord may in itself be a very well-delineated particular phenomenon, it can of course not be considered outside of these broader, decades-long discussions about cinema and realism, which as Niessen convincingly shows, often collapse into a kind of nostalgia for Christian immanence and redemption." — Studies in European Cinema"This book not only makes a major contribution to the field but also creates a new area in this field: the opening up of discussion of the Cinéma du Nord in geopolitical, historical, and theoretical terms, through a blend of fine close reading and broader commentary." — Sarah Cooper, author of The Soul of Film Theory