ReFocus: The Films of Abel Ferrara

Florian Zappe is a Berlin-based scholar and academic who works in interdisciplinary borderland between literary studies, cultural studies and philosophy. He is the author of books on Kathy Acker (Das Zwischen schreiben—Transgression und avantgardistisches Erbe bei Kathy Acker, 2013) and William S. Burroughs (‘Control Machines’ und ‘Dispositive’—Eine foucaultsche Analyse der Machtstrukturen im Romanwerk von William S. Burroughs zwischen 1959 und 1968, 2008), as well as the co-editor of the essay collections The American Weird: Concept and Medium (2020), Surveillance | Society | Culture (2020) and Spaces and Fictions of the Weird and the Fantastic: Ecologies, Geographies, Oddities (2019). In addition to that, he has published widely on literary and visual culture.

• List of FiguresNotes on the Contributors 1. The Many Lives of a Filmmaker: Approaching Abel FerraraFlorian ZappePart I: Art and Authorship2. The Driller Killer: Artistic Precarity in the Downtown SceneGillian McIver3. Ferrara’s Polarising Critical Reception: Clarity, Coherence, and IncongruityMatthew Cipa, Ted Nannicelli and Joel Fantini4. Abel Ferrara, Film Genres and Independent Film: From Horror to GangstersVicente Rodríguez Ortega5. Falling in Love Without Falling in Love: Abel Ferrara’s New Rose HotelSteven Shaviro6. Gestures of Refusal: Abel Ferrara, Pier Paolo Pasolini, and the Ethos of AuthenticityFlorian ZappePart II: Sex and Gender7. The Horny Auteur: Abel Ferrara's Pornographic DebutJoshua Heaps8. Embodied Critiques: Welcome to New York, Sexual Crimes, and Cinema’s UnanswerabilityTodd JurgessPart III: The Sacred and the Profane9. “What Was She Doing on My Show?”: Abel Ferrara's MaryBrad Stevens10. The Italian American Provocateur: Catholicism, Women, and Sexual Violence in the Films of Abel FerraraMargherita Sprio11. Dionysian Acts, Apollonian Pacts: The Anti-Nietzschean Cinema of Abel FerraraAmin HaidariIndex

From his pervasive engagement with a signature set of themes and tropes to the multifaceted nature of his own enigmatic public persona, this essential collection dives deep into the strangely captivating cinematic worlds of Abel Ferrara, one of the most complex and consistently fascinating filmmakers of the past half century.