Haunting the Left Bank

«A significant and astute contribution whose insights across film studies, philosophy, and feminism demonstrate the ongoing relevance of Left Bank filmmakers Varda, Resnais and Marker.»

(Steven Ungar, Professor Emeritus, Department of Cinematic Arts, University of Iowa)

Engaging with contemporary film-philosophical research, this book investigates the effects of a haunting presence of death in life. It considers moments in which the films of Agnès Varda, Chris Marker and Alain Resnais and theories of intersubjectivity, gender and mortality in contemporaneous works by Jean-Paul Sartre, Simone de Beauvoir, Emmanuel Levinas and Maurice Merleau-Ponty coalesce around this ethical epicentre, the equality enacted by death on every mortal. Challenging hierarchical divisions between subjects constructed around geo-political, gendered or spectatorial difference, it establishes a paradigm in which intersubjective interactions, especially through the gaze, are instead ethical and egalitarian. Haunting the Left Bank identifies and explores the presence of mortality in these directors’ cinematic images, revealing how they indicate ways of connecting with other subjects and speaking to a recognition of equality and difference.

Kierran Horner was most recently Honorary Postdoctoral Visiting Research Fellow in the Film Studies Department at King’s College London. He has published several articles in peer-reviewed journals such as L’Esprit createur, Film Philosophy, Studies in French Cinema and Studies in European Cinema. His research takes a feminist-philosophical approach to questions pertaining to mortality, intersubjectivity and identity hierarchies, engaging with topics as diverse as pregnancy, Pop Art, gendered hierarchies and animal agency. He is currently investigating intersectional representations of women’s mental health in European film.

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