Atonal Cinema, An: Resistance, Counterpoint And Dialogue In Transnational Palestine

A recent trend in Palestinian cinema-which can be traced back to the critical practice of Edward Said's Atonal Contrapuntalism-utilises the cinematic form to critique and de-centre those texts which have constructed an 'Image of Palestine'. As such, the corpus of films in this book displays a 'double-consciousness', through which Palestine is simultaneously elided and re-inscribed in a contrapuntal dialogue between the 'here' of its contemporary reality and the 'elsewhere' of its historical image. An Atonal Cinema's radical thesis includes cinematic texts from Europe, South America and Israel in its corpus, which have both triggered and been shaped by critical responses in contemporary Palestinian cinema that reject a totalizing image of Palestine. Drawing on the literature of Edward Said, Ghassan Kanafani, Jean Genet and Carlo Levi, and the work of Pier Paolo Pasolini, Jean-Luc Godard, Menahem Golan and Miguel Littín; this book examines recent responses by Ayreen Anastas, Basma Alsharif, Elia Suleiman, Kamal Aljafari and Annemarie Jacir. It looks at the movement which does not look to resolution and harmony, but embraces difficulty, dissonance, and a complex, contrapuntal relationship with cinematic and literary texts.

• | Author: Robert G. White
• | Publisher: Bloomsbury Academic
• | Publication Date: Jul 27, 2023
• | Number of Pages: 196 pages
• | Language: English
• | Binding: Hardcover
• | ISBN-10: 1501385011
• | ISBN-13: 9781501385018