Alistair Fox Knihy

Introduction: authorship, creativity, and personal cinema -- Origins of a problematic: the Campion family -- The "tragic underbelly" of the family: fantasies of transgression in the early films -- Living in the shadow of the family tree: Sweetie -- "How painful it is to have a family member with a problem like that": authorship as creative adaptation in An angel at my table -- Traumas of separation and the encounter with the phallic other: The piano -- The misfortunes of an heiress: The portrait of a lady -- Exacting revenge on "cunt men": Holy smoke as sexual fantasy -- "That which terrifies and attracts simultaneously": Killing daddy in the cut -- Lighting a lamp: loss, art, and transcendence in The water diary and Bright star -- Conclusion: theorizing the personal component of authorship.

Focusing on renowned filmmakers in art cinema, this book explores their innovative use of melodrama to portray masculine subjectivity. It delves into the techniques and themes employed by these auteurs, providing a nuanced analysis of how they shape male identities through emotional narratives and visual storytelling. The study highlights the intersection of gender, emotion, and cinematic style, offering insights into the broader implications of melodrama in film.

Alistair Fox presents a theory of literary and cinematic representation through the lens of neurological and cognitive science in order to understand the origins of storytelling and our desire for fictional worlds. Fox contends that fiction is deeply shaped by emotions and the human capacity for metaphorical thought. Literary and moving images bridge emotional response with the cognitive side of the brain. In a radical move to link the neurosciences with psychoanalysis, Fox foregrounds the interpretive experience as a way to reach personal emotional equilibrium by working through autobiographical issues within a fictive form.