Stefanie Koseff. Overflow: Cinema and Exteriority.
Developing the concept of cinematic Overflow, the author argues that a true vision of cinema, its watching and making, must take into account its ruptures, misunderstandings, and “images that cannot be thought.” The moving-image is always more than it presents or shows; the moving-image is always more than what is graspable by the viewer.
Drawing upon Levinas’ theory of exteriority, the thesis places cinema in the position of the Other, whereby cinema remains an unknown, an unattainable entity, yet one that is undeniably there. In contrast to traditional cinema studies, in which the viewer’s identification with either camera or character is most important, a theory of exteriority of cinema claims that cinema is not knowable as a totality. How, then to access this medium? The author proposes the following concepts as means to map the Overflow of the moving-image: Self-sufficiency of image and viewer, the Murmur, différance and the Trace, the Gap, the Whole and the Open, and Willing and Preserving.
The Overflow shatters any sense of an interiority of cinema and points towards the Open, where a truly sensory, pre-interpretive experience of cinema is possible.
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Stefanie Koseff. Overflow: Cinema and Exteriority..