Description:
How do we understand types of cinema that offer experiences of discomfort, awkwardness or disquieting uncertainty? This book examines a number of examples of such work at the heart of contemporary art and indie film. While the commercial mainstream tends to offer comforting viewing experiences - or moments of discomfort that exist largely to be overcome - The Cinema of Discomfort analyses films in which discomfort is offered in a sustained manner. Cinema of this kind confronts us with material such as distinctly uncomfortable sexual encounters. It invites us into uncertain relationships with awkward and sometimes unlikable characters. It presents us with challenging behaviour or what are presented as uncomfortable realities. It often refuses information on which to base judgments. More discomfortingly, cinema of this kind tends to provoke uncertainty at the level of what emotional responses we are encouraged to have towards difficult, sometimes controversial, characters or events.
The Cinema of Discomfort examines a number of case-studies, including Palindromes by Todd Solondz (US) and Dogtooth from Yorgos Lanthimos (Greece), along with other examples from Austria, Sweden, the UK, the US and Germany. Offering close textual analysis of the manner in which discomfort is generated, it also asks how we should understand the appeal of such work to certain viewers and how the existence of films of this kind can be explained, as products of both their socio-cultural context and the more particular institutional realms of art and indie film.Brief description: Geoff King is Emeritus Professor of Film Studies at Brunel University London, UK, and author of numerous books, including Arthouse Crime Scenes: Art Film, Genre and Crime in Contemporary World Cinema (Bloomsbury, 2024), The Cinema of Discomfort: Disquieting, Awkward and Uncomfortable Experiences in Contemporary Art and Indie Film (Bloomsbury, 2021), Positioning Art Cinema: Film and Cultural Value (Bloomsbury, 2019) and Quality Hollywood: Markers of Distinction in Contemporary Studio Film (Bloomsbury, 2015).
Review Quotes:
"As a text, The Cinema of Discomfort is an intrepid and valuable exploration of a difficult topic, characterized by a tremendous level of care and insight throughout on the part of the author. It is a painstaking achievement, and one that has a distinctive place within film criticism today ... King has contributed a keystone piece of theory that will continue to illuminate sickening subtleties of filmgoing for years to come." --Cineaste Magazine
"The Cinema of Discomfort adds another dimension - and marks another important advance - in Geoff King's masterful study of independent film and international art cinema, digging into the oddly pleasurable and darkly comedic "assaults" mounted by resolutely marginal filmmakers ranging from Todd Solondz to Yorgos Lanthimos to Joanna Hogg." --Thomas Schatz, Professor and Jones Centennial Chair, University of Texas at Austin, USA