Golnaz Sarkar-Farshi: The New-Wave Cinema, Gebunden

Klappentext

This book introduces a novel conceptualization of "new-wave cinema" films as a ubiquitous phenomenon, akin to a "wave" that crashes upon established film aesthetics within a society. Using Niklas Luhmann's concepts of communication, medium, and evolution, the book explores the correlation between the rise of new-wave cinema and the societal conflicts contemporaneous with its inception.

The term "new-wave cinema," historically attributed by film critics to specific film collections within different societies, has lacked universal applicability in film scholarship. This book identifies the defining criterion of the new wave not solely within its specific aesthetics but in the transformative "break" that this aesthetic effectuates upon the prevailing cinematic communication. This "break" extends beyond singular films, manifesting within a substantial cohort, thereby justifying the label "wave." Notably, this "wave" does not materialize as a result of a collective decision by filmmakers but rather in correlation with the societal "conflicts" prevailing during the emergence of these new-wave films.

This book delineates how the resonance of societal discord in films, as a subsystem of art, catalyses a self-reflective rupture from existing aesthetic and narrative traditions, thereby giving birth to new cinematic waves. The analysis concentrates on three paradigmatic new-wave cinemas spanning three continents-New German Cinema, New Hollywood, and New Iranian Cinema-illustrating the universality of its thesis regarding new-wave cinemas.