Customer Reviews

Reflexivity in Film and Culture: From Don Quixote to Jean-Luc Godard

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I have had this book since it was first released and have always found the notion of self-reflexivity fascinating. Self-reflexivity, as it was once explored by Brecht and by Vertov, is far from a mere stylistic device. It has far-reaching political implications. In these essays, Stam very clearly explores the roots of modernism through 5 chapter headings:
1- Allegories of Spectatorship (Hitchcock's voyeurism and Godard)
2- The Process of Production (Balzac, Vertov, Fellini, Truffaut, Wenders)
3- The Genre of Self-Consciousness (Woody Allen, Quixotic themes, Lolita, etc..)
4- The Carnival of Modernism (Godard pretty much takes over this chapter)
5- The Pleasures of Subversion (Brecht, Godard, split screens etc.)

I would love to see this book in a more recent edition, with a chapter on user-generated content, and news-media analysis.
A great read!

This book is especially helpful on discovering the self-reflexive language of Godard and its relation to literature and Brecht. No redundant rhetoric, just to the point and quite informative.

This book is suprisingly clear and to a certain extend quite original as its theme concerns. I would recommend it to everybody as a helpful introduction to the problematics of textuality.