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FILM AFTER FILM
Or, What Became of 21st-Century Cinema?
J. Hoberman
First published by Verso 2012
© J. Hoberman 2012
All rights reserved
The moral rights of the author have been asserted
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Verso
UK: 6 Meard Street, London W1F 0EG
US: 20 Jay Street, Suite 1010, Brooklyn, NY 11201
Verso is the imprint of New Left Books
eISBN 978-1-7816-8068-1
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Hoberman, J.
Film after film : or, what became of 21st-century cinema? / J. Hoberman.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-1-84467-751-1 (hardback : alk. paper)
1. Motion pictures—History—21st century. 2. Motion pictures—Reviews. 3. Digital
media—Philosophy. I. Title.
PN1993.5.A1H58 2012
791.43009’05—dc23
2012015580
CONTENTS
Part I: A Post-Photographic Cinema
1 The Myth of “The Myth of Total Cinema”
2 The Matrix: “A Prison for Your Mind”
4 Quid Est Veritas: The Reality of Unspeakable Suffering
6 Postscript: Total Cinema Redux
Part II: A Chronicle of the Bush Years
8 2002: The War on Terror Begins
11 2005: Looking for the Muslim World
12 2006: September 11, the Anniversary
13 2007: What Was Iraq and Where?
Part III: Notes Toward a Syllabus
15 In Praise of Love (Jean-Luc Godard, 2001)
16 Avalon (Mamoru Oshii, 2001)
17 Avant-Garde Goes Digital: *Corpus Callosum, Cotton Candy, and Razzle Dazzle
18 Russian Ark (Alexander Sokurov, 2002)
19 Ten (Abbas Kiarostami, 2002)
20 Goodbye, Dragon Inn (Tsai Ming-liang, 2002)
21 Dogville (Lars von Trier, 2003)
22 The World (Jia Zhangke, 2004)
23 Battle in Heaven (Carlos Reygadas, 2005)
24 The Death of Mr. Lazarescu (Cristi Puiu, 2005)
25 Day Night Day Night (Julia Loktev, 2006)
26 Southland Tales (Richard Kelly, 2006)
27 Inland Empire (David Lynch, 2006)
28 Between Darkness and Light (After William Blake) (Douglas Gordon, 1997/2006)
