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Body Double
The Author Incarnate in the Cinema
by Lucy Fischer
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Book Presentation:
Body Double explores the myriad ways that film artists have represented the creative process. In this highly innovative work, Lucy Fischer draws on a neglected element of auteur studies to show that filmmakers frequently raise questions about the paradoxes of authorship by portraying the onscreen writer. Dealing with such varied topics as the icon of the typewriter, the case of the writer/director, the authoress, and the omnipresent infirm author, she probes the ways in which films can tell a plausible story while contemplating the conditions and theories of their making. By examining many forms of cinema, from Hollywood and the international art cinema to the avant-garde, Fischer considers the gender, age, and mental or physical health of fictionalized writers; the dramatized interaction between artists and their audiences and critics; and the formal play of written words and nonverbal images. By analyzing such movies as Adaptation,Diary of a Country Priest, Naked Lunch, American Splendor, and Irezumi, Fischer tracks the parallels between film author and character, looking not for the creative figure who stands outside the text, but for the one who stands within it as corporeal presence and alter-ego.
About the Author:
LUCY FISCHER is Distinguished Professor of English and Film Studies at the University of Pittsburgh. She has written and edited numerous books, including American Cinema of the 1920s: Themes and Variations (Rutgers University Press) and Designing Women: Art Deco, Cinema, and the Female Form.
Press Reviews:
"Fischer’s original, wide-ranging book shows that filmmakers have said as much or more than theorists about the complex figure of the author in modern culture." — James Naremore "Richly detailed, carefully researched, and elegantly written, Lucy Fischer’s Body Double signficantly reshapes our understanding of authorship in the cinema while exploring related issues regarding gender, style, writing, and embodiment." — Patrice Petro "Where is the author in film? In this book, Fischer offers a wide ranging, deeply informed view of the concept of authorship in cinema in all its manifestations. This brief review cannot begin to address the multitude of films, scenarists, directors, and films given detailed examination, but the manner in which Fischer discusses the films and their makers, both literary and cinematic, is authoritative and never less than richly detailed. This is a bold and adventurous book that repays multiple readings. Highly recommended." — Choice
See the publisher website: Rutgers University Press
> From the same author:
Cinemagritte (2019)
René Magritte Within the Frame of Film History, Theory, and Practice
by Lucy Fischer
Subject: Technique > Aesthetics
Cinema by Design (2017)
Art Nouveau, Modernism, and Film History
by Lucy Fischer
Subject: Technique > Aesthetics
Designing Women (2003)
Cinema, Art Deco, and the Female Form
by Lucy Fischer
Subject: Technique > Set Design
Imitation of Life (1991)
Douglas Sirk, Director
Dir. Lucy Fischer
Subject: One Film > Imitation of Life
> On a related topic:
Dreams and Atrocity (2023)
The Oneiric in Representations of Trauma
Dir. Emily-Rose Baker and Diane Otosaka
Subject: Theory
Terminal identity (1993)
the virtual subject in postmodern science fiction
Subject: Genre > Science Fiction
The Attractions of the Moving Image (2025)
Essays on History, Theory, and the Avant-Garde
by Tom Gunning
Subject: Theory
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