Screening Statues - (Edinburgh Studies in Film and Intermediality) by Steven Jacobs & Susan Felleman & Vito Adriaensens & Lisa Colpaert (Paperback)

About the Book

This book examines key sculptural motifs and cinematic sculpture in film history through a series of case studies and through an extensive reference gallery of 150 different films.

Book Synopsis

Screening Statues: Sculpture and Cinema is the first book to focus on the relationship between sculpture and the silver screen. It covers a broad range of magical, mystical and phenomenological interactions between the two media, from early film's eroticized tableaux vivants to enigmatic sculptures in modernist cinema. Sculptures are literally brought to life on the silver screen, while living people are turned into, or trapped inside, statuary. The book examines key sculptural motifs and cinematic sculpture in film history through a series of case studies and through an extensive reference gallery of 150 different films. Considering the work of directors like Georges Méliès, Jean Cocteau and Alain Resnais, as well as films like House of Wax, Jason and the Argonauts and Clash of the Titans, this is an innovative exploration of two different media, their artistic traditions and their respective theoretical paradigms.

From the Back Cover

Edinburgh Studies in Film and Intermediality Series editors: Martine Beugnet and Kriss Ravetto Founding editor: John Orr Screening Statues: Sculpture and Cinema Steven Jacobs, Susan Felleman, Vito Adriaensens and Lisa Colpaert Whereas sculpture is an artistic practice that involves not only static but also material, three-dimensional, and durable objects, the cinema produces kinetic, immaterial, two-dimensional, and fleeting images. However, the history of cinema amply illustrates the attraction of these opposites: statues coming to life in early cinema and disturbing the peace in Surrealist and trance films; the optical and haptic exploration of sculptural volumes in art documentaries and artists' films; the lure of the wax museums in horror films; the statuary metaphors of post-war modernist cinema; the mythological living statues of the peplum genre; and contemporary art practices in which film is used as sculptural medium. Dealing with a wide range of magical, mystical, cultural, historical, formal, and phenomenological interactions between film and sculpture, this book examines key sculptural motifs in film and cinematic sculpture in eight chapters and an extensive reference gallery. Steven Jacobs teaches at Ghent University and the University of Antwerp. Susan Felleman is Professor of Art History and Film and Media Studies at the University of South Carolina Vito Adriaensens is a visiting scholar and Adjunct Assistant Professor at Columbia University's Film Department with a Fellowship from the Flemish Research Council and the European Union's Horizon 2020 Project at the University of Antwerp Lisa Colpaert is a fashion designer and a film historian. She works as a curator for Cinea at the Royal Belgian Film Archive and is undertaking a practice-based PhD at the London College of Fashion (University of the Arts London)

Review Quotes

Screening Statues marks an important contribution to the study of sculpture in film, not only as a record of sculpture's presence in film but also as a critical approach to the tensions and complexities that arise in film between human actors and their sculptural counterparts.--Jessica Schouela "Sculpture Journal"

[Screening Statues] guarantees the reader access to a real textbook on sculpture and film, appealing to art lovers and film fans alike. This is a book that has long been due in that it fills a major gap in the field of statuary in film.'--Fátima Chinita "Aniki"

Comprising a wealth of citations, investigative essays, conceptual and corporeal discussions, as well as the prolific supplemental reference gallery in part II, Screening Statues is a venerable text in which to further explore the confluence of two intermedial forms, indebted to and entrenched within one another.'--Matthew Johnson "Film Matters"

Film, the art of movement, approaches the statue as its other. As this multi-author volume shows, if film represents sculpture in conjunction with dance, it can also petrify actors. And while film can evince sculpture's tactility, sculpture has had recourse to the filmstrip as its material. Not surprisingly, Pygmalion finds a central place in this volume and tableau vivant does, as well. Historical and informative, yet interpretive and an engaging read, these essays with their gallery of images provide a trove of material to be explored.--Professor Brigitte Peucker, Yale University

About the Author

Steven Jacobs teaches at Ghent University and the University of Antwerp.

Susan Felleman is Professor of Art History and Film and Media Studies at the University of South Carolina.

Vito Adriaensens is a visiting scholar and Adjunct Assistant Professor at Columbia University's Film Department with a Fellowship from the Flemish Research Council and the European Union's Horizon 2020 Project at the University of Antwerp.

Lisa Colpaert is a fashion designer and a film historian. She works as a curator for Cinea at the Royal Belgian Film Archive and is undertaking a practice-based PhD at the London College of Fashion (University of the Arts London).