The Forms of the Affects

366 Pages·2014·1.87 MB·English

by  Eugenie Brinkema

The Forms
of the Affects
ii • preface
The Forms
of the Affects
Eugenie Brinkema
duke university press • durham and london • 2014
© 2014 DUKE UNIVERSITY PRESS
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
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TYPESET IN MINION PRO BY COPPERLINE BOOK
SERVICES, INC.
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA
BRINKEMA, EUGENIE, 1980–
THE FORMS OF THE AFFECTS / EUGENIE BRINKEMA.
P. CM.
INCLUDES BIBLIOGRAPHICAL REFERENCES AND INDEX.
ISBN 978-0-8223-5644-8 (CLOTH : ALK. PAPER)
ISBN 978-0-8223-5656-1 (PBK. : ALK. PAPER)
1. FILM CRITICISM. 2. FORMALISM (LITERARY ANALYSIS).
3. AFFECT (PSYCHOLOGY). 4. CRITICAL THEORY. I. TITLE.
PN1995.B75 2014
791.4301’5—DC23
2013037965
DUKE UNIVERSITY PRESS GRATEFULLY ACKNOWLEDGES
THE SUPPORT OF THE MASSACHUSETTS INSTITUTE OF
TECHNOLOGY, LITERATURE SECTION, WHICH PROVIDED
FUNDS TOWARD THE PUBLICATION OF THIS BOOK.
TO MY MOTHER, TO MY FATHER

I shall consider human actions and desires
in exactly the same manner,
as though I were concerned with lines, planes, and solids.
—BARUCH SPINOZA
It is the force, at once simple and unexpected,
which consists in saying cinema and . . . :
and thus accepting all the consequences.
—RAYMOND BELLOUR

Contents
PREFACE • TEN POINTS TO BEGIN • xi
CHAPTER ONE • A TEAR THAT DOES NOT DROP, BUT FOLDS • 1
Crying Is Structured Like a Language 2 • Tears Without Bodies 18
CHAPTER TWO • FILM THEORY’S ABSENT CENTER • 26
Emotion, Feeling, Excess, Affect 27 • Affective Fallacies 31 • Reading
for Affect 36 • Mise- n’en- Scène: Formalism after Presence 41
INTERVAL • SOLITUDE • 47
CHAPTER THREE • THE ILLUMINATION OF LIGHT • 53
Visible Darkness: Optics According to Augustine 54 • Light, the Peculiar 56
Ongoing Dialogues with Loss 65 • Grief Without Sublation 71
CHAPTER FOUR • GRIEF AND THE UNDIALECTICAL IMAGE • 76
Ma mort indialectique 77 • Extra Missing Things 84 • Acedia and the
Pose 89 • Where Being Would Have Been 93 • A Still and Heavy Pain 98
CHAPTER FIVE • AESTHETIC EXCLUSIONS AND THE WORSE
THAN THE WORST • 115
Philosophy of the Retch 117 • Aesthetics’ Tastes 123 • What Is Worse than
the Worst 128 • Objects, Abjects, Close- ups 133 • Laura Dern’s Vomit 141
Wild Hearts, Sick Figures 145
CHAPTER SIX • DISGUST AND THE CINEMA OF HAUT GOÛT • 152
Gastronomy According to Peter Greenaway 155 • Dissecting Qualities 159
Rot’s Progress 164 • On Having an Excellent Palate 170