Cinema of Crisis

Film and Contemporary Europe

Thomas Austin, Angelos Koutsourakis

• Publisher: Edinburgh University Press
• Year: 2020
• Edition: 0
• eBook ISBN:
  9781474448529
• Topic: Media & Performing Arts
• Subtopic: Film & Video

Now more than ever, the idea of Europe as grounded in a shared cultural heritage cannot be taken for granted. For all its diversity, complexity and internal tensions, Europe remains a powerful economic and political superstate. But it is one in crisis, where the postwar social democratic consensus has collapsed, the failings of neoliberalism have led to widespread austerity, and extremism, xenophobia and racism are on the rise. This collection of original essays considers filmmakers' engagements with pressing issues of the moment. Taking a long view of the crisis and considering geopolitical changes that took place towards the end of the 20th century, this book examines European cinema's response to the economic, political and social crises that afflict Europe in the present.

Table of contents

• List of Figures
• List of Contributors
• Acknowledgements
• Introduction
• 1. Aesthetics of Crisis: Art Cinema and Neoliberalism
• 2. Beyond Neoliberalism? Gift Economies in the Films of the Dardenne Brothers
• 3. The Resurgence of Modernism and its Critique of Liberalism in the Cinema of Crisis
• 4. Post-Fordism in Active Life, Industrial Revolution and The Nothing Factory
• 5. Re-evaluating Crisis Politics in the Work of Aku Louhimies
• 6. Crisis of Cinema/Cinema of Crisis: The Car Crash and the Berlin School
• 7. Representing and Escaping the Crises of Neoliberalism: Veiko Õunpuu’s Films and Methods
• 8. The Future is Past, the Present Cannot be Fixed: Ken Loach and the Crisis
• 9. It Could Happen to You: Empathy and Empowerment in Iberian Austerity Cinema
• 10. The Double Form of Neoliberal Subjugation: Crisis on the Eastern European Screen
• 11. Housing Problems: Britain’s Housing Crisis and Documentary
• 12. Miserable Journeys, Symbolic Rescues: Refugees and Migrants in the Cinema of Fortress Europe
• 13. Frontlines: Migrants in Hungarian Documentaries in the 2010s
• 14. Mongrel Attunement in White God
• 15. Labour and Exploitation by Displacement in Recent European Film
• 16. A Hushed Crisis: The Visual Narratives of (Eastern) Europe’s Antiziganism
• Bibliography
• Index