Published June 2012
Cinema and Contact: The Withdrawal of Touch in Nancy, Bresson, Duras and Denis
Laura McMahon
Moving Image 2
- ‘Makes a persuasive case for the links between these directors... Many of these readings are very sensitive, and the breadth and precision of McMahon’s knowledge of continental philosophy is certainly impressive.’ — Douglas Morrey, Modern and Contemporary France 20.4 (September 2012), 517-18
- ‘Cinema and Contact contributes productively to a growing field of film-philosophy exploring the intersections between Nancean philosophy and cinematic aesthetics. McMahon’s work should be of great interest to film scholars looking to introduce themselves to the philosophy of Nancy and the multiplicity of ways that it touches upon and diverges from the embodied and tactile aesthetics of French cinema’ — Kathleen Scott, Frames Cinema Journal Online
- ‘A hugely promising first book. McMahon’s sophisticated analysis treats the films of Robert Bresson, Marguerite Duras and Claire Denis as generators of theoretical propositions which she puts in critical dialogue with those of the philosopher Jean-Luc Nancy... This is as much a contribution to philosophy as it is to film studies.’ — Jo Labanyi, Screen 54.2, Summer 2013
- ‘Warmly recommended to anyone who is seriously enthusiastic about encounters between cinema and philosophy. It is a highly intelligent and eloquent performance, and certainly an original contribution to the field.’ — Tarja Laine, New Review of Film and Television Studies 11.3, 2013, 390-93
- ‘Cinema and Contact stages a succinct yet bracing encounter between film and philosophy, each illuminating the other, making an original contribution to the theory of touch in cinema.’ — David Heinemann, Modern Language Review 108.4, October 2013, 1289-90 (full text online)
- ‘Laura McMahon’s lucid and tightly-organised set of arguments address what might seem at first glance to be a very tricky problem of critical architecture... The convincing way in which significant aspects of the work of these three cineastes are woven together in such an attractive fashion turns the overcoming of the apparent difficulties into a triumph.’ — Geoff Brown, L'Esprit Créateur 53.1, Spring 2013, 167-68
- ‘While this tome is aimed primarily at film theorists, others may also find its approach to spectatorship thought-provoking and a reasonably effective way of grappling with filmmaking techniques many viewers may be prone to consider as just plain confusing.’ — Joan M. West, French Review 86.6, 2013, 1250-51
Published September 2017
Blanchot and the Moving Image: Fascination and Spectatorship
Calum Watt
Moving Image 8
- ‘Watt’s study is exemplary in the impressive range of texts and references that it draws on, and in the intensive seriousness of its discussions. It will be an inevitable reference for anyone venturing into this uncanny territory.’ — Jeff Fort, H-France 18.143, 2018
- ‘One of the striking things to emerge from Calum Watt’s impressive study is the extent to which contemporary discussion of the art of film draws on Maurice Blanchot’s thought... [This book] does justice independently to each of its subjects.’ — Michael Holland, French Studies 72.4, October 2018, 632-33 (full text online)
- ‘Exhaustive scholarship abetted by meticulous referencing, and a keen eye for the specificities of a certain mode of exposure (one which is remarked upon in the author’s Introduction) to the cinematographic as work (and unworking), are all commendable traits of the latest addition to a significant series.’ — Garin Dowd, Modern Language Review 114.3, July 2019, 572-573 (full text online)
- ‘Blanchot and the Moving Image seems like an opening salvo in a larger intellectual project, one that will track the ways in which—as one of the study's most exciting claims has it—"cinema's contribution to thought is fascination".’ — Mikko Tuhkanen, Postmodern Culture 29.2, January 2019
- ‘Watt makes a convincing case for Blanchot's appositeness to the moving image and, in the process, discovers that Blanchot's phantasmatic presence is already insinuated within film theory's margins... Overall, Blanchot and the Moving Image is an impressive piece of research that betrays a wealth of cognizance, not only of Blanchot's own writings, but also of his subtle yet persistent influence within twentieth and twenty first century continental philosophy and, subsequently, Anglophone film theory.’ — Corey P. Cribb, Film-Philosophy 24.1, February 2020, 71-74 (full text online)