Ambiguous Cinema: From Simone de Beauvoir to Feminist Film-Phenomenology - Paperback

by Kelli Fuery (Author)

Simone de Beauvoir's notion of ambiguity became a cornerstone of her philosophy and influenced a radical rethinking of freedom well into the twenty-first century. In Ambiguous Cinema, Fuery examines Beauvoir's notion of ambiguity in relation to film experience, exploring both the legacies and limits of her existentialist ethics through a range of films by independent women filmmakers, including Joanna Hogg, Liliana Cavani, Debra Granik, Cheryl Dunye, Claire Denis, Lucrecia Martel, Lynne Ramsay and Céline Sciamma.

In doing so, Fuery deftly demonstrates the currency and relevancy of Beauvoir's ideas to contemporary debates in film-philosophy and feminist thought by examining how these women filmmakers navigate turbulent themes such as moral choice, power, adolescence, love, trauma and motherhood. Reimagining Beauvoir's idea of ambiguity within the context of film studies, Fuery asks that we confront and embrace difficult emotional situations so that we might realise an authentic, if indeterminate, freedom through our cinematic experiences.

Author Biography

Kelli Fuery is Professor of Creative and Cultural Industries in Wilkinson College of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences at Chapman University, California. She is the author of five books, including Ambiguous Cinema: From Simone de Beauvoir to Feminist Film-Phenomenology and Wilfred Bion, Thinking and Emotional Experience with Moving Images. Her next project examines Bion's notion of the bizarre object and interconnected themes of hallucination, phenomenology and virtuality.