After Authority

Global Art Cinema and Political Transition

By Kalling Heck

Rutgers University Press

After Authority explores the tendency in art cinema to respond to political transition by turning to ambiguity, a system that ideally stems the reemergence of authoritarian logics in art and elsewhere. By comparing films from Italy, Hungary, South Korea, and the United States, this book contends that the aesthetic tradition of ambiguity in art cinema can be traced to post-authoritarian conditions and that it is in the context of a transition away from authoritarianism where art cinema aesthetics become legible. Art cinema, then, can be seen as a mode of cinematic practice that is at its core political, as its constitutive ambiguity finds its roots in the rejection of centralized and hierarchical configurations of authority. Ultimately, After Authority proposes a history of art cinema predicated on the potentials, possibilities, and politics of ambiguity.

Confident, convincing, and timely, After Authority is a challenging and provocative work. Highly original, it adds significantly to current debates on cinema and politics. Richard Rushton, author of The Politics of Hollywood Cinema: Popular Film and Contemporary Political Theory

Kalling Heck makes the provocative claim that there is no apolitical art. More to the point, he affirms the possibility of politics and aesthetics without the determining role of authority. And therein lies the power of his magnificent engagements with the films he discusses: the possibility of a theory of political criticism emergent of the experience and affective dynamics of ambiguity. Davide Panagia, author of Rancière’s Sentiments

The book is well researched and well written, and offers readers a new critical perspective Recommended. Choice

Kalling Heck is an assistant professor of screen arts and English at Louisiana State University.

Authority year zero : on Germany year zero
The image that waits : on Satantango
The end of authority, the end of democracy : on woman on the beach
Force, hope, and death : on medium cool
Coda : political modernism and the possibility for action

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