Spectatorship: The Power of Looking On

by Michele Aaron

This book cuts a lucid path through the debate on spectatorship. It revisits the classics of Hollywood; explores films beyond the mainstream, such as Dogme 95; and shows how cinema makes a spectacle of the everyday while turning the spectacular into something commonplace. It also muses on the consequences of our sharing in or witnessing the private or intimate acts of others and our enjoyment of events that often represent a gross break with legal and social mores.

144 pages, Paperback

First published October 1, 2006

Reviews

[Mr Daniel John Shields]

Excellent insightful overview of spectatorship

[Sean]

Read this to refresh myself on theories of spectatorship before going deeper—very much a primer, no "new" ideas, but that's what it's billed as, so there's nothing to complain about

[Belinda]

Interesting well-researched book on spectatorship. However, I felt this one presented an argument much more than the other BFI Short Cut series.

Also, why no index, BFI? These are academic texts and they should have an index!

[Kamakana]

??? 2010s?: film as voyeuristic art. short, sweet, evocative if not provocative...