[(Projecting Illusion: Film Spectatorship and the Impression of Reality)] [Author: Richard Allen] published on

by Richard Allen

Projecting Illusion offers a systematic analysis of the impression of reality in the cinema and the pleasure it provides the film spectator. Film affords an especially compelling aesthetic experience that can be considered as a form of illusion akin to the experience of daydream and dream. Examining the concept of illusion and its relationship to fantasy in the experience of visual representation, Richard Allen situates his explanation within the context of an analytical criticism of contemporary film theory. Contrary to many critics, he argues that many contemporary film theorists correctly identify the significance of the impression of reality, although their explanation of it is incorrect because of an invalid philosophical understanding of the relationship between the mind, representation, and reality. Offering a clear presentation and critique of central arguments of contemporary film and critical theory, Projecting Illusion also touches on fundamental issues in the current discourses of philosophy, art history, and feminist theory.

Genres: Film

Unknown Binding

First published January 1, 1995

About the author

Richard William Allen is the Dean of School o­­f Creative Media, City University of Hong Kong and Chair/Professor of Film and Media Art. Previously he was a Professor of Cinema Studies, Tisch School of the Arts, New York University. He is author and editor of 9 books on film theory and aesthetics. He is author of Projecting Illusion and the editor of two volumes on the philosophy of film and the arts: Film Theory and Philosophy, and Wittgenstein, Theory and the Arts. He is a leading authority on Hitchcock and wrote an influential book, Hitchcock’s Romantic Irony. He is currently completing Bollywood Poetics and beginning a longer-term project on The Passion of Christ and the Melodramatic Imagination. He is a fellow of the Society for the Cognitive Study of Moving Image, and was for many years an editor of the Hitchcock Annual.

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Allen, Richard, 1959-
from Library of Congress website