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Poetics Of Cinema
Chilean filmmaker Raoul Ruiz is the author of some 100 feature-length films, along with numerous plays and multi-media installations. In Poetics of Cinema , Ruiz takes a fresh approach to the major themes haunting our audio-visual the filmic unconscious, questions of utopia, the inter-contamination of images, the art of the copy, the relations between artistic practices and institutions. Based on a series of lectures given recently at Duke University in North Carolina, Poetics of Cinema develops an acerbically witty critique of the reigning codes of cinematographic narration, principally derived from the dramatic theories set forth by Aristotle's Poetics and characterized by Ruiz as the “central-conflict theory.” Ruiz's impressive knowledge of theology, philosophy, literature and the visual arts never outstrips his powerful imagination. Poetics of Cinema not only offers a singularly pertinent analysis of the seventh art, but also shows us an entirely new way of writing and thinking about images.
128 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1995
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940 people want to read
About the author
Raúl Ruiz
51 books17 followersRaúl Ernesto Ruiz Pino (25 July 1941 – 19 August 2011) was an experimental Chilean filmmaker, writer and teacher whose work is best known in France. He directed more than 100 films.
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Displaying 1 - 21 of 21 reviews
May 7, 2012
Raul Ruiz: filmmaker, theorist, philosopher, seer.
This is an astounding treatise on film theory, providing a multiplicity of tools, both esoteric and incisive, for dissecting and constructing film. Or really any kind of narrative art. I'd really like to attempt to apply these concepts to comics as well (or writing, or, hell, even music).
Like Calvino, whose Six Memos this shares some ideas and references with, Ruiz is a storyteller at heart (also, Carrington: "All Stories are true."), and for all of his rebelliousness and innovation, he maintains a narrative playfulness grounds his strangest ideas. And so it's not at all surprising that, dense and labyrinthine as his rhetoric and rhetorical devices, he manages to illustrate almost everything with strangely engaging stories, of his own devise or drawn from centuries of myth, history, and thought. Which is vital -- brilliant as this frequently is, and erudite as Ruiz may be, it's very easy to become lost in the web of digressions, references, and expansions of unfamiliar concepts. At which point, with the wider schema temporarily out of sight, there's almost always some nearer engaging detail to seize upon. I feel like this will invite much continued study and thought, like the religious text this very nearly is. Vigorously stimulating.
This is an astounding treatise on film theory, providing a multiplicity of tools, both esoteric and incisive, for dissecting and constructing film. Or really any kind of narrative art. I'd really like to attempt to apply these concepts to comics as well (or writing, or, hell, even music).
Like Calvino, whose Six Memos this shares some ideas and references with, Ruiz is a storyteller at heart (also, Carrington: "All Stories are true."), and for all of his rebelliousness and innovation, he maintains a narrative playfulness grounds his strangest ideas. And so it's not at all surprising that, dense and labyrinthine as his rhetoric and rhetorical devices, he manages to illustrate almost everything with strangely engaging stories, of his own devise or drawn from centuries of myth, history, and thought. Which is vital -- brilliant as this frequently is, and erudite as Ruiz may be, it's very easy to become lost in the web of digressions, references, and expansions of unfamiliar concepts. At which point, with the wider schema temporarily out of sight, there's almost always some nearer engaging detail to seize upon. I feel like this will invite much continued study and thought, like the religious text this very nearly is. Vigorously stimulating.
...Even if the industry perfects itself, (in its tendencies toward control), it will never be able to take over the space of uncertainty and polysemia that is essential to images -- the possibility of transmitting a private world in a present time that is host to multiple pasts and futures. [...] In this private world, films will appear which the duty of mystery and the cloak of incognito will render unclassifiable, protean and ubiquitous; they will be inexhaustible because, gifted with infinite polysemia, and exceedingly tough to strike down. For like the humble planaria, an earthworm that merely rejuvenates in the face of starvation, becoming an egg and waiting to be born again, these films will know how to shrink without vanishing.
October 8, 2014
Raul Ruiz is one of those people who appear to be, deep in their hearts, total anarchists at war with the constraints of logic and societal expectations of meaning, but who in their expression are enamored with elaborate games, mazes and labyrinths, masks within masks within masks, and endless ramifications spun by logic run rampant. It's a very interesting combination, and his films are the very stimulating product of this combination.
Check out Three Crowns of the Sailor, or Hypothesis of the Stolen Painting for examples of this endlessly fascinating mindset. He's made dozens of other films, but most are hard to set your eyes on.
This is a book of lectures he gave some time in the 1990's. Rather than being lectures on film, though, they are more like philosophical disquisitions using film talk as a medium. In them he spins the same type of labyrinthine thought processes in evidence in his films; including in his mind-web an incredibly diverse list of sources - from ancient Chinese thought to American B movies to Athananius Kircher - and it's all done in such a fun and intelligent and fundamentally contrary way (he's at war with mainstream Hollywood) that reading them is like seriously engaging in a pointless but fruitful game, like playing hopscotch in a spherical encyclopedia spun from goldfish glass that spits out candy that's good for you.
Check out Three Crowns of the Sailor, or Hypothesis of the Stolen Painting for examples of this endlessly fascinating mindset. He's made dozens of other films, but most are hard to set your eyes on.
This is a book of lectures he gave some time in the 1990's. Rather than being lectures on film, though, they are more like philosophical disquisitions using film talk as a medium. In them he spins the same type of labyrinthine thought processes in evidence in his films; including in his mind-web an incredibly diverse list of sources - from ancient Chinese thought to American B movies to Athananius Kircher - and it's all done in such a fun and intelligent and fundamentally contrary way (he's at war with mainstream Hollywood) that reading them is like seriously engaging in a pointless but fruitful game, like playing hopscotch in a spherical encyclopedia spun from goldfish glass that spits out candy that's good for you.
January 14, 2017
But if cinema is the art of mixing up and combining discontinuous lengths of image, how can we rebel against industrial standards without producing monsters?
So Central Conflict Theory is bad for cinema, or for boring film, but not boredom on film, which remains integral. Ozu both with and against Schopenhauer. So how to explain this cult of Ruiz? These poetics are convoluted, almost a gathering of whispers, a ridiculously rich vein of erudition which defiantly avoids film for two-thirds of the text.
I viewed 2046 earlier this evening and periodically lifted my jaw from the floor, such departures afforded a chance to consider Ruiz's asides, his hypothetical screenplays which jar our sense-making and toss our throwness into relief. That may refer more to Heidegger than Truffaut but that shouldn't detract nor discourage.
So Central Conflict Theory is bad for cinema, or for boring film, but not boredom on film, which remains integral. Ozu both with and against Schopenhauer. So how to explain this cult of Ruiz? These poetics are convoluted, almost a gathering of whispers, a ridiculously rich vein of erudition which defiantly avoids film for two-thirds of the text.
I viewed 2046 earlier this evening and periodically lifted my jaw from the floor, such departures afforded a chance to consider Ruiz's asides, his hypothetical screenplays which jar our sense-making and toss our throwness into relief. That may refer more to Heidegger than Truffaut but that shouldn't detract nor discourage.
Read
July 2, 2025This book may have infinite potential for idea mining. It's extremely idea dense at the same time that it is obscure and mysterious to such a degree that I think no one can completely comprehend it (Ruiz may have comprehended himself, but that is far from certain).
As I've said elsewhere, this is nominally about cinema, or else it is entirely about cinema. I won't make a definite pronouncement one way or the other.
But it seems that people interested in the various arts, those who are interested in a specific art, or else mere philosophers can find quite a lot to inspire them--and a lot to wrap their brains around--within the pages of this book.
The author lays out his intended structure right up front:
"...I have chosen a genre resembling what in sixteenth-century Spain were called Miscelaneas, theoretical/narrative discourses where the author's prowess is to turn verbal somersaults, with sudden shifts of focus and unexpected interpolations--in short, a hodgpodge, a farrago, 'everything but the kitchen sink.'"
I'm very glad to have revisited this book. It has my head spinning with ideas at the same time that it has renewed my sense of mission. (But I'm not about to make a movie). It is both evocative and invokative as Ruiz would persuade us is a part of the essence of cinema poetry.
Tragically, I face the risk that my review must appear too abstract to deliver a sense of the text it refers to. To come more to the "point," the book largely deals with the potential of the artist to conjure up poetry from the spaces between ideas, from conflict of forces, from the unfolding potential of shadow images, from the cinematic subconscious, from questioning what it means for a work to be "good," or "bad," and from posing challenges to predatory theories such as "central conflict theory." He inspires us to seek out the secret art of cinema which currently goes incognito, the spirit that threatens a some-day resuscitation despite the current morbid (or extinct) state of the art.
Cult of the Phoenix, anyone?
As I've said elsewhere, this is nominally about cinema, or else it is entirely about cinema. I won't make a definite pronouncement one way or the other.
But it seems that people interested in the various arts, those who are interested in a specific art, or else mere philosophers can find quite a lot to inspire them--and a lot to wrap their brains around--within the pages of this book.
The author lays out his intended structure right up front:
"...I have chosen a genre resembling what in sixteenth-century Spain were called Miscelaneas, theoretical/narrative discourses where the author's prowess is to turn verbal somersaults, with sudden shifts of focus and unexpected interpolations--in short, a hodgpodge, a farrago, 'everything but the kitchen sink.'"
I'm very glad to have revisited this book. It has my head spinning with ideas at the same time that it has renewed my sense of mission. (But I'm not about to make a movie). It is both evocative and invokative as Ruiz would persuade us is a part of the essence of cinema poetry.
Tragically, I face the risk that my review must appear too abstract to deliver a sense of the text it refers to. To come more to the "point," the book largely deals with the potential of the artist to conjure up poetry from the spaces between ideas, from conflict of forces, from the unfolding potential of shadow images, from the cinematic subconscious, from questioning what it means for a work to be "good," or "bad," and from posing challenges to predatory theories such as "central conflict theory." He inspires us to seek out the secret art of cinema which currently goes incognito, the spirit that threatens a some-day resuscitation despite the current morbid (or extinct) state of the art.
Cult of the Phoenix, anyone?
August 3, 2024
Bizarre, Borges-y, and 99% made-up of unrelated whimsical digressions and free-association rambling, just like his movies. Naturally I thought it rocked and it made me want to watch even more of his 100+ movies.
July 29, 2024
Absolutely perfect
June 23, 2020
keeping all this in mind for when i
January 12, 2018
This is not just a vast and expansive theory of cinema but a treatise on the modern world at large - for in a lot of ways media has become the focal point of our lives (and as it dominates societal discourse you can't just turn around and rund away).
Ruiz picks apart in audacious manner the dominant dogmas in cinema (be it central conflict theory or conventional schools of cutting) and contrasts them with his own theories.
In the same sense this is a history book: The history of 20th century cinema told in an entirely unchronological form (without ever mentioning D.W. Griffith). Yet this is the most spot on examination of cinema - past, present and future - I have ever read or heard. The grid of references is vast and expansive but probably not fully comprehensive to anyone. He goes from western religious philosophy to chinese theories of painting to muslim kings to chilean sects of sorchery (which he later made a film about) to 50's B-movies to stories of his youth to books locked away from the public in the french national libary... and much, much further. Ruiz was truly a traveller inbetween the worlds (possibly propelled by his exile from his home country of Chile) and it's dubious that many people would be well enough versed in the cultural disciplines to follow him all the way but it is both a joy to read and very inspirational. It is a book full of ideas, analogies, images, transgressing to a more primal understanding of cinema that subverts industry, a cinema of dreams and possibilities, of spontaneous departure and poetic development, of images that conceal other images and what happens between cuts; always asking the question: "What if?"
If you want to see some of his films consider Mysteries of Lisbon, Hypothesis of the Stolen Painting, City of Pirates, Dog's Dialouge and Three Crowns of the Sailor
Ruiz picks apart in audacious manner the dominant dogmas in cinema (be it central conflict theory or conventional schools of cutting) and contrasts them with his own theories.
In the same sense this is a history book: The history of 20th century cinema told in an entirely unchronological form (without ever mentioning D.W. Griffith). Yet this is the most spot on examination of cinema - past, present and future - I have ever read or heard. The grid of references is vast and expansive but probably not fully comprehensive to anyone. He goes from western religious philosophy to chinese theories of painting to muslim kings to chilean sects of sorchery (which he later made a film about) to 50's B-movies to stories of his youth to books locked away from the public in the french national libary... and much, much further. Ruiz was truly a traveller inbetween the worlds (possibly propelled by his exile from his home country of Chile) and it's dubious that many people would be well enough versed in the cultural disciplines to follow him all the way but it is both a joy to read and very inspirational. It is a book full of ideas, analogies, images, transgressing to a more primal understanding of cinema that subverts industry, a cinema of dreams and possibilities, of spontaneous departure and poetic development, of images that conceal other images and what happens between cuts; always asking the question: "What if?"
If you want to see some of his films consider Mysteries of Lisbon, Hypothesis of the Stolen Painting, City of Pirates, Dog's Dialouge and Three Crowns of the Sailor
July 10, 2025
sort of meandering and digressive essays vaguely relating to film, or more usually to ruiz's thoughts in the general direction of film. very borgesian in his tendency to suddenly and with masterful knowledge refer to the thought of medieval theologians or islamic philosophers who may or may not actually exist. you also get to hear about how his mind works in a cool way, for example in this anecdote:
"Let us now imagine a spectator unable to follow a film's story line, someone who could only follow the involuntary forms that have managed to creep into the film, that is, its mistakes. This spectator, a kind of experimental delinquent, follows a film composed of obsessional details. Let me serve as my own example. For years I watched so-called Greco-Latin films (toga flicks, with early Christians devoured by lions, emperors in love, and so on). My only interest in those films was to catch sight of planes and helicopters in the background, to discover the eternal DC6 crossing the sky during Ben Hur's final race, Cleopatra's naval battle, or the Quo Vadis banquets. That was my particular fetish, my only interest. For me all those films, the innumerable tales of Greco-Latinity, all partook of the single story of a DC6 flying discreetly from one film to the next."
"Let us now imagine a spectator unable to follow a film's story line, someone who could only follow the involuntary forms that have managed to creep into the film, that is, its mistakes. This spectator, a kind of experimental delinquent, follows a film composed of obsessional details. Let me serve as my own example. For years I watched so-called Greco-Latin films (toga flicks, with early Christians devoured by lions, emperors in love, and so on). My only interest in those films was to catch sight of planes and helicopters in the background, to discover the eternal DC6 crossing the sky during Ben Hur's final race, Cleopatra's naval battle, or the Quo Vadis banquets. That was my particular fetish, my only interest. For me all those films, the innumerable tales of Greco-Latinity, all partook of the single story of a DC6 flying discreetly from one film to the next."
January 15, 2021
Es un conjunto de reflexiones sobre ciertos fenómenos en el arte, no como una teoría que los justifique, sino una descripción de su existencia. Por eso resulta muy progresista, nunca emite juicios de valor sobre lo que podría ser el arte.
Es muy denso, tanto en ideas como en referencias filosóficas y psicoanalíticas, pero también es muy literario y divertido. De hecho, disfrute más el humor negro y las alegorías, que las ideas de fondo que estas representaban. Esto en parte porque casi nunca entendí las ideas centrales. Entendía donde estaba parado en cada momento, pero no de donde venía o hacia donde iba. A medida que avanzaba cada capitulo se incorporaban tantas ideas nuevas que, para cuando llegaba al final, no tenia idea que era lo que tenia que entender. Y no estoy seguro si eso es mi culpa o es un problema de redacción.
Es muy denso, tanto en ideas como en referencias filosóficas y psicoanalíticas, pero también es muy literario y divertido. De hecho, disfrute más el humor negro y las alegorías, que las ideas de fondo que estas representaban. Esto en parte porque casi nunca entendí las ideas centrales. Entendía donde estaba parado en cada momento, pero no de donde venía o hacia donde iba. A medida que avanzaba cada capitulo se incorporaban tantas ideas nuevas que, para cuando llegaba al final, no tenia idea que era lo que tenia que entender. Y no estoy seguro si eso es mi culpa o es un problema de redacción.
January 29, 2019
It’s hard to “rate” this book but cause it’s not meant to instruct but be a musing, a collection of thoughts around cinema and how to find greater possibilities beyond the tyranny of form. The book is written very much like Ruiz’s films, relying on the experience you get spending time on his thoughts rather than coming to definable intellectual postulation. It’s just great to read someone think about cinema beyond industry.
Read
November 24, 2019The lecture called For A Shamanic Cinema was the only one I reread (equipped with pencil and ruler) and my understanding of Ruiz’ riddle-like (Borgesian) writing grew significantly. And just like with Borges, I’ll gladly revisit this whenever I feel the urge. I wish they taught from this in filmschool.
July 24, 2018
Un libro para leer a momentos y en movimiento
October 17, 2025
Astonished they did not make us read this in Film Theory back in college.
March 9, 2021
Affects me the same way all of Ruiz's films do: as awe-inducing, profound, and deeply incomprehensible.
February 13, 2023
In spite of the title, I read this in English translation after being told that Ruiz was often identified with the baroque. An interesting read, and much easier to get through than most film theory. That being said, you have to be careful to not simply breeze through the anecdotes and vignettes that compose the majority of this text. Reading Ruiz reminded me of Borges, Sarduy (but with fewer transvestites), or a post-structuralist theorist (he focuses on the peripheral and unseen underlying elements of films). He doesn't often directly state, but (very baroque) infers. His frequently-used references include Chinese culture, secret societies, and his native Chile. Now I have to see some of his movies! Apparently his writing style is similar to how he structures his films and I'm curious to see how that plays out.
July 24, 2008
Can't remember it anymore, but I couldn't remember it while I was reading it either. 90% went over my head, but whenever I was about to get bored there'd be some amazing passage making it all worthwhile. Ruiz is mad. Why can't I find the second volume for under $30?
August 28, 2008
First reading done. Rereading needed. Wish I could find this in Spanish. Bland translation; Ruiz definitely talks between the lines.
July 22, 2015
Charmante.
June 17, 2009
I'm really enjoying this.
Displaying 1 - 21 of 21 reviews