The Forms of the Affects

by Eugenie Brinkema

What is the relationship between a cinematic grid of color and that most visceral of negative affects, disgust? How might anxiety be a matter of an interrupted horizontal line, or grief a figure of blazing light?Offering a bold corrective to the emphasis on embodiment and experience in recent affect theory, Eugenie Brinkema develops a novel mode of criticism that locates the forms of particular affects within the specific details of cinematic and textual construction. Through close readings of works by Roland Barthes, Hollis Frampton, Sigmund Freud, Peter Greenaway, Michael Haneke, Alfred Hitchcock, Søren Kierkegaard, and David Lynch, Brinkema shows that deep attention to form, structure, and aesthetics enables a fundamental rethinking of the study of sensation. In the process, she delves into concepts as diverse as putrescence in French gastronomy, the role of the tear in philosophies of emotion, Nietzschean joy as a wild aesthetic of repetition, and the psychoanalytic theory of embarrassment. Above all, this provocative work is a call to harness the vitality of the affective turn for a renewed exploration of the possibilities of cinematic form.

Genres: Psychology, Film, Nonfiction, Theory, Philosophy

367 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 2014

Reviews

[Ayanna Dozier · Rating 2 out of 5]

Written as a polemic to traditional practices to formalism, narrative cinema reading, and affect theory through the body, The Forms of the Affects strikes to reclaim formalism as The way to read negative phenomenon in cinema, thus becoming "radical formalism." Brinkema writes with an intense fervor and clear and distinct voice, although I did not find myself in agreement with her most of the time, I must say her writing style is greatly appreciated. She's bold and unflinching and it is a style that, in some ways, I aspire to mimic. My disagreements with Brinkema steam from her use of Deleuze and desire to move away from the body while working through the body in some of her analysis. As stated it is a polemic, but I have to question if some of the argumentative stances were necessary, especially when it comes to the body. I understand that when it comes to genre film and sensation, the body as an analysis has a proliferation within affect theory can turn some people off, however, I think what Brinkema brings with a close reading and through her use of negative phenomenon (disgust, anxiety, tears, etc) could have not only provided a clearer understanding of affect (through the body) but could have improved her argument on the whole. Although I have issues with the book, I still brought it as it does provide a wealth of information when conducting analysis on something as "dismissive" as vomit in cinema.

[Steven]

I am loathe to "recommend" a book of critical theory to anyone, because I've found the practice to abe unreliable -- whether a book is good or useful depends, even more in academia, on individual proclivity/position. A typical review is one where someone praises a book, but also makes sure to take a couple of shots at it, just to demonstrate some authority of readership. Our own formal approaches are so sadly predictable sometimes... and I don't want to duplicate that here, especially in a book that is precisely about form and affect.
So, what I'll say here is that this book is nicely dense, well-argued, and I think that for anyone researching or thinking in terms of film, or even just aspects of how formalism (neo-formalism?) works, it pushes one into thinking many things you wouldn't otherwise think. And that's a good thing. You can find plenty of more engaged reviews that discuss content/form/film in other Goodreads reviews out here, so I'll leave it at that.

"Cold white tile is not only a place where vitality drains away."

[Mesut Bostancı · Rating 3 out of 5]

In the spirit of the book, what I will gain are not its insights, but the way its form goes about making them

[一隻機掰 •ᴥ•ʔ]

Why are Deleuzians so obsessed with desubjectification? —What is affect without a subject involved anyway? (p22, “tear without a body”)

[aerialxav · Rating 4 out of 5]

Preface, chapter 1, 2

[Tristan Bass-Krueger · Rating 4 out of 5]

Creates inhuman structures and worlds, alien in its distance but very compelling.

[Dawn · Rating 3 out of 5]

Pending book club discussion but initial reaction was respectful but detached.

[Rebecca DeLucia · Rating 4 out of 5]

what it lacks in painstaking rationale it makes up for in beauty. The basis of affect without interiority/subjectivity is never systematically divulged, though we hear over that it must be necessarily so, and look how we've arrived here, from Hume to Nietzsche to Sartre to Deleuze to Kristeva. this hitch amounts to an ultimately untroubling exchange for Brinkema's radiant menagerie of forms in lieu of more technical formulas.

[Nick Bentz · Rating 5 out of 5]

Boldly explorative text, and a wealth of secondary knowledge to back it up. Brinkema does an excellent job of showing how formal devices evoke affect and feeling, and vice versa.