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Screen Captures: Film in the Age of Emergency
A spirited, far-sighted guide to politics, Star Wars, the Avengers, David Lynch, and the lost highways between them, for today's capitalist-realist age.
“We've met before, haven't we?” The grand illusion of our era is that we're at the end of history and cinema is now no more than tranquilizing entertainment. What we've lost sight of is the political undercurrent running through movies and their potentially redemptive power, whether they're Hollywood mega blockbusters like Star Wars or off-kilter indies and art films like Blue Velvet.
This is the premise and the challenge of the wide-ranging essays that make up Screen Captures, in which Dennis Hopper, Nicholas Cage, Valerie Solanas, and even Donald Trump all have a starring role. The book tells, as much as it shows, what lies just out of frame: the impacts of COVID on theatres, the class war of the 1% upon the rest, the climate crisis, the ongoing Disney-fication of franchises, and the audience's active participation in the rewriting and reproduction of their capture by screens. Throughout, subliminally, Stephen Lee Naish rings his urgent call: occupy the screen!
“We've met before, haven't we?” The grand illusion of our era is that we're at the end of history and cinema is now no more than tranquilizing entertainment. What we've lost sight of is the political undercurrent running through movies and their potentially redemptive power, whether they're Hollywood mega blockbusters like Star Wars or off-kilter indies and art films like Blue Velvet.
This is the premise and the challenge of the wide-ranging essays that make up Screen Captures, in which Dennis Hopper, Nicholas Cage, Valerie Solanas, and even Donald Trump all have a starring role. The book tells, as much as it shows, what lies just out of frame: the impacts of COVID on theatres, the class war of the 1% upon the rest, the climate crisis, the ongoing Disney-fication of franchises, and the audience's active participation in the rewriting and reproduction of their capture by screens. Throughout, subliminally, Stephen Lee Naish rings his urgent call: occupy the screen!
- GenresNonfiction
208 pages, Paperback
Published September 30, 2021
5 people want to read
About the author
Stephen Lee Naish
10 books6 followersStephen Lee Naish is a writer, visual artist, and the author of six books of nonfiction, notably, Create or Die: Essays on the Artistry of Dennis Hopper (AUP), Riffs and Meaning (HeadPress), and Screen Captures: Film in the Age of Emergency (Newstar Books). His work has appeared in Aquarium Drunkard, Film International, Sublation Magazine, The Quietus, Empty Mirror, Dirty Movies, Albumism, and Merion West. He lives in Kingston, Ontario.
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
October 20, 2023
Screen Captures is a collection of essays about how film is a conduit through which we see ourselves, whether that be our fears, joys, aspirations or how and why we consume film. Naish wears his passion on his pen but maintains a self-depreciating awareness of a film's subjective value to the viewer. Overarching themes include societal anxieties, economic uncertainty, polarized politics and how millennial and gen-z audiences interpret classic and contemporary film. Each essay concludes with a watchlist which allows readers to reconsider each essay upon viewing. This is a strong collection for film aficionados and casual viewers alike.
July 10, 2023
Enlightening and entertaining. A wide-ranging series of essays that connects movies and pop culture to the zeitgeist of our times.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews