The Edges of Cinema

Recent years have seen a panic over the future of mainstream film. Yet film culture is at its most vital on the margins, where the moving image meets visual art, documentary brushes up against experimentalism, and curators are reshaping established histories. Bringing together a decade of criticism, The Edges of Cinema roams across an array of styles to take account of how some of the most important contemporary filmmakers are engaging the world.

Erika Balsom—a leading scholar and critic—explores subjects ranging from computer-generated animation to the effects of digitization, and from the status of observational cinema to the longest of long takes. She takes a bold stand in debates on the “female gaze” and examines how filmmakers address issues concerning climate change, race, gender, violence, and technology. Balsom considers works at the intersection of documentary, experimental film, and auteur cinema by directors such as Peggy Ahwesh, James Benning, Aria Dean, Mati Diop, Harun Farocki, Albert Serra, Brett Story, Tsai Ming-liang, and Wang Bing. Challenging the caricature of experimental film as “difficult,” this wide-ranging and engaging book makes a case for the politics, provocations, and pleasures of a less ordinary cinema.