Afterimages

Mulvey has a voice that carries. In the wake of #MeToo, and in an age where being active on social media demands a constant ebb and flow of looking and self-presenting, her coinage has been taken up by a new vanguard . . . A wave of artists and audiences are actively adapting and expanding Mulvey’s thinking — and now, so is the critic herself . . . Mulvey’s new book is especially pertinent, given the widening rift between her second-wave feminist peers — who are predominantly white academics – and the current “fourth-wave”, known for its Twittersphere stomping ground and exacting inclusivity standards . . . Mulvey’s voice cuts through generational divides and Afterimages strikes a balance between consistency of thought and a willingness to adapt. * Financial Times *
Tying together fourteen texts . . . is a concern for looking back, for thinking about the cinema as something past, fragile, perishable . . . As Mulvey puts it, “the cinema has moved from a technological straightjacket into a lived flexibility,” opening up new avenues of inquiry, new modes of engagement . . . Afterimages takes up themes and concepts long central to Mulvey’s thinking, particularly feminism and psychoanalysis . . . Her investments persist in altered form as they are rearticulated in relation to the demands of the present. * Erika Balsom, Frieze *
A frank, personal, and critically adroit work, which . . . demonstrates how films – even those that have received the most critical attention – continue to challenge, reveal and provoke . . . a valuable and unique set of responses and arguments by one of the [film studies] discipline’s most eminent founding scholars, demonstrating the vivacity of her work. * Viewfinder *
timely and time-centred . . . Mulvey's ability to provoke and stimulate remains undiminished. * Popmatters *
Next up is beloved experimental filmmaker Laura Mulvey’s latest effort, a captivating rumination on film theory through a decidedly feminist lens. A gorgeously put together book superficially, this release from Reaktion Books is an exciting discovery, a book that challenges classical thoughts around structures in a manner that feels fresh and of this specific moment in time . . . Looking at everything from the use of women as spectacle in fiction cinema to the rise of cinematic language within visual art in the gallery space, Afterimages is a wide-reaching collection of essays that all carry with them the same lyrical and compelling Mulvey voice. Toss in a provocative FAQ section surrounding her legendary “Visual Pleasure And Narrative Cinema” essay and you have a release that’s essential for anyone interested in the intersection between cinema and gender. * Criterion Cast *
This book comprises essays on individual films ranging from canonical to obscure. Mulvey relates the self-reflexive nature of Lola Montès, Vertigo, and Le Mépris to cinema as an apparatus for the construction of woman as image. Jeanne Dielman explores the use of mise-en-scène as a nonverbal language that expresses the heroine’s unconscious. A chapter on Marilyn Monroe argues that she represents the alienating effects of the woman as the object of the gaze, seen in The Misfits, which explores the dark underside of her fetishized image. Daughters of the Dust weaves a tapestry of women’s images across generations to provide a history of Nana Peazant’s family. Director Rakhshan Bani-Etemad offers a social realist portrait of women’s oppression in Iran, where women’s inability to speak is given expression through cinematic language. The thread that runs through the book is that of women’s voices, from Akerman’s Jeanne Dielman to Alina Marazzi’s "lost and silenced" voices, Clio Barnard’s "ghostly voices" from the past that seek to speak to the future, and Mary Kelly’s attempts to give "a voice to silence" through her meditation on maternal muteness in Post-Partum Document. A readable and accessible book by a major author in the field. Highly recommended. * Choice *
Mulvey takes an analytic approach to filmmaking and new technology, focusing on the deterioration of the Hollywood studio system and the emergence of the female voice both in front of and behind the camera . . . Future filmmakers as well as art and media students will find this academic take on feminism and cinema a valuable resource. * Library Journal *
Afterimages shows a rare quality in academia, the capacity to admit having been wrong at some point, or not sufficiently informed, and re-evaluate past work in light of criticism, and evolution of knowledge. If only for this, Mulvey is an inspirational scholar, and Afterimages, an example of accepting that times are changing, but maybe not fast enough or in the right direction. * Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television *
Over forty years ago, Laura Mulvey’s searing polemic “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema” brilliantly articulated why the movies we love also damage us by shoring up patriarchal power. Since that scorched earth moment, Mulvey’s analysis of the moving image has broadened and deepened, which makes this book absolutely necessary to today’s cultural struggles around gender, race, and class. * Amy Taubin, critic and contributing editor Film Comment and Artforum *
As a female film-maker, I owe a debt of gratitude to Laura Mulvey, for her film-making and for her tireless theoretical explorations. She has secured the space in which women are permitted expression and may explore the virtues of silence, stillness and the maternal. It is always exciting when Laura Mulvey publishes new work. * Joanna Hogg, film-maker *
At once a critical fascination with Hollywood’s images of women, a nuanced approach to modern women film-makers, and a consideration of cinema’s status in relation to contemporary art: the great skill of Laura Mulvey is to move between these multiple lines of enquiry, taking her reader with her as only a true writer can. * Raymond Bellour, Director of Research, Emeritus, CNRS, Paris, and author of The Analysis of Film and Between-the-Images *