Cinema of Attractions Reloaded

Twenty years ago, Tom Gunning and Andre Gaudreault introduced the concept of attraction to define the quintessence of the earliest films made between 1895 and 1906. As "cinema of attractions" this concept has become widely adopted, even outside the field of early cinema. Ranging from the films of the Lumiere brothers to The Matrix by Andy and Larry Wachowski, from trains rushing into the audience to bullet time effects, the "cinema of attractions" is a cinema that shocks, astonishes and directly addresses the film spectator.

This anthology traces the history of the "cinema of attractions," reconstructs its conception and questions its attractiveness and usefulness for both pre-classical and post-classical cinema. With contributions by Christa Blumlinger, Warren Buckland, Scott Bukatman, Donald Crafton, Nicolas Dulac, Thomas Elsaesser, Andre Gaudreault, Laurent Guido, Tom Gunning, Malte Hagener. Pierre-Emmanuel Jaques, Charlie Keil, Frank Kessler, Germain Lacasse, Alison McMahan, Charles Musser, Viva Paci, Eivind Rossaak, Vivian Sobchack, Wanda Strauven, Dick Tomasovic.