The hegemonic meaning of depression as a universal mental illness embodied by an individualized subject is propped up by psychiatry’s clinical gaze. Cinemas of Therapeutic Activism turns to the work of contemporary filmmakers who express a shared concern for mental health under global capitalism to explore how else depression can be perceived. In taking their critical visions as intercessors for thought, Adam Szymanski proposes a thoroughly relational understanding of depression attentive to eventful, collective and contingent qualities of subjectivity. What emerges is a melancholy aesthetics attuned to the existential contours and political stakes of health.
Cinemas of Therapeutic Activism adventurously builds affinities across the lines of national, linguistic and cultural difference. The films of Angela Schanelec, Kelly Reichardt, Apichatpong Weerasethakul and Kanakan Balintagos are grouped together for the first time, constituting a polystylistic common front of artist-physicians who live, work, and create on the belief that life can be more liveable.
- Cover
- Table of Contents
- Acknowledgements
- Perceiving the Pandemic
- 1. The Psychosocial Image
- 2. The Neuroplastic Paradox
- 3. Belief and the Common World ofExperience
- 4. Ecosophy and Peace
- 5. Healing and Decolonization
- For Therapeutic Activisms
- Bibliography
- Filmography
- About the Author
- Index
- List of Illustrations
- Image 1 Il deserto rosso (The Red Desert), Michelangelo Antonioni, 1964
- Image 2 Il deserto rosso (The Red Desert), Michelangelo Antonioni, 1964
- Image 3 Il deserto rosso (The Red Desert), Michelangelo Antonioni, 1964
- Image 4 Nachmittag (Afternoon), Angela Schanelec, 2007
- Image 5 Nachmittag (Afternoon), Angela Schanelec, 2007
- Image 6 Night Moves, Kelly Reichardt, 2013
- Image 7 Lung Bunmi Raluek Chat (Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives), Apichatpong Weerasethakul, 2010
- Image 8 Lung Bunmi Raluek Chat (Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives), Apichatpong Weerasethakul, 2010
- Image 9 Busong (Palawan Fate), Kanakan Balintagos, 2011
- Image 10 Busong (Palawan Fate), Kanakan Balintagos, 2011
Text
Audio
Adobe DRM
Login to your account