The Cinema of the Real

<p><b>Alters the landscape of Lacanian film theory by revealing an emancipatory drive in transnational cinema.</b></p><p>A significant intervention into Lacanian film studies this book sets forth a new theory of the psychoanalytic Real in cinema. In psychoanalysis the Real ruptures the Symbolic that organizes law ideology and other systems of belief revealing fissures in this underlying order. <i>The Cinema of the Real</i> explores how transnational cinema and especially South Korean cinema facilitate an encounter with the Real enabling the emergence of a new political subject. Paying close attention to form Hyon Joo Yoo reveals the existence of an emancipatory drive in films by Jang Hun Park Chan-wook Lee Chang-dong Jia Zhangke Michael Haneke Claire Denis and Bong Joon-ho among others. Their work in effect provides viewers with a picture of how it looks and feels to be on a trajectory in which the subject and her world can change. Far from being a passive consumer of images Yoo's spectator enters the space of the Real. Theoretically rigorous and inventive <i>The Cinema of the Real</i> offers new transnationally attuned tools for conceptualizing the body affect femininity and spectatorship as well as fresh readings of both classic and contemporary films.</p>