The Object-oriented Cinema

Andrzej Marzec

martius@amu.edu.pl
Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznan (Poland)
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9259-2642

Abstract

The author investigates the recent phenomenon of object-oriented cinema. Interpreting the films of Quentin Dupieux and Peter Strickland, he focuses primarily on the key category of speculative realism that is allure, and distinguishes it from sensual seduction, which is most often confused with. Then, referring to the Jane Bennett theory of vitalist materialism and her concept of thing-power, he asks about the agency of objects and why it is so difficult for us to imagine it. He presents the passive-active nature of agency of Bennett on the example of the latest film by James Benning, Maggie’s Farm (2019). The author proves that aesthetics and rhetoric in object-oriented cinema are not superficial ornaments, but on the contrary allow individual filmmakers to look at objects in a different way.


Keywords:

object-oriented ontology, speculative realism, allure, weird realism, contemporary cinema

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Published
2020-08-26

Cited by

Marzec, A. (2020) “The Object-oriented Cinema”, Kwartalnik Filmowy, (110), pp. 80–99. doi: 10.36744/kf.340.

Authors

Andrzej Marzec 
martius@amu.edu.pl
Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznan Poland
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9259-2642

PhD, philosopher, film critic, editor of Czas Kultury journal, vloger of Widma Marca. His research interests focus on object-oriented ontology, post-digital aesthetics and contemporary alternative cinema. The author of the book Widmontologia. Teoria filozoficzna i praktyka artystyczna ponowoczesności [Hauntology: The Philosophical Theories and Artistic Practices of Postmodernity] (2015). He is trying to find the answer to the question, why the contemporary culture is so nostalgic and he is unable to free himself from remembering his past. He is attracted to visual arts, experimental cinema and a vision of ecology that one can think about without using the concept of “nature”.



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