‘The Hinge of a Metaphor’ (Vanguard Editions, 2023)

Victoria Best / David Collard / Dan Dalton / Andrew Gallix / Jonathan Gibbs / Susana Medina / Mathilde Merouani / Rachael de Moravia / Dan O’Brien / Christian Patracchini / Imogen Reid / Richard Skinner / Matthew Turner / Owen Vince / Tony White / Eley Williams

A unique collection of essays on the world of Cinema, its films, actors and directors, by a spectacular array of poets, playwrights, essayists, inter-disciplinary writers, novelists and academics. Includes new, exclusive work on subjects as diverse as fairy tale animation & toxic parenting in Coraline, the ‘unmentionable odour of death’ in Hitchcock’s The Trouble with Harry, horror & female empowerment in Panos Cosmatos’ Beyond the Black Rainbow, the cultural & political legacy of ‘les évènements’ in Olivier Assayas’ Après mai, Hal Hartley’s Amateur as the guillotine for a cineaste, angels & poetry in Wim Wenders’ Wings of Desire, singing grief as a paean to America in Felix van Groeningen’s The Broken Circle Breakdown, navigating neuro-degeneration through Michel Gondry’s Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Salieri as a doppelgänger in Amadeus, Nuri Bilge Ceylan’s Once Upon a Time in Anatolia as a long, dark night of the soul, Psycho & hypnosis, Eisenstein’s ‘montage of attractions’, the idea of ‘home’ in Antonioni’s The Passenger, mirrors as an infinite ‘mise en abyme’ in the films of Jean-Daniel Pollet, a coroner’s report as an act of re-enactment in Croatian filmmaker Ivan Martinac, magpies & Peter Strickland’s Berberian Sound Studio.

Keywords: film criticism, creative journalism, comparative essay, memoir, intertextuality

‘Really enjoying this collection of personal essays on cinema by Richard Skinner's Vanguard  Editions. A great reminder in the streaming world of hyper-marketised film that Cinema can be great art, and how that can impact our lives.’
— David Savill, author of They Are Trying To Break Your Heart
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pp.145 / £12 incl. UK p&p (please add £7 for Europe / £10 for the rest of the world)
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