Imaging Religion in Film The Politics of Nostalgia [Hardcover]

This book offers a new methodology for examining the ethico-political dimensions of religion and film which foregrounds film's social power both to shape subjectivity and to image contemporary social contradictions and analyses three specific films: Kurosawa's Dersu Uzala ; Kiarostami's Taste of Cherry ; and the Coens' The Man Who Wasn't There .Introduction: Interpreting Religion and Film PART I: FILM STUDY Akira Kurosawa: 'What is a Thing?': Posing the Religious in Dersu Uzala (1975) Kiarostami: The Face of Modernity Alienation and Transcendence in Taste of Cherry (1997) Joel and Ethan Coen: Searching for a Way Out Alienation and Intimacy in The Man Who Wasn't There (2001) PART II: THEORETICAL REFLECTIONS Religious Realism

'Hamner offers religious studies, cultural studies, and philosophical studies something new and important: a theory of cinema, politics and religion as they coalesce in the production and reception of film. The book is more than the sum of its parts. Hamner crafts her argument wisely and well to argue for film viewing as a pedagogy of the self with profound implications for ethics and politics. Intelligent, thoughtful, and beautifully written.' - Ellen T. Armour, Vanderbilt Divinity School

'This is a profoundly beautiful, original book. By taking seriously the sensual the visual, auditory, and tactile dimensions of film, Hamner ushers us into new ways of experiencing the religious in film. This is not a book about religious stories. Nor is it another book about religious imagery in film. Instead, by attending to what she calls 'ordinary transcendence,' Hamner makes religious feeling compelling. And she shows us how to see it in all kinds of films from Hollywood blockbusters to small critically acclaimed works of international cinema. This critically informed and astonishingly lyrical book promises to change the ways we think, teach, and write about religion and film in the 21st century.' - Laura S. Levitt, Professor of RlóÏ