The Tactile Eye Touch and the Cinematic Experience [Paperback]

The Tactile Eyeexpands on phenomenological analysis and film theory in its accessible and beautifully written exploration of the visceral connection between films and their viewers. Jennifer M. Barker argues that the experience of cinema can be understood as deeply tactilea sensuous exchange between film and viewer that goes beyond the visual and aural, gets beneath the skin, and reverberates in the body. Barker combines analysis of embodiment and phenomenological film theory to provide an expansive description of cinematic tactility. She considers feminist experimental film, early cinema, animation, and horror, as well as classic, modernist, and postmodern cinema; films from ten national cinemas; and work by Chuck Jones, Buster Keaton, the Quay Brothers, Satyajit Ray, Carolee Schneemann, and Tom Tykwer, among others.

Jennifer M. Barkeris Assistant Professor of Moving Image Studies in the Department of Communication, Georgia State University.

List of Illustrations
Acknowledgments
Introduction: Eye Contact
Tactility
Film's Body
Moving Pictures
Touch and Go

1. Skin
Textural Analysis
Film's Skin
Eroticism
Pleasure
Horror
History Mon Amour

2. Musculature
Through a Glass Deftly
Empathy
Here and There
A Tenuous Grasp
Apprehension

3. Viscera
Heart-stopping
Hiccups
La Petite Mort
Child's Play
Conclusion: Inspiration
Breathtaking
The Wind in the Trees
Everywhere and Always
The Big Swallow

Notes
Bibliography
Index

With her provocative focus on the tactile dimensions of cinema, Jennifer Barker crucially contributes to a reinvigoration of film theoretical debates. This book is a must-read not only for those interested in the interface between cinema and the body, but for anyone who believes in cinema's endless capacity to surprise us. Elena del Rlã\