The Biopolitical Turn in World Cinema: Visual Landscapes of Social Power

Explores biopolitical currents in world cinema, paying particular attention to postsocialist and postrevolutionary filmmakers from Iran, Russia, China, and Romania.

The Biopolitical Turn in World Cinema explores how cinematic form and content understand and represent relationships of power between the state and life itself. Cinema, it argues, is both technical apparatus and aesthetic object and as such is imminently biopolitical, both as a medium of governmental control and as a site of resistance. The book analyzes a range of cinematic movements, paying particular attention to postsocialist and postrevolutionary filmmakers from Iran (Asghar Farhadi), Russia (Sergei Loznitsa), China (Xiaoshuai Wang), and Romania (Radu Jude). The book concludes by looking toward filmmakers-from Jordan Peele to Albert Serra-who further illuminate the limits of biopolitical paradigms, offering new ways of understanding contemporary political and ethical challenges posed by neoliberal globalization. While this book will appeal to film studies specialists, it is also a comprehensive introduction to film theory and biopolitical thought that will appeal to nonacademic and student readers with an interest in the subjects.

Luca Barattoni is Associate Professor of World Cinema at Clemson University and the author of Italian Post-Neorealist Cinema.