Claude Chabrol's Aesthetics of Opacity

Claude Chabrol's cinema is generally associated with a specific type of psychological thriller, one set in the French provinces and fascinated with murder, incest, fragmented families, unstable spaces and inscrutable female characters. But Chabrol's films are both deceptively accessible and deeply reflexive, and in this innovative reappraisal of his filmography Catherine Dousteyssier-Khoze explores the Chabrol who was influenced by Balzac, Magritte and Stanley Kubrick. Bringing to the fore Chabrol's 'aesthetic of opacity', the book deconstructs the apparent clarity and comfort of his chosen genre, encouraging the viewer to reflect on the relationship between illusion and reality, and the status of the film image itself.

Author: Catherine Dousteyssier-Khoze
Publisher: Edinburgh University Press
Published: 05/13/2019
Pages: 200
Binding Type: Paperback
Weight: 0.75lbs
Size: 9.00h x 6.00w x 0.50d
ISBN: 9781474431866

About the Author

Catherine Dousteyssier-Khoze is Reader in French at Durham University. She specializes in (19th-century) French literature and French film. She is also the author of a début novel, La logique de l'amanite (Grasset, 2015).