Feminism and the Cinema of Experience

“Camerawork is motherwork: beyond any opposition between activity and passivity, care and creation, singularity and commonality. Lori Jo Marso’s new book exhorts us to join in nothing less than the feminist project of transforming the world. In the meantime, it holds us, like the films it discusses, in a space where we can bear and explore our anxiety, ambivalence, even dread. A must-read for anybody who has access to a camera.” - Domietta Torlasco, author of The Rhythm of Images: Cinema beyond Measure

“Lori Jo Marso’s contention that film has the ability to invite viewers to feel like feminists makes a significant intervention in feminist film theory. She shows that representing the experiences or struggles of women is less important than the creation of responses in the spectator that can be understood in feminist terms. Her claim that authentic representation is not central to feminist cinema, for example, is newly necessary in an age in which ‘representation’ has become once again central to popular feminism. An exciting, original, and beautifully argued book.” - Rosalind Galt, author of Alluring Monsters: The Pontianak and Cinemas of Decolonization

"In centering women and nonbinary filmmakers’ cinematography—the art of camera placement, framing, and movement—Marso makes a compelling case that 'the cinematic depiction of experience and the subsequent solicitation of uncomfortable feelings in viewers … is feminist film’s most transgressive political intervention.'" - Eileen G’Sell, Hyperallergic

"Marso makes a double contribution, attending not only to the depiction of women’s underrepresented experiences, but also to feelings."

"[A] beautifully and accessibly written book. . . . Marso’s analysis . . . is sharp, provocative, inspiring, and hopeful." - Liza Taylor, Political Theory

"Offering no guarantee that this future will be better than the present or past, Marso adopts a compassionate pessimism that refuses to choose between utopian fantasy and dystopian despair. It remains unclear how a cinema of experience might change its viewers or the world, but the hope is that it will." - David Sorfa, Simone de Beauvoir Studies

"The parallel framing of Akerman and de Beauvoir unveils new synergies between their works." - Beth Pyner, Historical Journal of Film, Radio, and Television