Cinema and Anachronism

In this book, Daniele Dottorini establishes a starting point toward a theory of the anachronism of cinematic images through an exploration of existing films, theories, and discourses concerning the temporality of images that have shaped the history of cinema.
Dottorini examines the cinematic form as a specific way of working with the temporality of images, emphasizing its medium specificity in its ability to employ a confrontation with the history of both the image itself and the discourses that have reflected on it simultaneously, particularly within the contemporary sphere. The image is always in a sense spectral, phantasmal, and open, he argues - it is a field of tensions which has the unique ability to form connections to other images, epochs, gazes, and visions of the past as it is used time and again in new and different works.
By building on the work of scholars and artists that have come before him, including Warburg, Pasolini, Deleuze, Benjamin, Godard, and Herzog, among many others, Dottorini positions the image as not only - and not even primarily - a datapoint to be analyzed, but as a form that is constantly moving, changing, and forming new connections. Ultimately, this book constitutes a significant contribution to our understanding of the image as a path built through encounters and comparisons, which is but one facet of establishing a history of cinema as a story of returns and survivals.

Daniele Dottorini is Associate Professor of Film Studies at the University of Calabria, Italy. He is also Film Programmer for Festival dei Popoli - International Festival of Documentary Films (Florence, Italy). He is member of the editorial board of "Fata Morgana", "Fata Morgana Web", contributor to the Istituto dell'Enciclopedia Italiana Treccani, contributor to "Sentieri Selvaggi 21st". His research focuses on Film Theory, on the relationship between Cinema and Philosophy, and on Documentary Film Theory. He was editor of Alain Badiou's writings on cinema (Del Capello e del Fango. Riflessioni sul cinema, 2009). He has contributed to The Philosophy of Werner Herzog, 2020. Among his books: Per un cinema del reale. Forme e pratiche del documentario italiano contemporaneo (Udine 2013), monographs on David Lynch, James Cameron, Jean Renoir, Werner Herzog. He is author of La passione del reale. Il documentario o la creazione del mondo, Milano 2018.