Post-classical cinema : an international poetics of film narration /

Thanouli's is an extraordinary book. Employing the historical poetics pioneered by David Bordwell, he challenges Bordwell's contention that there is no such thing as postclassical cinema and makes a very strong case. (He agrees with Bordwell in rejecting "post-modernism" as so all-inclusive and unfocused as to be useless.) One of the book's great virtues is that Thanouli (Aristotle Univ. of Thessaloniki, Greece) bases his argument on analyses of films chosen from a wide range of national origins and genres--from Fight Club to Moulin Rouge, from Trainspotting to City of God, from Europa to Chungking Express, to name just a handful of the 14. All are marked by their use of hypermediacy to create a "heightened realism." The author investigates how these films manipulate cinematic causality, space, and time, and he delineates their self-reflexivity and communicativeness. His analyses are meticulous and thorough--completely Bordwellian. The master may not approve of Thanouli's conclusions (this reviewer finds them compelling), but he cannot but be flattered by the careful use of his methods. The book contains copious illustrations, but they are necessarily black and white, small in size, and not always easy to make out. Summing Up: Highly recommended. Lower-division undergraduates through faculty and professionals. W. A. Vincent Michigan State University