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ReFocus: The International Directors Series

ReFocus: The Films of Xavier Dolan

Edited by Andrée Lafontaine

Format

£105.00

In stock

About this book

Examines the work of the Québecois film director, producer and screenwriter, Xavier Dolan
  • Spans the entirety of Dolan’s prolific film and music video career
  • Provides cultural context to deepen appreciation of Dolan’s films
  • Structured in short essays, easily taken up for undergraduate teaching

Ever since his first feature film I Killed My Mother premiered at Cannes, every film from the 29-year-old director Xavier Dolan has generated significant critical interest. A recipient of numerous awards, Dolan has recently taken his career to an international level with The Death and Life of John F. Donovan.

As the first book-length study about Dolan, with case studies of key films like Mommy (2014), Tom at the Farm (2013) and It’s Only the End of the World (2016), this volume explores the global reach of small national and subnational cinemas. In particular, it uses Dolan’s cinema as a departure point to reconsider the position of Québec film and cultural imaginary within a global cinematic culture, as well as the intersections between national, millennial and queer filmmaking.

Table of contents

List of figures

Acknowledgments

Notes on Contributors

Film and Video Work by Xavier Dolan

I Introduction; Andrée Lafontaine

Part I Queer Universalism

1. The Transgressive Cinema of Xavier Dolan; Fulvia Massimi

2. The Dolandrama: Queer Male Authorship and the Fabulous Leading Lady; Julianne Pidduck

3. Xavier Dolan’s Backward Cinema: Straight Spaces, Queer Temporality, and Genealogical Interruptions in Tom at the Farm and It’s Only the End of the World; Florian Grandena and Pascal Gagné

Part II Local Auteur

4. Spaces and Times of Québec in Films by Xavier Dolan; Bill Marshall

5. Xavier Dolan’s J’ai tué ma mère and Québec’s New Cinema of mise-en-scène; Liz Czach

6. Transcreating Tom à la ferme and Juste la fin du monde; Marie Pascal

7. Xavier Dolan in India: The Alchemy of Film Viewing; Navaneetha Mokkil

Part III Millennial Auteur

8. Joy, Melancholy, and the Promise of Happiness in Xavier Dolan’s Mommy; Mercédès Baillargeon

9. "I am Looking for Someone Who Understands My Language　and Speaks It": Dolan’s Excessive Dialogues; Andrée Lafontaine

10. Fade to Grey: Dolan’s Pop Fashion and Surface Style; Nick Rees-Roberts

Bibliography

About the author

Andrée Lafontaine

Andrée Lafontaine is Assistant Professor of Anglophone Literature and Culture at the University of Tsukuba (Japan). She received a PhD in Film and Moving Image Studies from Concordia University (Montréal, Québec). She was Managing Editor of Synoptique—An Online Journal of Film and Moving Image Studies, and has published in the International Journal of Applied Psychoanalytic Studies and the Canadian Journal of Film Studies.

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