Fabio VighiCritical Theory and Film
Rethinking Ideology Through Film Noir
Introduction
1. The Dialectic's Narrow Margin: Film Noir between Adorno and Hegel
Self-limitation in film noir
The noir panorama beyond spectatorship
Adorno goes to Hollywood
The negative and the whole
Ontology of self-deception in film noir
The Narrow Margin and double visions
A detour on ideology
2. On Critical Theory's Dialectical Dilemma
Horkheimer's method
The Kantian subtext
Hegel: contradiction (not) resolved
From mimesis to utopia
Critical Theory's fetishistic disavowal
3. A Configuration Pregnant with Tension: Fritz Lang for Critical Theory
Beyond the doubt of appearances
On polaroids and truth
Framing the subject
Sublimation in The Blue Gardenia
From paranoia to repetition
The gaze in the frame
The art of excremental painting
Coda: the enjoyment of film in theory
References