The Dardenne Brothers’ Cinematic Parables

The Dardenne Brothers’ Cinematic Parables
Author: Joel Mayward
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
Total Pages: 253
Release: 2022-09-30
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 1000686833

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The Dardenne Brothers’ Cinematic Parables examines the work of Belgian filmmakers Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne, who have been celebrated for their powerfully affecting social realist films. Though the Dardenne brothers’ films rarely mention religion or God, they have received wide recognition for their moral complexity and spiritual resonance. This book brings the Dardennes’ filmography into consideration with theological aesthetics, Christian ethics, phenomenological film theory, and continental philosophy. The author explores the brothers’ nine major films—beginning with The Promise (1996) and culminating in Young Ahmed (2019)—through the hermeneutics of philosopher Paul Ricoeur. By using Ricoeur’s description of "parable" as a "narrative-metaphor" which generates an existential limit-experience, Joel Mayward crafts an innovative Ricoeurian hermeneutic for making theological interpretations of cinema. Drawing upon resources from three disciplinary spheres—theology, philosophy, and film studies—in a dynamic interweaving approach, Mayward proposes that the Dardennes create postsecular cinematic parables which evoke theological and ethical responses in audiences’ imaginations through the brothers’ distinctive filmmaking style, what is termed "transcendent realism." The book ultimately demonstrates how the Dardenne brothers are truly doing, not merely depicting, theology and ethics through the cinematic form—it presents film as theology, what Mayward refers to as "theocinematics." This is valuable reading for scholars of theology, philosophy, and film studies, as well as film critics and cinephiles interested in the cinema of the Dardenne brothers.


The Dardenne Brothers’ Cinematic Parables
Language: en
Pages: 253
Authors: Joel Mayward
Categories: Religion
Type: BOOK - Published: 2022-09-30 - Publisher: Taylor & Francis

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The Dardenne Brothers’ Cinematic Parables examines the work of Belgian filmmakers Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne, who have been celebrated for their powerfully
The Dardenne Brothers’ Cinematic Parables
Language: en
Pages: 259
Authors: Joel Mayward
Categories: Religion
Type: BOOK - Published: 2022-09-30 - Publisher: Taylor & Francis

GET EBOOK

The Dardenne Brothers’ Cinematic Parables examines the work of Belgian filmmakers Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne, who have been celebrated for their powerfully
The Theological Power of Film
Language: en
Pages: 267
Authors: James Lorenz
Categories: Religion
Type: BOOK - Published: 2024-06-21 - Publisher: Taylor & Francis

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This book explores the theological power of film and seeks to render a properly theological account of cinematic art. It considers: What theology and theologica
Thinking Film
Language: en
Pages: 425
Authors: Richard Kearney
Categories: Philosophy
Type: BOOK - Published: 2023-06-29 - Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing

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Hailed as one of America's original art forms, film has the distinctive character of crossing high and low art. But film has done more than this. According to A
Reel Parables
Language: en
Pages: 205
Authors: James Hogan
Categories: Performing Arts
Type: BOOK - Published: 2008 - Publisher: Paulist Press

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"This book takes on topics where critics fear to tread, into the moral and religious areas of life that really matter to ordinary people." James Hogan takes twe