Overview

From Tattoo to Saw, this book considers mainstream cinema's representation of the viscerally dominated and marked body. Examining a shift in the late twentieth century to narratives that highlight subjection, endurance and willed-acquiescence, it probes the confluence of pain, pleasure and consent to analyse the implications of the change.

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9781349339891

Table of Contents

Reviews

'Really excellent: very well written and extremely well informed, both about BDSM and movies. The opening chapter very usefully disposes of some 'standard' psychoanalytic approaches to BDSM, and this greatly helps to situate the ensuing discussions of the controlled body in films in a refreshingly different context from that in which this subject is still all too often discussed.' - Julian Petley, Brunel University, UK 'Steven Allen's Cinema, Pain and Pleasure is sensational: it deals with extreme sensory experiences, it is controversial and provocative and it is very, very good. It requires a mind as calm, lucid and scalpel-like as Allen's to write so well about material like this. He is able to embrace a feeling for the pleasures of pain, domination and submission, and the significance of those pleasures, without falling into mere polemics or political incorrectness. This is an astonishingly illuminating piece of work that keeps its head and maintains its visceral sensitivity, wonderfully close to and wonderfully clear-eyed about the issues and films it analyses.' Richard Dyer, King's College London, UK

'Really excellent: very well written and extremely well informed, both about BDSM and movies. The opening chapter very usefully disposes of some 'standard' psychoanalytic approaches to BDSM, and this greatly helps to situate the ensuing discussions of the controlled body in films in a refreshingly different context from that in which this subject is still all too often discussed.' - Julian Petley, Brunel University, UK 'Steven Allen's Cinema, Pain and Pleasure is sensational: it deals with extreme sensory experiences, it is controversial and provocative and it is very, very good. It requires a mind as calm, lucid and scalpel-like as Allen's to write so well about material like this. He is able to embrace a feeling for the pleasures of pain, domination and submission, and the significance of those pleasures, without falling into mere polemics or political incorrectness. This is an astonishingly illuminating piece of work that keeps its head and maintains its visceral sensitivity, wonderfully close to and wonderfully clear-eyed about the issues and films it analyses.' Richard Dyer, King's College London, UK

'Really excellent: very well written and extremely well informed, both about BDSM and movies. The opening chapter very usefully disposes of some 'standard' psychoanalytic approaches to BDSM, and this greatly helps to situate the ensuing discussions of the controlled body in films in a refreshingly different context from that in which this subject is still all too often discussed.' - Julian Petley, Brunel University, UK 'Steven Allen's Cinema, Pain and Pleasure is sensational: it deals with extreme sensory experiences, it is controversial and provocative and it is very, very good. It requires a mind as calm, lucid and scalpel-like as Allen's to write so well about material like this. He is able to embrace a feeling for the pleasures of pain, domination and submission, and the significance of those pleasures, without falling into mere polemics or political incorrectness. This is an astonishingly illuminating piece of work that keeps its head and maintains its visceral sensitivity, wonderfully close to and wonderfully clear-eyed about the issues and films it analyses.' Richard Dyer, King's College London, UK

Author Information

STEVEN ALLEN is Senior Lecturer in Film Studies at the University of Winchester, UK, where he is also Programme Director for MA Cultural Studies. He has published on representations of landscapes, cultural memory and the body, as well as animation. He is co-editor of Framing Film: Cinema and the Visual Arts (2012).

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