Cinemagritte

Lucy Fischer triumphs again with her fascinating monograph on René Magritte. In the course of detailing compelling 'resonances' regarding cinema and Magritte's paintings hitherto rarely addressed, Fischer revisits Surrealism, the extended French avant-garde, and the early Hollywood cinema Magritte loved. Her broad-ranging, original, and exhaustive intermedial research not only offers a new lens for looking at Magritte but introduces readers to many forgotten or little-known surrealist and silent films. Above all, Fischer has unframed René Magritte's work from the 'the hermetic world of art history so as to "repurpose" it for the broader world of film.' A pleasurable, must-read volume.

~E. Ann Kaplan, Distinguished Professor of English and Women's Gender and Sexuality Studies, Stony Brook University

Cinemagritte is a fascinating and absorbing seminal study of the oblique influence of surrealist painter René Magritte on various practice throughout film history. The scholarship is impeccable. It is an absolutely intriguing study that would be attractive in itself, but written by one of the leading film scholars in the world, it will be used as a model of inventive and creative scholarship.

~Timothy Corrigan, Professor of Cinema and Media Studies, University of Pennsylvania, and Author of a Cinema Without Walls and the Essay Film

In Cinemagritte, Lucy Fischer excavates the longstanding and reciprocal interest between René Magritte and the cinema. Far more than a history of this interest, Fischer creates a set of 'resonances' that emerges from a nuanced reading of the artist's career and preoccupations, at once visual and conceptual, that provides new and important analytic tools with which to understand a wide range of cinematic movements and preoccupations.

~Daniel Morgan, Associate Professor in Cinema and Media Studies, University of Chicago

By paying special attention to Rene Magritte's conceptual approach, Lucy Fischer has crafted a book filled with new insights on Surrealism in art and the American film-making avant-garde of the sixties. Without a doubt, Cinemagritte will appeal to both the specialist and to the general reader. Thoroughly illustrated, Fischer's book marks a step forward in the dialogue between film studies and the history of art.

~Angela Dalle Vacche, Editor of the Visual Turn: Film Theory and Art History

Lucy Fischer's Cinemagritte offers a dazzling analysis of René Magritte's little-known relation to the cinema. Drawn to the beauty and wit of the painter's oeuvre, she traces the ways in which Magritte's work raises conceptual, artistic, and philosophical issues that have direct relevance to film theory and practice. The result is a brilliant argument from a gifted writer who continues to write eloquently about cinema and the arts.

~Patrice Petro, Professor of Film and Media Studies, University of California, Santa Barbara