When a work of art shows an interest in its own status as a work of art-either by reference to itself or to other works-we have become accustomed to calling this move "meta." While scholars and critics have, for decades, acknowledged reflexivity in films, it is only in Metacinema, for thefirst time, that a group of leading and emerging film theorists join to enthusiastically debate the meanings and implications of the meta for cinema. In ten new essays on vital canonical films including 8-1/2, Holy Motors, Funny Games, and Clouds of Sils Maria, contributors chart, explore, andadvance the ways in which metacinema is at once a mode of filmmaking and a heuristic for studying cinematic attributes. What results is not just an engagement with certain practices and concepts in widespread use in the movies (from Hollywood to global cinema, from documentary to the experimentaland avant-garde), but also the development of a veritable and vital new genre of film studies. With more and more films expressing reflexivity, recursion, reference to other films, mise-en-abime, seriality, and exhibiting related intertextual traits, the time is overdue for the kind of capacious yetnuanced critical study found in Metacinema. | Metacinema by David LaRocca, Paperback | Indigo Chapters