Product details
- ISBN 9781032983073
- Dimensions: 156 x 234mm
- Publication Date: 24 Jul 2026
- Publisher: Taylor & Francis Ltd
- Publication City/Country: GB
- Product Form: Hardback
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This anthology examines non-professional performance in cinema, exploring how "ordinary people" challenge dominant theories of film acting across fiction, documentary, and realist media aesthetics.
Readers will gain a comprehensive understanding of non-professional acting through diverse critical approaches ranging from neorealism to reality TV. This book delivers fresh insights by analyzing films from Asia, Palestine, Europe, Brazil, Africa, and North America, examining acting methods, directorial approaches, political commitment, and community representation. Authors unpack the realist aesthetics of "authenticity" to reveal the visual and social effects of casting non-actors, while highlighting the precarity and lived experiences of non-professional performers before, during, and after filming. This multifaceted analysis provides new theoretical frameworks for understanding the aesthetics and politics of non-professional film performance.
This book is written for students and practitioners of documentary and independent cinema seeking deeper understanding of performance aesthetics and politics. Scholars of film acting, film criticism, and media studies will find the complex critical questions and theoretical approaches particularly engaging. The collection is also suitable for courses in film theory, documentary studies, and cinema studies programmes.
Catherine Russell is Distinguished University Professor of Film Studies at Concordia University in Montreal. She is the author of seven books, most recently The Cinema of Barbara Stanwyck: Twenty-Six Short Essays on a Working Star (2023). She has also written extensively on documentary cinema, archive theory, Japanese cinema, and experimental film.
