This collection of essays by Peter Gidal includes “Theory and Definition of Structural/Materialist Film” and other texts on metaphor, narrative, and against sexual representation. Also discussed in their specificity are works by Samuel Beckett, Thérèse Oulton, Gerhard Richter and Andy Warhol. Throughout, Gidal’s writing attempts a political aesthetics, polemical as well as theoretical. One of the foremost experimental film-makers in Britain since the late 1960s, Peter Gidal was a central figure at the London Film-Makers’ Co-operative, and taught advanced film theory at the Royal College of Art. His previous books include Andy Warhol: Films and Paintings (1971), Understanding Beckett (1986) and Materialist Film (1989).

“An essential point of access to the questions and considerations through which Peter Gidal has consistently fought for film – and vision itself – as a process of interrogation. This collection renews the agency of his primary question: ‘What is it to view, how to view the unknown?’” - Stuart Comer, Chief Curator: Media & Performance Art, Museum of Modern Art, New York

“Radical, spirited, provocative … Inspiring and invaluable, really. In here we find a welcome voice, singularly unpatronising, nuanced yet fearless in the face of the mind-narrowing opacity of ‘everyday life’.” - Cerith Wyn Evans

Hardcover 196 x 132 x 27 mm 282 pages, including 16pp of colour images

Square-backed case, debossed cover and spine Ribbon marker, head and tail bands Individually shrinkwrapped