Scarecrow Press
Pages: 252
Trim: 6¼ x 9¼
978-0-8108-8590-5 • Hardback • October 2012 • $98.00 • (£75.00)
978-0-8108-8591-2 • eBook • October 2012 • $93.00 • (£72.00)
Sébastien Lefait is Lecturer in English Literature and Film at the University of Corsica.
Contents
Acknowledgements
Introduction
Chapter 1 Dystopian (Super)Panopticism: from Nineteen Eighty-Four to Orwellian Films
Chapter 2 Closed-Circuit Filmmaking: Cinema in the Age of Panopticism Come True
Chapter 3 Audiovisual Fiction and Synoptic Surveillance: the Televisualisation of Life
Chapter 4 Cinema in the Catoptic Age: Visions of a Sousveillance World
Conclusion: Surveillance Screens—The New Site of Film?
Bibliography
Filmography
About the author
This volume will be of interest to film and media students and can serve to supplement other film reference works in modern cinema. It may also be of interest to those in surveillance studies, sociology, and information technology.
— American Reference Books Annual
Lefait presents a series of detailed arguments throughout the book about the intertwined relationship between surveillance and cinema/television, and our position, both watching screens and being watched by them. Overall, the book provides a very clear analysis of the various debates about surveillance and popular culture, with some well-chosen and closely-analysed films and television programmes throughout.
— Cercles
The book is solidly written and engaging throughout. . . .After reading Surveillance on Screen:Monitoring Contemporary Films and Television Programs by Sébastien Lefait, [the reader has] a greater understanding and appreciation of the purpose of surveillance in cinema and how the techniques are applied in some of the best known surveillance films.
— Film Matters