Unexplained presence

Unexplained presence

Tisa Bryant

Book - 2024

"In Tisa Bryant's Unexplained Presence, readers are spectators of mise-en-scènes in which black subjectivity has been distorted and denied within various visual narratives. Moving from cultural analysis to cinematic (re)creation, Bryant's prose traverses like a tracking shot through John Schlesinger's Darling, Patricia Rozema's Mansfield Park and Virginia Woolf's Orlando, giving voice to characters whom have otherwise been structurally silenced. As Pulitzer-prize winning author Margo Jefferson aptly points out in her afterword, Tisa Bryant doesn't merely write about film; she is an "auteur," a "cultural anthropologist," and a "virtuosic critic-artist." Since its original publ...ication with Leon Works in 2007, Unexplained Presence has been foundational among poets, scholars, and film critics and with this publication, Tisa Bryant's legacy as one of the most innovative voices in contemporary literature is preserved"--

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Subjects
Black people in literature.
Black people in motion pictures.
Black people in art.
Women, Black.
Women artists, Black.
Published
[Seattle] : Wave Books 2024.
Language
English
Main Author
Tisa Bryant (author)
Edition
First Wave Books edition
Physical Description
xii, 174 pages ; 20 cm
Bibliography
Includes bibliographical references.
ISBN
9798891060050
  • Preface
  • Darling
  • Something in the Air
  • While London Burns... Violet is Blue
  • California Negroes
  • Under Cover of Darkness
  • In Melville's Jungle
  • Andre's Masked Ball
  • Looking a Mad Dog in the Eyes
  • Portrait of a Lady
  • The Head of the Moor
  • The Problem of Dido
  • Unexplained Presence
  • Credits
  • Afterword
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review

For this brilliant debut, Bryant narrates the movements of peripheral African-American characters in film and other media--characters who seem to be there innocuously, as in Stephen Frears's Sammy & Rosie Get Laid or Francois Ozon's 8 Femmes--but end up loaded with multiple, conflicting meanings: "Caty's eyes shut in grief, or its double, ecstasy; her eyes shut within the shot. This is the moment, the cliched ending. Le samourai is dying. But she does not run to him, calling his name through a veil of tears. Her hand does not reach for eyes, her mouth, or her heart, as she watches, as we watch, him die." (May) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved

(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved

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