In the first book-length study of Romanticism in relation to American film, Michelle Devereaux takes established theories of contemporary American independent cinema as a point of entry, exploring the underlying philosophical and aesthetic Romantic connections between a selection of seven films from four popular filmmakers: Wes Anderson, Sofia Coppola, Spike Jonze and Charlie Kaufman.
Primarily dealing with questions of identity, imagination and the relation between self and world, these films also emphasise the anxieties of our own time: the nostalgia for an imaginary past, and the fear of an uncertain future.
Michelle Devereaux is a film journalist and scholar. She received her doctorate in Film Studies from the University of Edinburgh and has taught film theory, history and criticism at the University of Edinburgh and the University of Birmingham.

Michelle Devereaux is a film journalist and scholar. She received her doctorate in Film Studies from the University of Edinburgh and has taught film theory, history and criticism at the University of Edinburgh and the University of Birmingham. She is a board member of intersectional feminist journal on visual culture MAI and currently lives in British Columbia, Canada.

Introduction: Filmmaking as Romantic Quest

What is 'Romantic'?

Imagination and the Romantic Sensibility

Romanticism, Sincerity and Authenticity: A Problem of Identity

'Metamodernism' and Romantic Irony

From the New Wave to New Hollywood to Now

Chapter Overviews

The Sublime and the Beautiful in Eighteenth-century Aesthetics

The Royal Tenenbaums and the Painful Picturesque

Trapped in a Never-ending Play: Anderson's Use of Diegetic Space

A Search for Meaning Within Postmodern Pastiche

The Middle-aged Man and the Sea: The Life Aquatic and the Sentimental Sublime

The Camp Cathedral: Eclecticism in Anderson's Mise-en-scène and Dialogue

Conclusion

2. 'An Endless Succession of Mirrors': Irony, Ambiguity and the Crisis
of Authenticity in Synecdoche, New York

Romantic Irony: From Kant and Schlegel to Byron and Beyond

Embracing Irony and Undermining Realism in Synecdoche, New York

'A Series of Mad Visions Perhaps': The Screen as the Site of Confused Subjectivity

The Mise en Abyme and the Mathematical Sublime

Conclusion

Gendered Expressions of Sublimity: The Egotistical and Feminine Sublimes Staging Sublimity in Seventies Suburbia

Mood Creation and the 'Emotional Core' of the Film

The Aesthetics and Politics of 'Pretty'

'Preparing to Give Assault': Creating the 'Pseudo-political' gothic

Conclusion

The Role of Will in the Romantic Imagination

Sublime Obscurity and the Mind's Eye

Photographing Sound in a Disembodied Mise-en-scène

'The Light of Sense Goes Out': Intersubjectivity and the Acknowledgment of Others Conclusion

5. 'Because I'm a Wild Animal' : Nature Versus Nurture in Fantastic Mr Fox

Romantic Conceptions of Childhood and Nature

Digging for the Middle Ground: Fantastic Mr Fox and American Pastoralism

'A Native Blend of Myth and Reality': The Landscape of Imagination

Little Savages in the Garden: Ash, Kristofferson and the Romantic Child

Mourning the Loss of Animal Nature

Conclusion

Fancy and Material Excess as Alternative Romantic Discourse

Marie Antoinette and the 'Material Sublime'

The 'Romantic Ethic, Daydreaming and Modern Consumption

Revolution, Modernity and Shifting Personal Identities

'Like a Little Piece of Cake': The Body, Consumption and Moral Utility

'Dying into Life': Embracing the Romantic Depth Model?

Conclusion

The Romantic Relationship to Reality: A Questioning of Absolutes

The Battle Between Self-consciousness and Solipsism

'Bravery in the Midst of Indeterminacy': Emotion as a Form of Revolution