The Expansive Pleasures of the New Cinephilia

In the latter half of the twentieth century, the dominant paradigm of Euro-American cinephilia was one that prioritized auteurs and showed much greater interest in the film text and its aesthetics than in the larger social, industrial, and cultural contexts that surrounded it. This model—mostly the creation of one minority group, namely straight, white men—often valued a synchronic notion of pleasure, which they frequently tied to privileged moments in films. The new cinephilia of the twenty-first century is socially diverse and enabled by the internet, and it has a more expansive notion of pleasure that is inflected by both the film text and its multiple, diachronic contexts. The essay offers a personal account of passage from traditional to new cinephilia, catalyzed by watching Jane Campion’s In the Cut (2003) and following its shifting critical reception—and a deepening cinephilic pleasure—since its release.