Jacques Aumont's 'Le montreur d'ombre' Explores Shadow in Cinema

Jacques Aumont's book 'Le montreur d'ombre' (Vrin) investigates the role of shadow in film history. It features vivid descriptions, such as a helicopter in 'Apocalypse Now' briefly becoming a shadow like a 'giant mosquito,' and the murder of Desdemona in Orson Welles's 'Othello,' where the Moor first appears as a creeping shadow with an enormous head, contrasting with Desdemona's white face. The analysis extends to Mark Lewis's 'Rush Hour Morning an Evening Cheapside,' where a camera films London's City population in reverse, making shadows appear as people and bodies as their shadows. Aumont goes beyond a simple 'essay on cinema,' incorporating a metaphysics of shadow based on Plato's reflections on the immaterial, a commentary on Goethe's 'Theory of Colours' from a perception psychology perspective, and a hypothesis of a 'shadow stage' that displaces Lacan's 'mirror stage.' Notable pages immerse the reader in shadow as a milieu ('inhabiting the shadow'), building on discussions of cast shadow. The book also compares shadow to night, 'the deepest shadow we can encounter.' The review is by Dork Zabunyan.