The Place of Breath in Cinema

This talk will consider a cultural history of breath in art and moving image studies, followed by a reflection on the particular significance of breath, wind and air in the contemporary film experience.

From Henry Gray’s beautiful scientific illustrations of the lungs in his anatomical study of the human body to rather more abstract, evocative images of stillness and silence in the films of Chantal Akerman and Lars von Trier, the foregrounding of the breathing body, air and other forms of airy presences (dust, mist, fog) have long been the subject of Davina Quinlivan’s groundbreaking research into the place of breath in cinema.

Davina Quinlivan is the author of The Place of Breath in Cinema (EUP, 2014) and Filming the Body in Crisis: Trauma, Healing and Hopefulness (Palgrave: 2015), and a Senior Lecturer in Critical and Historical Studies at Kingston School of Art, Kingston University.