Rinaldo Censi

Hyperrealism is usually taken to mean the current in painting that represents reality by starting from a photographic image which is enlarged as much as possible and then drawn, in an attempt to get as close as possible to life-like perception. However the phenomenon has developed in various ways and to date there is no single definition of hyperrealism.Starting from painterly hyperrealism, Rinaldo Censi investigates the characteristics, potential and variety of a cinema that could be termed hyperrealist and that (as in painting) has various different identities. The volume covers two main strands: on one hand it analyses the hyperrealism characterised by satire and social criticism against bourgeois mediocrity (including the works of Hershell Gordon Lewis, John Waters, Bob Clark and Willard Huyck); while on the other it dwells on a more subtle, profound aspect that emerges from a certain vein of experimental cinema, which explores the temporal dimension and encourages us to prioritise the photographic or chronophotographic element (this section includes Andy Warhol, Stan Brakhage, Carolee Schneemann, Kenneth Anger and Paul Sharits).