The Afterlife of Art and Objects

Like the tableau vivant, the cinematic still life experienced a stunning revival and reinvention in the late twentieth century. In contrast to the stereotypically postmodern overload of images, the still life in film initiates a moment of repose and contemplation within a medium more often defined by the forward rush of moving pictures. It also involves a profound meditation on the relationship between images and objects consistent with practices as diverse as the Spanish baroque still life and the Surrealist variation on the genre. With the work of Terence Davies and Alain Cavalier’s Thérèse (1986) as its primary touchstones, this chapter situates this renewed interest in the cinematic still life within the context of both the late twentieth-century cinema of painters and a socially oriented art cinema that focuses on marginal people and overlooked objects rather than the hegemonic historical narratives also undergoing a revival at the time.