On gesture, or of the blissful promise

Abstract

In this text I situate gesture within film and media studies, introducing the centrality of this notion from modernity onwards, explaining the structural connection of its analysis and the mechanisms featuring cinema, and giving an account of the main existing resources covering this field. Employing this as a basis, I propose to read gesture as a ‘blissful promise’. To do so, I examine a set of key characteristics that build towards my definition by putting gesture in relation with temporality and continuity, theory and practice, resistance, pleasure, and reconciliation.