The Cinema of Attractions Reloaded

Wanda Strauven

Die Grosse Attraktion (Max Reichmann, 1931), Nie yuan (Keqing Chen & Kuang-chi Tu, 1952), Novyy attraktsion (Boris Dolin, 1957), L’Attrazione (Mario Gariazzo, 1987), Fatal Attraction (Adrian Lyne, 1987), Atração Satânica (Fauzi Mansur, 1990), Attrazione pericolosa (Bruno Mattei, 1993), Family Attraction (Brian Hecker, 1998), The Last Big Attraction (Hopwood DePree, 1999), The Rules of Attraction (Roger Avary, 2002), Animal Attraction (Keith Hooker, 2004), Futile Attraction (Mark Prebble, 2004), Laws of Attraction (Peter Howitt, 2004). This is just a selection of movie titles that over the last seventy-five years have ensured the film spectator diegetic attractions; from shorts to feature length films; from comedy to romance, from drama and thriller to low-budget horror; from the USA to the USSR, from Hong Kong to Brazil. None of these films – not even the most popular one, Fatal Attraction – is discussed in the present anthology. What is studied, however, is the attractiveness of the notion “attraction,” its use and usefulness, within the field of cinema studies and beyond.