Published in [in]Transition: Journal of Videographic Film & Moving Image Studies, 7.3, 2020 and reviewed by Laura Mulvey (Birkbeck, University of London) and Malcolm Turvey (Tufts University). Link to film and reviews.
* Sight and Sound, Best Video Essays of 2021
25 minutes, 1080p, stereo.
“I watched Amuse-œil a number of times, fascinated by Faden’s insights and his arguments. But after some time, I began to feel that perhaps ‘there was more to it than meets the eye’; was there a suggestion that the video itself could, or even should, be read interrogatively? It seemed as though Faden, while spreading his insights across his essay, had left certain trains of thought open and had avoided linking up themes and images that could potentially inform each other. Was he, I wondered, asking his spectator to learn to see interrogatively? If this was a trap, I was ready to fall into it . . .”
– Laura Mulvey