"This book explores the Situationist Internationals paradoxical relationship with cinema from 1957 to 1972. The SI was a postwar avant-garde that condemned representations erosion of social life. Yet its membership cared deeply for cinema, the epitome of capitalist representation for that era. How did the Situationists reconcile their interest in filmic social space with their hopes to revolutionize social space in city streets? The Situationist International and the Social Space of Film: With and Against Cinema traces the SIs attempts throughout the nineteen sixties to work with cinemas associative power and against its passivity. It follows this project from early encounters with Lettrist cinema to 1968 and beyond, all the while contextualizing Situationist theory with the work of friends and foes like Henri Lefebvre, Marcel Mariën, Alain Resnais, Jean-Luc Godard and Agnès Varda. Meticulously researched and thoughtfully argued, Stobs book offers timely lessons for todays media artists, scholars and activists. Cinema is revealed to be a vital Situationist paradigm for social togetherness as well as for social separation"-- Provided by publisher.