The Codex of the First Light

Exploring how art cinema cultivates existential health through the films of Olivier Assayas

This book proposes that cinephilia can facilitate existential health, which makes palpable the potential for subjectivity to be recomposed through meaningful encounters with cinema. Adam Szymanskidraws on the ethos of psychoanalyst F lix Guattari and thinks with select films from director Olivier Assayas--including Clouds of Sils Maria and Personal Shopper--to theorize how the cinema can be invested with therapeutic value. Cinephilia and the Adventure for Existential Health engages the history of psychoanalytic film theory, excavates its long-standing concern with the production of spectatorial subjectivity, and challenges pathologizing understandings of cinema spectatorship couched in identification, fetishism, and voyeurism. By embracing the indeterminacy of the cinematic experience and the adventurous disposition of cinephilia, the book allies itself to the pursuit of collective health and challenges the logic of medical power.