Introduction

This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book details the story of marginality and creative resistance, remapping a new cinematic discourse through the creative and critical texts that have kept magic realism relevant. It makes the case for Franz Roh as a pioneer in a new light, where magic realism springs from early experiments in photographic reproduction. The book posits an ethno-magic-realist documentary film form that can be traced through the work of Eisenstein, Bunuel, Jean Rouch and into the work of Ciro Guerra. It also investigates some of the crucial aspects of a world cinema that is inherently, overtly, magic-realist according to the critical discourse set out in Roh and Alejo Carpentier’s writings. The book examines Fredric Jameson’s theory of a cinematic magic realism across Latin American, East Central European, and former Soviet cinemas, a crucial intervention in the field that warrants close readings of the films.