ABSTRACT
The films and programs in this collection have been chosen for their thematic suitability and seductive pull. I have shared each one with students, friends and colleagues — argued about them, justified their merits, and compromised over their weaknesses. I have revisited them more times than I can remember. When screen material captures the imagination to such an extent that practical and mundane preoccupations are set aside, one has in effect submitted to the liminal space. Wild/lives is a product of this submission. Cinema and concentrated episode by episode television viewing has the potential to draw viewers into an almost symbiotic relationship with the text. Having worked my way through the entire three-season Deadwood package for instance, I became enveloped not only by the fictional world of the series, but also the ideas and affect of the experience. This meeting of observer and observed, gave birth to a third entity or way of seeing. That is what I have presented here.
