Inspiration for a Libidinal Cinema: Klossowski, Lyotard, and the Tableau Vivant

Considered a "classic" text in film theory, Jean-François Lyotard's "Acinema" (1973) has been subject to recent critical reappraisal. Part of that consideration, I argue, would benefit from an excavation of Lyotard's own specific set of resources, an area left under-examined in the contemporary discussion of his work. In this essay, I look at one of Lyotard's philosophical forebearers, a figure who Lyotard engages in order to overcome the hegemonic theories of Freud and Lacan. With the aid of the erotic novelist and philosopher Pierre Klossowski, Lyotard crafts an alternative film theoretical discourse in distinction to the classical arguments of psychoanalytic film theory, as well as both realist and formalist notions of film economy.