Signatures of the Visible

In "Signatures of the Visible", one of America's most influential critics explores film and its culture, interrogating the relationship between the imaginative screen world and the historical world onto which it is projected. Beginning with his essay "Reunification and Utopia in Mass Culture", Jameson questions the critical-utopian potential of film in our commodified culture, where contests over value, desire, and power increasingly take place in the realm of the visual. In the postmodern world, asks Jameson, can the filmic form replace the novel as the predominant instrument for exploring social reality and social evolution? Jamesons's premise here is that of his previous literary investigations: history is transmitted through form itself, not content. By seeking the historical dimension of the visual in "Signatures of the Visible", he evaluates the power of the filmic form as a vehicle for the critique of culture and the diagnosis of social life.