Nicole Brenez is a professor of film studies at the University of Paris 3/Sorbonne Nouvelle and the Director of the Department "Analyse et Culture cinématographique" at Paris' film school La Fémis since 2017. She has curated avant-garde film series at the Cinémathèquefrançaise since 1996 and is the author and editor of numerous books on film.

Introduction; Part 1: Figurative Economies, 1. Why Must the Dead Be Killed?:Observations on John Woo, 2. Capitalism: Jack Smith, 3. "Unusual Approach to Bodies": Robert Bresson with Jean Eustache, Philippe Garrel, and Monte Hellman, 4. Sketch/Skip/Excessive Synthesis: Jacques Tourneur's Cat People, Dario Argento's Suspiria, John McTiernan's Predator; Part 2: Adventures of the Classical Body in Modern Cinema, 1. S.M. Eisenstein, Bella Figura, and Formal Deflagration, 2. Anti-Bodies: Instances of the Classical Body in the Work of Jean Genet, Rainer Werner Fassbinder, and Gus Van Sant, 3. Short-Circuit: Michael Cimino's Heaven's Gate; Part 3: New Abstractions in Figurative Invention, 1. The Contemporary Character, 2. The Being According to the Image: Orson Welles's Citizen Kane, 3. "'Cause it sounds more French": On a Secondary Character in Maurice Pialat's Police, 4. Thefts: Robert Bresson's Pickpocket; Part 4: Summonses - Figures of the Actor, 1. The Actor as Affective Citizen: Fassbinder's Beware of a Holy Whore, 2. Lassie, Unfaithful to Dogs: Fred M. Wilcox's Lassie Come Home, 3. "Die for Mr. Jensen": John Cassavetes's A Woman Under the Influence, 4. John Woo by John Woo: The Take and the Shot; Part 5: Image Circuits, 1. Travolta Himself: Dance and the Circulation of Images - Fantasy, Phantasm, and Phantasmata, 2. Thirst: Barbara Loden's Wanda, 3. The Visual Study: The Forces of a Cinematic Form - Al Razutis, Ken Jacobs, Brian De Palma, 4. The First Shot: Philippe Garrel's Liberté, la nuit, 5. Anti-Oedipus: John Woo's Heroes Shed No Tears; Part 6: Theoretical Invention, 1. "As You Are": Representation and Figuration - Questions of Terminology in the Work of Barthes, Eisenstein, Benjamin, and Epstein, 2. The Physics of Cinema: Introduction to the Literary and Filmic Oeuvre of Paul Sharits, 3. In the Meantime: Kirk Tougas' The Politics of Perception, 4. Epilogue: The Accident; Bibliography; Index