Joanna Hogg

Film critics often describe the films of British filmmaker Joanna Hogg (b. 1960) as challenging, concentrated, and opaque. Enelow (English, Fordham Univ.; Method Acting and Its Discontents: On American Psycho-Drama) draws upon the theories of art historian Michael Fried and psychoanalytic theorist Joan Copjec to clarify Hogg’s work through scrutinizing elements and motifs of her six feature films, from 2007’s Unrelated to 2022’s The Eternal Daughter. Hogg’s approach in both writing and filmmaking, Enelow posits, creates films that embody absorption and are immersed within themselves, where scenes and dialogue encourage the feeling that characters and events exist entirely irrelevant to the camera and the audience. Her films lean into a self-referential realm, engaging directly with the processes of acting and filmmaking. It’s an analysis that provides an illuminating take on the work of one of today’s celebrated filmmakers. An interview with Hogg concludes the volume, which also includes a filmography.