Jose Arroyo 1514623
Evaluate how The Place Beyond the Pines is affective.
The Place Beyond the Pines is Derek Cianfrance’s 2012 crime drama starring
Ryan Gosling and Bradley Cooper. It is claimed that Cianfrance “has always been
fascinated with a family’s inner workings and dramas,” 1 and the themes of
masculinity, fatherhood and legacy in Pines clearly support this theory, “Pines isn’t
really a crime drama, at least not entirely. It’s a family one, about fathers and how
they spill into their sons.” 2 Presented through a three-part narrative where the lead
protagonist shifts from Gosling, to Cooper to their sons; Pines is a stylistically
innovative, postmodern, affective piece. This essay will prove that Pines is affective
by linking both the film and affect theory to postmodernism (despite Jameson’s
theory), showcasing the film’s obsession with all things bodily and its interesting use
of the observational spectator.
Firstly, it will be useful to define the term ‘affect’. In Brinkema’s The Form of
Affects, it is noted that affect is often taken as a synonym of “emotion” or “feeling” or
“sensation”’3 Whereas, it is shown in many other critical works to be much more
than that. Hoggett and Thompson suggest that we can:
distinguish between affect and emotion as two forms, overlapping and not
mutually exclusive, that human feelings can assume. Affect concerns the
more embodied, uniformed and less conscious dimension of human feeling,
whereas emotion concerns the feelings which are more conscious since they
are more anchored in language and meaning. 4
1
Benjamin Lindsay, "Derek Cianfrance, “The Light Between Oceans”", Actor 101, 2018 <http://0-
eds.a.ebscohost.com.pugwash.lib.warwick.ac.uk/eds/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?vid=1&sid=cf5fd89d-
3b97-4181-8b74-2ff944ec5f7d%40sessionmgr4007> [Accessed 30 March 2018]
2
Joshua Rivera, "'The Place Beyond the Pines', A Great Movie About Bad Dads, Is Now on
Netflix", GQ, 2018 <https://www.gq.com/story/place-beyond-the-pines-netflix> [Accessed 9
March 2018]
3
Eugenie Brinkema, The Forms of The Affects (Durham: Duke University Press, 2014) p. 23
4
Paul Hoggett and Simon Thompson, Politics and The Emotions (London: Continuum, 2012). pp.
2, 3
, Jose Arroyo 1514623
Here, we can see affect is linked to emotion but concerns a more bodily state.
Affect can also be thought of in terms of action or “the capacity to be acted on.” 5 Ngai
feels that affect designates “feeling described from an observer’s perspective, and
emotion [designates] feelings that belong to the speaker.” 6 These thoughts of affect
as action are useful when looking at Place Beyond The Pines, later this essay will
explore the place of the spectator or observer in relation to emotion. Finally, in
Postmodernism and the Affective Turn:
the understanding of affect suggests that what we imagine to be individual
and specific – impulses, attitudes, emotions and feelings – in fact have a
social, historical and therefore shared dimension. Neither biologically
deterministic nor humanistic, this approach allows for bodily experience to
be understood as a dynamic registration of environmental change. 7
These ideas can be applied to Pines as it’s aesthetics and emotions are deeply set in
in class, race and gender issues. The class divide is plainly personified between
Gosling’s character, Luke and Cooper’s Avery. David Thomson notes that it is “hard
to think of another director working in America today who derives so much from the
details of class and locality, or who is as interested in the trapped lives that seldom
get into our movies.”8 He adds that the one wonders if “anyone can ever get out of a
place like Schenectady.”9 And, of course, Luke never could. Killed at the hands of
rookie policeman, Avery, Luke dies in the very environment that he has lived his
entire life. Of course, caught for armed robbery, Luke is far from innocent. But the
overarching theme of class discrimination places sympathy as he dies at the hands
of someone who will ultimately be made a hero for his actions. The fact that Avery’s
5
Eugenie Brinkema, The Forms of The Affects (Durham: Duke University Press, 2014) p. 24
6
Julie Taylor, Modernism and Affect, 2015. p. 7
7
Rachel Greenwald Smith,, "Postmodernism and The Affective Turn On JSTOR", Jstor.Org, 2018
<http://www.jstor.org/stable/41698760> [Accessed 26 March 2018] p. 423
8
David Thomson, "Class and Fate: Derek Cianfrance’s America.", The New Republic, 2013, p. 61.
9
Ibid.
Evaluate how The Place Beyond the Pines is affective.
The Place Beyond the Pines is Derek Cianfrance’s 2012 crime drama starring
Ryan Gosling and Bradley Cooper. It is claimed that Cianfrance “has always been
fascinated with a family’s inner workings and dramas,” 1 and the themes of
masculinity, fatherhood and legacy in Pines clearly support this theory, “Pines isn’t
really a crime drama, at least not entirely. It’s a family one, about fathers and how
they spill into their sons.” 2 Presented through a three-part narrative where the lead
protagonist shifts from Gosling, to Cooper to their sons; Pines is a stylistically
innovative, postmodern, affective piece. This essay will prove that Pines is affective
by linking both the film and affect theory to postmodernism (despite Jameson’s
theory), showcasing the film’s obsession with all things bodily and its interesting use
of the observational spectator.
Firstly, it will be useful to define the term ‘affect’. In Brinkema’s The Form of
Affects, it is noted that affect is often taken as a synonym of “emotion” or “feeling” or
“sensation”’3 Whereas, it is shown in many other critical works to be much more
than that. Hoggett and Thompson suggest that we can:
distinguish between affect and emotion as two forms, overlapping and not
mutually exclusive, that human feelings can assume. Affect concerns the
more embodied, uniformed and less conscious dimension of human feeling,
whereas emotion concerns the feelings which are more conscious since they
are more anchored in language and meaning. 4
1
Benjamin Lindsay, "Derek Cianfrance, “The Light Between Oceans”", Actor 101, 2018 <http://0-
eds.a.ebscohost.com.pugwash.lib.warwick.ac.uk/eds/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?vid=1&sid=cf5fd89d-
3b97-4181-8b74-2ff944ec5f7d%40sessionmgr4007> [Accessed 30 March 2018]
2
Joshua Rivera, "'The Place Beyond the Pines', A Great Movie About Bad Dads, Is Now on
Netflix", GQ, 2018 <https://www.gq.com/story/place-beyond-the-pines-netflix> [Accessed 9
March 2018]
3
Eugenie Brinkema, The Forms of The Affects (Durham: Duke University Press, 2014) p. 23
4
Paul Hoggett and Simon Thompson, Politics and The Emotions (London: Continuum, 2012). pp.
2, 3
, Jose Arroyo 1514623
Here, we can see affect is linked to emotion but concerns a more bodily state.
Affect can also be thought of in terms of action or “the capacity to be acted on.” 5 Ngai
feels that affect designates “feeling described from an observer’s perspective, and
emotion [designates] feelings that belong to the speaker.” 6 These thoughts of affect
as action are useful when looking at Place Beyond The Pines, later this essay will
explore the place of the spectator or observer in relation to emotion. Finally, in
Postmodernism and the Affective Turn:
the understanding of affect suggests that what we imagine to be individual
and specific – impulses, attitudes, emotions and feelings – in fact have a
social, historical and therefore shared dimension. Neither biologically
deterministic nor humanistic, this approach allows for bodily experience to
be understood as a dynamic registration of environmental change. 7
These ideas can be applied to Pines as it’s aesthetics and emotions are deeply set in
in class, race and gender issues. The class divide is plainly personified between
Gosling’s character, Luke and Cooper’s Avery. David Thomson notes that it is “hard
to think of another director working in America today who derives so much from the
details of class and locality, or who is as interested in the trapped lives that seldom
get into our movies.”8 He adds that the one wonders if “anyone can ever get out of a
place like Schenectady.”9 And, of course, Luke never could. Killed at the hands of
rookie policeman, Avery, Luke dies in the very environment that he has lived his
entire life. Of course, caught for armed robbery, Luke is far from innocent. But the
overarching theme of class discrimination places sympathy as he dies at the hands
of someone who will ultimately be made a hero for his actions. The fact that Avery’s
5
Eugenie Brinkema, The Forms of The Affects (Durham: Duke University Press, 2014) p. 24
6
Julie Taylor, Modernism and Affect, 2015. p. 7
7
Rachel Greenwald Smith,, "Postmodernism and The Affective Turn On JSTOR", Jstor.Org, 2018
<http://www.jstor.org/stable/41698760> [Accessed 26 March 2018] p. 423
8
David Thomson, "Class and Fate: Derek Cianfrance’s America.", The New Republic, 2013, p. 61.
9
Ibid.
