Todd Solondz

"Todd Solondz, the dark horse of independent American cinema, has somehow escaped critical appraisal-until now. With this theoretically innovative and eminently readable volume, Julian Murphet has reframed Solondz's inimitable brand of cinema as a social document that comes closer to capturing the experience of late capitalism in the United States than the work of any other living filmmaker. Murphet's achievement is to show unequivocally that this world, a deracinated junk space filled with pedophiles and perverts, is our own. This book will be an indispensable guide to all of us that wonder about the hideously kitsch and just plain hideous aesthetic that has evolved over the duration of Solondz's career, and perhaps why it all feels so nauseatingly familiar."--Mark Steven, author of Splatter Capital: A Guide for Surviving the Horror Movie We Collectively Inhabit "Julian Murphet's penetrating intelligence meets its match in Todd Solondz' depthless abjection; surprisingly and superbly, it is a match made in heaven. Or perhaps in hell, the hell of the present that we must trust our most intrepid thinkers to explore, to challenge, and to discover within it not salvation but a livable world glowing with the possibility that we can survive it and enter the next world alive."--Joshua Clover, author of Riot. Strike. Riot: The New Era of Uprisings "Julian Murphet's Todd Solondz (published by the University of Illinois Press) makes me willing to at least give the director another look. Murphet defines the filmmaker as a satirist; Solondz isn't just trying to be disgusting but composes his bleak humor as a critique of a disgusting society." --Shepherd Express