Table of Contents

Introduction   
1          Realism and the Imagination
2          Fantasy and Reality
3          Subjective Realities
4          Ruptured Realities
5          Documentary: Art of the Real?
Acknowledgements  
Further Reading 
Works Cited
Index
 

About the Author

CARL PLANTINGA is the Arthur H. DeKruyter Chair of Communication at Calvin University in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Among his many books are Rhetoric and Representation in Non-Fiction Film, Moving Viewers: American Film and the Spectator's Experience, and Screen Stories: Emotion and the Ethics of Engagement.
 

Reviews

"In both content and approach, Alternative Realities is revelatory in its exploration of the cinematic imagination and the ambiguities of realism and verisimilitude. It articulates cinema's role in calling truths about our society to attention through the creation of realistic and fantastical worlds in screen stories that span documentary to science fiction."— Jane Stadler, the University of Queensland
"Plantinga gives us a unique, bold and incisive account of how movies blend reality and fantasy, conjoining soaring realms of the imagination with the empirical frames of everyday reality."
 — Stephen Prince, author of Digital Visual Effects and Digital Cinema
"Plantinga gives us a unique, bold and incisive account of how movies blend reality and fantasy, conjoining soaring realms of the imagination with the empirical frames of everyday reality."
 — Stephen Prince, author of Digital Visual Effects and Digital Cinema
"Plantinga demonstrates that... the shorter book format can... serve as an effective tool for introducing readers to significant philosophical and theoretical questions concerning realism, fantasy, and the cinema's capacity for creating compelling alternative realities."  — Projections
"In both content and approach, Alternative Realities is revelatory in its exploration of the cinematic imagination and the ambiguities of realism and verisimilitude. It articulates cinema's role in calling truths about our society to attention through the creation of realistic and fantastical worlds in screen stories that span documentary to science fiction."— Jane Stadler, the University of Queensland