From Marienbad to the Bates Motel, cinematic hotels are more than a mere backdrop to a film’s action. They actively scaffold the formal, aesthetic and narrative possibilities of cinema. Hotels, the latest release in the new Cutaways series from Fordham University Press, takes a journey through spaces of temporary dwelling – hotels, inns, and motels – to delve into the dynamics and contradictions that structure modern life.
The author of this volume, Jules O’Dwyer, considers questions of plot and eroticism, labour and globalisation, and the ethics and economics of hospitality. Drawing on a broad array of films from European art cinema to experimental adult media, and placing cinema into dialogue with film theory and media history, Hotels explores both how and why the hotel has such a strong purchase on the cinematic imaginary.
Fordham University Press, 144pp, 13cm x 18cm, illustrated paperback, 2025