Synthesising a variety of discursive fields and traditions - including Early German Romanticism, Frankfurt School critical theory and the aesthetic philosophy of Jacques Rancière - outlines a radical new approach to film by re-examining the work of Arthur Penn and Lindsay Anderson. A distinction between Light and Dark Romanticism is introduced as a means of interpreting cinema's relationship with capitalism, as well as dualistic concepts such as stillness and motion, passivity and activity, pain and pleasure. revitalises our understanding of modern audio-visual media, as well as the aesthetic, philosophical and political conditions of Romantic subjectivity, artistic practice and spectatorship.