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a genuine "thinking Romanticism otherwise" (14). But this book is certainly an intriguing and successful-on-its-own-terms beginning to such a project.

This article advances mutism as a creative mode and conceptual tool to treat silence in cinema. Whereas mutism can be a productive concept for the study of auditory and visual absence in a broader theoretical framework, my focus here is on the silence of film characters. Drawing on correspondences between the critical and the clinical in Gilles Deleuze’s writing, I argue that adopting mutism as a tool of film-philosophy permits us to supersede traditional film analysis and examine silence not as an interpretive condition at the level of the plot but as a critical-clinical mode of experimentation related to the symptomatology of life. After presenting a brief clinical history of “elective” and “selective” mutism, I then draw on the suppressed understanding of “elective mutism”. I demonstrate that “elective mutism”, which might appear to be a negative and powerless disorder in its clinical presentation, transforms itself into an affirmative and empowering (dis)order that inspires creative experimentation in cinema. In postwar films with mute protagonists, such as Ingmar Bergman’s Persona (1960), “elective mutism” engenders a negative mode of existence in its symptomatology, which can be analysed according to the tenets of Theodor W. Adorno’s philosophy of negativity. By contrast, Deleuze’s philosophy of affirmativity and the concept of minor cinema allow for a renewed positive examination of “elective mutism” in more recent films with silent characters, such as Elia Suleiman’s Palestinian quartet (1996; 2002; 2009; 2019). Approaching minor cinema as both a cinema of experimentation and minoritarian cinema, I contend that in films made by minorities mutism becomes more pronouncedly “elective” in an affirmative sense. As a mode of protest and resistance, “elective mutism” is not only a rejection of the present status quo but also an expression of futurity. Finally, I maintain that the concept of “elective mutism” can relate to and stimulate the discussion of many contemporary sociopolitical phenomena.

Este trabalho explora os papéis e as funções da tela preta e branca no cinema. Toma como base a filosofia de Gilles Deleuze em geral e sua teoria do cinema em especial, fazendo uma análise transversal dos quadros conceituais. Explorando as abordagens contemporâneas do cinema menor, e através de uma comparação com o conceito de “literatura menor” de Deleuze e Félix Guattari, examina-se a tela preta/branca como uma ferramenta de desterritorialização da linguagem cinematográfica hegemônica e como uma introjeção da gagueira e do mutismo nas obras. Defende-se que as telas pretas e brancas são empregadas no cinema como um método de desterritorialização ou como uma forma de “tornar estranho” o regime de significação dominante dos códigos e práticas de Hollywood. Esses cortes pretos ou brancos contrapõem-se à História oficial no singular e à grande narrativa enquanto totalidades, introduzindo na obra uma multiplicidade de outras possíveis narrativas (histórias).