The Sensory Child of Contemporary Cinema

<cite>The Sensory Child: Sight, Sound, Touch</cite> examines a poetic film form evident in contemporary cinema that seems intent on capturing the textures, the materials, and the sensations of childhood. These films foreground the child’s point of view, construct a child’s gaze, and mobilise an aesthetic that evokes a sensory recollection of childhood. This complex arrangement of aesthetic modes is intended to address the adult spectator bodily, and evoke the vivid, sensory memories of childhood. The Sensory Child rethinks a gap in contemporary film theory created by a seeming hiatus between psychoanalytic and phenomenological approaches to the cinema. The book examines key instances of this aesthetic of childhood in the films <cite>Aftersun</cite> (2022), <cite>The Fits</cite> (2015), <cite>What Maisie Knew</cite> (2013), and <cite>Moonlight</cite> (2016). May argues that psychoanalytic theory can elucidate the significance of such tactile moments, offering insight into the meaning evoked for the spectator by this sensory, poetic film form.