“[A] valuable [entry] into a field that must continue to expand. . . . Extremely timely.”

Film Quarterly

“[A] timely book.”

Critical Inquiry

“Stewart’s book is impressive both in its scope and its thorough analysis and demonstrates an impressive understanding of theories—from theories of the apparatus, to Deleuze and Kittler—and applies them to films convincingly.”

Year’s Work in Critical and Cultural Theory

"There is a lot to be learned from Stewart’s interpretations of surveillance in cinema. He is highly original in his selection of filmic shots or segments, and his readings often point to hitherto neglected aspects in even well-discussed classics such as M or Rear Window."

Screen

“A remarkable book on the cinema of surveillance. It is as comfortable with settled masterpieces like M and Rear Window as it is with last week’s blockbuster, and it knows the difference between them. Deeply informed by narrative theory, film theory, and media theory, the eye-opening arguments bear on issues of real moment in our time.”

James Chandler, University of Chicago

“Long after the suspected deaths of both classical narration and apparatus theory, Stewart finds the subtle and self-effacing ontological gaps that twenty-first-century cinema opens anew between story and discourse, and parses out their consequences better than anyone else I’ve read.”

Paul Young, Dartmouth College

“An ‘embedded critic,’ Stewart infiltrates and exposes our treacherous screen culture, delivering reports on films that deploy arsenals of often camouflaged media. The surveillance mission of Closed Circuits succeeds, first because it is wide open to the edgiest films and theory from the celluloid era, and second because it takes such pleasure in engaging complex images, sounds, and stories—the very pleasures of cinema—in our digital age. With Stewart we can relish cinema anew even in the monstrous forms of post-human movies.”

Dudley Andrew, Yale University