One should be under no misapprehension that Brenez’s Abel Ferrara is actually about Abel Ferrara. Anchored though the book may be in the blood and guts of the film-maker’s work, getting its hands dirty in the films as it breaks them open and looks inside, it is ultimately about far more than the title may suggest. This is a densely written unpacking of the horrors of the twentieth century, and a systematic interrogation of how the cinema might deal with and figure this trauma at the level of the image.

This argument is not advanced lightly – the book’s sense of moral purpose weighs heavily – and the supporting evidence has been fastidiously researched. Although Brenez’s infectious enthusiasm and impassioned pen sometimes fail to transcend the difficulty of her ideas – this is not entry-level stuff, nor does it pretend to be – the writer never fails to show, with her usual marriage of close reading and intertextual association, that the pressing question of modern evil remains at the bloody centre of Ferrara’s moral vision.