Nostalgia films express depersonalized curiosity rather than genuine longing

Evidence

I don’t remember any longer whether I am responsible for this term, which still seems to me indispensable, provided you understand that the fashion-plate, historicist films it designates are in no way to be grasped as passionate expressions of that older longing once called nostalgia but rather quite the opposite; they are a depersonalized visual curiosity and a “return of the repressed” of the twenties and thirties “without affect” (in another place I try to term it “nostalgiadeco”). — Fredric Jameson, Postmodernism, or, The Cultural Logic…, 23

Categorization

• DEFINE: Directly relevant to the reader’s stated task: the ‘nostalgia film’ is defined as ‘without affect’ — a concrete anchor for understanding ‘waning of affect’ via a modern example (fashion-plate historicism), and it sharpens the parody/pastiche distinction (these films pastiche, they don’t parody).
• XREF: Directly feeds the nostalgia-film discussion in the chapter on films; also connects to reader’s attempt to define ‘waning of affect’ with modern examples. — connects to: Postmodern nostalgia-laden films yearn for the present while rendering the actual past inaccessible. — Perry Anderson, The Origins of Postmodernity, 158; Nostalgia is an adjustment mechanism during crises — David Harvey, The Condition of Postmodernity: An…, 540; Nostalgia mode is formal reiteration, not psychological longing — Mark Fisher (edited by Darren Ambrose), K-Punk: The Collected and Unpublished…, 2423 (+2 more)
• SEED: Article angle: tracing ‘nostalgia without affect’ from thirties fashion-plate deco to contemporary aesthetics — e.g., Instagram filters, ‘old money’ trends, Haight-Ashbury revivalism without longing.