Complicating Articulation in Art Cinema

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Benedict Morrison
Keyword(s):  
Art Cinema ◽  
Luis Bunuel ◽  
Peter Greenaway ◽  
Roberto Rossellini ◽  
Internal Disturbance ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Robert Bresson

Complicating Articulation in Art Cinema argues that art cinema, unlike classical film, draws attention to its disjointed, multi-parted form, but that criticism has too frequently sought to explain this complexity away by stitching the parts together in totalizing readings. This stitching together has often relied on the assumption that complicated character explains articulated form and that the solution to art cinema’s puzzles lies in interpreting each film as the expression of a focalizing character’s internal disturbance. This book challenges this assumption. It argues that the attempt to explain formal complexity through this character-centric approach reduces formal achievements and enigmatic characters to inadequate approximations of one another. Reference to character cannot fully tame unschematic and unpredictable combinations of—and collisions between—contradictory levels of narration, clashing styles, discontinuously edited shots, jarring allusions, dislocated genre signifiers, and intermedial elements. Through close analyses of films by Roberto Rossellini, Robert Bresson, Luis Buñuel, Terence Davies, Peter Greenaway, and Kelly Reichardt, Complicating Articulation in Art Cinema offers an ethics of criticism that suggests that the politics of art cinema’s eccentric form are limited by character-centred readings. Each of the featured films presents inarticulate or muted characters, whose emotional and intellectual lives are unknowable, further complicating the relationship between character and form. This book argues that, by acknowledging this resistance to interpretation, critics can think in new ways about art cinema’s interrogation of the possibilities of knowledge.

The Afterlife of Art and Objects

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
James Tweedie
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Historical Narratives ◽  
Still Life ◽  
Art Cinema ◽  
Spanish Baroque ◽  
Late Twentieth ◽  
Moving Pictures ◽  
Tableau Vivant ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Late Twentieth Century

Like the tableau vivant, the cinematic still life experienced a stunning revival and reinvention in the late twentieth century. In contrast to the stereotypically postmodern overload of images, the still life in film initiates a moment of repose and contemplation within a medium more often defined by the forward rush of moving pictures. It also involves a profound meditation on the relationship between images and objects consistent with practices as diverse as the Spanish baroque still life and the Surrealist variation on the genre. With the work of Terence Davies and Alain Cavalier’s Thérèse (1986) as its primary touchstones, this chapter situates this renewed interest in the cinematic still life within the context of both the late twentieth-century cinema of painters and a socially oriented art cinema that focuses on marginal people and overlooked objects rather than the hegemonic historical narratives also undergoing a revival at the time.

The Trauma of Partition

2015 ◽  
pp. 69-86
Author(s):  
Omar Ahmed
Keyword(s):  
Historical Context ◽  
Art Cinema ◽  
Indian Cinema ◽  
Unique Position ◽  
Film Maker ◽  
The Family ◽  
The Uk ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Satyajit Ray ◽  
Indian Art

This chapter shifts the focus to Indian art cinema with the Marxist work of Bengali director and iconoclast Ritwik Ghatak. The impressive Meghe Dhaka Tara (The Cloud Capped Star, 1960) is his best-known film. Dealing directly with the trauma of partition and its effects on a Bengali family, Ghatak's cinema is bold, uncompromising, and occupies a unique position in Indian cinema. Although his work is still somewhat overshadowed by that of Satyajit Ray, another masterful Bengali film-maker, and though many of his films are still sadly unavailable on DVD in the UK, Megha Dhaka Tara is now recognised as one of the key works of Indian art cinema. The chapter discusses numerous aspects, including Ghatak's position as a film-maker; the wider historical context such as the partition of Bengal; the relationship between melodrama and feminist concerns; the film's categorisation as an example of 1960s counter cinema; and the thematic importance of the family to the film's narrative.

scholarly journals CORPO, IMAGEM & ESCRITA

2012 ◽  
Vol 19 (1.2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Maria Esther Maciel
Keyword(s):  
Body Image ◽  
Contemporary Art ◽  
The Body ◽  
Sharp Contrast ◽  
Contemporary World ◽  
Peter Greenaway ◽  
Art And Culture ◽  
The Relationship

This article discusses the presence of the body in contemporary art and culture, with reference to the relationship between body, image and writing in the encyclopedic work of Peter Greenaway - more specifically in his 1996 film The Pillow Book. The aim is to show how the sign body, taken from the perspective of multiplicity, occupies a privileged place in the repertoire of images and concepts of the British artist, in sharp contrast to the marketing vision of the body that prevails in contemporary world.

Looking Back

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alison Taylor
Keyword(s):  
Everyday Experience ◽  
Art Cinema ◽  
The Everyday ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Looking Back ◽  
The Way

The conclusion pulls together the key arguments presented throughout Troubled Everyday considering the way the melding of violence and the everyday in European art cinema has us reflect upon our own everyday outside of the cinema. In a world fraught with the violent and unexpected disruptions of terrorism, is it any wonder that films that call attention to the potential for sudden rupture to our everyday experience and understanding are so affecting? Examining Gaspar Noé’s reverse-running rape-revenge film Irreversible (2002), the conclusion offers some final reflections upon the relationship between violence and the everyday both in the cinema and outside of it.

scholarly journals In the Footsteps of Galileo

Nuncius ◽  
2021 ◽  
pp. 1-34
Author(s):  
Francesco Paolo de Ceglia ◽  
Fabio Lusito
Keyword(s):  
Next Generation ◽  
The Past ◽  
Roberto Rossellini ◽  
Media Hype ◽  
The 1960S ◽  
The Relationship

Abstract Italian scientific biopics experienced a period of extraordinary media hype in the 1970s, when some intellectuals personally committed to bringing the lives of the scientists of the past to television in order to discuss the relationship between knowledge and power in the present. Nevertheless, might we properly speak of “Italian-style” historical-scientific fictional drama? To answer this question, we will focus on Roberto Rossellini, Liliana Cavani and, above all, Lucio Lombardo Radice, a promoter, scientific consultant, author and presenter of, and sometimes even actor in, some of the most controversial of these scientific biopics. This article aims, first of all, to reconstruct this history, explaining the reasons for the success of the genre, starting in the 1960s, and the crisis it underwent in the 1980s; secondly, to ascertain the influences these ideological works exerted on choices, approaches and styles of the next generation of science historians and communicators.

scholarly journals Reflexões sobre a avaliação final de uma disciplina eletiva - Reflections on the final evaluation of a discipline elective

2016 ◽  
Vol 5 (10) ◽  
pp. 45
Author(s):  
Fellipe Eloy Teixeira Albuquerque
Keyword(s):  
Martin Heidegger ◽  
Evaluation Process ◽  
Final Evaluation ◽  
Alain Badiou ◽  
Jacques Ranciere ◽  
Peter Greenaway ◽  
Jacques Rancière ◽  
History Of ◽  
Art Philosophy ◽  
The Relationship

Com carga horária de 60 horas a disciplina eletiva do curso de Mestrado Acadêmico em História da Arte, da Unifesp - campus de Guarulhos, possibilitou muitas questões acerca de como a relação entre Arte e Filosofia foram apreendidas durante a História. A consulta de diversos autores como Alain Badiou, Martin Heidegger, Giorgio Agambem e Jacques Rancière ajudaram na compreensão desse processo, assim como a produção artística de propositores como Vik Muniz, Peter Greenaway e Ngwenya. Para a avaliação final desta disciplina os professores responsáveis solicitam a elaboração de um texto que, a partir das referências trabalhadas em aula, ajudassem o aluno a formular um conceito de Arte. Esse artigo vem reunir as principais reflexões levantadas durante todo o processo de avaliação da disciplina que conceituou uma possibilidade de entender a História da ArtePalavras-chave: avaliação, arte, filosofia. REFLECTIONS ON THE FINAL EVALUATION OF A DISCIPLINE ELECTIVEAbstractWith a workload of 60 hours to elective Academic Master's course in History of Art, Unifesp - Campus Guarulhos, enabled many questions about how the relationship between Art and Philosophy were seized during history. Consultation of various authors such as Alain Badiou, Martin Heidegger, Giorgio Agambem and Jacques Rancière helped in understanding this process, as well as the artistic production of proposers as Vik Muniz, Peter Greenaway and Ngwenya. For the final evaluation of this discipline the responsible teachers requested the preparation of a text which, from references worked in class, help the student to formulate a concept of Art. This article is to bring together the main reflections raised during the evaluation process of discipline that conceptualized a chance to understand the History of Art.Key-words: evaluation, art, philosophy.

Acoustical Properties

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Randolph Jordan
Keyword(s):  
Complex Dynamics ◽  
Sound Studies ◽  
Critical Geography ◽  
Art Cinema ◽  
Spatial Practices ◽  
Acoustical Properties ◽  
Spatial Practice ◽  
French Art ◽  
Acoustic Space ◽  
The Relationship

One of the defining thematic preoccupations in the fiction filmmaking of Philippe Grandrieux, one of the leading figures in French Art Cinema, is that of the politics of property. InSombre, La Vie Nouvelle, andUn Lac, the relationship dynamics between a woman and a variety of agents competing to claim her are mapped out in the overlap between different registers of space. This overlap opens up complex dynamics between differing spatial practices that are evident within Grandrieux’s narratives and the stylistics with which he shapes them, breaking down conventional understanding of the distance between screen and audience. This chapter argues that one cannot account for the richness of spatial practice in these films without attention to the representation of acoustic space. Drawing on recent concepts in sound studies and critical geography, and expanding upon the literature on Grandrieux’s work, the author focuses on instances of spatial delineation that defines elements of owned property in each of these films.

Troubled Everyday

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alison Taylor
Keyword(s):  
Case Studies ◽  
Detailed Examination ◽  
Art Cinema ◽  
The Everyday ◽  
Extreme Violence ◽  
The Relationship

Extreme violence in contemporary European art cinema is generally interpreted for its affective potential, but what about the significance of the everyday that so often frames and forms the majority of these films? Why do the sudden moments of violence that punctuate films like Catherine Breillat’s Fat Girl (2001), Gaspar Noé’s Irreversible (2002) and Markus Schleinzer’s Michael (2011) seem so reliant on everyday routines and settings for their impact? Addressing these questions through a series of case studies, and considering notorious films in their historical and philosophical context, Troubled Everyday offers the first detailed examination of the relationship between violence and the everyday in European art cinema. It calls for a re-evaluation of what gives these films such affective force and such a prolonged grip on our imagination.

Cinema and the Visual Arts

2012 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christine Sprengler
Keyword(s):  
Visual Arts ◽  
Film Theory ◽  
The Other ◽  
Contemporary Culture ◽  
Art Cinema ◽  
Avant Garde ◽  
Sergei Eisenstein ◽  
The Status ◽  
Andre Bazin ◽  
The Relationship

The relationship between cinema and the visual arts is a long and complex one, stretching back to cinema’s earliest years. It is one of reciprocity, defined by various acts of exchange and mining for legitimation, subversion, and inspiration. It involves the creative efforts of practitioners from both domains and experimental gestures that pitted one against the other, thought one through the other, and often blurred the distinctions between them. Connections between art movements and film movements, art theories and film theories, as well as individuals who contributed in various ways to both realms, have done much to foster multiple points of contact. Assessing cinema in relation to the visual arts is necessarily an interdisciplinary—or, increasingly, an “intermedial”—endeavor, one that requires drawing on scholarship in other, related areas of study. As such, certain scholarship is not covered here, but is accessible in other Oxford Bibliographies articles. For instance, early (philosophical) attempts to assess the status of film as art are covered in Early Film Theory (see the Oxford Bibliographies in Cinema and Media Studies article “Film Theory before 1945”) and other entries on individuals whose work directly addressed such questions, including “André Bazin” and “Sergei Eisenstein.” Furthermore, the concern here is not with “Art Cinema,” though some overlap with this category is unavoidable given the penchant of certain “art films” to also engage with art. Likewise, there are a few sources likely to be central to the “Avant-Garde and Experimental Cinema” article. However, this present article makes reference to only a selection, specifically to those explicitly invested in the history of dominant art movements and painting practices. This article is organized around three broad categories that represent the three main ways of conceptualizing cinema in relation to the visual arts: the nature of the relationship between cinema and the visual arts, representations of the visual arts in film, and cinematic art. The first requires elaboration, for it may appear to be a category capable of subsuming the others. The relationships of concern here are the ones explored through analyses of visual and material practices in contemporary culture. While historical precursors are considered, the bulk of this section focuses on how scholars might examine, for example, cinema in relation to photography or the affinities between cinema and architecture in terms of the experiences they offer. A final note: The majority of the citations included here are suitable for senior undergraduates, postgraduates, and scholars unless otherwise noted as written for “junior undergraduates” or “theoretically complex” and thus best tackled by experts in the field. Exhibition catalogues are a mixed bag, with some introductory essays geared toward a general, nonspecialized audience and others offering rigorous, sophisticated analyses. With the exception of Pelfrey 1996 (see Themes and Issues) and McIver 2016 (cited under Crossing Over: From Art to Film and Film to Art), no textbooks on this subject are available and only one journal, Moving Image Review and Art Journal deals with the topic.

Early Extremity on DVD: History, Precursors and Exploitation Auteurs

2018 ◽  
pp. 41-62
Author(s):  
Simon Hobbs
Keyword(s):  
Crucial Role ◽  
Art Cinema ◽  
Luis Bunuel ◽  
Home Entertainment ◽  
Roman Polanski ◽  
Ingmar Bergman ◽  
The Creation ◽  
Art Film ◽  
Dario Argento

This chapter uses a historically and geographically mobile approach to map a range of films and filmmakers often absent from discussions of extreme cinema. The chapter starts with an exploration of the extreme works of directors like Luis Buñuel, Ingmar Bergman and Roman Polanski, stressing their importance to the creation of an extreme art aesthetic. The chapter focuses on the paratextuality of these filmmakers, and studies DVD and Blu-ray versions of their more extreme texts. Focusing closely on how exploitation marketing traditions co-exist with their art film counterparts on these objects, the chapter highlights the complexity of extremity’s commercial identity. The chapter takes the same approach to its study of European exploitation cinema. Using home entertainment paratexts to highlight influential films, the chapter investigates companies such as Arrow Video, Vipco, Anchor Bay, BFI and Redemption DVD, paying special attention to their handling of a range of directors, including Lucio Fulci, Dario Argento, and Jean Rollin. The chapter underscores the crucial role exploitation cinema had in shaping extreme art cinema and highlights the contradictory role extremity performs within the commercial sphere.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document