The political dimension of ekphrasis

Abstract

ABSTRACT This paper examines the political effects of the representation of historical paintings in film. It contends that the inclusion of this ‘older’ form, painting, and of the world associated with its popularity brings a mythological past to bear on contemporary philosophical and political issues in a novel and complex manner. Using the formal qualities of film, like montage and close-up, film makers can reimage and reimagine the place and role of painted works within the contemporary worlds in which the films are set. The interruption of one world into the other, the painted past into the photoreal present or future, uncovers new continuities and makes the distant past a matter of concern for the problems of the present. Using the philosophy and theories of Jacques Rancière, Bonnie Honig, Robert Pippin, and Roland Barthes, this article examines the representation of painting in Andrei Tarkovsky’s Solaris (1972) and the collaborative film Germany in Autumn (1978).