Abstract Michael Haneke’s Time of the Wolf (Le temps du loup, 2003) depicts a grim vision of the world in the aftermath of an unnamed catastrophe. Haneke turns the genre of dystopia into an experimental terrain where he can test the limits of the cinematic medium in the sense of “negating cinema in order to let reality speak for itself” (Nagib 2016, 147). An existential parable, Time of the Wolf envisions a sombre post-millenium age. It is a sharp analysis of what remains of man and society when the frame of civilization collapses. It scrutinizes the functioning mechanisms of the individual, the family and the social community in times of civilization undone. A harsh experiment towards a negative dialectics of the image, the film’s exceptionally austere cinematic language confronts the spectator with the aesthetics of the “unwatchable” (Baer et al., 2019) and “cinematic unpleasure” (Aston 2010). The paper explores the ways in which Haneke’s “intermedial realism” (Rowe 2017) also manifests in this film through photo-filmic images and painterly compositions, perceptions of stillness and motion, and cultural remnants of the past, giving way to affective sensations of intermediality.
迈克尔·哈内克的《狼的时代》(Le temps du loup, 2003)描绘了一场未命名的灾难后的残酷世界。哈内克将反乌托邦类型变成了一个实验领域,他可以在“否定电影以让现实为自己说话”的意义上测试电影媒介的极限(Nagib 2016, 147)。作为一个存在主义寓言,《狼的时间》描绘了一个阴郁的后千年时代。这是对人类和社会在文明框架崩溃后所遗留下来的东西的尖锐分析。它审视了在文明毁灭的时代,个人、家庭和社会团体的运作机制。这部电影对形象的消极辩证法进行了严酷的实验,其异常严肃的电影语言使观众面对“不可观看”(Baer等人,2019)和“电影不愉快”(Aston 2010)的美学。本文探讨了哈内克的“中间现实主义”(Rowe 2017)在这部电影中的表现方式,通过摄影电影图像和绘画构图,静止和运动的感知,以及过去的文化遗迹,让位于中间的情感感觉。
{"title":"Crisis Narrative and Affective Intermediality: Figuring Disaster in Michael Haneke’s Time of the Wolf","authors":"Judit Pieldner","doi":"10.2478/ausfm-2022-0010","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2478/ausfm-2022-0010","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract Michael Haneke’s Time of the Wolf (Le temps du loup, 2003) depicts a grim vision of the world in the aftermath of an unnamed catastrophe. Haneke turns the genre of dystopia into an experimental terrain where he can test the limits of the cinematic medium in the sense of “negating cinema in order to let reality speak for itself” (Nagib 2016, 147). An existential parable, Time of the Wolf envisions a sombre post-millenium age. It is a sharp analysis of what remains of man and society when the frame of civilization collapses. It scrutinizes the functioning mechanisms of the individual, the family and the social community in times of civilization undone. A harsh experiment towards a negative dialectics of the image, the film’s exceptionally austere cinematic language confronts the spectator with the aesthetics of the “unwatchable” (Baer et al., 2019) and “cinematic unpleasure” (Aston 2010). The paper explores the ways in which Haneke’s “intermedial realism” (Rowe 2017) also manifests in this film through photo-filmic images and painterly compositions, perceptions of stillness and motion, and cultural remnants of the past, giving way to affective sensations of intermediality.","PeriodicalId":40721,"journal":{"name":"Acta Universitatis Sapientiae-Film and Media Studies","volume":"6 1","pages":"18 - 38"},"PeriodicalIF":0.1,"publicationDate":"2022-11-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"81639750","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Abstract Arguably Cristi Puiu’s most intricate film so far, Malmkrog (2020) comprises nearly three and a half hours of intense discussions about some of the most pertinent questions of our times since the Industrial Revolution – about the ethics of war and progress, the inevitable end of history, and the elusive nature of Good and Evil – posited by the Russian religious philosopher Vladimir S. Solovyov in his seminal book War, Progress, and the End of History (subtitled Three Conversations Including a Short Story of the Anti-Christ) and published in 1899. The article looks at the screen rendition of Solovyov’s three dominant discourses – statist-militarist, bourgeois-liberal, and religious-philosophical – through the grid of katechon (or “that which restrains”) in its Biblical, and above all, in its political philosophic meaning (following Carl Schmitt, Georgio Agamben and Sergei Prozorov). Furthermore, by introducing the concept of intermedial katechon, the article argues that while Puiu’s audio-visual rendition remains congenially faithful to the original, it transcends its allusions to the tragic 20th century, and illuminates our murky times of ubiquitous (bio-)political, social, intellectual, and above all ethical angst.
{"title":"Cinema from the End of Time: Malmkrog by Cristi Puiu and Vladimir Solovyov","authors":"Christina Stojanova","doi":"10.2478/ausfm-2022-0011","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2478/ausfm-2022-0011","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract Arguably Cristi Puiu’s most intricate film so far, Malmkrog (2020) comprises nearly three and a half hours of intense discussions about some of the most pertinent questions of our times since the Industrial Revolution – about the ethics of war and progress, the inevitable end of history, and the elusive nature of Good and Evil – posited by the Russian religious philosopher Vladimir S. Solovyov in his seminal book War, Progress, and the End of History (subtitled Three Conversations Including a Short Story of the Anti-Christ) and published in 1899. The article looks at the screen rendition of Solovyov’s three dominant discourses – statist-militarist, bourgeois-liberal, and religious-philosophical – through the grid of katechon (or “that which restrains”) in its Biblical, and above all, in its political philosophic meaning (following Carl Schmitt, Georgio Agamben and Sergei Prozorov). Furthermore, by introducing the concept of intermedial katechon, the article argues that while Puiu’s audio-visual rendition remains congenially faithful to the original, it transcends its allusions to the tragic 20th century, and illuminates our murky times of ubiquitous (bio-)political, social, intellectual, and above all ethical angst.","PeriodicalId":40721,"journal":{"name":"Acta Universitatis Sapientiae-Film and Media Studies","volume":"16 1","pages":"39 - 59"},"PeriodicalIF":0.1,"publicationDate":"2022-11-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"82262826","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Abstract This paper focuses on the motif of permanent crisis and the “ghost” in Tsai Ming-liang’s art through a close analysis of films such as I Don’t Want to Sleep Alone (Hei yan quan, 2006), What Time Is It There? (Ni na bian ji dian, 2001), Vive l’amour (Ai qing wan sui, 1994), The Skywalk is Gone (Tian qiao bu jian le, 2002), The Hole (Dong, 1998), and the relevant discourse of Jacques Derrida and Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, pointing out new, previously undiscussed connections between What Time Is It There? and François Truffaut’s The 400 Blows (Les quatre cents coups, 1959). The aesthetics of the spectral is presented as a possible way of approaching films that not only reckon with the increasing immaterialization of the medium in the digital age, but also extend this to understand and represent new qualities of human relationships and existence in the world, using the motif of the ghost as an allegory of the medium and a “haunting” of traditional cinematic plot organization and narrative.
摘要本文通过对《我不想一个人睡》(黑岩泉,2006)、《几点了?》等电影的分析,探讨蔡明亮艺术中永恒的危机母题和“鬼”。(Ni na bian ji dian, 2001), Vive l 'amour (aiqing wan sui, 1994), The Skywalk is Gone (tianqiao bu jian le, 2002), The Hole (Dong, 1998),以及Jacques Derrida和Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak的相关论述,指出了新的,以前未被讨论的联系。以及弗朗索瓦·特吕弗的《四百击》(Les quatcent coups, 1959)。幽灵的美学被认为是一种接近电影的可能方式,它不仅考虑到数字时代媒介的非物质化,而且还将其扩展到理解和代表世界上人际关系和存在的新品质,使用幽灵的母题作为媒介的寓言和传统电影情节组织和叙事的“萦绕”。
{"title":"The Aesthetics of the Spectral and the Permanent Crisis in Tsai Ming-liang’s Art","authors":"Csilla Markója","doi":"10.2478/ausfm-2022-0012","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2478/ausfm-2022-0012","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract This paper focuses on the motif of permanent crisis and the “ghost” in Tsai Ming-liang’s art through a close analysis of films such as I Don’t Want to Sleep Alone (Hei yan quan, 2006), What Time Is It There? (Ni na bian ji dian, 2001), Vive l’amour (Ai qing wan sui, 1994), The Skywalk is Gone (Tian qiao bu jian le, 2002), The Hole (Dong, 1998), and the relevant discourse of Jacques Derrida and Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, pointing out new, previously undiscussed connections between What Time Is It There? and François Truffaut’s The 400 Blows (Les quatre cents coups, 1959). The aesthetics of the spectral is presented as a possible way of approaching films that not only reckon with the increasing immaterialization of the medium in the digital age, but also extend this to understand and represent new qualities of human relationships and existence in the world, using the motif of the ghost as an allegory of the medium and a “haunting” of traditional cinematic plot organization and narrative.","PeriodicalId":40721,"journal":{"name":"Acta Universitatis Sapientiae-Film and Media Studies","volume":"11 1","pages":"60 - 76"},"PeriodicalIF":0.1,"publicationDate":"2022-11-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"88686118","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Abstract The Troubles officially ended with the Good Friday Agreement of 1998, but the conflict left such profound scars in the history of the region that making a film about Northern Ireland tends to almost automatically assume a discourse informed by division. The question that arises, then, is how this context may be tackled so as to simultaneously do justice to its traditionally rendered black-and-white reality and offer a more complex, contemporary understanding of the past that embraces reconciliation, openness and multiplicity of perspectives. Thus, the paper offers a close analysis of multiple types of division featured in Kenneth Branagh’s Belfast (2021) and Terry Loane’s Mickybo and Me (2004) by making use of John Hill’s and Fiona Coffey’s theoretical categorizations that distinguish traditional Troubles productions from the more recent Peace Process cinema. This genre-based inquiry allows for a probing of the films’ positioning in relation to the Troubles paradigm, as well as a revealing of difference at the heart of two otherwise very similar films, whose employment of conventional vocabulary may not allow for their unproblematic alignment with the politics of peace.
{"title":"Between Troubles and Peace in Northern Ireland: Cinematic Divisions in Kenneth Branagh’s Belfast (2021) and Terry Loane’s Mickybo and Me (2004)","authors":"Andreea Paris-Popa","doi":"10.2478/ausfm-2022-0014","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2478/ausfm-2022-0014","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract The Troubles officially ended with the Good Friday Agreement of 1998, but the conflict left such profound scars in the history of the region that making a film about Northern Ireland tends to almost automatically assume a discourse informed by division. The question that arises, then, is how this context may be tackled so as to simultaneously do justice to its traditionally rendered black-and-white reality and offer a more complex, contemporary understanding of the past that embraces reconciliation, openness and multiplicity of perspectives. Thus, the paper offers a close analysis of multiple types of division featured in Kenneth Branagh’s Belfast (2021) and Terry Loane’s Mickybo and Me (2004) by making use of John Hill’s and Fiona Coffey’s theoretical categorizations that distinguish traditional Troubles productions from the more recent Peace Process cinema. This genre-based inquiry allows for a probing of the films’ positioning in relation to the Troubles paradigm, as well as a revealing of difference at the heart of two otherwise very similar films, whose employment of conventional vocabulary may not allow for their unproblematic alignment with the politics of peace.","PeriodicalId":40721,"journal":{"name":"Acta Universitatis Sapientiae-Film and Media Studies","volume":"2 1","pages":"97 - 121"},"PeriodicalIF":0.1,"publicationDate":"2022-11-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"78526097","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Abstract Can the transcendence of the sacred be represented through the potential of cinema, a medium based on the ontological reproduction of the Real? Can the dimension of the completely Other, whose limits and boundaries are hardly identifiable, come to the screen and become sensitive and perceptible? This contribution, taking as references the phenomenological dimension of the sacred proper to the investigation of Father Amédée Ayfre and the more stylistic one studied by Paul Schrader, intends to propose a reflection on how the miraculous event, understood as an objective suspension of physical laws, of narrative verisimilitude, in which the procedures of representation and rendering in images are configured as a fracture with respect to the customary nature of aesthetic expression of reality, are made evident in Carl Theodor Dreyer’s Ordet.
{"title":"The Flagrance of the Sacred. Notes on the Miraculous Event in Ordet by Carl Theodor Dreyer","authors":"F. Tonion","doi":"10.2478/ausfm-2022-0009","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2478/ausfm-2022-0009","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract Can the transcendence of the sacred be represented through the potential of cinema, a medium based on the ontological reproduction of the Real? Can the dimension of the completely Other, whose limits and boundaries are hardly identifiable, come to the screen and become sensitive and perceptible? This contribution, taking as references the phenomenological dimension of the sacred proper to the investigation of Father Amédée Ayfre and the more stylistic one studied by Paul Schrader, intends to propose a reflection on how the miraculous event, understood as an objective suspension of physical laws, of narrative verisimilitude, in which the procedures of representation and rendering in images are configured as a fracture with respect to the customary nature of aesthetic expression of reality, are made evident in Carl Theodor Dreyer’s Ordet.","PeriodicalId":40721,"journal":{"name":"Acta Universitatis Sapientiae-Film and Media Studies","volume":"46 1","pages":"1 - 17"},"PeriodicalIF":0.1,"publicationDate":"2022-11-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"82125493","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Abstract The paper addresses the cultural paradigm of metamodernism as conceived by Timotheus Vermeulen and Robin van den Akker (2010). Ontologically, metamodernism is perceived as oscillating between the modern and the postmodern, whereby the tools of postmodernism (such as irony, sarcasm, parataxis, deconstruction, scepticism and nihilism) are employed to counter (but not obliterate) modernist naivety, aspiration and enthusiasm. This oscillation results in what the above authors have termed “informed naivety,” a phrase denoting a state of wilful pragmatic idealism that allows for the imagining of impossible possibilities. Vermeulen and van den Akker’s two key observations about the shift from postmodernism to metamodernism in contemporary art are discussed in this paper, namely the (re)appearance of sensibilities corresponding to those of Romanticism and the (re)emergence of utopian desires, in an attempt at a metamodernist analysis of the Netflix adaptation of the Bridgerton book series, aimed primarily at elucidating its popularity as one of the most watched programmes of the global Covid-19 pandemic.
本文探讨了Timotheus Vermeulen和Robin van den Akker(2010)提出的元现代主义文化范式。在本体论上,元现代主义被认为是在现代和后现代之间摇摆,后现代主义的工具(如反讽、讽刺、意合、解构、怀疑主义和虚无主义)被用来对抗(但不是抹杀)现代主义的天真、渴望和热情。这种摇摆导致了上述作者所称的“见多识广的天真”,这个短语指的是一种任性的实用主义理想主义状态,允许想象不可能的可能性。本文讨论了Vermeulen和van den Akker关于当代艺术从后现代主义向元现代主义转变的两个关键观察,即与浪漫主义相对应的情感的(重新)出现和乌托邦欲望的(重新)出现,试图对Netflix改编的Bridgerton系列丛书进行元现代主义分析,主要目的是阐明其作为全球Covid-19大流行期间最受关注的节目之一的受欢迎程度。
{"title":"A Metamodernist Utopia: The Neo-Romantic Sense and Sensibility of the Bridgerton Series","authors":"Anamarija Šporčič","doi":"10.2478/ausfm-2022-0015","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2478/ausfm-2022-0015","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract The paper addresses the cultural paradigm of metamodernism as conceived by Timotheus Vermeulen and Robin van den Akker (2010). Ontologically, metamodernism is perceived as oscillating between the modern and the postmodern, whereby the tools of postmodernism (such as irony, sarcasm, parataxis, deconstruction, scepticism and nihilism) are employed to counter (but not obliterate) modernist naivety, aspiration and enthusiasm. This oscillation results in what the above authors have termed “informed naivety,” a phrase denoting a state of wilful pragmatic idealism that allows for the imagining of impossible possibilities. Vermeulen and van den Akker’s two key observations about the shift from postmodernism to metamodernism in contemporary art are discussed in this paper, namely the (re)appearance of sensibilities corresponding to those of Romanticism and the (re)emergence of utopian desires, in an attempt at a metamodernist analysis of the Netflix adaptation of the Bridgerton book series, aimed primarily at elucidating its popularity as one of the most watched programmes of the global Covid-19 pandemic.","PeriodicalId":40721,"journal":{"name":"Acta Universitatis Sapientiae-Film and Media Studies","volume":"118 1","pages":"122 - 138"},"PeriodicalIF":0.1,"publicationDate":"2022-11-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"81362391","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Abstract In this article the author interprets the image of Daenerys Targaryen from the HBO television series, Game of Thrones (2011–19) as an allegory for the Me Too movement and as a symbolic depiction of the concepts of women regaining their power. She follows the connection between the emerging visualization of Daenerys with the tiny dragons and ancient depictions of Goddesses and dragons, and connects this motif to feminist scholars who researched the revival of feminine language in the 1970s and the 1980s of the 20th century. The article also suggests that the nudity of women depicted in fantastic art, particularly in images with women and dragons, are not necessarily titillating but representative of the early feminist stage of women seeking a symbolic power figure. The author also contrasts Daenerys’s visualization with those images, suggesting how she demonstrates the evolution of the motif in light of the changing focal points of feminist movements. Daenerys’s image, she suggests, reflects one of the central issues of the Me Too phenomenon – considering the female body as a sanctuary, which even if exposed and suggestive, is dangerous and forbidden to touch.
{"title":"The Goddess, Daenerys Targaryen and Me Too Values","authors":"Sharon Khalifa-Gueta","doi":"10.2478/ausfm-2022-0016","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2478/ausfm-2022-0016","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract In this article the author interprets the image of Daenerys Targaryen from the HBO television series, Game of Thrones (2011–19) as an allegory for the Me Too movement and as a symbolic depiction of the concepts of women regaining their power. She follows the connection between the emerging visualization of Daenerys with the tiny dragons and ancient depictions of Goddesses and dragons, and connects this motif to feminist scholars who researched the revival of feminine language in the 1970s and the 1980s of the 20th century. The article also suggests that the nudity of women depicted in fantastic art, particularly in images with women and dragons, are not necessarily titillating but representative of the early feminist stage of women seeking a symbolic power figure. The author also contrasts Daenerys’s visualization with those images, suggesting how she demonstrates the evolution of the motif in light of the changing focal points of feminist movements. Daenerys’s image, she suggests, reflects one of the central issues of the Me Too phenomenon – considering the female body as a sanctuary, which even if exposed and suggestive, is dangerous and forbidden to touch.","PeriodicalId":40721,"journal":{"name":"Acta Universitatis Sapientiae-Film and Media Studies","volume":"25 1","pages":"139 - 161"},"PeriodicalIF":0.1,"publicationDate":"2022-11-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"78142848","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Abstract In the Argentine film The Headless Woman (La mujer sin cabeza, Lucrecia Martel, 2008), the protagonist Vero is haunted by the possibility of killing someone in a hit-and-run. Although hinting at the crimes committed during the last dictatorship in Argentina, The Headless Woman refers more to a mechanism of the past that is transformed and updated within contemporary society. In this essay, Martel’s film acts a starting point in the exploration of recent Argentine films that deal with spectres from the past that pervade everyday life in the present: Clementina (Jimena Monteoliva, 2017), One Sister (Una hermana, Sofía Brockenshire and Verena Kuri, 2017) and The Returned (Los que vuelven, Laura Casabé, 2019). In a decade in which we can notice a remarkable growth of the horror genre in Argentine cinema, these films embrace several codes and characters from the horror genre to approach the Argentine reality. The author discusses how these filmmakers adopt similar aesthetic features from the horror genre to invoke and address the violence that permeates Argentine society today, with special attention devoted to ghosts, a key figure to understand an ongoing history of brutalities that usually go unresolved.
在阿根廷电影《无头女人》(La mujer sin cabeza, Lucrecia Martel, 2008)中,主角Vero被一场肇事逃逸的杀人可能性所困扰。虽然《无头女人》暗示了阿根廷最后一次独裁统治期间犯下的罪行,但它更多地指的是在当代社会中被改造和更新的过去机制。在这篇文章中,马特尔的电影作为探索最近阿根廷电影的起点,这些电影处理的是现在日常生活中普遍存在的过去的幽灵:克莱门蒂娜(Jimena Monteoliva, 2017),一个姐妹(Una hermana, Sofía Brockenshire和Verena Kuri, 2017)和归来(Los que vuelven, Laura casab, 2019)。在这十年里,我们可以注意到阿根廷电影中恐怖类型的显著增长,这些电影采用了恐怖类型的一些代码和角色来接近阿根廷的现实。作者讨论了这些电影制作人如何从恐怖类型中采用类似的美学特征来唤起和解决当今渗透阿根廷社会的暴力,特别关注鬼魂,这是理解残暴历史的关键人物,通常没有解决。
{"title":"They Live: Violence, Horror and Spectres in Four Contemporary Argentine Films","authors":"Natalia Christofoletti Barrenha","doi":"10.2478/ausfm-2022-0013","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2478/ausfm-2022-0013","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract In the Argentine film The Headless Woman (La mujer sin cabeza, Lucrecia Martel, 2008), the protagonist Vero is haunted by the possibility of killing someone in a hit-and-run. Although hinting at the crimes committed during the last dictatorship in Argentina, The Headless Woman refers more to a mechanism of the past that is transformed and updated within contemporary society. In this essay, Martel’s film acts a starting point in the exploration of recent Argentine films that deal with spectres from the past that pervade everyday life in the present: Clementina (Jimena Monteoliva, 2017), One Sister (Una hermana, Sofía Brockenshire and Verena Kuri, 2017) and The Returned (Los que vuelven, Laura Casabé, 2019). In a decade in which we can notice a remarkable growth of the horror genre in Argentine cinema, these films embrace several codes and characters from the horror genre to approach the Argentine reality. The author discusses how these filmmakers adopt similar aesthetic features from the horror genre to invoke and address the violence that permeates Argentine society today, with special attention devoted to ghosts, a key figure to understand an ongoing history of brutalities that usually go unresolved.","PeriodicalId":40721,"journal":{"name":"Acta Universitatis Sapientiae-Film and Media Studies","volume":"1 1","pages":"77 - 96"},"PeriodicalIF":0.1,"publicationDate":"2022-11-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"87707620","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Abstract The study aims at investigating the phenomenon of crisis in the intersection of three areas: simulation, singularity and temporality. The argument develops a theory of the singular crisis whose instances are demonstrated and proved by the American thriller, Take Shelter (2011, Jeff Nichols). The applied concept of crisis is based on the argument that any critical period is treated by models derived from earlier crises. The theoretical background to the simulated operating mechanisms of the crisis is Jean Baudrillard’s and Gilles Deleuze’s appropriations of simulation and simulacra. In case the simulated problem-solving patterns fail in a critical period, the singular characteristics of the crisis can be observed. Based on examples taken from the film, the article argues that reaction to any given crisis is essentially built up by both hyperreal patterns governed by simulation and singular elements that simulation cannot account for. The description of the temporal nature of crises is heavily dependent on interpretation, thus their temporal span is observed from the vantage point of their singular characteristics. The study argues that crises are characteristically open-ended but their endpoint is predominantly designated in hindsight to render the crisis as a finished time period for the sake of manageability.
{"title":"Singularity and the Open-Ended Crisis","authors":"Norbert Gyuris","doi":"10.2478/ausfm-2022-0007","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2478/ausfm-2022-0007","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract The study aims at investigating the phenomenon of crisis in the intersection of three areas: simulation, singularity and temporality. The argument develops a theory of the singular crisis whose instances are demonstrated and proved by the American thriller, Take Shelter (2011, Jeff Nichols). The applied concept of crisis is based on the argument that any critical period is treated by models derived from earlier crises. The theoretical background to the simulated operating mechanisms of the crisis is Jean Baudrillard’s and Gilles Deleuze’s appropriations of simulation and simulacra. In case the simulated problem-solving patterns fail in a critical period, the singular characteristics of the crisis can be observed. Based on examples taken from the film, the article argues that reaction to any given crisis is essentially built up by both hyperreal patterns governed by simulation and singular elements that simulation cannot account for. The description of the temporal nature of crises is heavily dependent on interpretation, thus their temporal span is observed from the vantage point of their singular characteristics. The study argues that crises are characteristically open-ended but their endpoint is predominantly designated in hindsight to render the crisis as a finished time period for the sake of manageability.","PeriodicalId":40721,"journal":{"name":"Acta Universitatis Sapientiae-Film and Media Studies","volume":"13 1","pages":"171 - 183"},"PeriodicalIF":0.1,"publicationDate":"2022-07-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"75458496","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Abstract As a result of its radical approach to the topic of the Holocaust, as well as due to the long list of prestigious prizes it won, Son of Saul (Saul fia, 2015, directed by László Nemes Jeles) has put the relation between Eastern European societies and totalitarianism in the centre of public and academic discourse. Though most reviews and articles placed the film in the history of Holocaust-representations, this is not the only context in which the film can be understood. In the present article I argue that Son of Saul can also be read outside (or at least at a distance from) the context of a Holocaust-film, as it also belongs to another, quite different and internationally much less known local cinematic canon. There is an unclaimed heritage behind Nemes Jeles’s controversial masterpiece, a trend in Hungarian cinema that explores the crisis of masculinity in totalitarian political regimes, thereby performing an allegorical critique of modernity and modern subjectivity. My recontextualization of Nemes Jeles’s work indicates the ways it is influenced by a local, Eastern European filmmaking tradition (which includes the work of his own father, the filmmaker András Jeles as well), and is supported by three interrelated conceptual focus points: a post-Foucauldian understanding of cultural and cinematic space, an awareness of the workings of modern cinematic allegory, and finally the use of male protagonists as prime sites for the inscription of social crisis and historical trauma.
《索尔之子》(Saul fia, 2015,由László Nemes Jeles执导)对大屠杀主题的激进处理,以及它获得的一长串著名奖项,使东欧社会与极权主义之间的关系成为公共和学术话语的中心。尽管大多数评论和文章都将这部电影置于大屠杀再现的历史中,但这并不是理解这部电影的唯一背景。在本文中,我认为《扫罗之子》也可以在大屠杀电影的背景之外(或至少远离)阅读,因为它也属于另一个完全不同的、在国际上鲜为人知的本土电影经典。在内梅斯·耶勒斯这部备受争议的杰作背后,有一份无人认领的遗产,这是匈牙利电影的一种趋势,它探讨了极权主义政治体制下的男子气概危机,从而对现代性和现代主体性进行了寓言式的批判。我对Nemes Jeles作品的重新语境化表明,它受到当地的东欧电影制作传统(包括他自己的父亲,电影制作人András Jeles的作品)的影响,并得到三个相互关联的概念焦点的支持:一种对文化和电影空间的后福柯式理解,一种对现代电影寓言运作的认识,最后是将男性主角作为社会危机和历史创伤的主要场所。
{"title":"Recontextualizing Son of Saul: Masculinity in Totalitarian Spaces in Hungarian Film History","authors":"György Kalmár","doi":"10.2478/ausfm-2022-0005","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2478/ausfm-2022-0005","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract As a result of its radical approach to the topic of the Holocaust, as well as due to the long list of prestigious prizes it won, Son of Saul (Saul fia, 2015, directed by László Nemes Jeles) has put the relation between Eastern European societies and totalitarianism in the centre of public and academic discourse. Though most reviews and articles placed the film in the history of Holocaust-representations, this is not the only context in which the film can be understood. In the present article I argue that Son of Saul can also be read outside (or at least at a distance from) the context of a Holocaust-film, as it also belongs to another, quite different and internationally much less known local cinematic canon. There is an unclaimed heritage behind Nemes Jeles’s controversial masterpiece, a trend in Hungarian cinema that explores the crisis of masculinity in totalitarian political regimes, thereby performing an allegorical critique of modernity and modern subjectivity. My recontextualization of Nemes Jeles’s work indicates the ways it is influenced by a local, Eastern European filmmaking tradition (which includes the work of his own father, the filmmaker András Jeles as well), and is supported by three interrelated conceptual focus points: a post-Foucauldian understanding of cultural and cinematic space, an awareness of the workings of modern cinematic allegory, and finally the use of male protagonists as prime sites for the inscription of social crisis and historical trauma.","PeriodicalId":40721,"journal":{"name":"Acta Universitatis Sapientiae-Film and Media Studies","volume":"91 1","pages":"123 - 145"},"PeriodicalIF":0.1,"publicationDate":"2022-07-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"79410628","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}