Continuum: Journal of Media & Cultural Studies, 2020
The aim of this article is to address a transversal topic within perpetrator
studies: how subsequ... more The aim of this article is to address a transversal topic within perpetrator studies: how subsequent generations deal with the legacy of their perpetrator ancestors. To achieve it, we analyse six recent documentary films, all produced between 2015 and 2018 that cover four different contexts: Nazi Germany, the Spanish Civil War, and the Chilean and Argentine dictatorships. Through a comparative methodological approach, our focus is on finding similarities that define this global trend through the exploration of two closely related phenomena: (1) Personal responses and social responsibility and (2) Family dynamics. One important outcome of this new cinematic tendency, that we call the ‘post-perpetrator generation documentary film’, is that by accepting their relatives’ involvement, the perpetrator’s offspring are able to recover their personal identity, and also to reintegrate their personal experience into a broader historical context. Indeed, the social sphere is an important focus in postperpetrator generation documentary films, because a major part of the perpetrator’s legacy involves social responsibility to the past, but especially to the future: concern for next generations is the ethical motivation of the post-perpetrator generation.
This paper aims to address the video as a new scholarly communication form, alternative to the tr... more This paper aims to address the video as a new scholarly communication form, alternative to the traditional written paper. Although the use of video could be a worthwhile option for any field of study in which videographic practice would facilitate the communication of the research findings and thus enhance our understanding of them, this practice seems especially useful when the object of study itself is the audiovisual language. For this reason and because the number of media scholars communicating their research outputs in videos has increased in recent years to the extent of becoming a new trend, I focus on the exploration of this practice in this discipline. However, could the video meet academic standards, and thus be considered as a new scholarly form? If the answer is affirmative, what exactly makes a video academic? Offering some answers to these questions is the main purpose of this article, which reviews how the transition from the written paper to the audiovisual form is evolving. This exploration will include not only these types of videos but also the online journals that make the publication of such videos possible, thereby facilitating a study of how these online platforms allow new ways of communicating research outputs in academic contexts.
International Journal of Media & Cultural Politics, 2019
The Chilean dictatorship is the subject of a number of recent non-fiction films in which the cons... more The Chilean dictatorship is the subject of a number of recent non-fiction films in which the construction of Chile’s collective memory also focuses on those who supported, collaborated or participated in the perpetration of the abuses and atrocities committed by the regime. In recent years, a new generation of Chilean filmmakers has emerged; among these are Andrés Lübbert and Lissette Orozco, whose documentary films about the dictatorship, El color del camaleón (‘The color of the chameleon’) and El pacto de Adriana (‘Adriana’s pact’), respectively, were both released in 2017. In both films, the memorialization of Chile’s past is associated with the exploration of family memories as the filmmakers engage with Chile’s collective memory through family relationships. In this way, family becomes central to a parallel process in which the filmmakers engage in an ethical and emotional questioning of their relationships with their relatives and the family legacy, thereby triggering conflict within the family. This family conflict may be resolved in one of two possible ways: breakdown or reconciliation. The two documentary films studied here offer examples of each possibility, facilitating an exploration of this process and the potential impact of this approach to documenting family relationships.
Antihero narratives constitute a common thread in the current boom of TV fiction. The Sopranos (H... more Antihero narratives constitute a common thread in the current boom of TV fiction. The Sopranos (HBO, 1999–2007) could be considered an early example of this tendency. The antihero is a complex character who demands equally complex responses from viewers. The title of this article is an allusion to Rob White’s article, ‘No more therapy’, in which White explores Dr Jennifer Melfi’s role as a narrative mechanism used to undermine viewer sympathy for Tony Soprano at the end of the series. Here I seek to explore this role further since Dr Melfi’s responses to Tony’s actions serve as a narrative strategy used by The Sopranos writers to guide viewer responses in their relationship with Tony Soprano, a pioneer example of the antihero figure. In doing so, it is my purpose to demonstrate the relevance in antihero TV series of the evolution not only of the antihero themselves but also of their relationship with other major characters over the course of the series. I call this evolution, through which the creators develop the transformational arcs of the two characters concerned: the ‘relationship arc’.
Following a century filled with violations of human rights, a significant number of documentary f... more Following a century filled with violations of human rights, a significant number of documentary films have appeared since the first decade of the current century that report these events. Traditionally this process is carried out from the victims’ point of view. However, a new tendency has emerged in which the films deal with the perpetrators’ perspective. It is easy to understand how establishing a relationship with a person who has committed atrocities may be problematic. So, why should we engage with perpetrators? The overarching purpose of this article is to attempt to offer some answers to this question. To this end, two methodological approaches are carried out in parallel: first, this article explores a sample of five documentary films and the filmmakers’ considerations of what their engagement with the perpetrators was like. Second, this article reviews the related literature and the controversial reception of these films by some scholars. In doing so, I also posit a theory that 4Rs (remembrance, recognition, remorse, and redemption) are a necessary prerequisite for the fifth R, of reconciliation. The final elaboration of this schema is mainly based on an example of interpersonal reconciliation.
Popular Communication: The International Journal of Media and Culture, 2018
This study is focused on those filmmakers who make films as a way of fighting to defend human rig... more This study is focused on those filmmakers who make films as a way of fighting to defend human rights. I look in particular in this article at their activist role in the process of documenting human rights abuses in contemporary film projects that explore the aftermath of genocide. In Asia, we can find two examples: the anticommunist genocide in Indonesia in 1965–66 and the genocide perpetrated by the Khmer Rouge regime in Cambodia in 1975–79. Two contemporary filmmakers have produced works that recover the history of the atrocities: Joshua Oppenheimer and Rithy Panh. Traditionally, filmmakers have formed relationships only with victims; however, this article shows how the involvement of the perpetrators is also necessary to fully understand the conflict. This article explores why filmmakers decide to engage with the perpetrators, how they get them to participate, and what the consequences of this process may be. Since Oppenheimer’s involvement with his protagonist, Anwar Congo, in The Act of Killing (2012) turns out especially problematic, exploring this relationship in depth is the central purpose of this article.
The aim of this article is to map a history of reflexive practices in Spanish cinema. To this end... more The aim of this article is to map a history of reflexive practices in Spanish cinema. To this end, I will explore how Spanish film-makers have expressed their relationship with cinema on screen through their personal reflections. In doing so, I will attempt to answer the following questions: How do Spanish film-makers carry out reflexive practices? What techniques, strategies and resources do they apply to express their personal reflections? What cinematic issues do they draw attention to in their films? I will therefore explore those films that may be considered as representing the different reflexive practices that have characterized Spanish cinema to date. Instead of a superficial analysis of a wide range of practices, I will focus on four specific aspects: (1) reception (‘allegories of spectatorships’); (2) the ‘making-of’ (the other side of the shot); (3) allusions to film history; and, finally, (4) variations and parodic approaches.
The popularization of the antihero is linked to the dramatic and narrative need of seriality: the... more The popularization of the antihero is linked to the dramatic and narrative need of seriality: the constant dichotomy between the family and professional spheres, between noble and petty actions, between duty and want, moves the story forward, generates suspense and renews conflicts, prolonging the story for dozens of hours. Vic Mackey (The Shield), Dexter Morgan (Dexter) or Nucky Thompson (Boardwalk Empire) could serve as an antihero example. However, the two most radical and complex cases are undoubtedly the protagonists of The Sopranos (Tony Soprano) and Breaking Bad (Walter White). The emotional affinity with the antihero has recently become the object of study. This paper proposes a new angle of study: the antihero’s relationship with the rest of the characters in the series. For that purpose, we will select the characters - main or secondary - that the writers use as narrative strategy to guide the emotional and moral responses of the spectator the emotional and moral responses of the viewer in their particular relationship with the anti-hero. We will mainly focus on the reactions of these characters to the amoral behaviors of the antiheroes. We propose a methodology of textual analysis that, based on cognitivist theorists, will serve as a mechanism to better understand the construction of the anti-hero and to investigate the effects of authorial decisions on viewers.
The main objective of this work is to evaluate two of the most important
aspects of critical inte... more The main objective of this work is to evaluate two of the most important aspects of critical interpellation that operate in the field of contemporary video art: found footage and remakes. To do so, the authors relate the concept of dialogism to the notion of appropriationism, and look at them in light of the artistic dynamics of resignification initiated with the avant-garde movements of the past. In that respect, ever since the art of the early XX century began to work with materials that were already circulating in society, the migration of images from one medium to another has become a dominant feature of the current artistic system. And, more than advertising or television, the artistic discourse has used the cinematographic image as a privileged interlocutor. On the one hand, there are those creators who have appropriated cinematographic material in a literal sense, in order to deconstruct it into a new unit that recomposes the starting set (from Joseph Cornell to Douglas Gordon through Bruce Conner). On the other hand, there are those artists who have disscused with the cinematographic image from the outside: the proposals of Mark Lewis, Pierre Huygue or Deimantas Narkevičius demand audiovisual reflection that questions the concepts of originality and copy, essential elements of both aesthetic transformation, as well as the aesthetic experience referred to a subject. However, the same conclusion can be reached in both cases: if the contemporary artistic image is characterized by its ethereal and roving condition, it is the cinematic spirit that seems to animate it.
This article examines Michelangelo Antonioni's L'Avventura offering a new discussion of its narra... more This article examines Michelangelo Antonioni's L'Avventura offering a new discussion of its narrative value, exploring the role of emotions and cognition in narrative, and their interaction. We believe the results of this study could reshape the current understanding of the film's main aesthetic properties. We agree with some of the main characteristics outlined previously by scholars and critics, regarding not only the film's plot structure but also its main stylistic features. In our view, the different hypotheses that spectators may be encouraged to formulate while watching the film are central to their aesthetic and critical experience. Our analysis of the whole set of narrative disruptions points to the conclusion that films achieves a convergence and interaction between the elicitation of active aesthetic reflection and the elicitation of active social reflection in a way that had never been done before.
The filmmaker’s engagement with the subject was an important element in Robert J. Flaherty’s film... more The filmmaker’s engagement with the subject was an important element in Robert J. Flaherty’s film documenting the life of Nanook and his family, the legendary Nanook of the North (1922), and of course it continues to be relevant in contemporary documentaries, such as the film Foreign Parts (2010), directed by French director Verena Paravel and US filmmaker J. P. Sniadecki. In these films, the approach to the reality of the subjects is documented from an ethnographic perspective, where the main objective is to examine how they live. To this end, the filmmaker has to spend hours and hours living alongside the subjects, establishing a relationship with them that is documented by the camera. To identify how this translates onto the screen is the main purpose of this article. To do this, I will adopt the approach to character engagement taken by cognitive film theory, since as I want to demonstrate this perspective is very useful for explaining the relationship established between filmmaker and subject in this kind of film. Especially useful to this explanation is the ‘structure of sympathy’ posited by Murray Smith (2004), which involves three concepts: recognition, alignment, and allegiance.
Character engagement is one of the main sources of emotion in the spectator. We argue that, in a ... more Character engagement is one of the main sources of emotion in the spectator. We argue that, in a nonfiction context, it is the filmmaker, who first engages with her subject, with whom she maintains long-standing everyday relations. Thus, this paper aims to explore how the filmmaker engages with real people in the process of filmmaking and how it is reflected on the screen. To this end, we will consider the notion of the ‘structure of sympathy’ posited by Murray Smith in his book Engaging Characters (1995, reprinted in 2004), which encompasses three concepts: recognition, alignment and allegiance. We will also take into account Smith’s updating of this structure in ‘Engaging Characters: Further Reflections’ (2010). In particular, we will attempt to apply Smith’s theoretical paradigm to a case study of a contemporary documentary: the film En construcción (Work in Progress, 2001), directed by Spanish director José Luis Guerin. In short, the main goal of this essay is to extend Smith’s approach, initially intended to explain the relationship between a fictional character and a spectator, to a non-fiction context, with the purpose in this case of defining the relationship between the filmmaker and the subject.
Why do films certain remain influential throughout film history? The purpose of this paper is to ... more Why do films certain remain influential throughout film history? The purpose of this paper is to attempt to answer this question. To do so, we adopt some quantitative approaches that facilitate an objective interpretation of the data. The data source we have chosen for this study is the Internet Online Movie Database (IMDb), and in particular, one of its sections called "Connections", which lists references made to a film in subsequent movies and references made in the film itself to previous ones. The extraction and analysis of these networks of citations allows us to draw some conclusions about the most influential movies in film history, identifying their distinguishing features, and considering how their popularity has evolved over time.
Continuum: Journal of Media & Cultural Studies, 2020
The aim of this article is to address a transversal topic within perpetrator
studies: how subsequ... more The aim of this article is to address a transversal topic within perpetrator studies: how subsequent generations deal with the legacy of their perpetrator ancestors. To achieve it, we analyse six recent documentary films, all produced between 2015 and 2018 that cover four different contexts: Nazi Germany, the Spanish Civil War, and the Chilean and Argentine dictatorships. Through a comparative methodological approach, our focus is on finding similarities that define this global trend through the exploration of two closely related phenomena: (1) Personal responses and social responsibility and (2) Family dynamics. One important outcome of this new cinematic tendency, that we call the ‘post-perpetrator generation documentary film’, is that by accepting their relatives’ involvement, the perpetrator’s offspring are able to recover their personal identity, and also to reintegrate their personal experience into a broader historical context. Indeed, the social sphere is an important focus in postperpetrator generation documentary films, because a major part of the perpetrator’s legacy involves social responsibility to the past, but especially to the future: concern for next generations is the ethical motivation of the post-perpetrator generation.
This paper aims to address the video as a new scholarly communication form, alternative to the tr... more This paper aims to address the video as a new scholarly communication form, alternative to the traditional written paper. Although the use of video could be a worthwhile option for any field of study in which videographic practice would facilitate the communication of the research findings and thus enhance our understanding of them, this practice seems especially useful when the object of study itself is the audiovisual language. For this reason and because the number of media scholars communicating their research outputs in videos has increased in recent years to the extent of becoming a new trend, I focus on the exploration of this practice in this discipline. However, could the video meet academic standards, and thus be considered as a new scholarly form? If the answer is affirmative, what exactly makes a video academic? Offering some answers to these questions is the main purpose of this article, which reviews how the transition from the written paper to the audiovisual form is evolving. This exploration will include not only these types of videos but also the online journals that make the publication of such videos possible, thereby facilitating a study of how these online platforms allow new ways of communicating research outputs in academic contexts.
International Journal of Media & Cultural Politics, 2019
The Chilean dictatorship is the subject of a number of recent non-fiction films in which the cons... more The Chilean dictatorship is the subject of a number of recent non-fiction films in which the construction of Chile’s collective memory also focuses on those who supported, collaborated or participated in the perpetration of the abuses and atrocities committed by the regime. In recent years, a new generation of Chilean filmmakers has emerged; among these are Andrés Lübbert and Lissette Orozco, whose documentary films about the dictatorship, El color del camaleón (‘The color of the chameleon’) and El pacto de Adriana (‘Adriana’s pact’), respectively, were both released in 2017. In both films, the memorialization of Chile’s past is associated with the exploration of family memories as the filmmakers engage with Chile’s collective memory through family relationships. In this way, family becomes central to a parallel process in which the filmmakers engage in an ethical and emotional questioning of their relationships with their relatives and the family legacy, thereby triggering conflict within the family. This family conflict may be resolved in one of two possible ways: breakdown or reconciliation. The two documentary films studied here offer examples of each possibility, facilitating an exploration of this process and the potential impact of this approach to documenting family relationships.
Antihero narratives constitute a common thread in the current boom of TV fiction. The Sopranos (H... more Antihero narratives constitute a common thread in the current boom of TV fiction. The Sopranos (HBO, 1999–2007) could be considered an early example of this tendency. The antihero is a complex character who demands equally complex responses from viewers. The title of this article is an allusion to Rob White’s article, ‘No more therapy’, in which White explores Dr Jennifer Melfi’s role as a narrative mechanism used to undermine viewer sympathy for Tony Soprano at the end of the series. Here I seek to explore this role further since Dr Melfi’s responses to Tony’s actions serve as a narrative strategy used by The Sopranos writers to guide viewer responses in their relationship with Tony Soprano, a pioneer example of the antihero figure. In doing so, it is my purpose to demonstrate the relevance in antihero TV series of the evolution not only of the antihero themselves but also of their relationship with other major characters over the course of the series. I call this evolution, through which the creators develop the transformational arcs of the two characters concerned: the ‘relationship arc’.
Following a century filled with violations of human rights, a significant number of documentary f... more Following a century filled with violations of human rights, a significant number of documentary films have appeared since the first decade of the current century that report these events. Traditionally this process is carried out from the victims’ point of view. However, a new tendency has emerged in which the films deal with the perpetrators’ perspective. It is easy to understand how establishing a relationship with a person who has committed atrocities may be problematic. So, why should we engage with perpetrators? The overarching purpose of this article is to attempt to offer some answers to this question. To this end, two methodological approaches are carried out in parallel: first, this article explores a sample of five documentary films and the filmmakers’ considerations of what their engagement with the perpetrators was like. Second, this article reviews the related literature and the controversial reception of these films by some scholars. In doing so, I also posit a theory that 4Rs (remembrance, recognition, remorse, and redemption) are a necessary prerequisite for the fifth R, of reconciliation. The final elaboration of this schema is mainly based on an example of interpersonal reconciliation.
Popular Communication: The International Journal of Media and Culture, 2018
This study is focused on those filmmakers who make films as a way of fighting to defend human rig... more This study is focused on those filmmakers who make films as a way of fighting to defend human rights. I look in particular in this article at their activist role in the process of documenting human rights abuses in contemporary film projects that explore the aftermath of genocide. In Asia, we can find two examples: the anticommunist genocide in Indonesia in 1965–66 and the genocide perpetrated by the Khmer Rouge regime in Cambodia in 1975–79. Two contemporary filmmakers have produced works that recover the history of the atrocities: Joshua Oppenheimer and Rithy Panh. Traditionally, filmmakers have formed relationships only with victims; however, this article shows how the involvement of the perpetrators is also necessary to fully understand the conflict. This article explores why filmmakers decide to engage with the perpetrators, how they get them to participate, and what the consequences of this process may be. Since Oppenheimer’s involvement with his protagonist, Anwar Congo, in The Act of Killing (2012) turns out especially problematic, exploring this relationship in depth is the central purpose of this article.
The aim of this article is to map a history of reflexive practices in Spanish cinema. To this end... more The aim of this article is to map a history of reflexive practices in Spanish cinema. To this end, I will explore how Spanish film-makers have expressed their relationship with cinema on screen through their personal reflections. In doing so, I will attempt to answer the following questions: How do Spanish film-makers carry out reflexive practices? What techniques, strategies and resources do they apply to express their personal reflections? What cinematic issues do they draw attention to in their films? I will therefore explore those films that may be considered as representing the different reflexive practices that have characterized Spanish cinema to date. Instead of a superficial analysis of a wide range of practices, I will focus on four specific aspects: (1) reception (‘allegories of spectatorships’); (2) the ‘making-of’ (the other side of the shot); (3) allusions to film history; and, finally, (4) variations and parodic approaches.
The popularization of the antihero is linked to the dramatic and narrative need of seriality: the... more The popularization of the antihero is linked to the dramatic and narrative need of seriality: the constant dichotomy between the family and professional spheres, between noble and petty actions, between duty and want, moves the story forward, generates suspense and renews conflicts, prolonging the story for dozens of hours. Vic Mackey (The Shield), Dexter Morgan (Dexter) or Nucky Thompson (Boardwalk Empire) could serve as an antihero example. However, the two most radical and complex cases are undoubtedly the protagonists of The Sopranos (Tony Soprano) and Breaking Bad (Walter White). The emotional affinity with the antihero has recently become the object of study. This paper proposes a new angle of study: the antihero’s relationship with the rest of the characters in the series. For that purpose, we will select the characters - main or secondary - that the writers use as narrative strategy to guide the emotional and moral responses of the spectator the emotional and moral responses of the viewer in their particular relationship with the anti-hero. We will mainly focus on the reactions of these characters to the amoral behaviors of the antiheroes. We propose a methodology of textual analysis that, based on cognitivist theorists, will serve as a mechanism to better understand the construction of the anti-hero and to investigate the effects of authorial decisions on viewers.
The main objective of this work is to evaluate two of the most important
aspects of critical inte... more The main objective of this work is to evaluate two of the most important aspects of critical interpellation that operate in the field of contemporary video art: found footage and remakes. To do so, the authors relate the concept of dialogism to the notion of appropriationism, and look at them in light of the artistic dynamics of resignification initiated with the avant-garde movements of the past. In that respect, ever since the art of the early XX century began to work with materials that were already circulating in society, the migration of images from one medium to another has become a dominant feature of the current artistic system. And, more than advertising or television, the artistic discourse has used the cinematographic image as a privileged interlocutor. On the one hand, there are those creators who have appropriated cinematographic material in a literal sense, in order to deconstruct it into a new unit that recomposes the starting set (from Joseph Cornell to Douglas Gordon through Bruce Conner). On the other hand, there are those artists who have disscused with the cinematographic image from the outside: the proposals of Mark Lewis, Pierre Huygue or Deimantas Narkevičius demand audiovisual reflection that questions the concepts of originality and copy, essential elements of both aesthetic transformation, as well as the aesthetic experience referred to a subject. However, the same conclusion can be reached in both cases: if the contemporary artistic image is characterized by its ethereal and roving condition, it is the cinematic spirit that seems to animate it.
This article examines Michelangelo Antonioni's L'Avventura offering a new discussion of its narra... more This article examines Michelangelo Antonioni's L'Avventura offering a new discussion of its narrative value, exploring the role of emotions and cognition in narrative, and their interaction. We believe the results of this study could reshape the current understanding of the film's main aesthetic properties. We agree with some of the main characteristics outlined previously by scholars and critics, regarding not only the film's plot structure but also its main stylistic features. In our view, the different hypotheses that spectators may be encouraged to formulate while watching the film are central to their aesthetic and critical experience. Our analysis of the whole set of narrative disruptions points to the conclusion that films achieves a convergence and interaction between the elicitation of active aesthetic reflection and the elicitation of active social reflection in a way that had never been done before.
The filmmaker’s engagement with the subject was an important element in Robert J. Flaherty’s film... more The filmmaker’s engagement with the subject was an important element in Robert J. Flaherty’s film documenting the life of Nanook and his family, the legendary Nanook of the North (1922), and of course it continues to be relevant in contemporary documentaries, such as the film Foreign Parts (2010), directed by French director Verena Paravel and US filmmaker J. P. Sniadecki. In these films, the approach to the reality of the subjects is documented from an ethnographic perspective, where the main objective is to examine how they live. To this end, the filmmaker has to spend hours and hours living alongside the subjects, establishing a relationship with them that is documented by the camera. To identify how this translates onto the screen is the main purpose of this article. To do this, I will adopt the approach to character engagement taken by cognitive film theory, since as I want to demonstrate this perspective is very useful for explaining the relationship established between filmmaker and subject in this kind of film. Especially useful to this explanation is the ‘structure of sympathy’ posited by Murray Smith (2004), which involves three concepts: recognition, alignment, and allegiance.
Character engagement is one of the main sources of emotion in the spectator. We argue that, in a ... more Character engagement is one of the main sources of emotion in the spectator. We argue that, in a nonfiction context, it is the filmmaker, who first engages with her subject, with whom she maintains long-standing everyday relations. Thus, this paper aims to explore how the filmmaker engages with real people in the process of filmmaking and how it is reflected on the screen. To this end, we will consider the notion of the ‘structure of sympathy’ posited by Murray Smith in his book Engaging Characters (1995, reprinted in 2004), which encompasses three concepts: recognition, alignment and allegiance. We will also take into account Smith’s updating of this structure in ‘Engaging Characters: Further Reflections’ (2010). In particular, we will attempt to apply Smith’s theoretical paradigm to a case study of a contemporary documentary: the film En construcción (Work in Progress, 2001), directed by Spanish director José Luis Guerin. In short, the main goal of this essay is to extend Smith’s approach, initially intended to explain the relationship between a fictional character and a spectator, to a non-fiction context, with the purpose in this case of defining the relationship between the filmmaker and the subject.
Why do films certain remain influential throughout film history? The purpose of this paper is to ... more Why do films certain remain influential throughout film history? The purpose of this paper is to attempt to answer this question. To do so, we adopt some quantitative approaches that facilitate an objective interpretation of the data. The data source we have chosen for this study is the Internet Online Movie Database (IMDb), and in particular, one of its sections called "Connections", which lists references made to a film in subsequent movies and references made in the film itself to previous ones. The extraction and analysis of these networks of citations allows us to draw some conclusions about the most influential movies in film history, identifying their distinguishing features, and considering how their popularity has evolved over time.
"Reading Contemporary Serial Television Universes" (Edited by Paola Brambilla and Ilaria A. de Pascalis). New York: Routledge., 2018
The chapter of the book is here available for the next 50 days ( https://rdcu.be/4ftx )
This c... more The chapter of the book is here available for the next 50 days ( https://rdcu.be/4ftx )
This chapter deals with cases of narrative ecosystems for which the character is the epicenter of their evolutionary development. For instance, the characters of Batman, James Bond, and Sherlock Holmes are central to any understanding of how their associated narrative ecosystems are both produced and consumed. We can define this typologically as the “character-centered narrative ecosystem.” In this chapter, we will explore an example of this type of ecosystem: narratives that place the figure of the vampire at their center.
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Papers by Fernando Canet
studies: how subsequent generations deal with the legacy of
their perpetrator ancestors. To achieve it, we analyse six recent
documentary films, all produced between 2015 and 2018 that
cover four different contexts: Nazi Germany, the Spanish Civil War,
and the Chilean and Argentine dictatorships. Through a comparative
methodological approach, our focus is on finding similarities that
define this global trend through the exploration of two closely
related phenomena: (1) Personal responses and social responsibility
and (2) Family dynamics. One important outcome of this new cinematic
tendency, that we call the ‘post-perpetrator generation documentary
film’, is that by accepting their relatives’ involvement, the
perpetrator’s offspring are able to recover their personal identity, and
also to reintegrate their personal experience into a broader historical
context. Indeed, the social sphere is an important focus in postperpetrator generation documentary films, because a major part of
the perpetrator’s legacy involves social responsibility to the past, but
especially to the future: concern for next generations is the ethical
motivation of the post-perpetrator generation.
aspects of critical interpellation that operate in the field of contemporary
video art: found footage and remakes. To do so, the authors relate the concept of dialogism to the notion of appropriationism, and look at them in light of the artistic dynamics of resignification initiated with the avant-garde movements of the past. In that respect, ever since the art of the early XX century began to work with materials that were already circulating in society, the migration of images from one medium to another has become a dominant feature of the current artistic system. And, more than advertising or television, the artistic discourse has used the cinematographic image as a privileged interlocutor. On the one hand, there are those creators who have appropriated cinematographic material in a literal sense, in order to deconstruct it into a new unit that recomposes the starting set (from Joseph Cornell to Douglas Gordon through Bruce Conner). On the other hand, there are those artists who have disscused with the cinematographic image from the outside: the proposals of Mark Lewis, Pierre Huygue or Deimantas Narkevičius demand audiovisual reflection that questions the concepts of originality and copy, essential elements of both aesthetic transformation, as well as the aesthetic experience referred to a subject. However, the same
conclusion can be reached in both cases: if the contemporary artistic image is characterized by its ethereal and roving condition, it is the cinematic spirit that seems to animate it.
studies: how subsequent generations deal with the legacy of
their perpetrator ancestors. To achieve it, we analyse six recent
documentary films, all produced between 2015 and 2018 that
cover four different contexts: Nazi Germany, the Spanish Civil War,
and the Chilean and Argentine dictatorships. Through a comparative
methodological approach, our focus is on finding similarities that
define this global trend through the exploration of two closely
related phenomena: (1) Personal responses and social responsibility
and (2) Family dynamics. One important outcome of this new cinematic
tendency, that we call the ‘post-perpetrator generation documentary
film’, is that by accepting their relatives’ involvement, the
perpetrator’s offspring are able to recover their personal identity, and
also to reintegrate their personal experience into a broader historical
context. Indeed, the social sphere is an important focus in postperpetrator generation documentary films, because a major part of
the perpetrator’s legacy involves social responsibility to the past, but
especially to the future: concern for next generations is the ethical
motivation of the post-perpetrator generation.
aspects of critical interpellation that operate in the field of contemporary
video art: found footage and remakes. To do so, the authors relate the concept of dialogism to the notion of appropriationism, and look at them in light of the artistic dynamics of resignification initiated with the avant-garde movements of the past. In that respect, ever since the art of the early XX century began to work with materials that were already circulating in society, the migration of images from one medium to another has become a dominant feature of the current artistic system. And, more than advertising or television, the artistic discourse has used the cinematographic image as a privileged interlocutor. On the one hand, there are those creators who have appropriated cinematographic material in a literal sense, in order to deconstruct it into a new unit that recomposes the starting set (from Joseph Cornell to Douglas Gordon through Bruce Conner). On the other hand, there are those artists who have disscused with the cinematographic image from the outside: the proposals of Mark Lewis, Pierre Huygue or Deimantas Narkevičius demand audiovisual reflection that questions the concepts of originality and copy, essential elements of both aesthetic transformation, as well as the aesthetic experience referred to a subject. However, the same
conclusion can be reached in both cases: if the contemporary artistic image is characterized by its ethereal and roving condition, it is the cinematic spirit that seems to animate it.
This chapter deals with cases of narrative ecosystems for which the character is the epicenter of their evolutionary development. For instance, the characters of Batman, James Bond, and Sherlock Holmes are central to any understanding of how their associated narrative ecosystems are both produced and consumed. We can define this typologically as the “character-centered narrative ecosystem.” In this chapter, we will explore an example of this type of ecosystem: narratives that place the figure of the vampire at their center.