Loading...
6 results
Search Results
Now showing 1 - 6 of 6
- Metacinema as authorial enunciation: a taxonomy of hybrid filmsPublication . Chinita, FátimaABSTRACT - Metacinema is a cinephilic enterprise: whereas some film directors, bound by their urge for expression, seek to make their authorial discourse on such matters manifest; some compulsive film viewers aim to become film directors themselves. Both gladly engage with authorial enunciation, which evinces the technical and aesthetic work and choices undertaken by the film directors together with their “cinevision,” i.e., their worldview and artistic philosophy made explicit as the films’ on message(s) (or “discourse”). Taking metacinema as a practice situated in between reflexive cinema and cinema about cinema, this article defines it as simultaneously revealing the technique, including the apparatus that enables it, and the authorial discourse that voices the director’s position on his or her art. In order to better explain the four simultaneous conditions of metacinema in my own conception of it, an empirical taxonomy of hybrid films— one of the categories in a larger taxonomy I devised elsewhere—is drawn here. Thus the tautological expression of “self-reflexive metacinema,” as a deliberate thematization of this reflection, is expounded, with ample and varied examples, over a threefold enunciative taxonomy composed of three subcategories focusing on, respectively, the production stage, entailing the creative work of the filmmakers; the reception stage, illustrating the emotional and physiological response of the viewers; and a well-balanced comingling of these two stages. Through this categorization, it will become obvious that metafilms are the essence of metacinema, because in them the artists look foremost for the materiality of expression whereby they find themselves.
- A tale of sound and fury signifying everything: Argentine tango dance films as complex self-reflexive creationPublication . Chinita, FátimaABSTRACT - This article equates the multidimensional artistic form of Argentine tango (dance, music and song) with the innately hybrid form of film. It compares Argentine tango culture to the height of French cinephilia in the 1950s Paris, France, arguing that they are both passionate, erotic and nostalgic ways of life. In Carlos Saura’s Tango (1998) and Sally Potter’s The Tango Lesson (1997), the intertwining of the related skills of tango practice and filmmaking are an audio-visual treat for the senses and a cognitive challenge for the mind. Their self-reflexivity promotes excess and the result is a highly expressive and complex form. They evince a cross-fertilization of reality and fiction, of art and life, typical of a perfect mise en abyme as described by Christian Metz. These films are also art musicals, although they depart from the Hollywood musical conventions. Yet, one cannot speak in their case of intermedia reflexivity, according to Petr Szczepanik’s definition, because both of them retain their qualities in a symbiotic relationship of likeness that highlights their mutual aura.
- Juggling time concepts: complex metanarrative in Alejandro González Iñárritu’s 21 GramsPublication . Chinita, FátimaABSTRACT - Starting with the explanation of metanarrative as a sort of self-reflexive storytelling (as defended by Kenneth Weaver Hope in his unpublished PhD. thesis), I propose to talk about enunciative practices that stress the telling more than the told. In line with some metaficcional practices applied to cinema, such as the ‘mindfuck’ film (Jonathan Eig, 2003), the ‘psychological puzzle film’ (Elliot Panek, 2003) and the ‘mind-game film’ (Thomas Elsaesser, 2009), I will address the manipulations that a narrative film endures in order to produce a more fruitful and complex experience for the viewer. I will particularly concentrate on the misrepresentation of time as a way to produce a labyrinthine work of fiction where the linear description of events is replaced by a game of time disclosure. The viewer is thus called upon to reconstruct the order of the various situations portrayed in a process that I call ‘temporal mapping’. However, as the viewer attempts to do this, the film, ironically, because of the intricate nature of the plot and the uncertain status of the characters, resists the attempt. There is a sort of teasing taking place between the film and its spectator: an invitation of decoding that is half-denied until the end, where the puzzle is finally solved. I will use three of Alejandro Iñárritu’s films to better convey my point: Amores perros (2000), 21 Grams (2003) and Babel (2006). I will consider Iñárritu’s methods to produce a non-linear storytelling as a way to stress the importance of time and its validity as one of the elements that make up for a metanarrative experience in films. I will focus especially on 21 Grams, which I consider to be a paragon of the labyrinth.
- Authorial self-personalization and cine-vision in the film “Jane B. par Agnès V.” (1988)Publication . Chinita, Fátima"Jane B. par Agnès V." resulted from a collaboration between British actress Jane Birkin and the French film director Agnès Varda, and as the title seems to entail is a portrait of the former by the latter. Although to some extent that is the case; the ontological and artistic architecture of the film is more complicated than that. To start with, the two women are placed on a par, as artistic equals and owners of a shared imaginary, which points towards a reversibility of expression and representation, in which both authorship and depiction seem to fluctuate throughout the film. Beneath that surface level, however, Varda’s own portrayal is more important than Birkin’s. This hybrid self-reflexive film positioned hallway between fact and fiction, is a forerunner of "Les plages d’Agnès" (2008), evincing many of the same techniques in embryo. Varda (re)presents herself in the film behind the camera and as a strong enunciator of the filmic authorial discourse, revealing the apparatus and looking straight at the camera lens. This corresponds to a full-blown self-portrait in which the most appropriate film title would be "Agnès V." through "Jane B". The film undertakes an operation of “persona-lization” of both women but especially Varda, proving that the corporeal is true. Varda’s persona-lization is essentially professional, presenting the artist as creator, the hallmark of the "ars poetica" film; but imbued with an assumed authorial discourse on her own art, the most relevant aspect of what I term “cine-vison”. Thus, the film is foremost a cinematic essay.
- The audiovisual essay in the post-cinematic agePublication . Chinita, FátimaABSTRACT - Book review of: Beyond the Essay Film: Subjectivity, Textuality and Technology, edited by Julia Vassilieva and Deane Williams. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2020, 245 pages. ISBN: 978-94-6372-870-6 (hardback).
- Specular affinities: from (self-)reflexivity to intermediality via "mise en abyme"Publication . Chinita, FátimaThis essay is a theoretical account of the convergence between cinematic self-reflexivity and intermediality, both being considered for these purposes as self-constructed and self-revealing. Lucien Dallenbach's conception of mise en abyme - a combination of the enunciative surplus at the level of enunciation (whereby intradiegetic creators and spectators are revealed at their activities) with a fictional mirroring at the level of the story itself - is deemed a frame-breaking device that also enables the appropriation of other art forms by cinema. Adapting Gilles Deleuze's theory of the crystal-image (1985) to this intermedial context, I argue in favour of an "inter-media image", consisting of a perpetual flux of qualified media in which the mise en abyme generates a true constellation of ever-new inter-art combinations.