Academic literature on the topic 'Au cinéma – Objectivité'

RESUMENEn este artículo se analiza la imagen y el contexto histórico de tres filmes colombianos de la década de los sesenta y setenta: Los hijos del subdesarrollo de Carlos Álvarez (1975), Chircales de Marta Rodríguez y Jorge Silva (1972) y Camilo Torres Restrepo de Diego León Giraldo (1966). El análisis tiene como objetivo revelar las estrategias discursivas empleadas por el cine político marginal para reproducir el tan anhelado efecto de objetividad. De esta manera, la selección del género documental, el uso de la voz en off, la inclusión de imágenes de alto impacto y el desarrollo de una argumentación bien fundamentada, fueron las estrategias retóricas empleadas por los cineastas de la época para persuadir al espectador sobre la objetividad del discurso fílmico. Estas conclusiones amplifican uno de los temas reseñados en el libro Cine Político Marginal. Las formas de representación de una ideología de disidencia (1966-1976), publicado en enero de 2015. PALABRAS CLAVE Cine colombiano, historia, lenguaje cinematográfico, objetividad, persuasión.ÑUGAPA KAI WATAKUNAPI KASCHIS CHUNG CHASALLATA PUSAG CHUNGA WATAPISUGLLAPIKai mailla kilkaipi kawachiku sug parlu kai kimsa kunakuna nukanchipa alpapi kusaskakuna kawachiskakuna kai watapi kanchis chunga pusag chunga. Kai wambra sug iacha runapa Carlos Alvarez suti chasallata, chircales Marta Rodriguez, Jorge Silva ( 1972) chasallata kai runakuna Camilo Torres Restrepo de Diego Leon Giraldo pai nunakume kawachingapa imasami allika tukuikunata kawachinga ima suma kawariskasina pai munaska. Chasallata parlanakume imasami kallariskakuna sug ruraikuna kawachispa subrigcha ñugpa kaugsai chasallata kunaura kaugsai kaipi kawachiku sug kilkai sug pangapi Politico Maarginal rispa parlaspa kai watakunapi. (1966 -1976).IMA SUTI RIMAI SIMI:Kawachispa atun llagtapi, parlu, rimai, ruraikuna, llullarispa.BETWEEN TRUTH AND ILLUSION: THE PARADIGM OF OBJECTIVITY IN MARGINAL POLITICAL CINEMA OF THE SIXTIES AND SEVENTIES IN COLOMBIAABSTRACTIn this article, the image and the historical context of three Colombian films from the sixties and seventies are analyzed: Los hijos del subdesarrollo by Carlos Álvarez (1975), Chircales by Marta Rodríguez y Jorge Silva (1972), and Camilo Torres Restrepo by Diego León Giraldo (1966). The objective of the analysis is to reveal the discursive strategies employed by marginal political cinema to reproduce the desired effect of objectivity. In this manner, the selection of the documentary genre, the use of voice-over, the inclusion of high impact images and the development of a well-supported argumentation, were the rhetorical strategies employed by the filmmakers of the time to persuade the spectator about the objectivity of the film’s discourse. These conclusions are an extension of the themes covered in the book Marginal Political Cinema. The Forms of Representation of a Dissident Ideology (1966-1976), published in January 2015.KEYWORDSColombian cinema, cinematographic language, history, objectivity, persuasion. arteymemoria_ENTRE LA VÉRITÉ ET L’ILLUSION : LE PARADIGME DE L’OBJECTIVITÉ DANS LE CINÉMA POLITIQUE MARGINAL DES ANNÉES SOIXANTE ET SOIXANTE-DIX EN COLOMBIERÉSUMÉDans cet article, l’image et le contexte historique de trois films colombiens des années soixante et soixante-dix sont analysés : Los hijos del subdesarrollo (Les fils du Sous-développement) de Carlos Álvarez (1975), Chircales de Marta Rodríguez y Jorge Silva (1972), et Camilo Torres Restrepo de Diego León Giraldo (1966). L’objectif de l’analyse est de révéler les stratégies discursives employées par le cinéma politique marginal pour reproduire l’effet désiré d’objectivité. De cette façon, la sélection du genre documentaire, l’utilisation du voice-over, l’inclusion des images à fort impact et le développement d’une argumentation bien étayée, ont été les stratégies rhétoriques employées par des cinéastes de l’époque pour persuader le spectateur sur le l’objectivité du discours du film. Ces conclusions sont une extension des thèmes examinés dans le livre Cinéma politique marginale. Les formes de représentation d’une idéologie dissidente (1966-1976), qui a été publié en Janvier à 2015.MOTS-CLEFSCinéma colombien, langage cinématographique, histoire, objectivité, persuasion.ENTRE A VERDADE E A ILUSÃO: O PARADIGMA DA OBJETIVIDADE NO CINEMA POLÍTICO MARGINAL DOS ANOS SESSENTA E SETENTA NA COLÔMBIA.RESUMOEste artigo se analisa a imagem e o contexto histórico de três filmes colombianos da década dos sessenta e setenta: “Los hijos Del subdesarrollo” de Carlos Álvarez (1975), “chircales de Marta Rodríguez e Jorge Silva” (1972) e Camilo Torres Restrepo de Diego León Giraldo (1966). A análise tem como objetivo revelar as estratégias discursivas empregadas pelo cinema político marginal para reproduzir o tão anelado afeto de objetividade. Desta maneira, a seleção do gênero documental, o uso da voz em off, a inclusão de imagens de alto impacto e o desenvolvimento de uma argumentação bem fundamentada, foram as estratégias retóricas empregadas pelos cineastas da época para persuadir ao espectador sobre a objetividade do discurso fílmico. Estas conclusões amplificam um dos temas resenhados no livro Cine Político Marginal. “Las formas de representación de una ideología de disidencia” (1966-1976), publicado em janeiro de 2015.PALAVRAS CHAVESCinema colombiano, história, linguagem cinematográfico, objetividade, persuasão. Recibido el 10 de septiembre de 2015 Aceptado el 19 de noviembre de 2015

Cesare Zavattini was an acclaimed neorealist screenwriter and a theorist of neorealism. He has played a pivotal role in the critical rethinking of the new postwar Italian cinema although many of his concepts were considered avant-garde for that period. He stood for a direct, spontaneous, and immediate cinema with real people and real events. Despite his desire to eliminate all that was fictional from his films, Zavattini’s concept of new realist cinema cannot simply be described as a documentary approach. He was not so much interested in making documentary films but in making documentary-like fictions. He believed in the potential of cinema to reach a wide audience and in its capacity to be aesthetically subversive. The aspiration for an avant-garde cinema that would reach the masses was a naïve attempt that was too radical for the Italian cinema at the time. Most of his ideas were not accepted in Italy, but he was admired by young filmmakers all over the world. Some of his ideas were realized a few decades later in the works of the famous cinéma vérité and independent avant-garde filmmakers. Throughout his career, Zavattini argued that cinema should be socially committed art. He believed that neorealist films should direct the viewer’s gaze toward specific social issues and voice a subjective judgment on it. In neorealist films, fictional style and documentary rhetoric make the illusion that the experience of characters stands for the experience of the audience.

By focusing on Helmut Käutner’s In Those Days/Stories of a Car (In jenen Tagen, 1947) this article analyses the role of the car as a cinematic object. The automobile is the narrator of Käutner’s film: by giving voice to an object to discuss the Third Reich, Käutner raises – as it is often the case in the ‘rubble films’ – the question of objectivity when dealing with the recent past. At the same time, through the motif of the automobile, which Käutner uses a reflection of and on cinema, the director questions the role that the filmic medium can or should play in postwar Germany.

The author calls for continuity and continuation of the study of women’s cinema. Attention is drawn to the blurring of memory and even erasing women from the history of national film industries. They are not recognised as authors, while the history of cinema has been subject to the concept of the auteur film-maker. The filmmakers are made through the commitment and work of film critics and then cinema historians. The expert does not hide the fact that those relationships are strengthened by bonds of friendship, without the fear of being accused of having a lack of objectivity, and are often associated with the support of the author on the international festival circuit. The author calls for ‘watching across borders’, i.e. a supranational approach to the study of women’s cinema. Crossing the borders of national cinemas, in which the authors have not been recognised, allows a broader perspective to see the critical mass of the authors of world cinema. Politically, for the feminist cause, it is better to talk about European women’s cinema. Iordanova selects from the history of Central and Eastern European cinema, the names of authors who did not receive due attention. Moreover, she proposes specific inclusive and corrective feminist practices: the inclusion of filmmakers in the didactics, repertoires of film collections and festival selections; a commitment to self-study by watching at least one woman’s film a week.

This article turns to the Maysles brothers’ 1975 film Grey Gardens to problematize the philosophical assumptions at work in debates about objectivity and direct cinema. With a suitable picture of documentary objectivity we can avoid endorsing the claim that no film can be objective or the corollary that only documentaries that reflexively acknowledge the biases of their makers can succeed aesthetically or ethically. Against critics who have attacked Grey Gardens for its problematic claims to objectivity as well as theorists defending it for how it undermines objectivity, I argue that the film’s objective treatment of its subjects is part of its aesthetic and ethical achievement. In the context of observational documentary, being objective does not mean taking a purely dispassionate stance toward one’s subjects, but treating them without prejudice or moralism and letting them reveal themselves.

At the 2018 San Sebastian Festival the winning film was Entre dos aguas (Isaki Lacuesta, 2018). The Catalan filmmaker constructs a fiction film that, however, is also very much self-referential and biographical and therefore journalistic (all the actors are amateurs who play themselves in the film), and uses a good part of a certain journalistic documentary visual aesthetic. These actors, in turn, had already been protagonists for 12 years before another film by the filmmaker, La leyenda del tiempo (2006). However, the value of Lacuesta’s contribution lies in the fact that these characters play a life they did not live, but could easily have. In his proposal, reality is mixed with fiction in a film where both are equally plausible. The analysis of this footnote will also allow us to identify many of the characteristics of the new contemporary hybrid cinema, such as the cohabitation with objectivity, the deontology of the creator, the breaking of the frontiers between fiction and non-fiction, or the use of a certain ucrony within the script that inserts his characters (with varying degrees of luck) into their natural environment. We intend to analyze how this new hybrid film language allows a different knowledge of the environment, with all the implications that this implies.

During the last fifteen years in the Russian documentaries dominated creative trend characterized by passionless, objectivist fixing of reality, mainly the negative sides of it. Today, the so-called actual cinema is under crisis, and that determines the relevance of the study summing up some of the processes that have taken place in the Russian documentary cinema in the late 20th-early 21st century. The author examines the causes of uprise and development of the objectivist, naturalistic approach to the fixing of reality and showing the negative aspects of it in Russian documentaries. The primary reason for this phenomenon is connected with the changes in the social system of the country, which has led to the loss of ethical and aesthetic guidelines. The critical perception of reality in a number of contemporary documentaries is the antithesis to the Soviet documentaries with its trend to show predominantly positive aspects of life. As for the rejection of contemporary realities, it can be explained by the desire of film directors to distance themselves from the glamorous approach in the interpretation of reality customary a contemporary TV. And finally, there was the purely practical reason, namely poor theatre and TV distribution that forced the filmmakers to focus on the festival jury and film critics supporting this orientation. Another problem of contemporary Russian documentary lies in the fact of the elimination of the state documentary studios that has led to a general fall of professionalism in this field. The availability of digital video which appeared at this time and easiness of shooting and editing technology allowed to create documentaries by those who could not tell an interesting documentary story. The result of this process is a decline of spectators interest towards documentaries. It can be predicted that the development of new forms of financing documentaries and promoting them to the viewer, will significantly change the aesthetic content of Russian documentary films and return the interest of the audience to this kind of cinema.

This research proved that da’wa materials presented through serial religious soap opera, with good composition, can form da’wa materials which affected teenage religiosity. This research was in line with John C. Lyden in Film as Religion (2003), and Rachel Dwyer in Filming the Gods, Religion and India Cinema (2006), they contended that proselytizing activities with the media, especially film, had stronger effect to audiences, and became easier to understand than that of spoken orally.But it is present as the antithetical research of L. Rowell Huesmann in The Impact of Electronic Media Violence: The Scientific Theory and Research (2007). This research employed qualitative method by using impact analysis technique. The data gained from library study, observation, interviews, objectivity, and documentations.

Le cinéma, considéré comme art le plus proche de « l’impression de réalité » a toujours oscillé entre deux pôles apparemment inconciliables : d’un côté un cinéma qui serait à même de prendre en charge « la réalité », appelé documentaire, et de l’autre un cinéma qui construirait une « fausse réalité » constituée pourtant à partir d’éléments bien « réels », appelé fiction. Les rapports que les deux termes, documentaire et fiction entretiennent avec ces deux notions, réel et réalité, c’est ce que le présent travail veut s’attacher à déterminer, et va tenter notamment de questionner. A partir d’une réflexion sur la séparation entre réel et réalité, nous envisagerons ce que peut induire au niveau formel l’attachement d’un cinéaste selon qu’il oriente son cinéma plutôt vers la première notion ou plutôt vers la seconde. Cela nous amènera alors à étudier toutes les relations qui interagissent entre le film et le spectateur, et plus particulièrement à recenser dans des théories de certains auteurs les différents régimes de croyance de l’image. Cela passera donc, dans une certaine mesure par une remise en cause critique des « écoles » classique, moderne, non en soi mais en termes de dénomination. Il faudra bien entendu envisager, à partir de cette démarche pragmatique qui se place du côté du « faiseur », le cinéaste, de définir de nouvelles classifications. Ces classifications, loin des écoles esthétiques, se fonderont sur le triangle des rapports cinéaste/image/spectateur, avec pour sommet la construction d’une image particulière, interface entre l’auteur et le spectateur. Les différentes postures énoncées par différents théoriciens nous permettront de brosser un tableau global qui indexe de façon inédite l’inclination des cinéastes dans leur positionnement à travers les images qu’ils construisent vers des degrés de réalité différents. Cette nouvelle classification qui intégrera, et la scission documentaire/fiction et la scission classique/moderne, nous permettra de faire émerger une pratique radicale dans un nouveau rapport à la réalité, que les anciennes classifications ne permettaient à mon sens pas de rendre compte. Ainsi, l’objet de ce travail sera celui qui, à partir d’une mise en perspective à travers une historicité et d’écriture théoriques sur le cinéma, et plus particulièrement d’une approche communicationnelle de l’image, s’intéressera ensuite à dessiner les contours et signifier l’émergence d’une nouvelle forme contemporaine dans le cinéma. Nous nommerons cette forme « Nouvelle Objectivité ». Ainsi, l’idée maîtresse de notre hypothèse est d’avancer qu’il se cherche dans le cinéma aujourd’hui- dans une pratique que la théorisation peut tenter d’accompagner- une forme nouvelle qui tente, en conciliant quelque chose de la forme moderne et classique, tout en ré envisageant la frontière documentaire/fiction, de rendre compte du réel et ce de manière inédite, un cinéma, qui en tant qu’empreinte pourrait « objectivement » faire surgir du « réel ».

Il s’agit d’interroger la description d’images posée comme garante d’objectivité pour une interprétation du film à venir. Premièrement, l’objectivité est discutée au travers d’une pratique descriptive qui entend définir des relations stables entre les éléments de l’image et le langage. L’image en tant que signe doit trouver des équivalents linguistiques à ses composantes. Ainsi, se questionne la correspondance des objets de l’image aux signifiés et des abstractions (la substance imageante) aux signifiants, d’abord individuellement puis dans le cadre de modalités narratives et de modalités systémiques. La critique de ce modèle montre son inefficace. Il échoue car il poursuit la signification là où la description devrait saisir la signifiance. Deuxièmement, et conséquemment, on propose un modèle descriptif dynamique fondé sur l’idée de pertinence et de cadres de description. Le singulier, comme rupture d’une norme immanente au film, constitue la pertinence à partir de laquelle construire un modèle. S’inspirant de la théorie de Goffman, Les cadres de l’expérience, on définit des cadres de compréhension dans le film correpondant à l’appréhension de différentes cohérences. Ces cadres établis, il s’agit de montrer s’ils évoluent avec homogénéité ou s’ils comprennent des ruptures, appelées modalisations, provoquant un surgissement du singulier. Ce singulier est défini comme un événement porteur de sens dont l’interprétation se servira en dernière instance. Décrire, c’est faire surgir l’événement en confrontant les cadres à leurs modalisations. Enfin, l’application et la mise à l’épreuve de ce modèle descriptif avec un film radical comme Anticipation of the night de Brakhage permet d’en souligner les réussites ainsi que les manques. La description par cadres permet de faire surgir des événements cinématographiques porteur de signifiance. Elle doit cependant être approfondie pragmatiquement afin de saisir la poéticité à l’œuvre dans certains films
The description of images is being explored as a guarantee of objectivity for an interpretation to come. First, the objectivity is questioned through a descriptive practice which tries to define stable relations between the components of the image and language. The image as a sign might find linguistic equivalents to its components. Thus, we study the correspondence between the objects in the image and the signifieds, and between the abstractions and the signifiers, first individually, then as part of narrative modalities and systemic modalities. The analysis of this method shows its ineffectiveness. It fails because it seeks after meaning when it should seek after « signifiance ». Secondly, and as a consequence, we suggest a dynamic description based upon the search of a pertinence and of frames of description. Singularity, as a break in a norm immanent to the film, is the pertinence from which to build a model of description. Following Goffman’s theory, Frame analysis, we define frames of comprehension in the film corresponding to the apprehension of different coherences. This frames once settled, it’s about showing if they evolve homogeneously or if they break the homogeneity, which is called a modalization, producing the springing up of a singularity. This singularity is defined as an event bearing the « signifiance » which the interpretation will use in the end. To describe is thus to confront the frames with their modalizations to make the events spring up. Finally, the application of the method of description put to a test with such a special film as Anticipation of the night by Brakhage enables us to underline its successes and limitations. The frames description allows to reveal cinematographic events full of « signifiance ». Nevertheless we must go deeper into it pragmatically in order to seize the poeticity of certain special films

On se souvient avant tout de Roberto Rossellini comme d'un grand cinéaste du néoréalisme italien. Or la partie la plus importante de son oeuvre est consacrée à l 'Histoire et à la télévision. Le didactisme développé par Rossellini a malheureusement échoué, et ce malgré sa louable ambition. Les raisons de cet échec résident dans le trait saillant de ce didactisme, à savoir la rationalisation. Art et didactisme ont rarement fait bon ménage. Le public (cultivé ou pas) a réservé à cette oeuvre, une réception très en dessous des attentes du cinéaste. Dans le contexte du film d'art, le nouveau style de Rossellini a engendré certaines faiblesses de cet art, faiblesses qui apparaissent dans des dialogues très longs, dans l' absence de vraies intrigues, dans la transparence des personnages, dans la prétention à l'objectivité et à l'universalisme, dans la rareté de l' émotion, dans une originalité et une cohésion qui se font le plus souvent concurrence, dans une mauvaise programmation de ces films sur les chaînes de télévision etc.

Concept éminemment polysémique, le sens commun a été déprécié par un vaste pan de la philosophie occidentale, qui y a vu au mieux l’expression de croyances infondées, au pire la manifestation de croyances erronées et naïves. Là où bon nombre de commentateurs ont repéré dans les pensées mêmes d’Henri Bergson, Stanley Cavell et Gilles Deleuze, trois grandes figures de la philosophie du cinéma, des critiques adressées au sens commun, nous nous efforçons ici de tirer au clair la conception positive qu’ils développent de cette notion, en dépit des soupçons occasionnels qu’ils font peser sur elle. Plus précisément, nous tâchons d’expliquer jusqu’à quel point certaines acceptions du sens commun permettent de satisfaire l’ambition de connaître le réel lui-même. En premier lieu, nous passons en revue l’argumentation élaborée par certains réalistes spéculatifs (en particulier Quentin Meillassoux et Graham Harman) afin de clarifier d’une part des réflexions qui feront l’objet de discussions et de répliques dans les chapitres subséquents et, d’autre part, de montrer que la dépréciation philosophique du sens commun se prolonge jusque dans les débats les plus actuels sur l’objectivité. Nous faisons ressortir par la suite les angles sous lesquels le sens commun est susceptible de nous rapprocher du réel d’après Bergson, Cavell et Deleuze. En second lieu, nous entrons de plain-pied dans le domaine du cinéma et examinons en quoi différentes œuvres du renouveau du cinéma québécois (Denis Côté, Stéphane Lafleur, Sébastien Pilote, Rafaël Ouellet, Xavier Dolan, Anne Émond, Rodrigue Jean, le collectif Épopée, Mathieu Denis et Simon Lavoie) viennent à leur manière compléter, radicaliser ou critiquer les réflexions développées dans la première partie autour du sens commun et du réel. À l’encontre de ceux qui qualifient ces œuvres de « mimétiques », « peu songées » et « esthétisantes », nous mettons donc en évidence la façon dont ces films, attentifs à la profondeur de l’expérience ordinaire et à l’exigence de trouver un certain équilibre entre le devenir incessant et la stabilité constante, parviennent à nuancer et à raffiner la philosophie
The eminently polysemic concept of common sense was depreciated by a vast segment of Western philosophy, which saw at best in it the expression of unwarranted beliefs, at worst the manifestation of erroneous and naïve beliefs. Where many commentators have pinpointed critiques of common sense in the thoughts of Henri Bergson, Stanley Cavell and Gilles Deleuze, three prominent figures of the philosophy of cinema, we strive here to bring out the positive conception they develop of that concept, notwithstanding the occasional suspicion they may cast on it. To put it in more precise terms, we seek to explain to what extent certain meanings of common sense are apt to satisfy the ambition of knowing reality itself. In the first place, we review the argument elaborated by certain speculative realists (specifically Quentin Meillassoux and Graham Harman) in order to clarify, on the one hand, reflections which will be the object of discussions and replies in the subsequent chapters, and, on the other hand, to show that the philosophical depreciation of common sense goes on even in the most contemporary debates on objectivity. We then bring out the angles under which, according to Bergson, Cavell and Deleuze, common sense is apt to bring us closer to reality itself. In the second place, we enter fully into the field of cinema and examine in what way different works associated with the revival of Quebec cinema (Denis Côté, Stéphane Lafleur, Sébastien Pilote, Rafaël Ouellet, Xavier Dolan, Anne Émond, Rodrigue Jean, the collective Épopée, Mathieu Denis and Simon Lavoie) end up completing, radicalizing or criticizing in their way the reflections developed in the first part around common sense and the real. In opposition to those who characterize those works as « mimetic », « thoughtless » and « aestheticizing », we thus bring to the fore the way in which those films, paying attention to the depth of ordinary experience and to the requirement of finding a certain balance between incessant becoming and constant stability, do succeed in nuancing and refining philosophy

Cette thèse a comme but de resituer l’œuvre de l’auteur suisse romand, Charles Ferdinand Ramuz dans le contexte français où elle a été souvent mal accueillie, plus particulièrement à l’époque contemporaine à sa création même. Afin de pouvoir situer les questionnements et les hypothèses, elle dresse un panorama des différents aspects de la réception de l’œuvre en question (malentendus, interprétations linguistiques, esthétiques et narratologiques). Ce travail souhaite s’inscrire dans le renouveau critique qui s’est fait jour dans les années soixante. Il étudie les stratégies d’expression et les techniques narratives qui rendraient possible une « langue-image » et une esthétique de la perception phénoménologico-cinématographique. Il consacre une attention particulière à l’usage ramuzien du pronom on ainsi qu’à la mise en œuvre des effets cinématographiques. L’analyse détaillée de ces constantes de l’écriture ramuzienne permettent non seulement de redéfinir les enjeux d’un regard détaché, objectif et de redécouvir le foyer perceptif comme doté de conscience et de cognition, mais aussi de poser une question qui peut paraître bouleversante : l’écriture de cet écrivain vaudois, mettrait-elle en œuvre ce que la création romanesque associée à la mouvance du Nouveau Roman définit et théorise trente ans plus tard ?
The aim of the present thesis is to resituate the work of the Swiss writer Charles Ferdinand Ramuz in the French context in which it was frequently badly received, namely in the contemporary age of its creation. In order to situate the questions and hypotheses, the thesis will provide a panorama of the different aspects of the work’s reception in question (misunderstandings, linguistic, aesthetic and narratological interpretations). This study aims to follow in the lines of the Critical Renewal which appeared in the sixties. It will study the strategies of expression and the narrative techniques that would allow a «language-image» and an aesthetics of the phenomenological-cinematographic perception. It will focus especially on Ramuz’ usage of “on” (we) as well as on the realization of the cinematographic effects. The detailed analysis of these constants in Ramuz’ writing make it possible not only to redefine the challenges of a detached and objective view and to rediscover the perceptive focus as if it was provided with conscience and cognition but also to raise a seemingly upsetting question: may it be possible that the writing of this Vaud writer already accomplishes what the Romanesque creation in association with the movement of the New Novel (Nouveau Roman) defines and theorises thirty years later ?

This thesis is my attempt to establish a foundation, based on the philosophy of Objectivism as it was developed and elaborated by the Russian-American novelist and philosopher Ayn Rand, for the construction of an Objectivist aesthetics of cinema. After contextualizing and explicating Rand's philosophy, I make the case that, propaedeutic to the construction of a new aesthetics of cinema, it is incumbent upon film scholars to refute the irrational and immoral philosophical premises that have long been destroying the philosophy of art in general and the discipline of film studies in particular. Due to the troubling combination of its contemporaneity, extremism, and considerable influence, I focus initially on the philosophical school of poststructuralism - which I contend has, since the 1960s, served as the default philosophical foundation for film scholars - before ultimately moving on to refute what I call the Kantian aesthetic tradition, of which I demonstrate poststructuralism is a deadly symptom. Upon clearing away this philosophical debris, I set about arguing for the probative value of an Objectivist aesthetics of cinema by reigniting long-dormant debates about the validity of interpretation and the role of evaluation in film criticism. In so doing, I hope to demonstrate the value of an aesthetic orientation which I term aesthetic perfectionism, for it is my contention that perfectionism - which has recently emerged at the heart of key developments in film studies through the work of Stanley Cavell, which I argue motivated Rand's philosophical enterprise, and which I argue should motivate the philosophical enterprises of all scholars who strive to do justice to all that the cinema has to offer - is the key to unlocking an Aesthetics of Life capable of transforming the discipline of film studies.

Ce mémoire aborde la question du point de vue dans la philosophie du cinéma de Gilles Deleuze. Dans Cinéma 1 : L’image-mouvement, en reprenant les définitions de l’objectivité et de la subjectivité de Bergson, Deleuze effectue comme une espèce de « renversement » de ce qu’on entend communément au cinéma en ces termes. Cette étude vise à comprendre ce renversement. Nous voyons d’abord que Deleuze rejette les conceptions narratives du point de vue puisqu’elles ne donnent pas à l’image la primauté ontologique. Nous exposons de quelle façon Deleuze retourne Bergson contre lui-même en accordant à la perception cinématographique un degré d’objectivité supérieur à la perception naturelle, et nous demandons ensuite comment Deleuze pourrait concevoir l’expérience du spectateur. En adressant les notions d’objectivité et de subjectivité du 5e chapitre de L’image-mouvement, nous décrivons le processus à travers lequel Deleuze en arrive à reprendre les définitions de Bergson, puis de quelle façon se produit le renversement explicite. Nous découvrons à ce stade que, suivant l’influence de Vertov, c’est par un « œil non-humain » que s’effectue le renversement. Cela nous mène au passage entre l’image-mouvement et l’image-temps, où nous trouvons que la notion de point de vue a subi une sorte de « réflexion ». Dans un engrenage composite avec les mouvements aberrants, le point de vue se révèle être un élément important de la transition entre les deux régimes d’images. Nous rejoignons ensuite l’absolu de Bergson, la « durée » de l’image-temps, qui vient à signifier le dépassement même de la notion de point de vue. Nous remarquons plus généralement que nos conclusions ont en commun une entreprise sous-jacente de désubjectivation, qui traverse une grande partie de la philosophie deleuzienne. Nous en venons enfin au constat selon lequel le point de vue chez Deleuze est un élément crucial de son propre dépassement.
This thesis addresses the question of the point of view in the philosophy of the cinema of Gilles Deleuze. In Cinema 1: The Movement-Image, taking Bergson’s definitions of objectivity and subjectivity, Deleuze performs a kind of “reversal” of what is commonly understood in cinema in these terms. This study aims to understand this reversal. We first see that Deleuze rejects the narrative conceptions of the point of view since they do not give the image ontological primacy. We show how Deleuze turns Bergson against himself by attributing cinematographic perception a degree of objectivity superior to natural perception, and then see how Deleuze could conceive the spectator’s experience. In discussing the notions of objectivity and subjectivity of the 5th chapter of The Movement-Image, we describe the process through which Deleuze arrives at Bergson’s definitions, and then how the explicit reversal takes place. We discover at this stage that, following the influence of Vertov, it is through a “non-human eye” that the reversal occurs. This leads us to the transition from the movement-image to the time-image, where we find that the notion of point of view has undergone a kind of “reflection”. In a composite assembly with aberrant movements, the point of view proves to be an important element of the transition between the two regimes of images. We then reach the absolute of Bergson, the “durée” of the time-image, which comes to signify the very surpassing of the notion of point of view. We observe more generally that our conclusions share an underlying process of desubjectivization, which appears across much of the Deleuzian philosophy. Finally, we come to the conclusion that, for Deleuze, the point of view is a crucial element of its own overcoming.

Le journalisme est-il devenu incapable de narrer la réalité? La couverture de CNN des événements du 11 septembre 2001 le laisse croire. En effet, ce jour-là, CNN s'est contenté de montrer des images, sans rendre compte d'un contexte plus général dans lequel s'inscrivaient les événements. En quête d'objectivité, les journalistes ont voulu laisser aux images le soin de raconter l'Histoire. L'auteure de ce mémoire avance que cette façon de faire suit parfaitement la logique mise de l'avant par le journalisme moderne qui a introduit l'idée d'objectivité en journalisme au tournant du 20e siècle. Le journalisme est désormais plongé dans une crise de la représentation, en grande partie à cause de sa foi dans l'objectivité, soutient l'auteure de ce texte. Analysant la couverture de CNN, elle constate que la chaîne d'information continue a voulu donner directement accès à la réalité par le biais des images. Les mots sont considérés inutiles, superflus, vétustes même. Pour l'auteure, ce déclin des mots peut être relié à une incapacité de plus en plus grande d'échanger et de réfléchir, à une sorte de perte d'expérience qui accentue la terreur provoquée par le terrorisme. Y a-t-il moyen de sortir d'une telle crise? Ce mémoire soulève une piste : que le journalisme s'inspire davantage du cinéma. Un film documentaire et onze courts métrages de fiction, portant tous sur les événements du 11 septembre 2001, sont ainsi analysés. L'auteure suggère que le cinéma d'auteur - qu'il soit documentaire ou de fiction - réussit mieux que le journalisme à faire surgir la parole, à sortir du sensationnalisme, à penser dans la durée , à rendre compte de la diversité de l'expérience et à laisser le spectateur libre d'interpréter ce qui lui est présenté. Il est conséquemment proposé que le journalisme suive les traces du cinéma et qu'il réapprivoise la part de subjectivité et de fiction propre à toute représentation humaine. ______________________________________________________________________________ MOTS-CLÉS DE L’AUTEUR : journalisme, objectivité, 11 septembre 2001, CNN, représentation, narration, transparence, expérience (perte de l'), terrorisme, Walter Lippmann, cinéma documentaire, cinéma de fiction, Le Monde selon Bush, William Karel, 11'09"01

This chapter traces Dulac's transition to nonfiction filmmaking in the early 1930s, in her work as founding director of one of the most important news reel companies of the period (France-Actualités-Gaumont, 1932–35). It examines the aesthetic and social dimensions of her conception of the newsreel and its capacity for objectivity, as well as its ability to reveal reality and inner meanings beyond that which is visible with the human eye. The chapter also considers Dulac's socially and politically engaged nonfiction films and projects of the Popular Front, particularly her unique newsreel-based, pacifist documentary feature, Le Cinéma au service de l'histoire (1935), which investigates cinema's role as an actor within history.

This prologue examines overarching issues about women's film history, feminism, and the researching and writing of film history. Foregrounding historiographic problems, it explores the researching and writing about women “in” and “as” “history” in the cinema century by focusing on the critical-historical approach, which deals with the problem of “the history of history” —the approach used to expose the never-neutral amnesias of traditional historiography and to counter its claim to objectivity with the inevitability of its “fictions.” The chapter discusses the concept of becoming historical others and highlights the impossibility of history's history by drawing on the case of Elvira Giallanella, an Italian director and producer never mentioned in previous accounts of Italian silent cinema but who suddenly made her way into feminist historiography after a 35mm print of her 1919 antiwar film Umanità was discovered in 2007.

This chapter defines the scope of the book Danièle Huillet, Jean-Marie Straub: “Objectivists” in Cinema, beginning with Jacques Rivette’s proposal of a kind of ‘objectivity’ in cinema and the ways in which films by Jean- Marie Straub and Danièle Huillet have adhered to it almost to the letter in their use of pre-existing texts adapted seemingly without interpretation. It introduces an American poetry movement, Objectivism, and the poetic theories and axioms of Louis Zukofsky, highlighting their similarities to the filmmaking of Straub and Huillet.

This chapter focuses on several of Straub-Huillet’s films including History Lessons, Too Early/Too Late, Cézanne, Every Revolution is a Throw of the Dice, and The Bridegroom, the Actress, and the Pimp, looking at them through the lens of poetic devices such as the ideogram, gaps, interruptions, and stops, and how these may relate to cinematic devices used by Straub-Huillet including long-duration shots, tracking shots, and abrupt cutting. The role these devices play in the poetry of Oppen and Reznikoff are also analysed, as well as the Bertolt Brecht’s, Straub-Huillet’s, and the Objectivists’ penchant for quotation, generally without citations in the case of the latter two. Louis Zukofsky’s essay on Charles Chaplin’s Modern Times proves a key text in developing an Objectivist view of cinema that is ultimately quite Straubian.

In this chapter the author notes that for some people ‘observation’ connotes an attitude of surveillance towards the subject. Despite this, the term is a useful summation of the original documentary idea, which was to show viewers as accurately as possible what the filmmaker had seen. ‘Observational cinema’ emerged as one of several closely related documentary approaches of the 1960s, with close ties to anthropology. Unlike other forms, it placed the filmmaker at the centre of the film as an investigator of on-going events, a position shared with the viewer. This approach was encouraged by the introduction of new, light-weight cameras and sound recorders and was inspired partly by Italian Neorealism and partly by live television. While often perceived as aspiring to detachment and scientific objectivity, it was in fact a highly authored form involving a close relationship between filmmaker and subject and representing the limited point of view of the individual observer. The author argues that while the long camera take is often regarded as the primary characteristic of observational cinema, its true marker is a commitment to the sustained witnessing of specific events. A further consequence of observational filmmaking is that it has stimulated reflection on what it means to observe.

Contrary to the ideals of objectivity, impartiality, and abstraction that dominate law and the administration of justice in the modern age, chapter two seeks to establish an alternative model that would emphasize fluidity, role-reversal, and aesthetic engagement as critical for understanding law and legal judgment. It does so through the lens of Pedro Almodóvar’s Tacones Lejanos (1991). By analyzing the cinematic technique of the “direct address” (when a character looks directly into the camera) and the judge’s campy performances as a female impersonator, the chapter argues that High Heels places the viewer in several judging positions that challenge the one-dimensional compassionate judgment and opens up the possibility for an aesthetic judgment that is responsive to the call of marginal subjects traditionally excluded from the law. The last part of the chapter explores how the interaction between the camp aesthetics of the on-screen judge and the viewer reconceptualizes law as a queer performance.

Film’s mechanical eye has the ability to capture everything, the multitude and dispersion of movements recorded in its simultaneity and in duration, as it unfolds in time. For all its photographic objectivity, cinematographic vision thus allows for the indefinite to surface: it is a unique means of recording as well as expressing the world’s natural state of confusion. Crucially, cinema as a medium and as an art form also has the means to explore, alter and intensify our experience of the world’s constant transformation, its constitutive indeterminacy. This introduction to the volume explores the ways in which, even as the dominant discourses place the immediately legible and perfectly defined image at the top of the visual hierarchy, the recognition that film is in fact, and in essential ways, ill-suited to the expression of the fixed, complete and clear-cut, continues nonetheless to inflect the medium’s evolution, practices and theorisations