A Comparative Study of Mainstream Film and Moving- Image Installations
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Overlapping Montage: a comparative study of mainstream film and moving- image installations Orla G. Ryan, MA, BA, BA. Submitted for the qualification of PhD at Dublin City University Supervisor Stephanie McBride at the School of Communications November 2005 One Volume I hereby certify that this material, which I now submit for assessment on the programme of study leading to the award of Ph.D is entirely my own work and has not been taken from the work of others save and to the extent that such work has been cited and acknowledged within the text of my work. Signed: ' (Candidate) ID No.: 50161903 Date: 21 November 2005 Acknowledgements A Postgraduate scholarship from DCU and a Government of Ireland Research Scholarship generously funded my research. At Dublin City University I would like to thank my advisor Stephanie McBride for her support and encouragement. Thanks also to Roddy Flynn for his friendship and belief in my teaching abilities. Luke Gibbons was an important influence during my time as a MA graduate student. Des McGuinness, Barbara O’Connor, Karl Grimes and Debbi Ging have all made my time at DCU enjoyable and educational. My graduate students on the MAFT course (2000-2003) whose questions have often clarified my own research. Very special thanks must go to Christina Quinlan for her impromptu babysitting services on the day the thesis was handed in for examination. And lastly to the school secretary Mary Nulty, for both her humour and efficiency. I would like to thank all the library staff at DCU for their help and assistance. Christine Van Assche and Sylvie Douala-Bell at the Pompidou Centre, Paris, for their assistance in researching both Pierre Huyghe’s The Third Memory and Chris Marker’s Immemory. Thanks to the following for there help at different stages of this projects development. Maeve Connolly and Valerie Connor, my co-editors for The Glass Eye (2000) for their constructive comments on “Teratology and the Televisual in Manhunter”. Karen Van Meenen, editor at Afterimage for her comments on my Matthew Buckingham text. Paul Willemen who kindly forwarded a manuscript of his conference paper on action cinema, Gregory Sholette, not only for his surprising knowledge of B-Movies, but his generosity and scholarly advice. Many people have participated in the development of this project, some indirectly, through conversations and debates. Martin McCabe, who in his own early days as a lecturer alerted me to the importance of a cultural studies model. Valentina Vitali, for her insightful conversation on a number of issues. Thanks also to Cecilia Dougherty and Susan O’Brien at Anthology Books, Dublin. Ania Corcilius, Janine Sack, Jessica Scarlata, Matthew Buckingham, Mairead McClean, have all contributed to my thinking on film and moving- image installation. Thanks also to my colleagues and students at The Gorey School of Art especially Mairead O’Heocha and Pat Murphy. To my close friends from NCAD Rose Thomas and Maoliosa Boyle, for their constant friendship and support. To my family and family friends: Mark, T.J, Alice, Tom, Des, Stephen, Joyce & Jim, Janice &Stephen, Geoffrey, Anne& Padraig, Una & Philip, Eithne & Mikel, Bairbre & Eamonn, Frances and Michael, Ann & Larry. Thanks to my husband Brian, for his love, support and belief in me. Equally his creative intellect and inspirational conversation have been a profound influence on my thinking. And lastly to my beautiful little boy, Dion Said Hand, who fills my days with wows and wonder. Overlapping Montage: A Comparative Study of Mainstream Film and Moving- Image Installations Submitted by Orla Ryan Abstract This dissertation develops a discussion on the need for a comparative approach to the study of film and moving- image installations. It addresses the lack of critical attention given to moving-image installations within film studies generally and academic teaching programmes in particular. The development of a comparative approach requires researching a number of interlinking and independent fields of study such as film studies, art history/criticism, photography, literary theory, critical theory, anthropology and philosophy. While arguing against traditional disciplinary boundaries, the discussion critiques the accepted articulations of current interdisciplinary approaches. The dissertation discusses how an expanded field of comparative film studies needs to concern itself with both diachronic and synchronic axes, requiring a longer historical framework to analyse shifts in technologies of representation and related theories of subjectivity within particular capitalist formations. It is argued that this type of comparative model elaborates a more critically productive and conceptually expansive discussion of cultural products, whether they are mainstream film or moving-image installations. As such it aligns itself with an awareness of the political importance of history, memory and personal experience. The theoretical ground for a comparative approach is developed through exploring montage and fragmentation. While articulating the significance of theories of fragmentation to discussions of modernity and modernism, the thesis foregrounds the significance of understanding all cultural production as ‘montages’ - as elaborations of a number of competing discourses, both when they are made and when they are read. A re conceptualization of montage as a dominant component in cultural meaning making moves away from montage as an aesthetics of form. Rather than understanding film and moving-image installations as rigidly delineated objects, they are explored through hybridity and overlap, for example through the multiple scopic regimes, which shape and form them. In this enterprise, the significance of an anthropological materialist’ approach to cinema and moving-image installations is articulated as a means of developing a critical cognitive engagement with our varied cultural and ever changing social environment. Contents Introduction 1 Technology, Fragmentation and Mimesis 3 Cultural Studies 8 Chapter outlines 16 Part 1: Mimesis and Modernity Introduction 24 Chapter 1 The Historical Force lines of Mimesis and Modernity 30 Defining Mimesis 30 Feudal Modes of Looking and Linear Perspective 34 Regimes of Digital Mimicry 45 The Camera Obscura and Pure Reason 48 Non-narrative in 17th Century Dutch Painting, the art of describing 54 The Baroque 59 Conclusion 67 Chapter 2 The Crisis of Mimesis in Modernity 69 Aesthetics and the Bourgeois Public Sphere 69 Industrialisation of Culture 75 Benjamin’s Theory of Experience 83 Benjamin’s Theory of Mimesis 97 Conclusion 102 Part 2: Overlapping Montage in Mainstream Cinema Introduction 105 Chapter 3 Genre Theory and Hollywood Film: ‘Serial Killer Films’- a case study 108 ‘Serial Killer Films’ 113 Gothic 121 Melodrama 133 The Final Girl 139 Sensational Melodrama 151 Body Genres 156 Conclusion 165 Chapter 4 Fantasies of Psychic and Physical Fragmentation in Mainstream Cinema Melodrama and Professional Advancement Murder Considered One of The Fine Arts Colonialism and Labour Senses and Meaning Vision and Technology Manhunter Television, Time and Domestic Space Conclusion Part 3 Montage and the ‘body of the film’: Documentary Fiction in Moving-image Installations Introduction Situation Leading to a Story The Third Memory Immemory Discordant.. .Hum Thesis Conclusion Selected Bibliography Filmography Appendix Illustrations List Fig.l “Education of the Movements of the Wounded Soldier” from Jules Amar, The Physiology of Industrial Organization ,1918. 7 Fig.2 Camera as weapon, Peeping Tom film still. 22 Fig.3 Mikhail Kaufman, cameraman for Man with a Movie Camera, directed by Dziga Vertov (1929). 28 Fig.4 Drawing attributed to Leonardo da Vinci. 37 Fig.5 Jan van Eyck's The Wedding of Arnolfini, 1434. 41 Fig.6 Albrecht Dürer, Draftman drawing a nude, c. 1525. 44 Fig.7 Jurraien Andriessen, Artist with a Camera Obscura, c. 1810. 50 Fig.8 Camera Obscura 1646. 51 Fig.9 Jan Vermeer Soldier and Laughing Girl 1658. 55 Fig.10 Jan Vermeer The Glass of Wine 1658-60. 56 Fig.l 1 Jan Vermeer, Girl with Pearl Earring 1665-1666. 58 Fig. 12 Baroque emblem with the common motif of a human skull, signifying the equalizing power of death. 62 Fig. 13 Albrecht Dürer, Melancholia. I, woodcut, sixteenth century. 64 Fig. 14 Diagram showing Urban Population Growth in Selected Cities, 1600-1925. 81 Fig. 15 Tiller Girls, Berlin, Weimar period (1920s). 95 Fig. 16 William Hogarth, The Four Stages of Cruelty 18lh C. 136 Fig. 17 Lobby card for The Lass of the Lumberlands, 1916-17. 144 Fig. 18 Publicity still for unidentified episode of The Hazards of Helen, 1915. 144 Fig. 19 Pearl White in Plunder, 1923. 145 Fig.20 Toy Soldier, The Silence of the Lambs, film stills. 172 Fig.21 Bimmel Landscape,The Silence of the Lambs, film stills 172 Fig.22 Trailer home, The Deerhunter film stills. 173 Fig.23 Senator Martin, Clarice Starling, Catherine Martin, The Silence of the Lambs, film stills. 183 Fig.24 Georg Grosz as Jack the Ripper, Self-Portrait, 1918. 188 Fig.25 Lecter’s cell, The Silence of the Lambs, film still. 193 Lecter’s meeting with Senator Martin, The Silence of the Lambs, film still. 194 Lecter as lethal tourist, The Silence of the Lambs, film still. 195 Barney imprisoned at work, The Silence of the Lambs, film still. 198 Jamie Gum ’s stained fingers under Clarice’s nose,77i<? Silence of the Lambs, film still. 200 Clarice in lift and Crawford’s office, The Silence of the Lambs, film stills. 201 Crawford blocking his senses, The Silence of the Lambs, film still. 202 Jamie Gum ’s hand almost touching Clarice’s hair, The Silence of the Lambs, film still. 203 Jamie Gum’s night vision, The Silence of the Lambs, film still. 2 0 4 Stereoscope. 2 0 7 Newspaper cuttings, The Silence of the Lambs, film still. 2 08 Clarice’s point of view in the basement, The Silence of the Lambs, film still. 2 0 9 Jamie Gum’s night vision goggles and 2nd W orld W ar night vision goggles.