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TESIS DOCTORAL from Waste to Worth. Recycling Moving Images As a Means for Historical Inquiry

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TESIS DOCTORAL from Waste to Worth. Recycling Moving Images As a Means for Historical Inquiry TESIS DOCTORAL From Waste to Worth. Recycling Moving Images as a Means for Historical Inquiry Autor: Sibley Anne Labandeira Moran Director: Antonio Gómez Ramos ! ! DEPARTAMENTO DE HUMANIDADES: FILOSOFÍA, LENGUA Y LITERATURA Getafe, noviembre 2015 ! ! ! ("a"entregar"en""la"Oficina"de"Posgrado,"una"vez"nombrado"el"Tribunal"evaluador","para"preparar"el" documento"para"la"defensa"de"la"tesis)"" ! TESIS DOCTORAL FROM WASTE TO WORTH. RECYCLING MOVING IMAGES AS A MEANS FOR HISTORICAL INQUIR Autor: Sibley Anne Labandeira Moran Director: Antonio Gómez Ramos Firma del Tribunal Calificador: Firma Presidente: (Nombre y apellidos) Vocal: (Nombre y apellidos) ! Secretario: (Nombre y apellidos) ! Calificación: Getafe, de de TABLE OF CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ……………………………………………………........1 INTRODUCTION……………………………………………………………………3 PART I Chapter1. THE FALL OF THE ROMANOV DYNASTY BY ESFIR SHUB…………………27 1.1. INTRODUCTION………………………………………………………………..29 1.2. THE FILM………………………………………………………………………..31 1.2.1. Synopsis of The Fall of the Romanov Dynasty …..…………………….31 1.2.2. Getting Things Started: Esfir Shub …………………………………….34 1.3. WRITING HISTORY WTH IMAGES…………………………………………..38 1.3.1. Shub, the Cinematic Historian…………………………………………..39 1.3.2. Indexical Images of the Past ……………………………………………42 1.3.3. The Past as (a Fleeting) Image …………………………………………47 1.3.4. All a Matter of Montage ………………………………………………..50 1.3.5. Shub, the Skilled Montageuse…………………………………………..54 1.3.6. Unplayed Films and Historical Representation…………………………58 1.4. EXPRESSING AND ADDRESSING A NEW REVOLUTIONARY STATE…..64 1.4.1 Cinema: A New Art For A New State…………………………………...64 1.4.2. Tool of Persuasion: Film as Agitation ………………………………….66 1.4.3. The Film Factory-Archive ………………………………………………71 1.5. CONCLUSION……………………………………………………………………76 Chapter 2 FROM WASTE TO WORTH: RECYCLING MOVING IMAGES………………83 2.1. INTRODUCTION…………………………………………………………………85 2.2.THE DOCUMENT IN DOCUMENTARY………………………………………..87 2.2.1. The Creative Treatment of Actuality…………………………………….87 2.2.2. The Fact / Fiction Divide ………………………………………………..89 2.2.3. The Document in Documentary…………………………………………93 2.2.4. Other Approaches to Documentary…………………………..………….95 2.3. RECYCLING MOVING IMAGES……………………………………………….97 2.3.1. Introduction……………………………………………………………..97 2.3.2. Compilation, Found Footage Film, Appropriation Film………………..99 2.3.3. Aesthetic of Ruins: Fragments and Waste……………………………..105 2.4. WEAVING IMAGES INTO ESSAYS………………………………………….113 2.4.1. Introduction ……………………………………………………………113 2.4.2. The Literary Precedent…………………………………………………115 2.4.3. Early Theoretical Notions………………………………………………119 2.4.4. Early Essay Films………………………………………………………123 2.4.5. Essay Films and Appropriated Footage ………………………………..127 2.4.6. The Essayist and the Destruction of Experience ………………………130 PART II Chapter 3 A RADICAL SCAVENGING FOR THE ATOMIC CAFE………………………137 3.1. INTRODUCTION……………………………………………………………….139 3.2. THE FILM………………………………………………………………………..141 3.2.1. Synopsis………………………………………………………………..141 3.2.2. The Film’s Sources ……………………………………………………147 3.2.2.1. Films Produced by Governmental Agencies…………………148 3.2.2.2. Documents and Images of the Bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki……………………………………………………..151 3.2.2.3. Radio and Television Broadcasts …………………………….154 3.2.3. The Filmmaker’s Influences …………………………………………...157 3.3. THE 1950S AS SEEN BY THE 1980S………………………………………….167 3.3.1. Introduction …………………………………………………………….167 3.3.2. Saturation ………………………………………………………………170 3.3.2.1. The Battle on the Image Front ……………………………….171 3.3.2.2. The Rhetoric of Danger ……………………………………...173 3.3.2.3. An Audience of Consumers: The “Nuclear” Family As Seen on TV……………………………………………………………………..177 3.3.2.4. Militarization and Continuous Victory……………………….181 3.3.2.5. Looking for Discrepancies ………………………………….184 3.3.2.6. Nuclearosis ………………………………………………….187 3.3.3. Ellipsis ………………………………………………………………...191 3.3.3.1. Nostalgia …………………………………………………….192 -The Nostalgia Film ………………………………………………….194 -The Atomic Cafe as an Anti-Nostalgic Endeavour…………………..197 3.3.3.2. Humour: Irony and Satire ……………………………………201 3.4. PLAYFUL, SUBVERSIVE MONTAGE ……………………………………….205 3.4.1. Voices Tuning In and Out ……………………………………………..207 3.4.2. The Sky on the Screen …………………………………………………210 3.4.2.1. The Man that Looks to the Sky……………………………….211 3.4.2.2. The Mushroom Cloud………………………………………...214 3.5. CONCLUSION…………………………………………………………………..217 Chapter 4 GLEANING FOR IMAGES: VIDEOGRAMS OF A REVOLUTION……………223 4.1. INTRODUCTION ……………………………………………………………….225 4.2. THE FILM………………………………………………………………………..228 4.2.1. Synopsis ………………………………………………………………..228 4.2.2. How the Film Got Started ……………………………………………...234 4.3. REVISITING THE REVOLUTION/ RE-EDITING THE REVOLUTION……..236 4.3.1. Introduction: Romania 1989 …………………………………………...236 4.3.2. Confronting the Images Anew, 1992 …………………………………..241 4.3.3. Scenes of Address ……………………………………………………...242 4.3.3.1. The Wounded Woman: Rodica Marcau……………………...243 4.3.3.2. Ceausescu’s Last Address ……………………………………247 4.3.3.3. The Man in the Last Sequence ………………………………250 4.3.4. A Long Shot: Habit and Event …………………………………………252 4.3.5. Scenes of Articulation: Montage and Politics.…………………………257 4.3.5.1. Taking the Television Studio ………………………………...262 4.3.5.2. Politics Behind the Scenes (What was not Broadcast)……….264 4.3.6. The Poor Image: Trial and Proof of Death …………………………….266 4.3.7. A New Voice Among the Old Images …………………………………269 4.4. UNSTABLE CATEGORIES ………………………………………………...….273 4.4.1. Changing Roles: Spectator-Actor-Agent ………………………………273 4.4.2. Permeable Screen: Cameras on the Streets, Screens at Home, Homes in the film ………………………………………………………………………..279 4.4.3. Elusiveness of the Event ……………………………………………….281 4.5. CONCLUSION ………………………………………………………………….283 CONCLUSION………………………………………………………………………291 BIBLIOGRAPHY……………………………………………………………………301 ! ! 1! ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS My deepest gratitude goes to my supervisor, Antonio Gómez Ramos. His commitment, faith and support with my project have been invaluable during these long years of researching, thinking, and writing. His respect and enthusiasm for my ideas, even when at an early stage, and his exceptional erudition, insight and sensitivity have been essential to this academic project. I would like to acknowledge in general the Department of Humanities: Philosophy, Language and Literary Theory at the Universidad Carlos III for creating a stimulating intellectual environment, in which to expand and challenge my ideas and wholeheartedly embark on my research. I would like to thank Fermando Broncano, Carlos Thiebaut and Carmen González Marín − all of whom have led seminars in which postgraduate students could share and test their ideas. I am also greatly indebted to José Luis Brea, whose support was essential in the early stages of my research. I would like to thank the Department of Visual Cultures at Goldsmiths College for their warm reception during my stay there and for the great opportunity they offered me to challenge myself and think anew the intricate relation between artistic practices and theoretical discourses. Special thanks go to Gavin Butt and Kodwo Eshun, whose enthusiasm for aural and visual cultures was enticing and contagious, triggering my curiosity towards moving images in new ways. I also thank the Spanish Ministry of Education for its financial support in the form of a grant for my stay abroad in London, and without which I would have not been able to enjoy my experience at Goldsmiths College. Many events, screenings and conversations have granted me the opportunity to enrich and reshape my concerns in the company of imaginative thinkers and practitioners. I would like to give special thanks to Jesús Gironés and Pepe Domínguez from El Foro de Pozuelo, Jorge Iglesias from EICTV (Escuela Internacional de Cine y Televisión de Cuba), and Yervant Gianikian and Angela Ricci-Lucchi, who were kind enough to dedicate some of their time to me during their visit to Madrid in 2014, on occasion of the screening of their film Pays barbare (2013) in the Museo Reina Sofía. Special thanks go out to my colleagues at Medialab-Prado: Jara Rocha, Daniel Pietrosemoli, Daniel Santiago, Gabriel Lucas, Marcos García, Laura Fernández, Sonia ! 2! Díez Thale, José Miguel Medrano, and very specially Patricia Larrondo and Nerea García. I would like to thank other colleagues for their intellectual and affective support throughout the years: Constanza Nieto, Ana Ramos, Natasa Mihajlovic, Lena Theodoropoulou, Yvonne Pawlikowski and Marimar Suárez. I want to thank the many friends who have helped me remain motivated and who have been a constant support in a myriad of ways: Clara Aparicio, María Delgado, Kevin Otero, Ana Pereda, Alejandro Ormeño and Kevin Jiménez. I am also greatly indebted to Aris Giatras, Russell Martin, Paolo Plotegher and Manuel Ramos, for welcoming me to Brihuega so I could retreat and deal head-on with the final and laborious stages of writing. Finally, I want to thank those closest to me. I thank Manolo for his years of unconditional support and love, for his emotional and intellectual intelligence, as well as his killer sense of humour. I thank Marina García and Rodrigo García for their unwavering faith and encouragement. Special thanks go to Sylvia Lyn Hilton and Amancio Labandeira, their support during these very emotional years has been essential. I am also deeply grateful to my brothers, Manuel and Marcos, and my parents, Sibley and Manuel, who were always happy to encourage me to pursue this PhD. To all the above individuals, and to relatives, friends and colleagues whose names I cannot
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