Animating Truth Documentary and Visual Culture in the 21St Century
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Edinburgh Studies in Film and Intermediality Series Editors: Martine Beugnet and Kriss Ravetto Founding Editor: John Orr NIKOLAJ LÜBECKER NIKOLAJ A series of cutting-edge scholarly research monographs covering core aspects of film studies. The series’ internationally respected authors contribute analytical and often controversial volumes, offering a critical intervention into their subject. ‘Nikolaj Lübecker clearly and insightfully analyses many of the most controversial films of recent years by cinematic heavyweights like Michael Haneke, Lars von Trier, Claire Denis and Gus Van Sant. In doing so, he invites his readers to reconsider movies in general: maybe sometimes it’s not so bad for a movie to make us feel bad. As we root around for hope at a time when it seems thin on the ground, Lübecker paradoxically conjures hope where there seemed to be none. A unique and ground-breaking work.’ William Brown, Senior Lecturer in Film, University of Roehampton, London In recent years some of the most innovative European and American directors have made films that place the spectator in a position of intense discomfort. Systematically manipulating the viewer, sometimes by withholding information, sometimes through shock or seduction, these films have often been criticised as amoral, nihilistic, politically irresponsible or anti-humanistic. But how are these unpleasurable viewing experiences created? What do the directors believe they can achieve via this The Feel-Bad Film ‘feel-bad’ experience? How can we situate these films in intellectual history? And why should we watch, study and teach feel-bad films? Answering these questions through the analysis of work by directors such as Lars von Trier, Gus Van Sant, Claire Denis, Michael Haneke, Lucille Hadzihalilovic, Brian de Palma, Bruno Dumont and Harmony Korine, The Feel-Bad Film invites readers to consider cinematic art as an experimental activity with ethical norms that are radically different from the ones we would hope to find outside the movie theatre. Nikolaj Lübecker is Associate Professor of French at the University of Oxford, Fellow of St John’s College. He teaches Film Studies and Modern French Literature. Animating Truth Documentary and Visual Culture in the 21st Century Cover image: Still from Dogville, 2003 © Zentropa Entertainment Cover design: Marie d’Origny Lübecker. Series design: Barrie Tullet NEA EHRLICH ISBN 978-0-7486-9797-7 9780748 697977 EDINBURGH STUDIES IN FILM AND INTERMEDIALITY 2470 eup Ehrlich_PPC.indd 1 14/09/2020 19:55 Animating Truth Edinburgh Studies in Film and Intermediality Series editors: Martine Beugnet and Kriss Ravetto Founding editor: John Orr A series of scholarly research intended to challenge and expand on the various approaches to film studies, bringing together film theory and film aesthetics with the emerging intermedial aspects of the field. The volumes combine critical theoretical interventions with a consideration of specific contexts, aesthetic qualities, and a strong sense of the medium’s ability to appropriate current technological developments in its practice and form as well as in its distribution. Advisory board Duncan Petrie (University of Auckland) John Caughie (University of Glasgow) Dina Iordanova (University of St Andrews) Elizabeth Ezra (University of Stirling) Gina Marchetti (University of Hong Kong) Jolyon Mitchell (University of Edinburgh) Judith Mayne (The Ohio State University) Dominique Bluher (Harvard University) Titles in the series include: Romantics and Modernists in British Cinema John Orr Framing Pictures: Film and the Visual Arts Steven Jacobs The Sense of Film Narration Ian Garwood The Feel-Bad Film Nikolaj Lübecker American Independent Cinema: Rites of Passage and the Crisis Image Anna Backman Rogers The Incurable-Image: Curating Post-Mexican Film and Media Arts Tarek Elhaik Screen Presence: Cinema Culture and the Art of Warhol, Rauschenberg, Hatoum and Gordon Stephen Monteiro Indefinite Visions: Cinema and the Attractions of Uncertainty Martine Beugnet, Allan Cameron and Arild Fetveit (eds) Screening Statues: Sculpture and Cinema Steven Jacobs, Susan Felleman, Vito Adriaensens and Lisa Colpaert (eds) Drawn From Life: Issues and Themes in Animated Documentary Cinema Jonathan Murray and Nea Ehrlich (eds) Intermedial Dialogues: The French New Wave and the Other Arts Marion Schmid The Museum as a Cinematic Space: The Display of Moving Images in Exhibitions Elisa Mandelli Theatre Through the Camera Eye: The Poetics of an Intermedial Encounter Laura Sava Caught In-Between: Intermediality in Contemporary Eastern Europe and Russian Cinema Ágnes Pethő No Power Without an Image: Icons Between Photography and Film Libby Saxton Cinematic Intermediality: Theory and Practice Kim Knowles and Marion Schmid (eds) Animating Truth: Documentary and Visual Culture in the 21st Century Nea Ehrlich Visit the Edinburgh Studies in Film website at www.edinburghuniversitypress.com/series/ESIF Animating Truth Documentary and Visual Culture in the 21st Century Nea Ehrlich For Sebastian, for making me laugh when I least expect it Edinburgh University Press is one of the leading university presses in the UK. We publish academic books and journals in our selected subject areas across the humanities and social sciences, combining cutting- edge scholarship with high editorial and production values to produce academic works of lasting importance. For more information visit our website: edinburghuniversitypress.com © Nea Ehrlich, 2021 Grateful acknowledgement is made to the following sources for permission to reproduce material previously published elsewhere. Every effort has been made to trace the copyright holders, but if any have been inadvertently overlooked, the publisher will be pleased to make the necessary arrangements at the first opportunity. Edinburgh University Press Ltd The Tun – Holyrood Road 12(2f) Jackson’s Entry Edinburgh EH8 8PJ Typeset in Garamond MT Pro by Servis Filmsetting Ltd, Stockport, Cheshire, and printed and bound in Great Britain A CIP record for this book is available from the British Library ISBN 978 1 4744 6336 2 (hardback) ISBN 978 1 4744 6338 6 (webready PDF) ISBN 978 1 4744 6339 3 (epub) The right of Nea Ehrlich to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, and the Copyright and Related Rights Regulations 2003 (SI No. 2498). Contents List of Illustrations vi Acknowledgements viii Introduction 1 Part I Starting Points: The Evidentiary Status of Animation as Documentary Imagery 1. Why Now? 27 2. Defining Animation and Animated Documents in Contemporary Mixed Realities 54 Part II Animation and Technoculture: The Virtualisation of Culture and Virtual Documentaries 3. Screens, Virtuality and Materiality 87 4. Documenting Game Realities 111 5. In-game Documentaries of Non-game Realities 135 6. Interactive Animated Documentaries: Documentary Games and VR 150 Part III The Power of Animation: Disputing the Aesthetics of ‘the Real’ 7. Encounters, Ethics and Empathy 177 8. Conflicting Realisms: Animated Documentaries and Post-truth 199 Epilogue 223 Filmography 244 Bibliography 247 Index 264 Illustrations FIGURES I.1 Screenshot from Kill Bill, directed by Quentin Tarantino, 2003 1 I.2 Waltz with Bashir, animated by David Polonsky and directed by Ari Folman, 2008 4 I.3 Tower, directed by Keith Maitland, 2016 5 1.1 Screenshot of Donald Trump and Xi Jinping sunbathing, TomoNews, 2017 28 1.2 Screenshot from One Iranian Lawyer’s Fight to Save Juveniles from Execution, The Guardian and Sherbet, 2012 33 2.1 Slaves, directed by David Aronowitsch and Hanna Heilborn, 2008 55 2.2 Flight Patterns, a time-lapse animation artwork by Aaron Koblin, 2011 70 2.3 Powering the Cell – Mitochondria, BioVisions Program and XVIVO Scientific Animation, 2012 71 3.1 Do It Yourself, directed by Eric Ledune, 2007 98 3.2 Second Bodies, directed by Sandra Danilovic, 2009 104 3.3 Serious Games: Immersion, artwork by Harun Farocki, 2009 Copyright Harun Farocki GbR, Berlin. 105 3.4 Reenactment of Valie Export and Peter Weibel’s Tapp und Tastkino, Eva and Franco Mattes, 2007. Online performance, Galleria Civica di Trento. 106 4.1 Molotov Alva and His Search for the Creator, directed by Douglas Gayeton, 2007 118 5.1 Avatar in three modes of animation, from Stranger Comes to Town, directed by Jacqueline Goss, 2007 142 5.2 World of Warcraft avatars incorporated into the US Visit rotoscoped video, from Stranger Comes to Town, directed by Jacqueline Goss, 2007 142 6.1 Continuum of vividness 152 6.2 Mob gathering outside the photography studio, from September Illustrations vii 1955, an installation by Cagri Hakan Zaman, Deniz Tortum, Nil Tuzcu, 2016 160 6.3 Screenshot from documentary game 9/11 Survivor, by John Brennan, Mike Caloud and Jeff Cole, 2003 162 7.1 Screenshot from Darfur is Dying, Take Action Games, 2006 187 7.2 Music & Clowns, by Alex Widdowson, 2018 191 7.3 Slaves, directed by David Aronowitsch and Hanna Heilborn, 2008 192 8.1 Snack and Drink, directed by Bob Sabiston, 1999 208 8.2 The Simpson Verdict, video installation by Kota Ezawa, 2002 217 E.1 Another Planet, an animated documentary by Amir Yatziv, 2017 226 E.2 Screenshot from Black Mirror, ‘Fifteen Million Merits’ episode, created by Charlie Brooker, 2011 236 E.3 Trump Dreams, animated by Ruth Lingford, 2017 240 TABLE E.1 Comparison of animation in the past with animation today 229 Acknowledgements It would not have been possible to write this book without the generous help and support of many individuals. 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