Tecmerin. Journal of Audiovisual Essays

Issue 13 – 2024 (1)

This issue of Tecmerin. Journal of Audiovisual Essays includes six works that are formally and conceptually heterogeneous. First, in “Still Lives of Jeanne Dielman,” Viktoria Paranyuk approaches Chantal Akerman’s iconic film Jeanne Dielman by extracting its protagonist from the film’s audiovisual fabric, suggesting undercurrents of violence inscribed in the images of domesticity. “The Sacred Text: Adapting Bordwell’s Cinephilia” by Will DiGravio pays tribute to the recently deceased David Bordwell, proposing a videographic version/adaptation of the renowned scholar’s famous article on Rio Bravo. In “The Chilean Dictatorship on Screen: Nostalgia for the Light (2010) & No (2012),” Mariana Cariñena Machado, Paula Díaz Santos, and Gabriel Villaveces Galofre examine two works—Patricio Guzmán’s documentary and Pablo Larraín’s fictional work—that depict the Augusto Pinochet dictatorship from different perspectives. Meanwhile, Colleen Laird uses the complexities of the Japanese logographic character 家 (“home”), which titles her work, as a starting point to examine different visions of home in the work of various contemporary Japanese female directors. Antonio Villalba addresses the transition from classical to mannerist cinematic narrative through the study of the actor’s gesture in “Gazes into the Abyss.” He specifically focuses on Deborah Kerr’s performances in the films Separate Tables (1958), The Naked Edge (1966), and The Innocents (1961). Finally, “Dynamics of Sensemaking” is a multimodal piece that uses the philosophical works of Gilles Deleuze and Cristóbal Escobar as tools for artistic practice and misosophic thinking.

Curated by Viktoria Paranyuk, along with our regular editors, this special, “Also Starring…” edition of the Screen Stars Dictionary, concentrates on lesser-known performers: background actors, character actors, stuntmen. “Also Starring…” brings to the fore their key contribution to the history of cinema in a variety of national film industries and production contexts, hoping to shine a light on these hard-working, talented, unsung actors that are so integral to the films we love. Wickham Flannagan delivers a piece celebrating the scene-stealing Tom Hollander; Paranyuk approaches the extensive career of Thelma Ritter, one of old Hollywood’s quintessential character actresses; Adnan Şahin focuses on the significant contributions of stuntman Dar Robinson; and both Maksim Selezniov and Irina Trocan take us on the journey of the colossal career of Hungarian actor László Szabó. In addition to the “Also Starring…” section, also included in this issue is Charlotte Crofts’s delightful piece on Cary Grant’s “Charm”. 

In “From the Archive”, Asier Gil Vázquez revisits the short film Eulalia, with which actress Inma de Santis made her debut as a director in 1985. Despite her brief career, cut short by a fatal accident at the age of thirty, Inma de Santis remains a fascinating figure due to her dual role as actress and filmmaker and her place in a new generation of female directors who began to make their mark in the early years of Spanish democracy,

Finally, in the “Student Showcase”, we present two projects. The first one, “La violencia en el cine coreano,’ by Natalia Benavent, Marta Castellanos, and Sandra Chavarrías, explores the prominence of an aesthetic of explicit violence in several key contemporary films from this Asian country. The second, ‘(d)eficiencia ficción,’ by Cynthia Cabañas, Iñaki Gómez, and Samuel de la Riva, examines how various Spanish filmmakers have used precariousness and lack of economic resources as creative tools in a variety of fiction films from the 1960s to the present.

“Still Lives of Jeanne Dielman,” an audiovisual essay

Viktoria Paranyuk (Pace Unversity) – 15:00

This video essay revisits Chantal Akerman’s seminal feminist film and removes all the shots that feature the physical figure of Jeanne Dielman. Without the protagonist, the mise-en-scène of the interiors in particular takes on menacing qualities, hinting at potential undercurrents of violence that are inscribed in the images of domesticity. 

Keywords: feminist cinema; domestic labor; mise-en-scène; mothers; violence

The Sacred Text: Adapting Bordwell’s Cinephilia

Will DiGravio (Universidad de Amsterdam) – 7:10

This video essay is a videographic tribute — and an adaptation of — an essay written by David Bordwell on Rio Bravo Published on Bordwell’s co-authored blog Observations on Film Art, the written essay is an example of what Bordwell himself called “cinephile criticism.” Drawing on the shared admiration of Hawks’ film between Bordwell and the video essayist, this video is an experiment in videographic adaptation.

Keywords: David Bordwell, Rio Bravo, cinephilia, videographic criticism

La dictadura chilena en pantalla: Nostalgia de la luz (2010) & No (2012)

Mariana Cariñena Machado, Paula Díaz Santos y Gabriel Villaveces Galofre (Universidad Carlos III de Madrid)  – 08:15

This audiovisual essay analyzes how two contemporary Chilean directors portray Augusto Pinochet’s dictatorship. Both Nostalgia for the Light (Patricio Guzmán, 2010) and No (Pablo Larraín, 2012) revisit a period that many seem to forget, emphasizing the importance of remembering to prevent its recurrence. 

Keywords: History, Cinema, Augusto Pinochet, Dictatorship, Latin America


Colleen Laird (University of British Columbia) – Duración: 06:00

This video is the story of an experiment in adapting the ideas expressed previously in print scholarship to the audiovisual affordances of the videographic essay. Comprised of two parts bridged by the visualization of text as image, the making of it amplified the potential of editing, of meaning-making through transition, and finding the familiar in what is fundamentally a highly repetitive process.

Keywords: home; Japanese cinema; repetition; editing; female filmmakers

Gazes into the Abyss

Antonio M. Villalba (Universitat Pompeu Fabra; Escuela Universitaria de Artes TAI) – 10:25

La presente investigación aborda desde el estudio del gesto actoral la transición entre el relato clásico y el relato manierista cinematográfico. Se propone una contraposición crítica entre tres interpretaciones de Deborah Kerr: Mesas separadas (1958), Sombra de sospecha (1961) y Suspense (1961).

Palabras clave: cine comparado, Deborah Kerr, gestualidad, manierismo, modernidad. 

Dynamics of Sensemaking

dalpofzs (Mihai Băcăran, Darie Nemeș-Bota, Bogdan Dumitrescu, Alexandra Dumitrescu), Independent Art Collective  – 08:53

This research approaches the transition between the classical narrative and the mannerist narrative from the study of the acting gesture in the cinema. It proposes a critical comparison of three of Deborah Kerr’s performances, namely—Separate Tables (1958), The Naked Edge (1961), and The Innocents (1961). 

Keywords: Comparative Cinema, Deborah Kerr, Gesturality, Mannerism, Modernity.

 

From the Archive

Inma de Santis and horror cinema: the two sides of the mirror  

Recovering and revisiting Inma de Santis and her short film Eulalia (1985) aims to frame her career in the specific development of Spanish cinema during the Transition and the early years of democracy.

By Asier Gil Vázquez (UC3M)

Screen Stars Dictionary

Screen Stars Dictionary includes:

  • Cary Grant, by Charlotte Crofts, University of West England, Bristol.
  • Tom Hollander, by Wickham Flannagan, Bilkent University.
  • Thelma Ritter, by Viktoria Paranyuk, Pace University.
  • Dar Robinson, by Adnan Şahin, Bilkent University.
  • Lázsló Szab, by Maksim Selezniov.
  •  Lázsló Szabó, by Irina Trocan, UNATC Bucharest.

La violencia en el cine coreano

Natalia Benavent, Marta Castellanos y Sandra Chavarrías 

(Universidad Carlos III de Madrid)

 

 

(d)eficiencia ficción

Cynthia Cabañas, Iñaki Gómez y Samuel de la Riva

(Máster en Cine y TV, Universidad Carlos III de Madrid)

 

Tecmerin. Revista de Ensayos Audiovisuales
ISSN: 2659-4269
© Grupo de Investigación Tecmerin
Universidad Carlos III de Madrid