Melodramatic Thought in Contemporary Spanish Documentaries (original) (raw)
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西班牙自传体纪录片 [The Autobiographical Documentary in Spain]
全球纪录影像理论前沿 [Frontiers in Documentary Theory and Practice], 2021
The chapter offers an overview of the autobiographical production in the Spanish documentary cinema, updated until 2018. After a brief reflection about the peculiarities of the autobiographical practice in cinema, it starts pointing out to the late beginning of this practice in Spain, around the change of Century. Two thematic trends are dominant in this field: the works linked to spatial settings, related either to the biographical origin or to travel ventures; and the family portraits. From a structural and formal point of view, different approaches are found: from the diary structures of Guerín or Iscar, to the works closer to conventional documentary, or to those made out of recycling materials either public or domestic.
"Research Video" es un proyecto de investigación interdisciplinario financiado por el Estado (2017 - 2020, Suiza) en los campos del diseño, la investigación artística y la antropología visual. Su objetivo es explorar las posibilidades del vídeo para la comunicación científica. El proyecto busca desarrollar un nuevo estándar para la publicación científica -comparable con las publicaciones de revistas científicas a través de la anotación en vídeo. En la historia de la publicación científica, el texto ha sido la forma principal de presentar los resultados de la investigación. En nuestro proyecto nos preguntamos si los resultados de la investigación pueden ser presentados exclusiva o principalmente a través del vídeo. De ser así, ¿cómo sería el formato estandarizado y aceptado internacionalmente?" A través del desarrollo de una herramienta de anotación en vídeo y su aplicación en dos tesis doctorales, que se utilizan como casos de estudio, se exploran estas cuestiones. Este artículo presentará el proyecto de doctorado de la autora: su trabajo de campo etnográfico en Bolivia. Investiga el trabajo infantil en un país donde las tasas son altas, pero la ayuda infantil y las actividades lucrativas tienen un anclaje cultural. A través de la observación, talleres de ví-deo, entrevistas y métodos mixtos, se crea una etnografía audiovisual de la vida de las personas que tuvieron que empezar a trabajar a una edad considerada demasiado joven para el entendimiento occidental. Una serie de videos cortos (los datos de la investigación) revela las voces de los niños, niñas y jóvenes trabajadores que son los principales actores de este tema de investigación.
The subjective turn in Brazilian Documentaries
This article discusses three distinct movements regarding the consolidation of the subjective turn in the historical context of Brazilian documentaries. The first is the unfolding of the "sociological voice" and the ways in which documentaries were understood at the time of new cinema. The second is characterized by the valorization of the subject, anonymity, a new type of voyeurism, confessional and autobiographical works. More recently, in the last five years, production and debates have been centered around performance, role-play and a new ethical and political kind of dimensioning. The article discusses aesthetic and historical movements and considers the works of filmmakers such as
Technical Review of the Award-winning Social Realist Films of Brillante Mendoza
American Journal of Applied Linguistics (AJAL), 2020
The study technically reviewed social realism in five award-winning films of Brillante Mendoza. Specifically, the study analyzed the cinematography, lighting, sound/music, editing, and production design of the award-winning films of Brillante Mendoza. Content analysis qualitative method of research was employed in analyzing social realism in the award-winning films purposely selected on the bases of their listing as award-winning films. Data gathered from the five (5) award-winning films were purely analyzed based on their contents and reflection of social realism with the aim of providing a scaffold for an in-depth examination. Focused Group Discussion (FGD) was also used to obtain independent expert analysis of the selected five (5) films of Brillante Mendoza, while triangulation was used by the researcher to corroborate the result of his own investigation. Data gathered were analyzed comprehensively based on Levi-Strauss Structuralism Theory to come up with valid findings on the research problem about social realist films. The content analysis among others, revealed that in Masahista, the composition of shots is good, but sometimes, the lighting, though it attempts to show a gripping realism, makes the scene convincingly lit to favor the camera. It could have maintained a peg on realism suggesting a dark, depressing, or contemplative mood without a feel that its source of light is more than what it should have. In Tirador, the film and its characters played by professional and nonprofessional actors exude a frustrated, furious energy. Intruding into every facet of indigent life, the hand-held camera hunts for lost dentures and unguarded wallets, hard drugs, and easy marks. In Serbis, the set designs deserve to be noticed. The cinematography is rough at times, but effective. The processing gives the images too edgy a look at times. The lighting is not bad, but there is too much street noise. In Kinatay, the actors, aided by unconventional found-footage style camera angles, really perform well in making the scenes appear so natural, so as to make the viewer really believe he is an invisible spectator on the actual site. In the film Thy Womb, arranged with an eclectic cinematic grammar, the director incorporates aerial shots of the sea gypsy community combined with underwater sequences, slow motion observational shots and seemingly traditional filmmaking that are always in motion, never static. The study concluded that technically Brillante Mendoza’s award-winning films provided aesthetic value that made them appealing to the viewers, and hence recommended that filmmakers in the country should create social realist films that not only expose people to social problems but also entice them to watch such films for their aesthetic value. **Statement** **Dear scholars, Dr. Allison Qiu is a director at Journal of American Academic Research, USA (JAAR publishing center): www.american-journals.com **She is also the administrator for the Academia account at JAAR publishing center, so she is not one of the authors of any listed articles (published at JAAR) at Academia. **Please don't misunderstand it because her name will show in all articles ( published at JAAR publishing center) listed in Academia.
Considerations on the Appearance of the First Person in Contemporary Argentine Documentary
hispanetjournal.com
An inscription of the self in the documentary-like introduction of Ana Poliak's second film, La fe del volcán [The Faith of the Volcano] (2001), is used to tell the story of the main character who is on the edge of a precipice, facing the dilemma of whether or not to jump -much like the filmmaker herself, who was on the verge of suicide in her adolescence. Poliak contemplated the direction towards which this jump should be made: outside or inside? The autobiographical prelude of this film gives way to a fictional story that serves as placement into the abyss (mise en abyme) through which the filmmaker can exorcize the ghosts and anguish of a traumatic, open and still distressing past. Thus, the response of Ana Poliak's forerunning film to this initial question was, indeed, to make a jump, but towards the depths of her inner world. It is tempting to think that, based on the metaphorical initial sequence of La fe del volcán, documentary cinema in Argentina has made this announced jump towards the interior. Indeed, Poliak's film uses the different forms of first person and the spectacularization of the maker's body as its main narrative resource. However, it also turns the question of subjectivity into the object or topic of its narrations. 1 This narrative order variation in the constructive processes of documentary film affects the ways in which filmmakers approach a collective, generational or hegemonic truth, based on an essential experience that places them in the center of the story. According to Jean Breschand: Filmmakers stage themselves as part of the investigation. In their own way, each one of them assumes the world disorder and exposes his or her body to the camera. It is a moral question: the filmmaker is not external to what it Piedras 2 Hispanet Journal 3 (December 2010) films; it is involved in body and soul with its search and becomes the revealer of fissures and conflicts undergone by the world and human beings. (88)
Ethics and Cruel Image: Intensity and Abjection in Contemporary Brazilian Documentary
The representation of the 'popular', filled with intense images of horror, raises some ethical questions. The showing of abjection is upsetting, disturbing and intimidating, but intimidation is regarded by narrative as a sort of asset. Representing abjection seems to be the way cruel narrative finds to call spectators to their responsibility. The following statement can sum up the ethical dimension of 'cruel narrative': "by the fact that I emphasize the unfair condition of the ‘other’ called people, I'm suppressing part of my responsibility in the image I show”. The more abjection is exposed, the more the critical dimension is secured and the more bad conscience is filled with sorrow. Two aspects of 'cruel narrative' in Brazilian contemporary documentary are being defined here: 1) First, the fact this intense image traps spectatorship in a corner, with a sort of intimidation; 2) And Second, the fact that it strong relates abjection and the image of this ‘other of class’, the people. This image of abjection determines a reception filled with bad conscience. To get away, spectatorship looks for a compromise, through a sort of catharsis of the abject. And the path for that is open by social harsh criticism in narrative voice. Harsh criticism is the way middle-class spectatorship stands the unbearable image of horror in the representation of social conditions in which lives the 'other-popular'.