Warner, Jr., Charles Richard
(2011)
Research in the Form of a Spectacle: Godard and the Cinematic Essay.
Doctoral Dissertation, University of Pittsburgh.
(Unpublished)
Abstract
This dissertation is a study of the aesthetic, political, and ethical dimensions of the essay form as it passes into cinema - particularly the modern cinema in the aftermath of the Second World War - from literary and philosophic sources. Taking Jean-Luc Godard as my main case, but encompassing other important figures as well (including Agnès Varda, Chris Marker, and Guy Debord), I show how the cinematic essay is uniquely equipped to conduct an open-ended investigation into the powers and limits of film and other audio-visual manners of expression. I provide an analysis of the cinematic essay that illuminates its working principles in two crucial respects. First, whereas essay films have typically been described in taxonomic terms - that is, through classification schemes that hinge on reflective voiceover commentary, found footage montage, and hybrid combinations of fiction and documentary - I articulate a more supple and dynamic sense of the essayistic through a detailed reading of Montaigne. As I treat it, the essay form emerges in complex acts of self-portraiture, citation, and a range of stylistic maneuvers that exhibit an impulse toward dialogical exchange. Second, I use Godard's prolific body of work to establish the essay as a fundamentally intergeneric and intermedial phenomenon. Godard figures as a privileged case in my argument because, as I show, he self-consciously draws on essayistic traditions from a broad spectrum of linguistic and pictorial media as he carries out experiments between film, television, and video. Through close engagements with his works, I show that the essayistic, far from being a mere descriptive label, is crucial to our understanding of many of the most intricate features of his practice: how he retools antecedent materials and discourses; how he combines critical and creative faculties; how he confronts his own agency as both an author and spectator; how he perpetually revises his own earlier output; how he inhabits his work and achieves a consubstantial presence with the sights and sounds he handles; how he tests out ideas without offering a direct argument; and how he longingly pursues a dialogue with a co-operative viewer according to conditions of perceptual sharedness.
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Details
| Item Type: |
University of Pittsburgh ETD
|
| Status: |
Unpublished |
| Creators/Authors: |
|
| ETD Committee: |
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| Date: |
1 July 2011 |
| Date Type: |
Completion |
| Defense Date: |
28 September 2010 |
| Approval Date: |
1 July 2011 |
| Submission Date: |
13 February 2011 |
| Access Restriction: |
5 year -- Restrict access to University of Pittsburgh for a period of 5 years. |
| Institution: |
University of Pittsburgh |
| Schools and Programs: |
Dietrich School of Arts and Sciences > English |
| Degree: |
PhD - Doctor of Philosophy |
| Thesis Type: |
Doctoral Dissertation |
| Refereed: |
Yes |
| Uncontrolled Keywords: |
audio-visual criticism; citation; dialogue form; essay film; Michel de Montaigne; modern cinema; montage; self-portraiture; Jean-Luc Godard; participatory spectatorship |
| Other ID: |
http://etd.library.pitt.edu/ETD/available/etd-02132011-181347/, etd-02132011-181347 |
| Date Deposited: |
10 Nov 2011 19:31 |
| Last Modified: |
15 Nov 2016 13:36 |
| URI: |
http://d-scholarship.pitt.edu/id/eprint/6351 |
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