(IN)TANGIBLE HERITAGE(S)
Abstract
In this proposal we aim to examine delusional architecture in what some scholars label as mind-game films (Elsaesser, 2009) or puzzle films (Buckland, 2009). Understood by film scholars as part of post-classical cinema (Thanouli, 2009), their entangled narratives are often based on the nonlinear temporality and unreliable narrators. Without the spectators or, frequently, the protagonists themselves being aware of it, the films we study sustain their narrative on delirious subjectivities and deceitful points of view. The filmic narration, complicit in the characters’ self-deception, dreams, amnesia or trauma, transfers their altered perception of reality to the spectators. Recent film theory has characterized this phenomenon as a feature of post-classical cinema of these concepts imbues the general phenomenon of complex narratives. Here we propose that some significant examples of this heterogeneous corpus of films use the depiction of a fractured, delusional, impossible architecture in order to express the main character’s instability. If the narration becomes nonlinear and fragmented, the filmic space corresponds with broken architectures or labyrinthine spaces. Especially family homes and corporate buildings, but also another kinds of urban spaces embody the insecurity, disorientation or amnesia of the protagonists in films as diverse as Open your eyes (Alejandro Amenábar, 1997), The Others (Alejandro Amenábar, 2001), Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (Michel Gondry, 2004), Dans la maison (François Ozon, 2012), Shutter Island (Martin Scorsese, 2010), Inception (Christopher Nolan, 2010), A Perfect Enemy (Kike Maíllo, 2020) or The Father (Florian Zeller, 2020). These films inherit the experimentation with the use of architecture and mise-en-scène as an expressive resource to portray extreme states of mind or perceptual distortions carried on by previous cinematographies. For example, German Expressionism and its influence on concrete and later films such as Spellbound (Alfred Hitchcock, 1945), The Lady of Shanghai (Orson Welles, 1947), Secret Beyond the Door (Fritz Lang, 1947) or The Third Man (Carol Reed, 1949). But the crises these postclassical narratives display are often associated with an excessive interference of technology in the most intimate subjectivity of the protagonists, which results in distortions to their original memories, their conception of the present and their own identity. We aim to observe the representation of delusional architecture as an important part of the mind-game and puzzle films’ aesthetics. Methodologically, this study relies on two key areas: one related to the initial theoretical framework and the other concerning the analysis applied. On the second point, we use semiotically-based textual analysis to look closely at the visual imaginary and narrative resources of our study cases. We attend to the narration – we use concepts such as focalisation (Gaudreault & Jost) – and the mise-en-scène as well. The entangling of both of them results in different kinds of reality crises, always underlying the mind-game films and the unreliable narration itself.
Teresa Sorolla is Lecturer at the Communication Sciences Department of the Universitat Jaume I, where she teaches Visual Culture and Audiovisual Editing. She holds an International PhD and she has completed a visiting research period at the Film Studies Research Unit (Oxford Brookes University). Her main research lines are nonlinear narratives on cinema and the intersection between art and cinema. She is the author of several scientific articles in journals such as Communication & Society, Cuadernos.Info, L’Atalante, Palabra Clave or Quarterly Review of Film and Video. She is also the author of El piano (The Piano)(Jane Campion, 1993). Guía para ver y analizar (Nau Llibres) and the co-author of El mejor y el peor de los tiempos. 50 películas sobre la Revolución francesa (Editorial UOC). She has co-edited the volume La crisis de lo real (Tirant Humanidades). She has also presented papers at international conferences organized by Université de Pau, University of York, Roma Tre Universita Degli Studi or University of Oxford.
Víctor Mínguez was awarded his doctorate in the History of Art from the Universitat de València (1990), and the following year his thesis was selected for the university’s prize for the most outstanding thesis. In 2009 he became Professor in the History of Art at the Universitat Jaume I. Since 1990 his research has consistently received positive evaluations in the six-yearly assessments undertaken every by the CNEAI (the Spanish academic research evaluation committee). Furthermore, he has directed and taken part in a range of R+D projects and research excellence networks, and since 2010 he had managed the editorial project ‘Triunfos Barrocos: la Fiesta en los Reinos Hispánicos’, which is now in its seventh phase and has received two national awards. His most recent and relevant books include: La invención de Carlos II (2013), Infierno y gloria en el mar (2017), La biblioteca barroca (2021) and Europa desencadenada (2022); and with Inmaculada Rodríguez The Seven Ancient Wonders in the early Modern World (2017); El tiempo de los Habsburgo (2020) and Emulating Alexander (2022). Altogether he has published around three hundred academic texts and has taken part in over two hundred symposia. He has also curated a number of international exhibitions. He is currently university director of the journal Diferents. Revista de Museus, director of the Department of History, Geography and Art at the Universitat Jaume I, member of the board of trustees of the Museo de Bellas Artes de Valencia and coordinator of the inter-university doctorate in the History of Art (Universitat de Valéncia – Universitat Jaume I).
10:45 am - 12:15 pm
Thursday 16th June, 2022