IN-PERSON: Prague – Section B

Abstract

Jonathan Walley’s theorization of paracinema focused on the moving image that “distances itself from medium specificity and focuses [instead] on an idea of cinema.” (Voci, p.29) The immersive experience of cinema is challenged through the foregrounding of analogue crafts which emphasize a graphic distinction from reality, creating a friction of spectatorship in drawing attention to the material construction of these worlds. Czechoslovakian fantasy cinema has consistently embraced the artifice of analogue cinematic construction through the phenomenon of intermediality which draws attention between so-called “interior and exterior worlds,” (Sera, p.42) allowing the spectator a reflexive distance to regard the fantastic. Works from Karel Zeman and Jan Svankmajer, as well as recent fantasies Jan Sverák’s “Kuky se vraci” (2010) and Petr Oukropec & Bohdan Sláma’s “Modry tygr,” (2012) highlight this intermediality. Concerning the nature of the photographic, Laura Mulvey spoke of the uncanny feelings of confusion aroused “between the animate and the inanimate,” (Player, p.174) which draws aesthetic comparisons with Czechoslovakian explorations of stop-motion, puppetry, flattened expressionistic production design, and miniaturized craft. As Mulvey describes, this phenomenon is “often experienced as a collapse of rationality,” (p.174) and this collapse allows the spectator to focus reflexive attention on the intermedial collaboration. We regard the facture of the work, the signature of the artists attentions, creating “fault-lines of perception” where the spectator is in “active doubt about what they are seeing.” (Pierson, p.40) The fantastical craft of Czechoslovakian cinema allows for an awareness of these mediations, creating a deeper appreciation for the medial hybridization of the cinema collaborative.