Item Type |
Book Section
|
Abstract |
One way of discussing filmmakers such as Michael Haneke, Lars von Trier and David Lynch as auteurs is to identify a ‘hallmark' specific to their work: Lynch's complex play with phantasmatic space, von Trier's intermedial violations, Haneke's anti-psychological figures. Such identifications open onto further filmic and narrative practices that are specific to each and, like those just mentioned, unconventional. It is the overall characteristic of being against convention that will serve as our fundament for an aesthetics of irritation. We intend to theorize various categories of irritation for each filmmaker, but also identify categories common to all three: each can be discussed meaningfully in relation to Bordwell and Thomson's notion of neoformalism and viewer disorientation, each employ the depiction of physical and psychological violence in their strategies of irritation, each implicate or involve the viewer in unconventionally ‘irritating' ways, each has a particular irritating cinematic style, each generally leave their viewers with a feeling of discomfort by, in part, irritating conventions of closure. Finally, it is our contention that by positioning certain filmmakers in relation to the meta-genre of melodrama and illustrating where they repeatedly break with or ‘irritate' generic conventions, we can identify the opening up of a political space in which the viewer is unconventionally engaged as a social subject. |
Authors |
Loren, Scott & Metelmann, Jörg |
Editors |
Ornella, Alexander D. |
Language |
English |
Keywords |
Film Studies, Visual Studies, Auteur theory, melodrama, narrative practices, aesthetics, Haneke, von Trier, Lynch |
Subjects |
cultural studies |
HSG Classification |
contribution to scientific community |
Refereed |
No |
Date |
2010 |
Publisher |
Pickwick Publications |
Place of Publication |
Eugene, Oregon |
Page Range |
196-216 |
Number of Pages |
21 |
Title of Book |
Fascinatingly Disturbing: interdisciplinary perspectives on Michael Haneke's Cinema |
ISBN |
978-1-60608-624-7 |
Depositing User |
Dr. Scott Loren
|
Date Deposited |
17 Nov 2009 10:49 |
Last Modified |
20 Jul 2022 16:57 |
URI: |
https://www.alexandria.unisg.ch/publications/57609 |