![]() They are defining a “Western” on the basis of analyzing a body of films which cannot possibly be said to be “Westerns” until after the analysis. Lmost all writers using the term genre are caught in a dilemma. In a study of the Western film, Andrew Tudor faced a similar hurdle, which he described as a “vicious circle:” For instance, if one assumes that “road movies are films in which traveling is a central element,” one will probably find that the films in the corpus did indeed focus on characters who travel, and hence, that movement is a central element in those films. However, this pivotal first step is in itself arduous: if a thematic definition of the genre is used to circumscribe the corpus, the resulting analysis is likely to lead to tautological conclusions. How can a genre that seems to be dedicated to showing movement give a static impression? Is this due to the slowness of the camera moves in this genre, or to the camera’s lack of movement? Or is it caused by the quality of the movement, to its rhythm, fluidity, or orientation is it created by editing? In other words, is movement in a specific genre something which should be evaluated at the level of the segment, or at the level of the film as a whole? Genre analysis methodologyĢStudying road movies, like any other genre analysis, implies defining a specific corpus of films which can be considered as road movies. ![]() The purpose of this article will be to question the very notions of stasis and movement in the road movie: what is it that moves in this genre? I will use as a starting point previous work which concluded that the road movie presents a contemplative, almost static vision of reality (Hurault-Paupe 2006). The road movie is an ideal genre with which to question theories of movement, as its very name anchors it in (primarily automotive) travelling. 1Filmic movement is such a complex notion that it only recently emerged as a field of study, from Gilles Deleuze’s Cinema 1: The Movement Image, to consideration of motion and stillness in video and digital images (Rossaak 15-16 Chik 139-150).
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