Image and Identity

by Elder, R. Bruce

• ISBN13: 9781554584697
• ISBN10: 1554584698
• Edition: Reprint
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2012-08-01
• Publisher: Wilfrid Laurier Univ Pr

Summary

What do images of the body, which recent poets and filmmakers have given us, tell us about ourselves, about the way we think and about the culture in which we live? In his new book A Body of Vision, R. Bruce Elder situates contemporary poetic and cinematic body images in their cultural context. Elder examines how recent artists have tried to recognize and to convey primordial forms of experiences. He proposes the daring thesis that in their efforts to do so, artists have resorted to gnostic models of consciousness. He argues that the attempt to convey these primordial modes of awareness demands a different conception of artistic meaning from any of those that currently dominate contemporary critical discussion. By reworking theories and speech in highly original ways, Elder formulates this new conception. The works of Brakhage, Artaud, Schneeman, Cohen and others lie naked under Elder's razor-sharp dissecting knife and he exposes the essence of their work, cutting deeply into the themes and theses from which the works are derived. His remarks on the gaps in contemporary critical practices will likely become the focus of much debate.

Author Biography

R. Bruce Elder is a filmmaker, critic, and teacher (and former Program Director) in the Graduate Program in Communication and Culture at Ryerson University. Harmony Dissent, his 2008 book on film and avant-garde art movements, was awarded the Robert Motherwell Book Prize, shortlisted for the Raymond Klibansky Prize, and named a Choice Outstanding Academic Book.

Table of Contents

Foreword	p. xi
Preface	p. xiii
Acknowledgements	p. xvii
Introduction	p. 1
Introduction	p. 9
In Reality, Who Are We?	p. 10
A House Divided	p. 16
Three Primal Experiences	p. 17
The Garrison Mentality	p. 31
A Tragic Vision	p. 34
Two Schools of Thought	p. 36
American-Style Liberalism	p. 36
The Epistemology of Empiricism	p. 40
Common Sense	p. 42
Dualism and Representation	p. 47
Common Sense and Calvinism	p. 48
Absolute Idealism	p. 54
The Absolute	p. 60
The Nation-State	p. 61
Absolute Idealism in Canada	p. 63
An Aesthetic of Reconciliation	p. 73
Introduction	p. 87
The Documentary Film in Canada	p. 89
The Legacy of John Grierson	p. 89
The Influence of Grierson	p. 97
The Candid-Eye Movement	p. 103
The Crisis Structure of American Cinéma-vérité	p. 104
The Observational Structure of Candid-Eye Films	p. 106
Two Journalistic Influences	p. 107
The Empirical Character of the Candid-Eye Films	p. 113
Not a Love Story	p. 119
Narrative Transmission in American Direct Cinema Films and Canadian Candid-Eye Films	p. 120
Narrative Modes of Transmission	p. 121
Agents of Narrative Transmission	p. 122
Cinéma-vérité as the Mimesis of a Mimesis	p. 126
Imagery as Illustration: the "Literary" Quality of NFB Documentaries	p. 129
The Days Before Christmas	p. 130
Candid-Eye Films and Common-Sense Philosophy	p. 134
Blood and Fire	p. 135
The Reality Principle: "Goin' Down the Road"	p. 138
What Do Pete and Joey Want?	p. 109
Ideas and Actions	p. 141
The Repressions of the Reality Principle	p. 144
The Non-Empirical Cinema of Quebec	p. 147
The Problems of the Empirical Style	p. 148
The Limitations of the Reality Principle	p. 151
Modes of Representation in Cinema	p. 154
The Cinema of Presentation, the Cinema of Illustration, the Cinema of Construction	p. 155
A Paradigmatic Contrast	p. 156
A Contrast of Epistemologies	p. 158
The Search-and-Discovery Structure in the Cinema of Presentation	p. 163
Some Historical Background	p. 165
Classical and Post-classical Art	p. 168
The Telos of Total Realism	p. 180
Introduction	p. 185
Michael Snow's "Wavelength"	p. 188
A Minimal Film	p. 188
A Phenomenological Film	p. 189
A Durational Film	p. 191
A Dramatic Film	p. 191
An Experiential Film	p. 193
Drama, Space and Time	p. 199
Drama, Light and Sound	p. 195
Dramatic Form as a Narrowing of Possibility	p. 200
Drama and Temporal Continuity	p. 203
Remarks on the Zoom	p. 208
A Film of Purity	p. 209
The Achievement of the Film	p. 212
From Painting into Cinema: A Study of Jack Chambers' "Circle"	p. 214
Two Tendencies in Twentieth-Century Art	p. 214
Chambers' Painting as a Prelude to Filmmaking	p. 217
Perceptual Realism and Romanticism	p. 225
Perceptual Realism and Photography	p. 228
Circle	p. 230
Circle: Section One	p. 231
Circle: Section Two	p. 236
Circle: Section Three	p. 240
All Things in Their Time: On Michael Snow's ↔	p. 243
The Background of the Film	p. 245
Snow's Multifaceted Work	p. 246
From Modernism to Postmodernism	p. 250
Experiencing Snow's Films	p. 252
Snow's Transcendental Self	p. 255
Snow's Postmodernist Associates I: David Rimmer	p. 256
Snow's Postmodernist Associates II: Joyce Wieland	p. 258
The Photographic Image in Canadian Avant-Garde Film	p. 263
Postmodernism vs Modernism	p. 263
The Paradoxes of Photographic Representation	p. 272
Postmodernism and Otherness	p. 278
Camera Movement and Highlighting Absence: the Case of Chris Gallagher	p. 282
The Frame and Absent Space: the Cases of Epp and Snow	p. 286
Representation and Presentation: the Case of David Rimmer	p. 291
The Single-Shot Film	p. 292
The Relation of Text and Image: Postmodernist Strategies	p. 293
The Duality of Photography	p. 294
Michael Snow Presents "Presents"	p. 296
Ut Pictura Poesis	p. 296
Modernism and the Metaphysics of Presence	p. 297
Presents and the Challenge to the Metaphysics of Presence	p. 300
Presents in the Light of Language Theory	p. 305
The Architecture of Presents	p. 314
So Is This in the Light of Language Theory	p. 317
Presence, Time, Language and Knowledge	p. 323
Reprise: Ut Pictura Poesis	p. 326
Idealism, Photography and the Canadian Avant-Garde Film	p. 329
Graphic Cinema	p. 331
Peter Kubelka's Theory and Practice	p. 333
Eisenstein's Theory	p. 335
Germaine Dulac	p. 338
Sydney Peterson's Views	p. 340
Against the Petersonian View: Maya Deren	p. 341
Romanticism, Hegel, and the Underpinnings of a Canadian Attitude Towards Photography	p. 344
Self and Other: The Undergirding of Romanticism	p. 345
Chambers' Art: The Amalgam of Subjectivity and Objectivity	p. 346
The Rhythms of Life and Death: Chambers' Films	p. 355
Nature, Idealism and the Photograph in Canadian Thought	p. 356
Forms of Cinema: Models of Self	p. 368
Image and Identity	p. 375
Hart of London	p. 379
La région centrale	p. 390
The Transcendental Self, La région centrale, and Idealist Thought	p. 395
Notes	p. 401
Appendix: Filmographies	p. 444
Bibliography	p. 451
Index	p. 467
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