Alphaville: Journal of Film and Screen Media. Issue 02: Space and Time in Film

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https://hdl.handle.net/10468/648
Employing with lucidity and conviction a range of methodological approaches, these articles challenge us to rethink texts and genres from the vantage point of spatio-temporal constructs and relationships, showing how, rather than annihilate the principle of identity, the filmic observation of the infinitesimal variations of the space-time continuum has the power to both establish and interrogate it. Edited by Marian Hurley, Deborah Mellamphy and Jill Moriarty, University College Cork.

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    Mihailova, M. (2011) Animating Space: From Mickey To WALL-E, by J.P. Telotte
    (Film and Screen Media, University College Cork, 2011) Mihailova, Mihaela
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    Space and time in film: issue editors' note
    (Film and Screen Media, University College Cork, 2011) Hurley, Marian; Mellamphy, Deborah; Moriarty, Jill
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    Bullet-time in Simulation City: revisiting Baudrillard and The matrix by way of the "real 1999"
    (Film and Screen Media, University College Cork, 2011) Laist, Randy
    The writers and directors of The Matrix famously claimed Jean Baudrillard as a source of inspiration for their movie, going as far as to feature a copy of Baudrillard’s signature book, Simulacra and Simulation, as a prominent prop in one of the movie’s first scenes. Baudrillard, however, explicitly disowned The Matrix as a representation of his worldview. When we follow the story of The Matrix from the perspective of the protagonist Neo, as the story compels us to do, we encounter a dualistic, Platonic division between reality and illusion which, as Baudrillard rightly observes, annuls the implosive dynamic that is the heart of the hyperreal condition. On the other hand, when we consider The Matrix from the perspective of its audience, the citizens of the “real 1999” (as opposed to the simulacral 1999 generated by the Matrix), we find late-century American culture refracted back to us as the kind of world that lends itself to “neural-interactive simulation.” By performing a reading of The Matrix that emphasizes its reference to its contemporary historical moment, we can identify a sense in which the film authentically captures a Baudrillardian variety of space-time.
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    Revisiting the past as a means of validation: bridging the myth of the Resistance and the satire of the Economic Miracle in two comedies "Italian style"
    (Film and Screen Media, University College Cork, 2011) Boitani, Giacomo
    Many commedia all’italiana filmmakers have acknowledged the neorealist mode of production as a source of inspiration for their practice of pursuing social criticism in realistic and satirical comedies between 1958 and 1977. The detractors of the genre, however, have accused the commedia filmmakers of “diluting” the neorealist engagement to a simple description of the habits of Italians during the Economic Miracle, a description which threatened to encourage, through the casting of popular stars, the cynical attitude it sought to satirise. In this article, I shall discuss how two commedia all’italiana directors, namely Dino Risi and Ettore Scola, produced two significant commedie, respectively Una vita difficile (1961) and C’eravamo tanto amati (1974), which bridged the Resistance setting, associated with neorealism,and the Economic Miracle setting of most commedie all’italiana in order to reaffirm their neorealist roots, thus revisiting the past as a response to the critical underestimation from which their cinematic practice suffered.
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    From history to haecceity: spatial reframings of the past in post-heritage cinema
    (Film and Screen Media, University College Cork, 2011) Wortel, Elise
    This article investigates the transformation of history into haecceities that allow us to grasp history through a nonlinear, cinematic sensation of pure past. Here, cinema merges classical knowledge of historical facts with the lived reality of the unrecorded past. Experiments with spatial reframings of the past in The Lady and the Duke, The King's Daughters, The White Ribbon and Coco Before Chanel are discussed to create nonlinear sensations of duration that link with Deleuze and Guattari's notions of affect and haecceity, which transform history into cinematic sets of speed, movement, and texture. Furthermore, the article analyses how the traditionally linear narrative of history is transposed into the abstract sensation of time through haecceity as pure past, where time and space come together to put the sensory quality of memory to the fore. Shifting the perspective from the linear account of history to the multilinear effects of affect and haecceity this analysis challenges the cultural hegemony of representation that favours a homogeneous image of thought. Focussing on the material and performative quality of the film image, the article analyses the spatiotemporal relations that create an analytical perception through the senses.