Archive for May 2010

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[ecrea] CFP In Praise of Cinematic Bastardy

Tue May 18 04:58:08 GMT 2010



In praise of cinematic bastardy

 

Ciclaho / Crea international conference

 

Université Paris Ouest Nanterre La Défense

 

29-30 April 2011

 

The art of cinema, because it was born from various and heterogeneous sources (science, popular shows, photography, entertainment) has constantly tried to preserve that taste for blending.  And even though it finally created its own specificity, the art of film has not forgotten that founding principle.  Indeed, because it is reflected in its productions, the genealogy of its identity is one of its most important theoretical issues. Yet though processes of “biological” filiation between certain film works, genres, or forms have been the subject of many studies, concerning for instance the ways in which crossbreeding, in its diverse versions, may generate hybridisation or miscegenation, it appears that the question of the legitimacy of a filiation, which is intrinsically linked to that of the legitimacy of a union, has not received due treatment so far.

Some recent films, however, among which Inglourious Basterds, make it necessary to study this correlated aspect. Tarantino’s film, indeed, vigorously suggests that cinema should be defined as the art of bastardy. Inglourious Basterds exemplifies a new conception of the circulation of cinematographic memory, at a time when works, whether old or new, are quickly and permanently available, and when the extensive use of intertextuality makes it difficult, not to say quite impossible, to create an original movie, or at least calls for a new definition of the very concept of originality.

To take but one example, the fact that quoting previous films has become one of the clichés of the art of cinema not only questions the possibility of any form of individual creation, but also leads to re-examine the link between knowledge and recognition, for instance when, just like in Tarantino’s works, films refer to some of their predecessors considered to be minor, without giving their director’s name, thus making it impossible for the audience – and for film critics – to spot the reference. In that case, somehow, the director of the movie in which the reference is used fathers an illegitimate work of art.

Indeed, cinema may be called a bastard art in both meanings of the word: because it is usually defined as a hybrid art form, obviously, but also, and perhaps more importantly, because it has been able to become formally as well as generically innovative mostly through adulterous relationships, thus making illegitimacy its grounding principle by preferring a blurred lineage to a legible succession. Trying to find which film is referred to in a sequence, therefore, amounts to establishing a clear family tree, which takes no account of the illegitimate unions, natural children and forgotten ancestors that are nevertheless part and parcel of film history. If that quest should still be conducted, its object, it seems, should not be one sole point of reference. The aim of this conference is to create the opportunity of studying, and perhaps of rehabilitating, those shadowy corners of cinematographic creation and film memory.

 

 

We wish to focus on the following research fields:

 

Field 1: Bastardy as a process of cinematic creation.

 

-        The origins of cinema as a place of ontological bastardy.

 

-       Film genre hybridisation as a form of adulterous union.

 

-       Quoting (in) films as borrowing, theft or rape.

 

-        Blending media storage devices (videotape and conventional film tape), forms of _expression_ (actors and cartoon characters) or film forms in one movie as a search for impurity.

 

 

Field 2: The film and its bastards.

 

-       The “making of” as an illegitimate genre, conceived backstage, or as the film’s natural brother.

 

-       The film’s bastard brothers (Director’s cut, uncut version, shortened version, censored version, restored version, reconstructed film, etc) as legitimate products or the author’s imagination or illegitimate offshoots.

 

-       Retroactive effects: legitimating processes.

 

-       Cinema’s adulterous relationships with the new technologies (the Internet, digital camera, etc) and/or new media (videogames, TV series, etc) as a search for legitimacy or illegitimacy.

 

-       Film’s DVD and interactive versions as legitimate or illegitimate by-products.

 

 

You will find attached a document in French detailing the aim and the research fields of the conference.

 

Working languages: English and French.

 

Publication of a selection of papers is planned.

 

Please send your proposals (title and summary of half a page), as well as a brief CV, by 30 September 2010, to both Sébastien Lefait ((seb.lefait /at/ libertysurf.fr) ) and Philippe Ortoli ( (philippe.ortoli70 /at/ wanadoo.fr)).

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