[Commlist] CFP Comparative Cinema 24: Echoes and reverberations: reflections on film trilogies

ECHOES AND REVERBERATIONS: REFLECTIONS ON FILM TRILOGIES

As “a chameleon form that is utterly determined in some contexts, but 
malleable, transformative and evocative in others” (Perkins y Verevis 
2012, 17), the trilogy has been used to designate radically different 
sets of films, from films with discrete narrative structures but 
interdependent in the chronological construction of a larger narrative 
arc (Christopher Nolan's Batman trilogy or M. Night Shyamalan's 
“Eastrail 177” trilogy, composed of Unbreakable [2000], Split [2016] and 
Glass [2019], for example), to films that, without necessarily 
coinciding in characters, settings or tone, do coincide in authorship, 
and are interpreted as variations on the same theme (Michelangelo 
Antonioni's alienation trilogy, composed of L'Avventura [1960], La Notte 
[1961] and L'Eclisse [1962], or Rainer Werner Fassbinder's BRD trilogy, 
composed of The Marriage of Maria Braun [1979], Lola [1981] and Veronica 
Voss [1982], for example).

In the introduction to the collection of essays Film Trilogies: New 
Critical Approaches (2012), one of the only texts that have interrogated 
the trilogical form and its applications, Claire Perkins and Constantine 
Verevis noted this multifacetedness and the difficulty of developing an 
adaptable and comprehensive concept that transcends a mere numerical 
coincidence. There, designations such as “planned trilogy,” “organic 
trilogy,” “threequel,” and “critical trilogy” helped both editors 
navigate the expansiveness of the term, which responds to different 
conditions of existence at industrial, creative, and discursive levels. 
With case analyses focusing on works by Sofia Coppola, John Ford, Wes 
Craven, Jacques Rivette, Abel Ferrara, Kim Ki-young, Michael Haneke, 
Park Chan-wook, and others, the volume stands as a fundamental text in a 
field that has been little explored, despite the popular use of the term.
It is under the distinctions that Perkins and Verevis make that one can 
differentiate between pre-structured trilogical forms, governed by 
principles of progression, cohesion and/or codependency, in which a 
“knowledge of foreclosure and limitation” is traced (2012, 6), and 
improvised forms, which are constituted either by the non-predefined 
addition of second and third parts—which may or may not contribute to 
constructing meaning, in addition to building a progressive chronology 
of events—or by a critical interpretation that unifies them beyond what 
the directors might have originally intended. The many examples of film 
trilogies draw a path that runs through both “commercial” and “auteur” 
cinema, regardless of geographical origin. In an apparently even-handed 
way, thus, “trilogy” can be used to designate both The Lord of the Rings 
(2001-2003)—an adaptation of a literary work that was already trilogical 
in itself—as well as The Godfather (1972-1990)—whose universe was 
expanded thanks to the success of the first film—, the multiple 
trilogies that allow the segmentation of Aki Kaurismäki's work, or even 
the “Koker” trilogy by Abbas Kiarostami (Where is the Friend's Home? 
[1987], Life, and Nothing More… [1992] and Through the Olive Trees 
[1994]), which was promoted by critics but not recognized as such by the 
director himself, for whom the spatial coincidence of the Iranian 
village of Koker was more of an “accident” than a connecting thread.

Behind the term's versatility, we can also find different analytical and 
discursive appreciations, a fact also contemplated by Perkins and 
Verevis. The study of trilogies, thus, has oscillated between 
examinations of an authorial approach and others focused on the nature 
of trilogies as “multiplicities” (Klein and Parker, 2016), in this sense 
adjacent to film and television forms which are usually denigrated, such 
as remakes, sequels, reboots, and spin-offs, among others. As Carolyn 
Jess-Cooke (2009) identifies, this link with the authorial has allowed 
the trilogy, as a form, to escape the critical opprobrium that surrounds 
other forms of multiplicities, especially sequels.

The authorial trilogy as a loose binding form refers to an exploration 
of style, themes, and concerns associated with a specific creative 
figure's originality, versatility, and prolific nature, a connection not 
necessarily mediated by a common narrative universe. In this sense, the 
frontier between the trilogy and the very concept of authorial 
calligraphy is blurred: what unites the pieces of an “authorial” trilogy 
with each other? And what separates them from the rest of the work of 
said director? Likewise, through “critical trilogies”, considered as 
such due to an interpretative, analytical and/or critical assessment, 
film criticism can suggest a codependency of meaning that was not there 
before or was not consciously intended by its creators. A meaning that 
is retroactively and externally ascribed to the films. By bringing 
together several films of the same director under the concept of 
“trilogy”, critics propose a preferential mode of consumption and 
suggest the possibility that the films can be inserted in a network of 
echoes and reverberations even more specific and concrete than the 
notion of “authorship” and “style”.

Through this issue, Comparative Cinema invites contributors to continue 
exploring the multifaceted nature of trilogies, whether by reflecting on 
the link between trilogy and authorship, by examining the 
interpretations that emerge from the specific study cases and how they 
are linked to an authorial figure, or by reflecting on the implications 
of the trilogical structure itself, whether from a “commercial” or 
“authorial” perspective. Therefore, the call is not limited to 
considering trilogies that have been recognized as such by their own 
directors, but is also open to designations that may come from critics 
themselves, even when the trilogy in question, such as in Kiarostami’s 
case, might have been rejected by its own director.
The articles, which should be comparative in methodology—either within 
the films that constitute the trilogy or in comparisons between 
different trilogies—and be between 5,500 and 7,000 words in length, may 
include, but are not limited to:

- Explorations of trilogies as an industrial, textual, and critical concept
- Encounters and disagreements between the “commercial” and the 
“authorial” trilogy
- Narrative structures and/or thematic, tonal, and visual reverberations 
in specific case studies
- The structuring of an entire authorial work under the concept of a 
trilogy (for example: Aki Kaurismäki or Theo Angelopoulos)
- The trilogy as a rereading of an authorial style (“critical” trilogy) 
(for example: Abbas Kiarostami’s Koker trilogy; Ingmar Bergman’s trilogy 
Through a Glass Darkly [1961], Winter Light [1963], and The Silence 
[1963]); Wim Wenders' road trilogy, consisting of Alice in the Cities 
[1974], The Wrong Move [1975] and Kings of the Road [1976], among other 
examples).
- The trilogical organization as an autobiographical, autofictional or 
character-building tool (for example: Bill Douglas's trilogy, composed 
of Bill Douglas, My Childhood [1972], Bill Douglas, My Ain Folk [1973] 
and Bill Douglas, My Way Home [1978]; Márta Mészáros's diaries, Diary 
for My Children [1984], Diary for My Loves [1987] and Diary for My 
Parents [1990]; or Terence Davies's trilogy, composed of Children 
[1976], Madonna and Child [1980] and Death and Transfiguration [1983])
- The trilogy as world-building (for example: Gregg Araki's “Teen 
Apocalypse Trilogy”, composed of Totally F***ed up [1993], The Doom 
Generation [1995] and Nowhere [1997]; Peter Jackson's The Lord of the 
Rings trilogy)
- This call for papers includes “planned” trilogies, projected with a 
trilogical structure from their conception; “accidental” trilogies, in 
which two more films are added after the success of a first one, 
originally conceived as a stand-alone; and “critical” trilogies, whether 
or not they have been ratified as such by their directors.

Important dates

Submission of full texts: February 28

Reviews: March

Submission of final reviews: April 30

Publication of the issue: Summer 2025

Contact: (comparativecinema /at/ upf.edu)


https://raco.cat/index.php/Comparativecinema




Recommended bibliography

Bainbridge, Caroline. 2004. “Making Waves: Trauma and Ethics in the Work 
of Lars von Trier.” Journal for Cultural Research 8 (3): 353–70. 
https://doi.org/10.1080/1479758042000264984
Coates, Paul. 2002. “Kieślowski and the Antipolitics of Color: A Reading 
of the ‘Three Colors’ Trilogy.” Cinema Journal 41, no. 2: 41–66. 
http://www.jstor.org/stable/1225851
Feinstein, Howard. 1983. “BDR 1-2-3: Fassbinder’s Postwar Trilogy and 
the Spectacle.” Cinema Journal 23, no. 1: 44–56. 
https://doi.org/10.2307/1225071
Hanke, Bob. 2019. “Roy Andersson's Living Trilogy and Jean-Luc Nancy's 
Evidence of Cinema.” Film-Philosophy 23 (1): 72-92. 
https://doi.org/10.3366/film.2019.0099
Jess-Cooke, Carolyn. 2009. Film Sequels: Theory and Practice from 
Hollywood to Bollywood. Edinburgh University Press.

Klein, Amanda Ann and R. Barton Palmer. Cycles, Sequels, Spin-offs, 
Remakes, and Reboots: Multiplicities in Film and Television. University 
of Texas Press.

Kinder, M. (2004). Reinventing the motherland: Almodóvar’s brain-dead 
trilogy. Journal of Spanish Cultural Studies 5 (3): 245–260. 
https://doi.org/10.1080/146362004000282109
Lange-Churión, Pedro. 2012. “The Salta Trilogy: The Civilised Barbarism 
in Lucrecia Martel’s Films.” Contemporary Theatre Review 22 (4): 467–84. 
doi:10.1080/10486801.2012.718272
Mulvey, Laura. 2007. “Repetition and Return. The Spectator’s Memory in 
Abbas Kiarostami’s Koker Trilogy.” Third Text 1: 19–29. 
https://doi.org/10.1080/09528820601138121
Palmer, R. Barton. 2010. “Before and After, Before Before and After: 
Godfather I, II and III.” In Second Takes: Critical Approaches to the 
Film Sequel, edited by Carolyn Jess-Cooke and Constantine Verevis, 
65–86. SUNY Press.
Perkins, Claire and Constantine Verevis. 2012. Film Trilogies: New 
Critical Approaches. Palgrave Macmillan.

Perkins, Claire. 2008. “Remaking and the Film Trilogy: Whit Stillman's 
Authorial Triptych.” The Velvet Light Trap 61: 14–25. 
https://doi.org/10.1353/vlt.2008.0010

Rumble, Patrick. 1996. Allegories of Contamination: Pier Paolo 
Pasolini's Trilogy of Life. University of Toronto Press.
Wang, Yiman. 2015. “Serial, Sequelae, and Postcolonial Nostalgia: Wong 
Kar-wai's 1960s Hong Kong Trilogy.” In A Companion to Wong Kar-wai, 
edited by Martha P. Nochimson.  https://doi.org/10.1002/9781118425589.ch18
Wee, Valerie. 2005.  “The Scream Trilogy, ‘Hyperpostmodernism,’ and the 
Late-Nineties Teen Slasher Film.” Journal of Film and Video 57 (3): 
44–61. http://www.jstor.org/stable/20688497

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