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)).
