[ecrea] CFP Cinergie n. 13 Videographic Film Studies: Criticism, Analysis and Theory in the Age of Software Culture

*Cinergie n. 13 Call For Papers*
*/Videographic Film Studies: Critica, analisi, teoria nell’epoca della 
software culture/*
*/Videographic Film Studies: Criticism, Analysis and Theory in the Age 
of Software Culture/*
A cura di/Edited by: Chiara Grizzaffi, Andrea Minuz

English version

As is the case with cinema, the fate of film analysis and criticism is 
inextricably bound to the new technological developments. Digital 
culture isn’t just changing the way in which films are produced, 
distributed and consumed: it is also affecting—as noted, among others, 
by Laura Mulvey in Death 24x a second (2006) —the current film studies 
practices, encouraging therefore film scholars and critics to reconsider 
their approach to film analysis, research and teaching.
The possibility of conducting film analyses rearranging, re-editing 
images and sound and interpolating them with text and other graphic 
insertion—thus intervening directly on the film and uncovering its 
process of construction of meaning—it’s one of the most significant new 
developments for film studies. The dream of reflecting on moving images 
using the audiovisual language was born almost with cinema itself: by 
way of example, one could mention the “critofilm” —a term coined by 
Carlo Ludovico Ragghianti to indicate its documentaries on art, and then 
reclaimed by film critics like Adriano Aprà in order to designate 
documentaries and essay films on cinema—; Godard’s ambitious project of 
the Histoire(s) du cinéma; experimental found footage films or 
television programs such as Cinéastes de notre temps. However, between 
these pioneering experiences and the current digital practices there is 
a significant shift: the digital tools for downloading, ripping and 
editing film images are user friendly and attainable by everyone. Acts 
of appropriation and reuse once performed only by filmmakers, artists 
and few scholars has nowadays been transformed in a collective gesture 
of image rewriting, repurposing and sharing that brings together 
cinephiles, film scholars, film students and fans. Furthermore, these 
practices are becoming part of the skill set necessary for the new 
generations’ media literacy.
Even though videographic approaches to film studies and criticism are 
obviously still closely connected with the traditional, written forms of 
film criticism, as well as with their contexts of development and 
diffusion, they mark a significant change from the “literary”, 
logocentric nature of the interpretative gesture aimed at writing an 
article, an essay, a book. To use Final Cut and to have in a folder of 
our desktop all of Hitchcock’s movies does not necessarily imply that 
one can compose an analysis through sound and images that has the same 
strength of the essays written by Bellour, Rohmer, Chabrol or Robin 
Wood. Nonetheless, it is undoubtable that the distance between the image 
and the text presented in cinema books is overcome by the possibilities 
currently offered by digital media and software, and the chain of 
equivalence between «film», «text» and «language» once posited by 
semiologists does not work anymore. The film as a text nowadays can 
present itself as a fragment: it is not inviolable, it is not marked by 
completeness and permanent closure. The film can be constantly 
re-written, dismantled and reassembled, and its traces are part of an 
intermedial circuit of repurposing and resignification.
Thanks to the pioneering work of film critics, scholars and bloggers 
like Kevin B Lee, Matt Zoller Seitz or Catherine Grant, in the last 
decade the video essay has established itself as a form of film 
criticism—in websites and magazines such as «Filmscalpel», «De 
Filmkrant»—; as a scholarly methodology—thanks to journals such as 
«[in]Transition» and «Necsus»—; as a promotional instrument—for Svod 
platforms such as MUBI and Fandor and for film distributors like 
Criterion. But more generally the video essay can be considered an 
expression of what Thomas Elsaesser calls the cinephilia “of the 
download, the file swap, the sampling, re-editing and re-mounting of 
story line, characters, and genre” (Elsaesser 2005:40). The growing 
scholarly interest in videographic practices has also determined the 
appearance of the first publications on the subject, which include, 
among others, /The Videographic Essay: Criticism in Sound and Image/, a 
book edited by Christian Keathley and Jason Mittell, and /Film Studies 
in Motion: From Audiovisual Essay to Academic Research Video/, by Miklós 
Kiss and Thomas van den Berg.
The aim of this special issue of «Cinergie» devoted to videographic film 
studies is not to strictly determine the boundaries of a phenomenon 
subjected to incessant and rapid transformations. We are interested, 
instead, in proposals focused on the one hand on theoretical issues 
(images as a form of thinking, the role of montage, the audiovisual 
forms of analysis and criticism in the digital ecosystem and so on…); on 
the other hand, we encourage contributions that adopt videographic 
criticism as a methodological approach, thus building their argument 
starting from the images and through the images themselves.
Suggested topics include, but are not limited to:
- Analyses of films/Analyses of single sequences
- Analyses of an author’s style/ of films’ formal strategies/ of visual 
and thematic motives
- Stardom and/or actors’ performances
- Narrative structures of films, TV series, videogames…
- Sound design / analyses of the relationship between sound and images
- Film theory through images
- Analyses of paratexts (trailers, recut trailers and so on).
Given the hybrid nature of video essays—the result of the encounter 
between praxes with a longstanding tradition (experimental found footage 
films, documentaries on cinema, essay films) and contemporary practices 
(remix, mash-ups, viding, fan tributes and parodies) —we are 
particularly interested in contributions that consider this hybridization.

As for the type of articles, we suggest two possible approaches:
Proposals that aim at reflecting on existing case studies (maximum 
length 6000 words)
Audiovisual contributions. In this latter case, following the system 
adopted by the international journal «[in]Transition», the authors can 
submit an original video essay (not published in other scholarly 
journals), with an accompanying text of max 3000 words that expands on 
the topic of the video and the audiovisual methodology adopted. The 
maximum duration of the video should not exceed 30’.

Submission Details and Journal Deadlines:
The deadline for submission of proposals is November 15, 2017. Please 
send abstracts of 400 words and a short biographical note to 
(chiara.grizzaffi /at/ gmail.com) <mailto:(chiara.grizzaffi /at/ gmail.com)> and 
(andrea.minuz /at/ uniroma1.it) <mailto:(andrea.minuz /at/ uniroma1.it)> Acceptance 
will be notified by November 25, 2017.
The deadline for submission of full articles is February 28, 2018.
The special issue will be published in June 2018.


References:
Elsaesser, Thomas, /Cinephilia, or The Uses of Disenchantment/, in 
Marijke De Valck, Malte Hagener (eds.), /Cinephilia: Movies, Love and 
Memory/, Amsterdam University Press, Amsterdam 2005, 27–44.
Grant, Catherine, /Déjà-Viewing? Videographic Experiments in 
Intertextual Film Studies/, «Mediascape», Winter 2013, 
<http://www.tft.ucla.edu/mediascape/Winter2013_DejaViewing.html >.
Keathley, Christian, Mittell, Jason (eds.), /The Videographic Essay: 
Criticism in Sound and Image/, Caboose, Montreal 2016.
Kiss, Miklós, van den Berg, Thomas, /Film Studies in Motion: From 
Audiovisual Essay to Academic Research Video/. Scalar, 2016 
http://scalar.usc.edu/works/film-studies-in-motion/.
Mulvey, Laura, /Death 24x a second. Stillness and the Moving Image/, 
Reaktion, London 2006.





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