Opening up Re-Enactment for Film Theory

In Megan Carrigy’s seminar titled, “Opening up Re-Enactment for Film Theory”, she drew attention to the ways that re-enactment is always caught between two agendas—the attempt at literal repetition and the need to foreground its theatrical, performative nature. She begins by discussing that the understanding of re-enactment thus far is a questionable and conventional form of historical representation that is typically associated with specific scenes in documentary films and biopic. She positions re-enactment as an umbrella term in that it captures the lineage of practices that stretches back to the 15 century and facilitates future cross-disciplinary work. She continues by proposing that the use of re-enactment has shifted from the historical understanding of literal re-enactments to focus more specifically on foregrounding the fact of a pre-existing event. Carrigy identifies this shift in re-conceptualising the term re-enactment happened in the 19^th century when mass reproduction technologies had a social and cultural impact on society.

Carrigy suggests that re-enactment has been largely overlooked in film debates and that its adaptation has been vital across media platforms, which is crucial in the development of film language such as continuity editing in narrative cinema. To support her argument, Carrigy initiate a comparison between early film work and contemporary television series CSI to bring light to the shifts in re-enactment. Early re-enactments were faithful duplications, facsimile reproductions and reconstituted news reels which consisted of techniques that were imperative to its shift into narrative cinema. These early form of re-enactment foregrounds the theatrical and performative nature of the content, staging the upstage, dramatising as a form of exhibitionism. In contemporary television series CSI, Carrigy suggests that the show exhibit the shift from the theatrical and performative mode of re-enactments to re-enactment as a point of reference and representations. She positions re-enactment within film theory debates of indexicality, arguing that re-enactment of the cinematic image in television series CSI acts as a form of cinematic metaphor through its computer generated special effects and also its 35mm stock and cinematic lighting techniques.

Re-enactments in film are now structured within a narrative to proof the indexical trace, it is built on this idea of the indexical trace and that every contact leaves a trace. In CSI, re-enactments occurs within the context of the diegetic world, it not only foregrounds the drama of the narrative, but also generate debates of the cinematic image such as, “is the indexical trace the only aspect of the image that can be considered indexical.” As mentioned in her title, “Opening up Re-Enactment for Film Theory”, what I believe Carrigy is suggesting that although the role of re-enactment was to be a theatrical and performative form of representing history, it is also crucial to film debates and the study of film theory. Re-enactment can now be seen as a cinematic metaphor in film theory, critiquing the rise of computer generated effects and the disappearing indexical image. In enabling this analysis, Carrigy draws on spectatorship theory, ontological debates of the indexical image and the historical representations of film.

Megan Carrigy - Opening up Re-enactment for Film Theory

Megan Carrigy’s seminar presentation entitled Opening up Re-enactment for Film Theory attempted to define re-enactment and its form of repetition, and to locate the concept within the spectrum of live performance. Carrigy identified her sphere of research as one which has been largely overlooked in contemporary film scholarship, in spite of the lineage of re-enactment based performance stretching back to the 15th century. Re-enactment also played an integral role in the emergence of primordial cinema, a point illustrated by Carrigy through turn of the century newsreels comprised of reconstituted footage of staged re-enactments of topical events such as the Spanish-American War, featuring rudimentary examples of techniques that would eventually become common parlance in filmmaking vernacular, such as continuity editing. Re-enactment has remained a prevalent mode of cinematic storytelling in features such as documentaries, biopics and history based narratives (war films, epics, ‘true stories’ etc), in conjunction with its existence outside the respective mediums of television and cinema in the form of battle commemorations and living history museums, continuing to play an key role in the perpetual evolution of the medium. As a device that “dramatizes documentary, and authenticates drama and fiction”, re-enactment constitutes something of a problem for historians who often struggle to reconcile historical accuracy with performance, even on occasions when the narrative makes the most earnest attempts to engender some sense of fidelity to the truth.

Carrigy concluded her discussion with an analysis of the re-enactments that appear in the television series CSI: Crime Scene Investigation. The re-enactments that punctuate this series can be considered particularly unique in that they are predominantly speculative (based on the wounds of murder victims, the re-enactments attempt to elucidate what may have happened) further problematizing the inherent claims of validity espoused by all re-enactments, appear repeatedly throughout each episode in various forms and from various perspectives, and are also computer-generated. Through this discussion of re-enactment in the context of CSI, Carrigy raised the concept of indexicality, which refers to the so called ‘truth claim’ of photography and its capacity to accurately depict reality, and is a highly prevalent theme in the film theory debates regarding spectatorship in the work of theorists such as Andre Bazin. Though speculative re-enactments of events that likely never occured, Carrigy argues that the re-enacted cinematic images that appear in CSI leave their own indexical trace as a result of their repetition, an example of her attempts to shift the theoretical terrain surrounding re-enactment to a more referent-based focus. In this sense her study can be considered the development of a new theoretical approach to film studies, informed by aspects of film spectatorship and film history, as well as media and performance studies.

Noel Polk: Living Outside History

Noel Polk is an emeritus professor of English who specialises in the American novel.

The following is a response to a talk given by Polk at UNSW on the 28th of April 2010, where he presented readings and reflections on his 1997 autobiographical book titled “Outside the Southern Myth”.

In addition to contributing to the field of American literature studies to which Polk himself belongs, this presentation dealt with three main areas of theory, namely: history; identity; and knowledge. Polk used the subjective contingency of theories, concepts and language to reveal the diversity inherent in social reality.

History:

Polk understands history as what people proclaim to remember of the past. Thus, when Polk describes his ‘living outside of history’, what he is referring to are the grand historical narratives, such as the American Civil War, rather than the micro-histories that directly confront and affect him, such as the relationship with his father. This becomes apparent when reading a passage from his book that describes an emotionally charged, seemingly irrational encounter between him and his father which is initially told from Polk’s point-of-view as a youth. This first account is later tempered by reflection from an older, wiser, perspective from which Polk is able to intuit the causation behind his fathers behaviour by locating him in relation to the larger socio-historical contexts.

Identity:

As a youth Polk’s identity as a “Southerner” was based upon a geographical rather than historical understanding of the term. The young Polk responded empirically to his tangible and social environment: The small, out-of-the way town he grew up in (Picayune) did not memorialise the American Civil War with monuments, and his circle of family and friends did not overtly encourage slavery. That black students were segregated to their own school was encountered as a fact needless of being questioned.

Knoweldge:

W. B. Yeats famously declared that “Education is not the filling of a pail, but the lighting of a fire”. Polk attests to this, recognising that despite receiving tuition in history throughout his school career, the historically produced connotation of what it meant to be “Southern” did not occur to him till much later, after he had left Picayune and begun studying at University.

Polk’s presentation problematises ‘history’ as something both socially and materially negotiated, as well as something that is encountered and understood at a personalised, individual level. A disjoint may thus exist between ‘objective’ (macro/social) accounts of history, and those ‘subjectively’ (micro/personally) experienced.

As a function of myth, history tells us that being “Southern” means to be this or that way. It means to talk with ‘that’ accent, and to have ‘those’ attitudes and beliefs: It creates a mythic identity. Claiming to have ‘lived outside of history’ is a provocative statement. It implies a distinction between socially constructed and natural histories, where, to live outside of both means to have never existed at all. When Polk claimed to have lived ‘outside history’ he was referring to his youthful lack of understanding about the American Civil War, and later, the discord between the narratives and stereotypes of that mythic history, and his direct personal experiences. His subsequently difficulty in identifying with that history is evident; saying, “[it was] not my history. Not yet.” As Polk grew up and advanced his education he was eventually able to recognise that the mythologisation of the South “had always been my war”. And it was coming to terms with this that finally allowed Polk to personally reconcile the rift between he and his father, despite that his father had long since passed.

Living Outside History - Professor Noel Polk (28/4/10)

Professor Noel Polk delivered an account of his personal history. He discussed growing up in Picayune, a secluded town in Mississippi. Although this town lies in the Southern part of the United States of America, Polk never identified himself as Southern. Picayune is a small town on the outskirts of the woods. Not far up the highway were larger cities that had a deeply Southern heritage, such as New Orleans and Hattiesburg. However, Picayune not only offered a geographical distance from these locations of historically southern identification, but an ideological distance. For Noel Polk, the South was somewhere else. The events he learnt about in school history were fantastical stories that happened far from where he lived.

The main issue of Polk’s presentation was identity. He was framing his work by defining what it means to be a Southerner, and defying this by saying he was not Southern, despite his geographic location. Polk deals with issues of ethnography in this argument. In many cases, individuals can define themselves based on their origins. This will include geographical origins. He states that he can ‘perform’ Southern is asked, giving examples of stereotypical Southern traits and commonly Southern stories. Through his autobiographical work, Polk is able to challenge the assumptions of shared history and identity present in ethnographic theory.

Noel Polk’s studies have led him to an interest in Faulkner. Although he maintains many links with Faulkner’s texts, Polk also offers differing opinions. He brings up the viewpoint of Faulkner on deforestation. Faulkner sees deforestation as a demon destroyer and wasteful enterprise. Polk sees this differently. He notes that deforestation is a form of creation. Polk accounts for this viewpoint by discussing his upbringing. He mentions living close to the forest. When an area was logged, it would mean that the wood would be used to create. While Polk would not classify himself in some ways to his geographical identity, he would in other aspects of his life and views.

Polk has found that his peculiar sense of identification has given him an ability to see things for the first time. By doing this, he problematises identity. He depicts identity as crafting viewpoints and preconceiving opinions before they can be individually formed. The main example he uses throughout his discussion is the Southerner. Polk describes the pride of a Southerner and the defined history shared by this group. From this, Southern values are taught and learnt, disabling the capacity to view things with fresh eyes. Polk maintains this as being a major problem with identity and ethnography. Although it could apply to positive issues, it mainly raises negative problems such as racism.

Identity is a problem for Polk. Through his autobiographical account for his lack of Southern identification, moving away from Picayune and learning through a different perspective and his relationship with his father during his upbringing, he is able to deal with this issue in a personal and interesting way.

Cosmic Ecology: Rethinking the Storm in King Lear/ Jennifer Hamilton

"The field of enquiry that analyzes and promotes works of art which raise moral questions about human interactions with nature, while also motivating audiences to live within a limit that will be binding over generations"[i]

Eco criticism is the study of literature and environment. Jennifer Hamilton in her focus; Cosmic Ecology: Rethinking the Storm in King Lear uses theories of eco criticism from an interdisciplinary aspect, where literature, film, theatre and actual events come together to be analysed. By analysing the storm in Lear Hamilton suggests a ‘green reading’ of texts where we might be able to brainstorm possible solutions for correcting contemporary environmental adversity.

Using ecological values as one would class, gender, race etc. Hamilton also uses Sarah Kane’s Blast to apply theories of eco criticism, using the event of the explosion in Blast to qualify the significance of the storm in Lear where the ‘blast’ in the text remakes the social ecology of the play, much like the effect the storm in Lear has on the play.

Hamilton in this discussion highlights the event as not a thing and hopes that through its transformation under this theoretical world view it points, reflects, represents something else. Hamilton says; “The fact the event was a storm is arbitrary, the importance is the effect it has on Lear.” It is noted here that in Lear perhaps the storm itself is a chatacter.

To better analyse Lear’s storm Hamilton presents contrasts in different staging’s of the text, noting how its metaphoric significance shifts whether translated through the medium of film or theatre, where literal opposes metaphoric interpretations e.g. Peter Brook 1962 Lear vs. Bell Shakespeare’s most recent attempt to stage Lear. This is a meeting between how it is staged and how it is read.

Hamilton references accounting for the complexities of the storm and contributing accounting for the natural and cultural, offering Donna Harraway as a theoretical standing point emphasising a need to review nature and texts about nature and the environment in a new eco sensitive light; “We must find another relation to nature besides reification, possession, appropriation and nostalgia.” Here narrative and nature are learning to think transversally.

Psychoanalytic and Actor Network Theories are also ways Hamilton suggests reading her texts. Actor/Network enables Hamilton to view the storm as an actant and event giving sight to solid and fluid presence in her texts. Psychoanalysis allows for approaches to the public/private spheres, the politics of the family estate and the gravity of empiricism in the many different readings of eco theories.

Hamilton utilizes Judith Butler’s reading of Antigone to explain subjective and social frames in the text and also in the framework of eco criticism. Hamilton argues the need to be able to move between senses proposing the irrational worldviews of the plays is made rational by the seasonal changes i.e. explosion/storm.

Harnessing eco criticism as a tool to unpack texts is revealing of the need for theory to politicize its objects, subject and audience at once. Through the application of eco criticism to Lear’s storm Hamilton has given new methods for approaching classical and contemporary texts; where readings might reflect theoretical sensitivities in the hope to birth actualized change.

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[i] Gomides, Camilo. 'Putting a New Definition of Ecocriticism to the Test: The Case of The Burning Season, a film (mal)Adaptation". ISLE 13.1 (2006): 13-23.

this is not a joke

"Theory weary, theory leery, why can't I be theory cheery?"
-Erickson, 2002, p269

Seminar Response - “Opening up the re-enactment for film theory” - Megan Carrigy

Megan Carrigy is a PhD student at the School of English, Media and Performing Arts at the University of New South Wales.

Megan Carrigy discussed the issue of opening up the realm of re-enactment in cinema for greater acceptance by film theorists and within the film studies discourse.

Carrigy described re-enactment as being commonplace in film theory, only within the realm of historical reinterpretation. She explained that in the mind of the critic, film re-enactment took place in individual scenes rather than being afforded its own genre. To the critic, film re-enactment authenticated dramas and fiction, and dramatised documentaries. Carrigy cited David Roddick as describing film re-enactment as “cinematic metaphor” which she argued was an apt description of the thematic device.

Carrigy argued that film re-enactment was more than just a filler injected in to authenticate the delusional fantasies of the writer or to bring home the truth about the past. Instead she argued that film re-enactment was a legitimate genre and theatrical form, characterised by a self-reflexive, performative strategy.

Carrigy then introduced the history of the genre and discussed the idea of early film re-enactments in the period from1898 to 1907. This was a period of vast improvements in both skill and technology, which resulted in an increase in film production. This time period saw an increase in the number of documentaries, topical films and biopics; many of which were on the subject of the Spanish American War which called for a mass demand in film topicality. The need for the masses to see the gore and horrific nature of war re-enacted, was echoed in Carrigy' citing of Tom Gunning's theory of a 'cinema of attraction', wherein the viewer wishes to see that which attracted them in the first place – the hyperreal re-enactment of the horrific nature of the subject.

Carrigy's seminar was framed around the question of theatricality and reference in the genre of film re-enactment and was structured by her comparative case study on a modern depiction of film re-enactment in the realm of television realism – the indexical inter-object trace in CSI: Crime Scene Investigation (2000-present). Carrigy discussed the re-enactments played out within the contexts of the diegetic world of the television series, with particular emphasis on the indexical trace between objects that afford a forced direction on the viewer. She argued that it displayed a sense of 'ultra-realism' and was pivotal to the narrative of the drama. Carrigy argued that this displayed a sense of cinematic metaphor; of cinema and spectacle – an idea at the basis of film re-enactment.

Carrigy concluded her seminar by restating the importance of film re-enactment within contemporary cinema, with the possibility of opening it up as a legitimate genre within film theory and history.

Cinema of Attraction – Tom Gunning

CSI: Crime Scene Investigation (2000 - present)