Oct 29, 2016 | 10:40 AM - 12:10 PM | STUDIO THEATRE

Mr. Erik Mortensen, MA

Culture, Conflict and Identity in Differing Contexts: Gideon Raff’s Prisoners of War and Homeland

This paper offers a comparative analysis of the narratives in Gideon Raff's two shows: Prisoners of War, and Homeland. It will examine the difference of how issues of culture, conflict, and identity are developed through the narratives given their different cultural contexts of production and audience. It will ultimately argue that Prisoners of War seeks to complicate the audiences perceptions of conflict, terrorism, trauma, and counter terror operations of the real world contexts it is acting mimetic of; however, Homeland seeks to simplify and offer specific ideological perspectives to its audience in relation to the real world contexts it is acting mimetic of.

Ms. Anne Hart, BA

Intervention in the Archive: The Act of Killing and Manufactured Truth

Joshua Oppenheimer’s award-winning film The Act of Killing (2012) documents the perpetrators of the 1965-1966 Indonesian genocide as they produce a feature film reenacting their past crimes. Because of this peculiar subject, The Act of Killing has been undertaken by scholars in testimony and trauma studies for its representation of perspective from the eyes of the offenders rather than from the victims who suffered at their hands. The Act of Killing also exposes how testimony, lies, and truth surrounding the Indonesian 1960s genocide and coup have been manufactured through manipulation of the archive.

Throughout the film, we see how the archive, understood as a malleable record of information that holds tacit assumption of legitimacy, was and continues to be managed by members of the coup. By controlling the archive, the murderers aim to alter the consequences of their actions. In other words, by directing and managing what goes into and what stays out of their archive, these criminals decide, for example, the meaning of “gangster” and “crime.” The Act of Killing acts as an intervention and demonstrates the component of power explored in Derrida’s understanding of the archive. The film also reveals the titular “fever” accompanying the archive, as the subjects express intense, bizarre, and pathological eagerness to engage with the archive through their film. Derrida writes, “There is no political power without control of the archive, if not of memory” (4). This claim is validated in The Act of Killing as the machinery of the archive is unapologetically laid out before us. This presentation attempts to examine the exposition of archival machinery within The Act of Killing in order to draw conclusions on the significant, yet usually invisible, effects of the archive in society.

Derrida, Jacques. Archive Fever. Trans. Eric Prenowitz. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1998. Print.

Dr. Bill Scalia, PhD

The Flashback That Lied: Ethics, Aesthetics, Memory, and Cinema

Alfred Hitchcock’s Stage Fright contains one of the most debated scenes in his oeuvre:  the lying flashback, early in the film, that affects both the mechanics of the plot and the experience of the viewer.  But, is it possible for a flashback to lie?  And, is it possible for the flashback to unfix the memory of the viewer?

My essay will first examine the ontological nature of the problem in order to assess the reality of the filmic image.  I hope to assert a view of the filmed image as a presentation of (I might say a revelation of) the world itself to illustrate the presence of reality in the filmic image, or, the immediacy of the filmed image in terms of our experience of that reality.

Next, I will consider the rhetorical effect of the flashback. Characters can lie, but a flashback cannot, if the flashback is not cued to us as an interpretation or a disputation of an experience. How can something we see be un-seen? Memory fixed by a filmed image can no more be false than our experience of the world can be false. The lying flashback violates a maintained constancy in the presentation of the world; the rupture of the “lying image” is thus an irresolvable paradox that compromises the viewers’ relationship with the film, and by extension the world.

As such, the lying flashback calls forth ethical consideration in that it violates a maintained constancy in the presentation of the world. However, this “failure” in one sense avails us to a new experience in another sense.  A postmodern reading of the film admits to the lying flashback as a marker of inertial destabilization of the filmic text, setting up an interpretive dynamic between two perceptions of a reality coexistent with the film itself.

Biographies

Erik Mortensen

Erik Mortensen is contract professor at Humber College and a PhD Candidate in the Department of Humanities at York University. His dissertation focus is on examining the vigilante as a mythic figure in American culture and texts. He completed his MA at Wilfrid Laurier University from the department of English and Film Studies, and his BAH at the University of Guelph with a double major from the department of English and Theater Studies & History. Publications: "The Mode of Lynching: One Method of Vigilante Justice" Stand Your Ground Essay Collection (forthcoming) "Vigilant Citizens and Horrific Heroes: Perpetuating the Positive Portrayal of Vigilantes." Violence in American Popular Culture - Prager Press, 2015

Anne Hart

Biography

Anne Hart holds a BA in Interdisciplinary Humanities from Brigham Young University. After her childhood on a small farm, Anne has traveled widely including living for a year and half in Siberia. Her varied experiences in human societies have influenced her approach to her study of the Humanities. Anne’s interests were initially rooted in healthcare and international development. The humanism she found in such subjects prompted her to investigate the Humanities as a greater form of public health. Art making and creative endeavors also shape Anne’s academic perspectives. Currently, Anne is pursuing a Master’s degree in Comparative Studies at Brigham Young University and aspires to earn a PhD in the future. Her emphases are film theory, comedy, and media literacy. Her thesis concerns the cultural value, heritage, and social consequences of underdog archetypes in 20th century American comedy films. Anne works as the student assistant to the directors for the BYU International Cinema and is an advocate for preserving print film in cinemas. She enjoys reading outside, playing the saxophone, and painting after the Ashcan School.

Publications

“Serial Absurdity: Arrested Development and Wartime Comedy in the United States.” Aperture: BYU’s       Journal of Media Arts (2016): n. pag. Web. 29 April 2016.

Dr. Bill Scalia

Bill Scalia earned his PhD in American Literature from Louisiana State University in 2002.  Since then, he has published critical essays on film and literature, focusing on aesthetics and ethics.  He regularly publishes reviews of contemporary poetry, and as well has published selections from his own poems. Dr Scalia currently teaches philosophical writing and literature at St Mary’s Seminary & University in Baltimore, Maryland.

Essays and Editorial

“Nature and the Mind of God: Emerson’s Transcendental Aesthetic.” Perichoresis (forthcoming, Spring 2016)

“Toward a Semiotics of Poetry and Film: Meaning-Making and Extra-Linguistic Signification.”  Literature / Film Quarterly 40:1 (January 2012)

“Bergman’s Trilogy of Faith and Persona: Faith and Visual Narrative.” Chapter One of Faith and Spirituality in Masters of World Cinema (Cambridge Scholars Press, 2008)

Volume Editor / Selection Headnotes.  Contemporary Critical Views: Emerson (Facts on File / Chelsea House, 2007)

“Sampson Reed: A Swedenborgian at Harvard and Early Emerson Colleague.” Emerson Society Papers 18:1 (Spring 2007)

“Contrasting Visions of a Saint: Carl Dreyer’s The Passion of Joan of Arc and Luc Besson’s The Messenger.”  Literature / Film Quarterly 32:3 (July 2004)

“Re-Figuring Jesus: Christ and Christ-Figures in Jesus of Montréal.” Religion and Literature 33:1 (Spring 2001)

Book Reviews

Landscape with Female Figure: New and Selected Poems, 1982-2012 (Andrea Hollander).  Coal Hill Review (forthcoming, Spring 2016)

Reviews of contemporary poetry for the poetry blog Galatea Resurrects (ongoing; 21 reviews as of Spring 2016). http://galatearesurrects.blogspot.com

Poetry

“Love in the Trial of Belief.”  Poem cycle.  Pomona Valley Review 9 (July 2015). http://pomonavalleyreview.com/pdf/PVR%209/PVR%209.pdf

Seven poems.  Puzzles of Faith and Patterns of Doubt: Short Stories and Poems. Editions Bibliotekos, February 2013

“Poem of Farmerville, Louisiana.”  Crossroads: A Southern Culture Annual. Mercer University Press, 2005