Title: Aura, aurora and aurality: the narrative of place in Picture of Light
Source document: Brno studies in English. 2013, vol. 39, iss. 2, pp. [71]-88
Extent
[71]-88
-
ISSN0524-6881 (print)1805-0867 (online)
Persistent identifier (DOI): https://doi.org/10.5817/BSE2013-2-5
Stable URL (handle): https://hdl.handle.net/11222.digilib/130310
Type: Article
Language
License: Not specified license
Notice: These citations are automatically created and might not follow citation rules properly.
Abstract(s)
Peter Mettler's Picture of Light (1994) is a self-reflexive study of media, knowledge and nature – how we understand and come to know the world through film and photography. My analysis draws on haptic theory, sound studies and Pierre Bourdieu's notion of the habitus to look at the permeable boundaries between the subject and audience, image and sound, and immersion and reflexivity. In this paper I use different interpretations of scripts and improvisation to look at how narrative, technique and technology can all be traced to the placement of the body in space and time and how these themes are used in the film to create an experience that, somewhat in opposition to what appears as the narrator's emphasis on distancing, creates an aura of the attempt to represent the Aurora Borealis on film.
References
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[20] Mettler, Peter (1994) Picture of Light. 83 minutes. Grimthorpe Film.
[21] Nancy, Jean Luc (2007) Listening. New York: Fordham University Press.
[22] Schank, Roger and Robert Ableson (1995) "Knowledge and Memory: The Real Story". In: Wyer, Robert S., Jr. (ed.) Knowledge and Memory: The Real Story, Hillsdale: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 1–85.
[23] Shaviro, Steven (1993) Cinematic Body (Theory Out Of Bounds). Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
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[25] Sterne, Jonathan (2003b) "Bourdieu, Technique and Technology". Cultural Studies 17 (3–4), 367–389. | DOI 10.1080/0950238032000083863a
[26] Sterne, Jonathan (2006) "Communication as Technè". In: Shepard, Gregory J., Jeffrey St. John and Ted Striphas (eds.) Communication as... Perspectives on Theory. London: SAGE publications, 91–98.
[27] Taylor, Charles (1991) The Malaise of Modernity. Toronto: House of Anansi Press.
[28] Truax, Barry (2001) Acoustic Communication, 2nd ed. New York: Ablex Publishing.
[29] Wees, William C. (1993) Recycled Images: The Art and Politics of Found Footage Film. New York: Anthology Film Archives.
[30] Westerkamp, Hildegard (1988) Listening as Soundmaking: A Study of Music as Environment. Burnaby: Simon Fraser University.
[31] Westerkamp, Hildegard (2006) Soundwalking as Ecological Practice. International Conference on Acoustic Ecology. Hirosaki: Hirosaki University.
[32] Young, Iris Marion (2005) On Female Body Experience: "Throwing Like a Girl" and Other Essays. New York: Oxford University Press.
[2] Barthes, Roland (1981) Camera Lucida. New York: Hill and Wang.
[3] Benjamin, Walter (1968) Illuminations: Essays and Reflections. New York: Schocken Books.
[4] Benjamin, Walter (1983) "N [Theoretics of Knowledge; Theory of Progress]". In: Smith, Gary (ed.) Benjamin: Philosophy, Aesthetics, History. (Trans. of Passagen-Werk by Leigh Hafrey and Richard Sieburth). Chicago: Chicago University Press, 43–83.
[5] Benjamin, Walter (1999) The Arcades Project. (Rolf Tiedemann, Ed., Trans. Howard Eiland and Kevin McLaughlin). Cambridge: Belknap Press.
[6] Blesser, Barry and Linda Ruth Salter (2007) Spaces Speak, Are You Listening?: Experiencing Aural Architecture. Cambridge: MIT Press.
[7] Bourdieu, Pierre (1990) The Logic of Practice. (Trans. Richard Nice). Stanford: Stanford University Press.
[8] Brecht, Bertolt (1961) "On Chinese Acting". The Tulane Drama Review 6 (1), 130–136. | DOI 10.2307/1125011
[9] Chion, Michel (1994) Audio-Vision. New York: Columbia University Press.
[10] Czink, Andrew (2013) Sound Means: Towards an Epistemology of Auditory Experience... (Master's thesis). Retrieved 2013, from https://theses.lib.sfu.ca/thesis/etd8137.
[11] Frith, Simon (1986) "Art Versus Technology: The Strange Case of Popular Music". Media, Culture, and Society 8, 263–279. | DOI 10.1177/016344386008003002
[12] Grace, Sherrill E. (2002) Canada and the Idea of North. Montreal: McGill-Queen's University Press.
[13] Hansen, Miriam B. (2008) "Benjamin's Aura". Critical Inquiry 34 (2), 336–375. | DOI 10.1086/529060
[14] Jordan, Randolph (2010) The Schizophonic Imagination: Audiovisual Ecology in the Cinema (Unpublished doctoral dissertation). Montreal: Concordia University.
[15] Kittler, Friedrich (1999) Gramophone, Film, Typewriter. Redwood City: Stanford University Press.
[16] Marks, Laura, U. (2000) The Skin of the Film: Intercultural Cinema, Embodiment and the Senses. Durham: Duke University Press.
[17] McLuhan, Marshall (1964) Understanding Media; the Extensions of Man. New York: McGraw Hill.
[18] McSorley, Tom (1995) "Paradox and Wonder: the Cinema of Peter Mettler". Take One 7, Winter, 42–46.
[19] Mettler, Peter (1992) "Music in Film: Film as Music". Cinemas: Revue d'Études Cinematographiques = Journal of Film Studies 3 (1), 34–42.
[20] Mettler, Peter (1994) Picture of Light. 83 minutes. Grimthorpe Film.
[21] Nancy, Jean Luc (2007) Listening. New York: Fordham University Press.
[22] Schank, Roger and Robert Ableson (1995) "Knowledge and Memory: The Real Story". In: Wyer, Robert S., Jr. (ed.) Knowledge and Memory: The Real Story, Hillsdale: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 1–85.
[23] Shaviro, Steven (1993) Cinematic Body (Theory Out Of Bounds). Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
[24] Sterne, Jonathan (2003a) The Audible Past: Cultural Origins of Sound Reproduction. Durham: Duke University Press.
[25] Sterne, Jonathan (2003b) "Bourdieu, Technique and Technology". Cultural Studies 17 (3–4), 367–389. | DOI 10.1080/0950238032000083863a
[26] Sterne, Jonathan (2006) "Communication as Technè". In: Shepard, Gregory J., Jeffrey St. John and Ted Striphas (eds.) Communication as... Perspectives on Theory. London: SAGE publications, 91–98.
[27] Taylor, Charles (1991) The Malaise of Modernity. Toronto: House of Anansi Press.
[28] Truax, Barry (2001) Acoustic Communication, 2nd ed. New York: Ablex Publishing.
[29] Wees, William C. (1993) Recycled Images: The Art and Politics of Found Footage Film. New York: Anthology Film Archives.
[30] Westerkamp, Hildegard (1988) Listening as Soundmaking: A Study of Music as Environment. Burnaby: Simon Fraser University.
[31] Westerkamp, Hildegard (2006) Soundwalking as Ecological Practice. International Conference on Acoustic Ecology. Hirosaki: Hirosaki University.
[32] Young, Iris Marion (2005) On Female Body Experience: "Throwing Like a Girl" and Other Essays. New York: Oxford University Press.