Framing realities : a critical analysis of perspectival distortion in the film Alice by Czech Surrealist Jan Švankmajer
- Authors: Soutter, Simone
- Date: 2021-04
- Subjects: Švankmajer, Jan, 1934- -- Criticism and interpretation , Depression, Mental -- Exhibitions , Perception , Frames (Sociology) , Surrealism -- Influence , Cubism -- Influence , Surrealism in motion pictures , Depression, Mental in art
- Language: English
- Type: thesis , text , Masters , MFA
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/178365 , vital:42933
- Description: My MFA exhibition Through the looking glass; altered states of perception, explores my experience of mental distress: Major Depressive Disorder (MDD), through the medium of painting and multimedia collage. Situated in the Main Fine Art building on Rhodes University campus, this practical submission takes the form of a collection of oil paintings accompanied by an immersive wall of collaged experimentations, depicting the perspectival shifts I have experienced in coping with mental distress. The paintings explore concepts of framing and perspective, both literally and metaphorically in unpacking how our perceptions are manipulated by the way in which situations and concepts are framed. I use strategies and techniques drawn from the Surrealist and Cubist movements in order to depict my distorted experience of time and space, but also to tap into my own unconscious. In this mini-thesis: Framing realities; A critical analysis of perspectival distortion in the film Alice by Czech Surrealist Jan Švankmajer, I explore the strategies and concepts developed during the Surrealist and Cubist movements in relation to strategies used by Švankmajer in his disturbing interpretation of Alice’s Adventures into Wonderland. Here, he visually explores the psyche of an imaginative child. His unique interpretation is expressed through the combination of live-action film and stop-motion animation. I position my work in relation to themes proposed by Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Ernst Jentch, Sigmund Freud and Julia Kristeva. In the first Chapter: Framing and Perspectival shifts, I unpack framing and perspectival shifts exhibited in the Cubist (a physical shift), Dadaist (a social shift), and Surrealist (an unconscious shift) movements. In Chapter Two: A critical analysis of Alice by Jan Švankmajer, I engage in an analysis of themes (examined in the above art movements) relative to the film Alice. These are found objects and assemblages, ambiguity, distortion of scale, the Unconscious, the uncanny and multi-sensory modalities. Chapter Three: Through the Looking Glass; Altered states of perception, I discuss how the themes discussed in Chapter Two apply to my own body of work and how these themes are addressed with regards to my lived experience of mental disorder and distress. , Thesis (MFA) -- Faculty of Humanities, Fine Arts, 2021
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- Date Issued: 2021-04
The interrelationships between meaning(s), form, cinematic technology and surrealist ideology in Luis Buñuel's, Un Chien Andalou (1929)
- Authors: Kritzinger, Christiaan Cornelius
- Date: 2012
- Subjects: Surrealism in motion pictures , Motion picture producers and directors -- Spain , Photography , Myth , Semiotics
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MTech (Photography)
- Identifier: vital:8495 , http://hdl.handle.net/10948/d1007847 , Surrealism in motion pictures , Motion picture producers and directors -- Spain , Photography , Myth , Semiotics
- Description: This study sets out to determine the interrelationship between meaning(s), form (specifically framing and composition), cinematic technology and the surrealist ideology with specific reference to Luis Buñuel’s film, Un Chien Andalou (1929). The study utilises a semiotic framework to analyse the seminal film, as well as the researcher’s short film Facebrick (2012). The semiotic reading is conducted according to key surrealist tenets namely, spatio-‐temporal disruption, the use of free-‐association and the inclusion of cultural, religious and sexual symbols as a revolutionary tool. Gillian Rose’s (2007) semiotic framework underpinned by James Monaco’s (1977) schema for analysing the moving image, was utilised to read the selected film texts. A comparative analysis reveals that although the researcher employed different cinematic technology to construct the short film than that available to Buñuel in the 1920s; similar cinematic techniques could be recreated, as the analysis shows, through the use of key surrealist characteristics. Not only did this allow mere reproduction of these techniques, but rather a full appropriation of these techniques within a contemporary context. Thus the techniques, communicate the surreal, both aesthetically and intellectually. The theoretical study provides the foundation for the practical output, creating a conceptual framework that guides the creation of a short film. The practical research component relies on the parameters identified in the semiotic reading. This was facilitated by the characteristics of Surrealism: the disruption of time and space, the inclusion of archetypal symbols and the use of free association. The short film, Facebrick (2012), follows a voyeur obsessed with gazing at three characters. The film explores the human condition in an urban environment drawing from themes such as Jean-‐Paul Sartre’s gaze theory as well as Freudian themes of identity and sexuality.
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- Date Issued: 2012