Film, Parable, Reciprocity: Frederick Wiseman's "reality fictions" and Social Change
This essay argues that social criticism may be an effect of Frederick Wiseman's "reality fiction" films only if that effect is understood as analogous to parable, that is, through an awakened responsiveness to the unknown and the unresolved. Here I develop the analogy of Wis...
| Published in: | Journal for religion, film and media |
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| Main Author: | |
| Format: | Electronic Article |
| Language: | English |
| Check availability: | HBZ Gateway |
| Journals Online & Print: | Drawer...
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| Fernleihe: | Fernleihe für die Fachinformationsdienste |
| Published: |
Institut f. Fundamentaltheologie
[2016]
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| In: |
Journal for religion, film and media
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| Standardized Subjects / Keyword chains: | B
Wiseman, Frederick 1930-
/ Film
/ Realism
/ Social change
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| RelBib Classification: | AD Sociology of religion; religious policy NCC Social ethics ZB Sociology |
| Further subjects: | B
Social Change
B Frederick Wiseman B Reciprocity B Parable B documentary |
| Online Access: |
Volltext (doi) Volltext (kostenfrei) |
| Summary: | This essay argues that social criticism may be an effect of Frederick Wiseman's "reality fiction" films only if that effect is understood as analogous to parable, that is, through an awakened responsiveness to the unknown and the unresolved. Here I develop the analogy of Wiseman's films as parable that I begin to consider in an recently published essay "Silence-effects: Frederick Wiseman's films as parables" which explores the idea of parables and Wiseman's films as "silent": disturbing narrative explanation and creating new possibilities of relation, human and animal. The present essay looks at Wiseman's filmic techniques used to intimate these relational possibilities (portraiture and, using Davide Panagia's term, "democratic noise") and contends that his unflinching realism effectively opens up a space of parable with its vision of reciprocity and more-than-reciprocity. |
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| ISSN: | 2617-3697 |
| Contains: | Enthalten in: Journal for religion, film and media
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| Persistent identifiers: | DOI: 10.25364/05.2:2016.2.5 |