The Secondary Frame as Diegetic Mise En Abyme: Focused on the Paintings of Jan van Eyck and Antonello da Messina

2020 ◽  
Vol 64 (0) ◽  
pp. 7-36
Author(s):  
Ho-Young Kim
Keyword(s):  
Mise En Abyme ◽  
Antonello Da Messina

From Altered States to Altered Titles: A Close Analysis of the Title Sequence to Ken Russell's Altered States (1981)

2015 ◽  
Vol 12 (4) ◽  
pp. 556-571
Author(s):  
Jack Post
Keyword(s):  
Altered States ◽  
Thematic Structure ◽  
Personal Projects ◽  
Mise En Abyme ◽  
Narrative Representations ◽  
Close Analysis ◽  
Film Images ◽  
The Spectator ◽  
To Come ◽  
The Aesthetic

Although most title sequences of Ken Russell's films consist of superimpositions of a static text on film images, the elaborate title sequence to Altered States (1981) was specially designed by Richard Greenberg, who had already acquired a reputation for his innovative typography thanks to his work on Superman (1978) and Alien (1979). Greenberg continued these typographic experiments in Altered States. Although both the film and its title sequence were not personal projects for Russell, a close analysis of the title sequence reveals that it functions as a small narrative unit in its own right, facilitating the transition of the spectator from the outside world of the cinema to the inside world of filmic fiction and functioning as a prospective mise-en-abyme and matrix of all the subsequent narrative representations and sequences of the film to come. By focusing on this aspect of the film, the article indicates how the title sequence to Altered States is tightly interwoven with the aesthetic and thematic structure of the film, even though Russell himself may have had less control over its design than other parts of the film.

Staging the World: The Devils as Theatrum Mundi

2015 ◽  
Vol 12 (4) ◽  
pp. 496-514
Author(s):  
Christophe Van Eecke
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Tidal Wave ◽  
Historical Events ◽  
Political Issues ◽  
Mise En Abyme ◽  
Political Allegory ◽  
The World

When Ken Russell's film The Devils was released in 1971 it generated a tidal wave of adverse criticism. The film tells the story of a libertine priest, Grandier, who was burnt at the stake for witchcraft in the French city of Loudun in the early seventeenth century. Because of its extended scenes of sexual hysteria among cloistered nuns, the film soon acquired a reputation for scandal and outrage. This has obscured the very serious political issues that the film addresses. This article argues that The Devils should be read primarily as a political allegory. It shows that the film is structured as a theatrum mundi, which is the allegorical trope of the world as a stage. Rather than as a conventional recreation of historical events (in the tradition of the costume film), Russell treats the trial against Grandier as a comment on the nature of power and politics in general. This is not only reflected in the overall allegorical structure of the theatrum mundi, but also in the use of the film's highly modernist (and therefore timeless) sets, in Russell's use of the mise-en-abyme (a self-reflexive embedded play) and in the introduction of a number of burlesque sequences, all of which are geared towards achieving the film's allegorical import.

Deadly Mirrors: Animal Death in Tommaso Landolfi and Stefano D'Arrigo

Paragraph ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 42 (1) ◽  
pp. 76-90
Author(s):  
Damiano Benvegnù
Keyword(s):  
Short Story ◽  
Killer Whale ◽  
Human Condition ◽  
Nonhuman Animal ◽  
Western Philosophy ◽  
Mise En Abyme ◽  
The Human Condition

From Hegel to Heidegger and Agamben, modern Western philosophy has been haunted by how to think the connections between death, humanness and animality. This article explores how these connections have been represented by Italian writers Tommaso Landolfi (1908–79) and Stefano D'Arrigo (1919–92). Specifically, it investigates how the death of a nonhuman animal is portrayed in two works: ‘Mani’, a short story by Landolfi collected in his first book Il dialogo dei massimi sistemi (Dialogue on the Greater Harmonies) (1937), and D'Arrigo's massive novel Horcynus Orca (Horcynus Orca) (1975). Both ‘Mani’ and Horcynus Orca display how the fictional representation of the death of a nonhuman animal challenges any philosophical positions of human superiority and establishes instead animality as the unheimlich mirror of the human condition. In fact, in both stories, the animal — a mouse and a killer whale, respectively — do die and their deaths represent a mise en abyme that both arrests the human narrative and sparks a moment of acute ontological recognition.

Paludes

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sam Ferguson
Keyword(s):  
Literary Creation ◽  
Mise En Abyme ◽  
The Status ◽  
Diary Writing ◽  
New Form

Gide’s experimentation with diary-writing continues in Paludes. Like Les Cahiers d’André Walter, it is the diary (journal intime) of a character writing a novel (in this case also entitled ‘Paludes’, creating a structure of mise en abyme). The work’s exploration of diary-writing depends on a dizzying, comical instability in the text’s structure: first, the status of the main narrative (as a diary or some other sort of narrative) is never resolved; secondly, the relation between the main narrative and the narrator’s own literary creation (‘Paludes’) remains unclear. Paludes continues some of the theoretical themes from Les Cahiers d’André Walter, but the narrator of Paludes is more focused on embracing the contingency of diary-writing, as a way to escape the deterministic necessity of existence and achieve some sort of action and freedom in writing. The work calls for a new form of literary œuvre that can accommodate this diaristic contingency.

Η μεταμυθοπλασία στο εικονογραφημένο βιβλίο χωρίς λόγια (wordless picturebook) και η πρόσληψή της από παιδιά προσχολικής ηλικίας

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ελένη Πασχαλίδου
Keyword(s):  
Mise En Abyme

Τις τελευταίες δεκαετίες συναντάμε συχνά στα εικονογραφημένα βιβλία για παιδιά μεταμυθοπλαστικές τεχνικές, και στο γραπτό και στο οπτικό κείμενο, οι οποίες δημιουργούν ασάφεια και απροσδιοριστία και τα κάνουν ακόμα πιο σύνθετα και περίτεχνα. Αυτά τα αυτοαναφορικά και αυτοσυνειδητά κείμενα απαιτούν την ενεργητική συμμετοχή του αναγνώστη, ο οποίος καλείται να τα αποκωδικοποιήσει και να επιλύσει τα προβλήματα που δημιουργεί η μεταμυθοπλαστική αφήγηση. Τα βιβλία χωρίς λόγια είναι οπτικά κείμενα στα οποία οι εικόνες είναι αυτές που φέρουν το βάρος της αφήγησης. Κάποια από τα πιο απαιτητικά βιβλία χωρίς λόγια χρησιμοποιούν μεταμυθοπλαστικές τεχνικές με έναν παιγνιώδη τρόπο, προκειμένου να υπονομεύσουν τη σχέση ανάμεσα στη φαντασία και την πραγματικότητα και να παρουσιάσουν το βιβλίο ως μια κατασκευή. Στην παρούσα διατριβή μελετάμε πώς παιδιά 4-6 ετών κατανοούν και ανταποκρίνονται στη μεταμυθοπλασία σε ένα βιβλίο χωρίς λόγια, ιδιαίτερα στις τεχνικές της μετάληψης, της διάρρηξης του χωρόχρονου, της mise en abyme, της διεικονικότητας/διακειμενικότητας και των πειραματισμών στο design. Συμπεραίνουμε ότι τα παιδιά προσχολικής ηλικίας είναι σε θέση να διαχειριστούν την ασάφεια και την απροσδιοριστία των μεταμυθοπλαστικών τεχνικών στα βιβλία χωρίς λόγια και μπορούν, σε ένα ομαδικό πλαίσιο ανάγνωσης, να κατασκευάσουν τα νοήματα και μηνύματα αυτών των εκλεπτυσμένων αφηγήσεων. Η παιγνιώδης φύση των κειμένων αυτών τα κάνει ιδιαίτερα ελκυστικά στα παιδιά μικρής ηλικίας που δείχνουν ενδιαφέρον, συμμετέχουν ενεργά και απολαμβάνουν τις συνεχείς παραβιάσεις των λογοτεχνικών συμβάσεων και νόμων της πραγματικότητας.

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