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Embodied Witnessing : On the Use of Indexical Mimesis in a Documentary Film

원문정보

Fernando Andacht

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초록

영어

The text is a semiotic analysis of the act of bearing witness in a classic documentary on the Holocaust, Shoah (Lanzmann, 1985). What is the importance of the body, of the signs which are closest to it, namely, indexical signs, according to Peirce’s semiotic taxonomy for this kind of discourse? This perspective allows the author to approach a phenomenon that is described here as the act of “embodied witnessing”, a testimony in which the body plays as decisive a role as the words (symbols). In the two episodes of Shoah which are studied closely, the testimony of the witnesses is framed overtly or secretly in an iconic setting. The witness’s speech is set in a staging in which images play a key role; they mirror a past situation. Such a semiotic strategy is called here ‘indexical mimesis.’ This cinematographic technique functions as a catalyst for the revelation of the truth, through the emergence of indexical signs which otherwise would not be likely to manifest themselves in that cinematic context.

목차

1. The indexical component in a documentary film based on witnessing acts
2. On the art of representing the re-appeared through the forceful here-and-now
2.1. In the material heart of the present
3. At a barbershop of uncertain origin, a loquacious barber talks away: a circumspect iconic framework
3.1. On the working of indexical mimesis
3.2. Can the truth be elicited in a fictional indexical environment?
4. Let there be a loud silence: the iconically framed irruption of the unavoidable indexical signs
5. Conclusion: when the corpus delicti becomes the speaking body of the witness
References
[Abstract]

저자정보

  • Fernando Andacht Professor / University of Ottawa

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자료제공 : 네이버학술정보

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