Betraying oneself
Silent Light and the world of emotion
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 10496181 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Jane Foltz (corresponding author) |
| Year | 2011 |
| Volume | 52 |
| Issue | 2 |
| Pages | 151-172 |
| Publication date | 2011-06-01 |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Screen (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0036-9543 • E-ISSN: 1460-2474 |
| Publisher | Oxford University Press (OUP) (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.1093/screen/hjr002 |
| OpenAlex | W2321564318 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 1 |
This essay examines the relationship between affect and representation in Carlos Reygadas's 2007 film Silent Light . I argue that the film's deliberate obfuscation of its narrative of romance and betrayal, amidst a landscape of imposing natural forms, places special conditions on our viewing. In Silent Light the dissipation of character into the space of composition, image and landscape allegorizes the film's desire to make the self-effacing movements of spectatorship correspond to the subject's disappearance in the face of the troubling externality of emotion. The film incorporates a theological critique of art as the expression of self-love, even as it translates this scepticism about aesthetics into a relatively secular idiom. Drawing on exemplary scenes of spectacle and performance, I suggest that Silent Light offers depersonalization as the faithful expression of the way that love betrays the self in leaving it behind
Aesthetics · Art · Betrayal · Expression (computer science · Literature · Narrative · Political science · Politics · Representation (politics · Romance · Spectacle · Subject (documents · Anthropological Studies and Insights · Psychology · Social Psychology · South Asian Cinema and Culture
| Citations per year | 0.09 |
|---|---|
| Citation span | 2015 - 2015 (1) |
| Highly cited | No |