Change Mummified: Cinema, Historicity, Theory

476 Pages·2001·16.603 MB·English

by  Philip Rosen

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Change Mummified

Change Mummified
Cinema, Historicity, Theory
Philip Rosen
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University of Minnesota Press IN
NE
Minneapolis • London SO
TA
The University of Minnesota Press gratefully acknowledges the assistance provided for the publication
of this book by the McKnight Foundation.
Chapter 1 draws from material originally presented in “History of Image, Image of History: Subject and
Ontology in Bazin,” Wide Angle 9, no. 4 (winter 1987-88): 7-34; copyright Ohio University, Athens
Center for Film and Video; reprinted by permission of The Johns Hopkins University Press. Sections of
chapters 2 and 3 originally appeared in “Traces of the Past: From Historicity to Film,” in Questioning
Paul Ricoeur, edited by David Klemm and William Schweiker (Charlottesville: University Press of
Virginia, 1993); reprinted with permission of the University Press of Virginia. The original version of
chapter 5 was published as “Disjunction and Ideology in a Preclassical Film: A Policeman’s Tour of the
World, ” Wide Angle 12,no.3(1990); copyright Ohio University, Athens Center for Film and Video;
reprinted by permission of The Johns Hopkins University Press. Aversion of chapter 6 originally
appeared in Theorizing Documentary, ed. Michael Renov (New York: Routledge, 1993); reprinted by
permission of Routledge and Taylor and Francis. An early version of chapter 7 was originally published
as “Making a Nation in Sembene’s Ceddo,” Quarterly Review of Film and ]Adeo 13, nos. 1-3 (1991):
147-72; copyright OPA (Overseas Publishers Association) N.V; reprinted with permission from
Gordon and Breach Publishers. The original version of chapter 8 was published as “Old and New:
Image, Indexicality, and Historicity in the Digital Utopia,” Iconics 4 (1998): 5-45; republished with
permission of JASIAS (Iconics is the international edition of the journal of the Japan Society of Image
Arts and Sciences).
Copyright 2001 by the Regents of the University of Minnesota
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or
transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or
otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher.
Published by the University of Minnesota Press
111 Third Avenue South, Suite 290
Minneapolis, MN 55401-2520
http://www.upress.umn.edu
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Rosen, Philip
Change mummified : cinema, historicity, theory / Philip Rosen,
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0-8166-363 7-0—ISBN 0-8166-3638-9 (pbk.)
1. Motion pictures and history. 2. Motion pictures—Philosophy.
I. Title.
PN1995.2 .R66 2001
791.43'658—dc21
2001001010
Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper
The University of Minnesota is an equal-opportunity educator and employer.
11 10 09 08 07 06 05 04 03 02 01 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
For my mother, Kail Blumenthal Rosen, and
the memory of my father, A/I ax Rosen

Contents
Acknowledgments ix
introduction xi
Part I. From Film to Historicity
1. Subject, Ontology, and Historicity in Bazin 3
2. Entering History: Preservation and Restoration 43
3. Once upon a Time in the West 89
Part II. From Historicity to Film: Case Studies
4. Detail, Document, and Diegesis in
Mainstream Film 147
5. Disjunction and Ideology in a Preclassical Film:
A Policeman's Tour of the World 201
6. Document and Documentary: On the Persistence
of Historical Concepts 225
7. Toward a Radical Historicity: Making a Nation in
Sembene's Ceddo 265
8. Old and New: Image, Indexicality, and Historicity
in the Digital Utopia 301
Afterword 351
Notes 361
Index 435