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Stages of Reality: Theatricality in Cinema PDF

244 Pages·2012·0.935 MB·English
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STAGES OF REALITY Theatricality in Cinema A groundbreaking collection of original essays, Stages of Reality estab- lishes a new paradigm for understanding the relationship between stage and screen media. This comprehensive volume explores the signifi cance of theatricality within critical discourse about cinema and television. Stages of Reality connects the theory and practice of cinematic theat- ricality through conceptual analyses and close readings of fi lms includ- ingThe Matrix and There Will Be Blood. Contributors illuminate how this mode of address disrupts expectations surrounding cinematic form and content, evaluating strategies such as ostentatious performances, formal stagings, fragmentary montages, and methods of dialogue delivery and movement. Detailing connections between cinematic artifi ce and top- ics such as politics, gender, and genre, Stages of Reality allows readers to develop a clear sense of the multiple purposes and uses of theatricality in fi lm. ANDRÉ LOISELLE is a professor in the Film Studies Program and associate dean of Graduate Studies at Carleton University. JEREMY MARON is a doctoral candidate in the Institute of Comparative Studies in Literature, Art, and Culture at Carleton University. This page intentionally left blank Stages of Reality Theatricality in Cinema EDITED BY ANDRÉ LOISELLE AND JEREMY MARON UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO PRESS Toronto Buffalo London © University of Toronto Press 2012 Toronto Buffalo London www.utppublishing.com Printed in Canada ISBN: 978-1-4426-4352-9 (cloth) ISBN: 978-1-4426-1205-1 (paper) Printed on acid-free, 100% post-consumer recycled paper with vegetable-based inks Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication Stages of reality : theatricality in cinema / edited by André Loiselle and Jeremy Maron. Includes bibliographical references. ISBN 978-1-4426-4352-9 (bound) ISBN 978-1-4426-1205-1 (pbk.) 1. Motion pictures and theater. 2. Motion pictures – History and criticism. I. Loiselle, André, 1963– II. Maron, Jeremy, 1980– PN1995.25.S73 2012 791.43 C2012-900210-0 The University of Toronto Press acknowledges the fi nancial assistance to its publishing program of the Canada Council for the Arts and the Ontario Arts Council. This book has been published with the help of a grant from the Canadian Federation for the Humanities and Social Sciences, through the Aid to Scholarly Publications Program, using funds provided by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. University of Toronto Press acknowledges the fi nancial support of the Government of Canada through the Canada Book Fund for its publishing activities. Contents Introduction 3 ANDRÉ LOISELLE AND JEREMY MARON Part One Traces of Theatricality: Stage-to-Screen Adaptations 1 Self-Adaptation: Queer Theatricality in Brad Fraser’s Leaving Metropolis and Robert Lepage’s La face cachée de la lune 13 SYLVAIN DUGUAY 2 Brechtian Television: Theatricality and Adaptation of the Stage Play 30 BILLY SMART Part Two Cinematic Theatricality, Genre, and Gender 3 Cinéma du Grand Guignol : Theatricality in the Horror Film 55 ANDRÉ LOISELLE 4 ‘I’ll Show Them!’ Creating Legal Spectacles in Revenge Cinema 81 R.J. TOUGAS 5 The Ethics of Murder: Trial as Performance in the Maternal Melodrama 102 BRENDA AUSTIN-SMITH vi Contents 6 Theatricality in the CleopatraFilms: Women (or We Men?) of Power 116 SARAH HATCHUEL Part Three The Politics of Cinematic Theatricality 7 Committed Theatricality 135 SYLVIE BISSONNETTE 8 Theatrical Games and the Gift of a Fable: Performance vs. Reality in Roberto Benigni’s Life Is Beautiful 160 JEREMY MARON Part Four Performance, Voice, Movement, and the Theatricality of Cinema 9 Playing to the Balcony: Screen Acting, Distance, and Cavellian Theatricality 185 AARON TAYLOR 10 Bullet-Time,Becoming, and the Sway of Theatricality: Performance and Play in The Matrix 204 BRUCE BARTON Selected Bibliography 229 Contributors 235 STAGES OF REALITY Theatricality in Cinema This page intentionally left blank Introduction ANDRÉ LOISELLE AND JEREMY MARON The idea for this collection of original essays emerged from papers pre- sented at two conferences held in 2008, in Philadelphia and Vancouver, where a handful of scholars debated the relevance of the concept of the- atricality within a critical discourse on cinema. This anthology attempts to bring together the various strands of this ongoing discussion on the problematic of the ‘theatrical’ in fi lm. Although the contributors offer divergent and, indeed, sometimes contradictory perspectives on the subject, there still appears throughout the book a deep convergence of opinions on the signifi cance of theatricality as a mode of address and display common to all cinematic practices. While the topic has been dis- cussed by many scholars in relation to individual groups of fi lms (most notably Marcia Landy),1 there has never been a book-length study in English devoted to a general examination of theatricality as a constitu- tive characteristic of the moving image. Hamon-Siréjols, Gerstenkorn, and Gardies’s 1994 publication Cinémaet Théâtralité 2 remains the only comprehensive work on the subject. Through diverse approaches, rang- ing from close readings of specifi c audiovisual texts to broad theoretical speculations, this volume explores the many ways in which the notion of theatricality can be employed to elucidate certain features of fi lm and television. The concept of theatricality has multiple connotations, as is evi- denced by Tracy Davis and Thomas Postlewait’s lengthy attempt to de- fi ne the term in the introduction to their 2003 anthology Theatricality.3 For our purposes, Patrice Pavis’s defi nition, from his Dictionary of the Theatre: Terms, Concepts and Analysis (1998) offers a useful starting point: ‘Theatricality is that which is specifi cally theatrical, in performance or in the dramatic text [ . . . where] theatrical means the specifi c form of

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