Biographism in Contemporary Cinema

• Authors: Hendrykowski M.
• Languages of publication: PL

Abstracts

EN

The author begins his reflections with the remark that biographism is becoming an increasingly clear aspiration of contemporary cinema and may at the same times constitute a response to the deep crisis of today's film culture and to audiovisual culture in general. According to him, one of the symptoms of the crisis is depersonalization of the forms of screen performance which results from the dominant role of 'no man's' (anonymous) look on the world and on man in today's films. This analysis leads him to assert that contemporary cinematographer wishes to be a 'biographer' again (modeled on the first cinematographic devices of the late 19th century, like Biograph or Bioscope), while the life-writing with a camera is not just an elusive fad of today's cinema. The author stresses the vital cognitive role of biographism that leads to an understanding of the macro-process of the biographisation of contemporary cinema. He closes by saying that biographism constitutes the mature and conscious response of some filmmakers, including Woody Allen, Mike Leigh, Spike Lee or Jim Jarmusch, to digital irrealism and an anonymous nature of cinematic performance.

Keywords

EN

BIOGRAPHISM

Discipline

• ARTS_&_ARCHITECTURE: ARTS & ARCHITECTURE

• Publisher: Polska Akademia Nauk. Instytut Sztuki PAN
• Journal: Kwartalnik Filmowy
• Year: 2007
• Issue: 59
• Pages: 66-79
• Document type: ARTICLE

Contributors

author

Hendrykowski M.

• M. Hendrykowski, for postal address contact the journal editor

Identifiers

CEJSH db identifier

08PLAAAA03527188