Location
Stewart Center 313
Session Number
Session 23: MEDIA AND THE CONSTRUCTION OF THE MUSLIM OTHER 2
Start Date
10-9-2011 10:45 AM
End Date
10-9-2011 12:15 PM
Abstract
My presentation explores the aesthetics of passivity in in Chronicle of a Disappearance (1996) by the Palestinian director Elia Suleiman and Taste of Cherry (1997) by Iranian film-maker Abbas Kiarostami. Both films employ non-actors, unconnected scenes, and disjointed narrative and discontinuous editing. They both employ similar cinematic and narrative techniques as by-products of wide-spread terror executed on social, political, and cultural levels. My presentation investigates the political and social restrictions in the late 1990s in Iran and the West Bank to show that similar forces under the reign of terror resulted in the aesthetics of passivity, muteness, and uncertainty in these movies. In both films the “seemingly” peaceful state and the absence of aggression are satirically contested.
Included in
Cinema, Systematic Terror, and the Aesthetics of Passivity
Stewart Center 313
My presentation explores the aesthetics of passivity in in Chronicle of a Disappearance (1996) by the Palestinian director Elia Suleiman and Taste of Cherry (1997) by Iranian film-maker Abbas Kiarostami. Both films employ non-actors, unconnected scenes, and disjointed narrative and discontinuous editing. They both employ similar cinematic and narrative techniques as by-products of wide-spread terror executed on social, political, and cultural levels. My presentation investigates the political and social restrictions in the late 1990s in Iran and the West Bank to show that similar forces under the reign of terror resulted in the aesthetics of passivity, muteness, and uncertainty in these movies. In both films the “seemingly” peaceful state and the absence of aggression are satirically contested.