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Screening interiority : dream, the unconscious, emotion and imagination in cinematic language
The portrayal of film characters' inner experience ensures a level of audience engagement often precluded in primarily plot-driven narratives. Yet, there is a prevailing notion that interiority is the exclusive domain of literature. To counter this pedagogy, the thesis explores how filmmakers can ex...
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| Format: | Thesis |
| Language: | English |
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Centre for Film and Media Studies
2015
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| _version_ | 1867611307102961664 |
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| access_status_str | Open Access |
| author | Rickards, Meg Frances |
| author2 | Marx, Lesley |
| author_browse | Marx, Lesley Rickards, Meg Frances |
| author_facet | Marx, Lesley Rickards, Meg Frances |
| author_sort | Rickards, Meg Frances |
| collection | Thesis |
| description | The portrayal of film characters' inner experience ensures a level of audience engagement often precluded in primarily plot-driven narratives. Yet, there is a prevailing notion that interiority is the exclusive domain of literature. To counter this pedagogy, the thesis explores how filmmakers can externalise dream; the unconscious; emotional journeys, and the realm of the imagination through cinematic language. The study draws on a theoretical framework that incorporates psychoanalytic film theory, neo-formalism and literary theory, and which engages to some extent with authorship. The compatibilist methodological approach draws on these modes of analysis, while systematically bridging theory and practice. The thesis dovetails with a creative component - the screenplay of Zinzi and the Boondogle, a children's feature film. Through this case study, the thesis examines the largely undocumented relationship between film theory and analysis on the one hand, and screenwriting and film production on the other. The research explores a number of areas germane to the screenplay, starting by uncovering innovative ways in which dreams can illuminate character interiority. It finds that animation, in its ability to render visible the metaphysical, is a compelling means of screening inner processes. Jan Svankmajer blends live action filmmaking with animation to bespeak the interpenetration of the conscious and unconscious realms. Hayao Miyazaki uses anime to construct otherworldly realms that reflect adolescent girls' rites of passage. In films that draw on African storytelling, animation is shown to make manifest the imaginative realm. Finally, the adaptation of the screenplay Zinzi and the Boondogle into a novel tests ways in which cinema and literature can divergently - but equally - evoke characters' interior lives. The thesis counters the pedagogy which insists that film is suited only to external action. Rather, the research reveals potent cinematic means of evoking oneiric and fantasy lives - bridging the traditional chasm between film theory and praxis and inviting further meetings between these discourses. |
| format | Thesis |
| id | oai:open.uct.ac.za:11427/14646 |
| institution | University of Cape Town (South Africa) |
| language | eng |
| license_str | Not specified — see source repository |
| provenance_str_mv | Harvested via OAI-PMH from UCTD — University of Cape Town Open Access Repository |
| publishDate | 2015 |
| publishDateRange | 2015 |
| publishDateSort | 2015 |
| publisher | Centre for Film and Media Studies |
| publisherStr | Centre for Film and Media Studies |
| record_format | dspace |
| source_str | UCTD — University of Cape Town Open Access Repository |
| spelling | oai:open.uct.ac.za:11427/14646 Screening interiority : dream, the unconscious, emotion and imagination in cinematic language Rickards, Meg Frances Marx, Lesley Stadler, Jane Film and Media Studies The portrayal of film characters' inner experience ensures a level of audience engagement often precluded in primarily plot-driven narratives. Yet, there is a prevailing notion that interiority is the exclusive domain of literature. To counter this pedagogy, the thesis explores how filmmakers can externalise dream; the unconscious; emotional journeys, and the realm of the imagination through cinematic language. The study draws on a theoretical framework that incorporates psychoanalytic film theory, neo-formalism and literary theory, and which engages to some extent with authorship. The compatibilist methodological approach draws on these modes of analysis, while systematically bridging theory and practice. The thesis dovetails with a creative component - the screenplay of Zinzi and the Boondogle, a children's feature film. Through this case study, the thesis examines the largely undocumented relationship between film theory and analysis on the one hand, and screenwriting and film production on the other. The research explores a number of areas germane to the screenplay, starting by uncovering innovative ways in which dreams can illuminate character interiority. It finds that animation, in its ability to render visible the metaphysical, is a compelling means of screening inner processes. Jan Svankmajer blends live action filmmaking with animation to bespeak the interpenetration of the conscious and unconscious realms. Hayao Miyazaki uses anime to construct otherworldly realms that reflect adolescent girls' rites of passage. In films that draw on African storytelling, animation is shown to make manifest the imaginative realm. Finally, the adaptation of the screenplay Zinzi and the Boondogle into a novel tests ways in which cinema and literature can divergently - but equally - evoke characters' interior lives. The thesis counters the pedagogy which insists that film is suited only to external action. Rather, the research reveals potent cinematic means of evoking oneiric and fantasy lives - bridging the traditional chasm between film theory and praxis and inviting further meetings between these discourses. 2015-11-04T10:39:14Z 2015-11-04T10:39:14Z 2007 Doctoral Thesis Doctoral PhD http://hdl.handle.net/11427/14646 eng application/pdf Centre for Film and Media Studies Faculty of Humanities University of Cape Town |
| spellingShingle | Film and Media Studies Rickards, Meg Frances Screening interiority : dream, the unconscious, emotion and imagination in cinematic language |
| thesis_degree_str | Doctoral |
| title | Screening interiority : dream, the unconscious, emotion and imagination in cinematic language |
| title_full | Screening interiority : dream, the unconscious, emotion and imagination in cinematic language |
| title_fullStr | Screening interiority : dream, the unconscious, emotion and imagination in cinematic language |
| title_full_unstemmed | Screening interiority : dream, the unconscious, emotion and imagination in cinematic language |
| title_short | Screening interiority : dream, the unconscious, emotion and imagination in cinematic language |
| title_sort | screening interiority dream the unconscious emotion and imagination in cinematic language |
| topic | Film and Media Studies |
| url | http://hdl.handle.net/11427/14646 |
| work_keys_str_mv | AT rickardsmegfrances screeninginterioritydreamtheunconsciousemotionandimaginationincinematiclanguage |