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- Aesthetics and depression in Lars von Trier's cinemaPublication . Carmona, Carlos Ruiz; Campos, Marco PereiraDepression in Lars von Trier’s cinema has been studied from a philosophical perspective, focusing on ethical and moral issues, and from a narrative point of view through a cultural and social contextualisation of the disease. This paper explores how von Trier represents depression through his filmic discourse. Is it possible to identify a specific stylistic pattern in his representation of depression? Is his treatment of the theme different in each film or has it remained consistent throughout his career? Can we assume that von Trier’s personal experience with depression informs his films’ aesthetics?
- The ethical tension between artistic expression and historical representation in documentary making: the filmmaker’s mediation with realityPublication . Carmona, Carlos RuizThis article emerges from the assumption that representing reality in documentary raises specific complex ethical issues. This is due to the fact that documenting an event partly results from the filmmaker’s mediation with the historical world. The choices involved in this process are subjective, biased and creative. In fact, representing reality results from a particular tension established between that which I represent and how I represent it. From this tension several ethical issues with regard to the filmmaker’s mediation with reality may emerge. This paper aims to revise and confront key literature on this subject to discuss and deconstruct the process of mediation and the ethical issues involved in this process. The key questions to answer are: What role does mediation plays in representing reality? What ethical issues may emerge from this process? Do filmmakers explore “others” to satisfy their own personal needs as artists? Is it possible to control or regulate filmmakers’ mediation with reality? Can we develop a set of parameters or strategies that can be considered ethically more appropriate for representing the world?
- Technical restrictions and creative possibilities for representing reality through cinematic narrativesPublication . Carmona, Carlos Ruiz
- The role and purpose of film narrationPublication . Carmona, Carlos RuizThroughout history we can identify a great number of authors discussing the nature of narrative. From Plato's and Aristotle's original mimetic and diegetic influential theories to Gérard Genette's or Roland Barthes' essential contribution to structuralism, narrative has been studied and discussed as a fundamental process for the human mind in terms of producing and communicating meaning and expressing experience. Over the past few decades major scholars such as Bordwell, Metz, Genette, Carroll, Chatman, Eisenstein, Bal, Abbot, Tan, Smith or Branigan have produced some of the most significant contributions to the study of film narratology. Some scholars envisage narration as a means to process information. Others argue that narration can be better understood as a strategy to cue narrative comprehension. Others envisage narration as a means for emotion. This paper intends to establish that film narrative can be better understood as an act of communication through and from experience from filmmaker to an audience and vice-versa.
- The fiction in non-fiction filmPublication . Carmona, Carlos RuizOver the past few decades of film theory, significant scholars and acclaimed filmmakers have established that documentary, just like fiction, must resort to ambiguous and subjective rhetorical figures to represent the world. This claim has led some scholars to conclude that documentary as a term referring to itself as being non-fictional might be disregarding its inevitable fictional elements. This argument may suggest that documentary , just like fiction, when representing the historical world fictionalizes reality. If we accept this claim as true, we need to ask whether terms such as fiction and non-fiction or documentary make sense when discussing the process of representing reality. Does this claim mean that cinema can only fictionalize reality and therefore we should eradicate from this discussion terms such as non-fiction or documentary? The questions that this paper intends to answer are: Can the term fiction exist without referring to the term non-fiction or documentary? What roles do documentary and fiction play in representing the historical world? Are these terms necessary to communicate and understand the process of representing reality? This paper has established that fiction and documentary are necessary terms that emerge in cinema narration as a means to mirror human experience’s needs to organize, communicate and understand reality.
- Cinema and its ability to represent a staged realityPublication . Carmona, Carlos RuizThis article is a reflection on the relationship between cinematographic discourse and reality: discussing cinema’s technical restrictions and creative possibilities to represent an impression of reality. This article emerges from the assumption that cinema’s technical qualities can only represent a technical appearance of reality which must satisfy certain cultural expectations.