jean-philippe tessé
The landscape traversed. Notes on Depth of field
This contribution aims to pick up midair on what constituted the originality of Bady Minck's film Im Anfang war der Blick: landscapes, reproduced on postcards, then filmed and edited, lose all their depth, are returned to the flatness of glossy paper. In the process, they are transformed into pure clichés. What is a cliché? It is precisely something that loses its depth, its complexity, holds the eye on its surface and prevents it from plunging into the heart of the matter. In cinema, depth of field is on the contrary what invites the eye to penetrate into the image, to rummage around in it, to construct a gaze. The postcard mobilises the eye when the cinema is the art of the gaze. On the basis of this criticism of the cliché conducted by Bady Minck, the text will show how the – aesthetic and political – question of the landscape is envisaged in the work of Jean-Marie Straub and Danièle Huillet, who concentrate on bestowing depth on the gaze and inviting us to inhabit the landscape.
Heidi Dumreicher l Sergio Fant l Marcy Goldberg l Bodo Hell l Christoph Huber l Lilli Lička l Johannes Moser l Michael O'Pray l Hans Schifferle l Burghart Schmidt l Christian Stadelmann l Mika Taanila l Barbara Wurm