application/pdf
2036-461X
16187
33
en
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Cinéma & Cie. Film and Media Studies Journal
Ph.D Thesis Abstract - Crime, Guilt and Testimony: On Performativity and Nonfiction
Text.Serial.Journal
https://riviste.unimi.it/index.php/cinemaetcie
19
Projects & Abstracts
2019-10-01
2021-09-02
2019-10-01
2024-02-14
Cinéma & Cie
Giulia Scomazzon
2019/10/01
Università IULM, Milano
2036-461X
33
en
Ph.D Thesis Abstract - Crime, Guilt and Testimony: On Performativity and Nonfiction
https://riviste.unimi.it/index.php/cinemaetcie/article/download/16187/16662
19
Crime, Guilt and Testimony: On Performativity and Nonfiction
Giulia Scomazzon / Ph.D. Thesis Abstract1
Università IULM, Milano




   This thesis explores how nonfiction cinema intersects with the ethical and
political problems of crime and guilt, playing a role in public debates about justice
and punishment. The starting point of this thesis is a careful analysis of problems
and issues associated with the performative quality of documentary described
by Stella Bruzzi in her influential book New Documentary.2 Bruzzi’s notion of
performance draws upon J.L. Austin’s speech act theory and Judith Butler’s ideas
on the performance of gender. By examining differences and analogies between
the concept of performativity described in Austin’s work on ordinary language
and the idea of performance developed by Butler’s critical theory, the research
investigates the complexity and the usefulness of these reflections in the field of
nonfiction studies.
   The writings of Stanley Cavell and Shoshana Felman are discussed in order
to focus on questions that are crucial in understanding the ethics and the
aesthetics of the performative. Specifically, Cavell and Felman have stressed the
constitutional possibility of failure of speech acts in Austin’s theory, and have
described the responsibility of the enunciator in terms of a non-sovereign self.3
The purpose of Chapter 1 is to recognize the quest of knowledge as inherent
within the performative documentary. The epistemic sense of nonfiction film
could be interpreted in terms of keeping an authentic promise. As Felman has
argued reading Nietzsche, a promise constitutes a paradox which is founded
upon the relationship between language and body.
   This indissoluble and problematic bond is relevant to central issues of testimony
and guilt which is explored in Chapter 2. The vision of human being as a ‘speaking


1
  Ph.D dissertation supervised by Professor Luisella Farinotti and Professor Marina Sbisà. For
information: giulia.scmzn@gmail.com
2
  Stella Bruzzi, New Documentary: A critical introduction (London and New York: Routledge,
2000).
3
  See Stanley Cavell, Philosophical Passages: Wittgenstein, Emerson, Austin, Derrida (Oxford:
Blackwell, 1995); Shoshana Felman, The Juridical Unconscious: Trials and Traumas in the Twentieth
Century (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2002); Shoshana Felman, The Scandal of the
Speaking Body: Don Juan with J. L. Austin, or Seduction in Two Languages (Stanford: Stanford
University Press, 2003).

                                                        Cinéma & Cie, vol. XIX, no. 33, Fall 2019
                                       Giulia Scomazzon


body’ and as a field of vulnerability brought to light by both Felman and Butler
plays a significant role in this transition from the analysis of performativity to the
question of testimony. As it has been pointed out by John Durham Peters, ‘to
bear witness is to put one’s body on the line’.4 Witnesses in a courtroom make
a commitment to tell the truth about something they acknowledge as a result of
their corporeal presence at an event. Furthermore, in trials witnesses testify at risk
of punishment if they fail to keep their promise of truthfulness. Chapter 2 offers
a brief comparison of Adversarial and Inquisitorial Theory in order to discuss
the ways in which democratic regimes structure the legal notion of testimony.
This analysis addresses Foucault’s genealogy of punishment and discipline in
the modern state and the positive aspects of legal proceedings guaranteed by the
establishment of Fundamental Rights in the European Union and by the criminal
justice reform in Italy.
   In a pragmatic perspective, I seek to compare the conventional procedure
displayed by fair trials to Austinian conditions of felicity of the speech act and
to conversational maxims and cooperative principle described by Paul Grice.
Reading Arendt’s work, we focus on the idea of witnessing as a practice for
securing a relevant truth, namely a truth that we, as a society, need to know and
judge.
   The structure developed in Chapters 1 and 2 provides a theoretical framework
for the case studies analyzed in Chapters 3 and 4, from Aileen: Life and Death
of a Serial Killer (Nick Broomfield, 2003) to Wormwood (Errol Morris, 2017).
The aim of my research is not to establish a methodology, but to define an
interdisciplinary approach to the most important moral issues raised by many
filmmakers in the past two decades.
   Chapter 3 traces different ‘strategies of authentication’5 adopted by filmmakers
in order to represent criminals and to deal with the pursuit of justice within a
democratic society. Throughout a selection of films between the years 2000 and
2020, we shall investigate the ways in which documentary practices encounter
the social and moral drama of guilt and the political issue of responsibility.
We argue that Broomfield, Herzog, Morris, Jarecki and other filmmakers have
actively contributed to the public debate about criminals and punishment.
Their works show how nonfiction discourse is capable of accessing reality and
bearing witness through narration and argumentation. As Linda Williams has
pointed out, truth is not guaranteed by any nonfiction techniques.6 Nonetheless,
documentary discourse, as we show through case studies, may be used to expose
lies and to reveal their circulation in our media-saturated world.

4
   John Durham Peters, ‘Witnessing’, in Media Witnessing: Testimony in the Age of Mass
Communication, ed. by Paul Frosh and Amit Pinchevski (London and New York: Palgrave
Macmillan, 2009). p. 308.
5
  See Carl Plantinga, ‘Rhetoric of Nonfiction Films’, in Post-Theory. Reconstructing Film Studies,
ed. by David Bordwell and Noël Carroll (Madison:The University of Wisconsin Press, 1996).
6
  Linda Williams, ‘Mirrors without Memories: Truth, History and the New Documentary’, Film
Quarterly, 46.3 (1993).

154
                                  Crime, Guilt and Testimony


   Chapter 4 introduces the nonfiction genre of ‘true crime’ and discusses
its popularity in the age of streaming TV. It is necessary to recognize the
popular fascination with crime stories that affects western mass culture and to
problematize the discursive construction of criminal subjects that informs a large
part of true crime entertainment. In particular, Chapter 4 addresses the concerns
about media obsession with criminals and criminality pointed out by Philip
Jenkins and Frank Furedi.7 Despite the recognition of these valuable concerns,
the case studies investigated here share a critical approach to the question
of guilt and punishment. The rise of true crime documentary, especially on
streaming platforms, is founded upon the huge public success and the impact of
the podcast Serial (2014–), HBO’s miniseries The Jinx (HBO, 2015) and Netflix
series such as Making a Murderer (2015–2018) and The Keepers (2017). Many of
these works cannot be reduced to ‘leisure interest products’.8 On the contrary,
they involve the viewers in a critical search of the truth that intersects with the
social experience of crime and justice. The chapters conclude with three case
studies — The Jinx, The Keepers and Wormwood — that explore miscarriage of
justice engaging the spectator in a discussion about the criminal justice system,
the right to a fair trial and the victim’s desire to seek justice.




7
  Philip Jenkins, Using Murder. The Social Construction of Serial Homicide (New York: Aldine
de Gruyter, 1994); Frank Furedi, Therapy Culture. Cultivating Vulnerability in an Uncertain Age
(London-New York: Routledge, 2004).
8
  Anita Biressi, Crime, Fear and the Law in True Crime Stories (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2001).

                                                                                              155
