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Cinéma & Cie. Film and Media Studies Journal
PhD Thesis Project - Videographic Film Studies: From the “Unattainable Text” to Video Essays
Text.Serial.Journal
https://riviste.unimi.it/index.php/cinemaetcie
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Projects & Abstracts
2014-10-01
2021-09-10
2014-10-01
2024-02-14
Cinéma & Cie
Mariachiara Grizzaffi
2014/10/01
Libera Università di Lingue e Comunicazione IULM, Milano
2036-461X
22-23
en
PhD Thesis Project - Videographic Film Studies: From the “Unattainable Text” to Video Essays
https://riviste.unimi.it/index.php/cinemaetcie/article/download/16349/17029
14
Videographic Film Studies:
From the “Unattainable Text” to Video Essays
Mariachiara Grizzaffi / Ph.D. Thesis Project1
Libera Università di Lingue e Comunicazione IULM, Milano




   The aim of my research is to investigate how the digital turn is gradually re-
shaping film studies and film criticism. The consequences of digital technologies
for the ontological definition of cinema and for the way in which audiences can
nowadays watch and consume movies have already been widely studied and ex-
plored. In contrast, scholars and academics have only recently started to reflect
on the implications of digital tools for film studies and criticism.
   My research will focus in particular on audiovisual essays on film, a form of
videographic film studies – a definition provided by Catherine Grant2 – mostly
known as video essay. The video essay is a montage of footage from existing films
for the purposes of analysis and criticism, in order to develop an argument, to
substantiate an analysis, to render in a “tangible” way an hypothesis, with the aid
of a basic kind of prosumer editing tools, such as iMovie.
   As videographic film studies are emergent forms rather than firmly established
ones, it is extremely difficult to study video essays including them in a given theo-
retical frame. Consequently, it is my intention to individuate some crucial issues
instead: if this practice is relatively new, it is indubitable that some preceding the-
ories and reflections and some pre-existing practices have a significant influence.
   In the first place, a key theoretical point of reference is the tradition of film
analysis, especially some essays by Raymond Bellour.3 Reflecting on the material
specificity of film, opposed to the usually written form of film analysis, on the one
hand Bellour underlines how film scholars cannot really “quote” their object of
study. On the other hand, he is one of the first theorists to prefigure the possibil-
ity of non-written form of film analyses.
   Secondly, it could be fruitful to investigate the notion of montage. Starting

1
  Ph.D. thesis supervised by Professor Luisella Farinotti. For information: chiara.grizzaffi@gmail.com.
2
  Catherine Grant, “Déjà-Viewing? Videographic Experiments in Intertextual Film Studies,” in
Mediascape, Winter 2013, http://www.tft.ucla.edu/mediascape/Winter2013_DejaViewing.html,
last visit 1 April 2014.
3
  In particular Le texte introuvable, in Raymond Bellour, L’analyse du Film, Albatros, Paris 1979
(Il testo introvabile, in L’analisi del film, Kaplan, Torino 2005) and L’analyse flambée in Raymond
Bellour, L’entre-images: photo, cinéma, vidéo, La Différence, Paris 2002 (L’analisi infiammata, in Fra
le immagini: fotografia, cinema, video, Mondadori, Milano 2007).

                                                Cinéma & Cie, vol. XIV, no. 22/23, Spring/Fall 2014
                                      Mariachiara Grizzaffi


from early aesthetic reflection on cinematic montage, through to contemporary
remix practices, it is important to remark how montage is increasingly becoming
in all respects a fundamental instrument for both creation and comprehension of
our cultural artefacts.
   Finally, the third issue to explore is cinephilia, especially through the recent
reflections of Christian Keathley4 – who proposes a history of cinephilia and also
tries to reflect on the peculiar relationship between “cinephiliacs” and films –,
and Laura Mulvey,5 who presents a new conception of the spectatorial condition,
especially in regard to technological innovation, such as the DVD.
   The main focus of the research will then be an analysis of a corpus of audio-
visual essays hosted in various websites. The fundamental online sources that I
will consider for observation and investigation of video essays are: Audiovisualcy,
a Vimeo forum founded and edited by Catherine Grant;6 the criticism blog Press
Play;7 the blog Keyframe,8 hosted on Fandor – a video on demand website, but
with a more cinephiliac rather than commercial inspiration –; Roger Ebert’s blog,
now under the editorial direction of Matt Zoller Seitz;9 and, finally, the website
of the long-established British magazine Sight and Sound,10 that has recently de-
voted his attention also to video essays.
   As a first step, I propose to carry out an investigation of the formal and lin-
guistic strategies implemented by audiovisual essays, in order to question the
possibility of their specificity compared to written forms of criticism and analy-
sis. Taking into account some recent observations about the style of audiovisual
essays – the notion of a “spectrum” introduced by Christian Keathley11 in order
to distinguish between explanatory and poetical forms of audiovisual essays, and
a taxonomy recently proposed by Catherine Grant12 – I will focus on linguistic
modes such as the use of voice-over, of written text like subtitles or intertitles, the
presence of postproduction effects such as multiple screens or superimposition.
   Additionally, after this observation of formal aspects of audiovisual essays,
an in-depth analysis of their contents should be also conducted, with the aim
of identifying the questions that this emerging form is raising. First of all, even


4
  Christian Keathley, Cinephilia and History: Or, The Wind in the Trees, Indiana University Press,
Bloomington-Indianapolis 2006.
5
  Laura Mulvey, Death 24x a Second: Stillness and the Moving Image, Reaktion Books, London 2006.
6
  http://vimeo.com/groups/audiovisualcy.
7
  http://blogs.indiewire.com/pressplay.
8
  http://www.fandor.com/keyframe.
9
  http://www.rogerebert.com.
10
   http://www.bfi.org.uk/news-opinion/sight-sound-magazine.
11
   Christian Keathley, La Caméra-Stylo: Notes on Video Criticism and Cinephilia, in Alex Clayton
and Andrew Klevan (eds.), The Language and Style of Film Criticism, Routledge, London 2011.
12
   Catherine Grant, How Long is a Piece of String? On the Practice, Scope and Value of Videographic
Film Studies and Criticism, Presentation at the Audiovisual Essay Conference, Frankfurt Filmmuse-
um/Goethe University, 23-24 November 2013. Recording online: http://filmstudiesforfree.podbean.
com/2013/12/18/how-long-is-a-piece-of-string-on-the-practice-scope-and-value-of-videographic-
film-studies-and-criticism-a-talk-by-catherine-grant, last visit 1 April 2014.

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the use of the word “essay” with reference to this specific practice is certainly
not neutral, but quite problematic: as many scholars have pointed out, the word
“essay” seems more appropriate to designate the kind of work with explanatory
intentions, rather than the more poetic ones. Moreover, it is also important to in-
quire about the relationship between videographic film studies and pre-existing
written form of analysis and criticism. Audiovisual essays realised for critical pur-
poses seem often more inclined to follow pre-established paths (auteur-driven
reflections, prescriptive criticism…) and to adhere to an existing “canon” of
privileged objects of study. On the contrary, some scholarly works have a ten-
dency to break boundaries between video analysis and the work of art.
   In regard to this last issue, it could be also important to observe which subjects
are currently involved in the creation of audiovisual essays, and with what results.
Videographic film studies is a field in which boundaries among categories such
as film scholars, film critics, artists, amateurs, fans, tend to blur in many different
ways, and it is also my objective to investigate this aspect. The audiovisual essay
is still at its early stages, and its development is therefore unpredictable. Con-
sequently, the aim of my study is to embrace this complexity raising questions
rather than searching for a systematization that could reveal itself as transitory.




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