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Cinéma & Cie. Film and Media Studies Journal
Limina - Film's Thresholds
Text.Serial.Journal
https://riviste.unimi.it/index.php/cinemaetcie
2
Projects & Abstracts
2003-03-01
2022-11-29
2003-03-01
2024-02-14
Cinéma & Cie
X International Film Studies Conference
2003/03/01
International Film Studies Conference
2036-461X
2
en
Limina - Film's Thresholds
https://riviste.unimi.it/index.php/cinemaetcie/article/download/19173/16977
2
LIMINA - FILM’S THRESHOLDS
X International Film Studies Conference
Udine, March 17-20, 2003




  Within the vast field of what surrounds a film text or the cinematic spectacle, of
what “marks” its threshold, or of what lies in its nearest “outside,” we would like to
call attention to the moments of beginning and closure of the narrative/communica-
tive act. As borders, passages, and areas that signal the spectator’s entrance in the fic-
tion and that accompany its exit, the opening and ending of a film might perform a
wealth of crucial roles: they define its narrative models and generic conventions,
arrange enunciation strategies, determine points of view and regimes of knowledge,
evoke cultural and reception models. Within the study of early cinema, specifically,
the fluidity of the boundaries of the film text and its mobile configuration render this
an especially meaningful issue: the “borders” of the film are as mobile as the film
itself. Consideration of such borders contributes today to the specification and assess-
ment of new theoretical “subjects.” Despite the lively interest displayed by film analy-
sis, film theory has given scant, or at least discontinuous, attention to film openings
and endings.
  The Udine International Film Studies Conference intends to explore the issue of film
openings and endings, seen as thresholds of the diegesis. Traditionally, the conference
gives particular emphasis to early cinema even though consideration will also be
extended to later phases in the history of film (with particular attention to the early
sound era) and up to contemporary cinema. The multiplicity of methodological
approaches will be, as customary, another prerogative of such meeting.

Film’s frame and matrix
  Often the opening and the ending of a film enact a sort of symbolic condensation of
narrative meanings. The notion of matrix has been evoked to indicate the nature of the
opening (but, we believe, also of the ending) of a film.
  Likewise, openings and endings often present analogies and correspondences (both
at the level of the signifier and at that of the signified) suggesting the presence of a sort
of “shell” enveloping the film: a frame holding various functions within the narrative.

Narrative openness and narrative closure
  Within the process that led to the institutionalization of narrative forms, the elabo-
ration of strategies of narrative openness and closure plays a particularly crucial role
in the understanding of the formation of different modes of representation.

The opening: text and paratext
  There is an essentially ambiguous and volatile border zone, that we could refer to as

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“opening credits juxtaposed to the textual opening:” here the fictional world takes
shape while verbal information are provided which reveal its artificiality, therefore
putting at risk the fictional contract. Where does the fiction start and where does
information on its genesis stop?

Opening: hypotext and hypertext
  This issue focuses on the understanding of the nature and the differences between
various modes of expression of the same series of events, in order to establish the medi-
um specificity or the textual characteristics of adaptations. What changes in the pas-
sage from a novel to a film? And from an original film to its remake?

The opening: author and spectator. Points of view and regimes of knowledge
   The employment of a perspective relying on enunciation theory in the analysis of
film openings and endings can be a useful tool. Openings and endings can present
instances of reflexivity, meta-narration, or interpellation of the spectator, and institute
simulacra of the enunciator and the enunciatee.
   Furthermore, very productive is also the analysis of openings considered as privi-
leged sites of negotiation of different points of view as well as instances establishing
and regulating specific regimes of knowledge characterizing the film.

The opening and the ending in style, genre, and narrative models
  Opening and ending can work as “indicators”, for instance, of the poetics and style of
an author, or of generic mechanisms and conventions. They perform a crucial role in
the definition and structuring of grand narrative models, which in turn reflect larger
cultural contexts.

Opening in classical, modern and postmodern cinema
  Are the boundaries of the film text subject to historical mutations? To what extent
are the grand epistemes of film history reflected on the boundaries of the text?

Happy and other endings
  In this case we are proposing an analysis of the location of the happy ending within
generic system and conventions (considering also its attendant ideological implica-
tions), as well as instances of subversion of the mechanisms that oversees it correct
functioning.

Openings and endings: variations (1)
  The ending appears to be responsible for bringing the meaning of the film back to
cultural traditions and reception models. The issue of planned variations, with refer-
ence to specific national (or regional) contexts, is therefore raised. In the early years of
sound film, the systematic employment of multiple versions accomplished a sort of
institutionalization of such occurrence.

Opening and endings: variations (2)
  The intention of this heading is to address the multiple issues posited by variations
on the border zones of the film text for such disciplines as restoration, philology, and
archival methods. The borders of the film (meant as the material support) are consti-

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LIMINA - FILM’S THRESHOLDS

tutively the most fragile zones and also the areas more emphatically susceptible of
manipulation.

  International Film Studies Conference
  Dipartimento di Storia e Tutela dei Beni Culturali
  Via Antonini, 8
  I-33100 Udine (Italy)
  fax: ++39/0432/556789
  email: udineconference@libero.it
  www. uniud.it/udineconference/




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