Peter Szendy
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- January 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780823264803
- eISBN:
- 9780823266845
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Fordham University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5422/fordham/9780823264803.003.0013
- Subject:
- Philosophy, General
This chapter discusses how bubble structures—the blob in The Blob (Irvin Yeaworth, 1958), the hologram in Escape from L.A. (John Carpenter, 1996), the submarine in On the Beach (Stanley Kramer, ...
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This chapter discusses how bubble structures—the blob in The Blob (Irvin Yeaworth, 1958), the hologram in Escape from L.A. (John Carpenter, 1996), the submarine in On the Beach (Stanley Kramer, 1959), as well as the camera that falls to the ground and continues to film at the end of Cloverfield (Matt Reeves, 2008) or the ‘magic cave’ of the last moments of Melancholia (Lars von Trier, 2011)—can be seen and read on two levels at once. On the one hand, they appear in one form or another within the continuity of the plot. And, on the other hand, they constitute fragile filmic enclaves within acinema, ephemeral shelters in the general explosion of the cineworld. By narrating and auscultating itself from the perspective of its disappearance, cinema touches on a limit that is different from the one that would place the image and the fable in opposition within it. At stake is what is called its cinefication: in other words the constitution of the cinema and of its signs propped up on or dependent on the ultimate reference of its cineration, its becoming ash.Less
This chapter discusses how bubble structures—the blob in The Blob (Irvin Yeaworth, 1958), the hologram in Escape from L.A. (John Carpenter, 1996), the submarine in On the Beach (Stanley Kramer, 1959), as well as the camera that falls to the ground and continues to film at the end of Cloverfield (Matt Reeves, 2008) or the ‘magic cave’ of the last moments of Melancholia (Lars von Trier, 2011)—can be seen and read on two levels at once. On the one hand, they appear in one form or another within the continuity of the plot. And, on the other hand, they constitute fragile filmic enclaves within acinema, ephemeral shelters in the general explosion of the cineworld. By narrating and auscultating itself from the perspective of its disappearance, cinema touches on a limit that is different from the one that would place the image and the fable in opposition within it. At stake is what is called its cinefication: in other words the constitution of the cinema and of its signs propped up on or dependent on the ultimate reference of its cineration, its becoming ash.
