Annotated Bibliography

In my essay, I propose to write about “The Intruder” by Claire Denis. I will

discuss Denis’ cinematic rendering of the body as a sensual and physical

presence in the film and how this relates to the viewers direct, bodily experience

of viewing such a film. I will do this through examination of texts that speak

about the movie watching experience and the impact of the synesthesia on this.

I am interested in how physical, human flesh is portrayed in cinema, particularly

with reference to the vulnerability and the otherness of the depiction of the body

itself. I will discuss the intimacy, and the nature of the physical, performative

body in cinema. I intend to further this investigation with references to

portrayals of the body in media out with just cinema such as performance art.

With reference to “The Intruder” by Jean Luc Nancy (the text that the film it was

adapted from) and the performance artist Orlan, I will explore ideas of the body

and otherness and the effect that this has upon us as physical, multisensory

viewers. By combining research about the body on screen, and the body of the

viewer watching the screen, I will discuss how we project ourselves onto and

into films and demonstrate that it is impossible to simply be a passive viewer

under the influence of a gaze.

Ausburg, Tanya. “Orlan’s Performative Transformations of Subjectivity” in The Ends of Performance. Peggy Phelan and Jill Lane (ed). New York: New York University Press. 1998. 149-65. Print.

This article discusses the performance artist Orlan and her works that

involve having plastic surgery procedures done on herself whilst having the

whole operation documented by film or photography. The article talks about the

“theatre of Orlan” which is really a theatre of the body where we discuss themes

such as memory, self-perception and ownership. This text discusses Orlan’s

character that was not created deliberately by the artist, but that grew into

existence through her performative works. The text discusses how the external

and internal have a kind of dialogue that affects one’s own self-perception, and

this reminds me of the themes in “The Intruder”. This is a useful and reliable text

because it makes reference to Simon de Beauvoir and Foucault as well as

Feminist and Queer theories.

Martin, Adrian. "Claire Denis and the Cinema of the Body." In Screening the Past – A Peer Reviewed Journal of Screen History, Theory and Criticism.La Trobe University, Australia. 27 Nov. 2006. Web. 29 Nov. 2011.

This is an article that is part of an online journal from La Trobe University

in Australia; the fact that a university publishes it makes the online source

reliable. Adrian Martin, who is a film and arts writer and Head of Film and

Television Studies at Monash University, wrote this article, which talks directly

about many of the themes in Denis’ works with reference to many of her films,

but with particular emphasis on “The Intruder”. Through quoting lines from her

films, and analysis of the filmic elements of some of her works, Martin explores

his ideas about movement, mood and texture in Denis’ films. He argues that the

bodies that he is talking about in her work are not really the characters, but

simply human flesh and skin that is used like a landscape, and manipulated

throughout the films. Overall this is a useful article as not only does it discuss

“The Intruder” but also many other films that I have not seen and identifies

running themes in Denis works. It is also useful because it discusses the films

independently, aside from the texts by Nancy; in fact it only mentions “the

Intruder” text at the very end of the article, which means that rest of the text is

dedicated to the filmic techniques and themes in the movies themselves.

Morrey, Douglas. “Listening and Touching, Looking and Thinking: The Dialogue in Philosophy and Film between Jean-Luc Nancy and Claire Denis” in European Film Theory. Temenuga Trifonova (ed.). London: Routledge, 2009. Print.

This article discusses the relationship between Jean-Luc Nancy and Claire

Denis who have had a recurring dialogue in their works over the last decade.

Morrey discusses their works both individually and together. In his exploration

of both Nancy and Denis, the author discusses a current shift in film theory

towards an understanding that the whole body, and all of its senses and

emotions have a role in our understanding and viewing of cinema. The text

discusses how both Nancy and Denis describe the sensual experience of the body

in the world, as well as the material incarnations of this. This article discusses a

wide selection of works and ideas from both Nancy and Denis and is supported

by quotations from Martine Beugnet. Overall it is a useful article because it

directly compares both of the works and highlights the key themes in both of

them. It discusses the role of this kind of partnership

Nancy, Jean Luc. “The Intruder” in Corpus. New York: Fordham University

Press, 2008. Print

The Intruder is an autobiographical story in which Nancy reflects upon his

personal experience of having a heart transplant. The text uses the intrusion of

the transplant as a metaphor to describe to explore the ideas of body,

strangeness, identity and otherness. Nancy writes about the implications of the

surgery in a very intimate way, he is up-front about his worries concerning the

morality of the need to have someone else die in order for him to live. The text

itself is almost sensuous in nature; it has a bodily weight to it much like the film

it inspired. This text is key in understanding it’s namesake film, even though the

story is not the same in the film, many of the ideas and messages are, and the text

makes the film easier to understand.

Sobchack, Vivian Carol. “What My Fingers Knew: The Cinesthetic subject, or Vision in the flesh” in Carnal Thoughts, Embodiment And Moving Image Culture. Berkeley: University of California Pr, 2004. Print.

This chapter discusses the key role that our bodies play in our experience

of viewing a film. She emphasizes the corporeal, and the emotionally felt

engagements with the film by describing her own personal experience watching

films. Through analysis of films that provoke such feelings, in particular “The

Piano” (the experience of which she discusses throughout the chapter), Sobchack

explores her opinion that the analytical and intellectual understanding of a film

comes secondary to the primary, visceral, bodily experience of cinema. This text

shows how the cinematic experience is always accompanied by a whole host of

sensations, and how our bodies are not just physical objects but also

multisensory subjects. The text is based around quotations from Steven Sharivo

and Laura Marks, overall it encompasses many of the themes I am interested in.