Bearing Witness in Analog and Digital Witness Films: Ethical Aesthetics in Shoah [1985] and Waltz with Bashir [2008]
In the ongoing and passionate debates over the digitalization of visual media, many questions about the ontology or materiality of the new digital image have been raised. Analog representation is often thought of in terms of indexicality and sometimes a naive belief in the truthfulness of the photog...
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
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MDPI AG
2022-02-01
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| Series: | Genealogy |
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| Online Access: | https://www.mdpi.com/2313-5778/6/1/14 |
| _version_ | 1797471416734449664 |
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| author | Louis Levi Breitsohl |
| author_facet | Louis Levi Breitsohl |
| author_sort | Louis Levi Breitsohl |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | In the ongoing and passionate debates over the digitalization of visual media, many questions about the ontology or materiality of the new digital image have been raised. Analog representation is often thought of in terms of indexicality and sometimes a naive belief in the truthfulness of the photographic image, whereas the digital image is, in a way, no longer an image anymore, but a set of data in flux, superficially coded and easy to manipulate. The following article examines how this shift to digitalization affects the ethical genre per se: the witness film. In a film analytical close reading of Claude Lanzmann’s <span style="font-variant: small-caps;">Shoah</span> and Ari Folman’s <span style="font-variant: small-caps;">Waltz with Bashir</span>, resonances become visible to psychoanalysis, Deleuzian film philosophy and the debates over the materiality of the analog and digital image. Lanzmann draws on a specific kind of indirect indexicality, which is highly interested in the psychic and embodied realities of surviving, witnessing and the passing of time, whereas Folman develops a politics of the powers of the false: truthfulness, accessibility and memorability are abolished in favor of false images, screen-memories and traumatic mis/representation, which are staged noticeably digital and altered, revolving around the impossibility to grasp the ungraspable. |
| first_indexed | 2024-03-09T19:48:11Z |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj.art-4b4d016efdc749d08d334dd394ca4c0c |
| institution | Directory Open Access Journal |
| issn | 2313-5778 |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2024-03-09T19:48:11Z |
| publishDate | 2022-02-01 |
| publisher | MDPI AG |
| record_format | Article |
| series | Genealogy |
| spelling | doaj.art-4b4d016efdc749d08d334dd394ca4c0c2023-11-24T01:17:21ZengMDPI AGGenealogy2313-57782022-02-01611410.3390/genealogy6010014Bearing Witness in Analog and Digital Witness Films: Ethical Aesthetics in Shoah [1985] and Waltz with Bashir [2008]Louis Levi Breitsohl0Independent Researcher, 10247 Berlin, GermanyIn the ongoing and passionate debates over the digitalization of visual media, many questions about the ontology or materiality of the new digital image have been raised. Analog representation is often thought of in terms of indexicality and sometimes a naive belief in the truthfulness of the photographic image, whereas the digital image is, in a way, no longer an image anymore, but a set of data in flux, superficially coded and easy to manipulate. The following article examines how this shift to digitalization affects the ethical genre per se: the witness film. In a film analytical close reading of Claude Lanzmann’s <span style="font-variant: small-caps;">Shoah</span> and Ari Folman’s <span style="font-variant: small-caps;">Waltz with Bashir</span>, resonances become visible to psychoanalysis, Deleuzian film philosophy and the debates over the materiality of the analog and digital image. Lanzmann draws on a specific kind of indirect indexicality, which is highly interested in the psychic and embodied realities of surviving, witnessing and the passing of time, whereas Folman develops a politics of the powers of the false: truthfulness, accessibility and memorability are abolished in favor of false images, screen-memories and traumatic mis/representation, which are staged noticeably digital and altered, revolving around the impossibility to grasp the ungraspable.https://www.mdpi.com/2313-5778/6/1/14digitalizationdocumentaryfabulationfilmgenocideindexicality |
| spellingShingle | Louis Levi Breitsohl Bearing Witness in Analog and Digital Witness Films: Ethical Aesthetics in Shoah [1985] and Waltz with Bashir [2008] Genealogy digitalization documentary fabulation film genocide indexicality |
| title | Bearing Witness in Analog and Digital Witness Films: Ethical Aesthetics in Shoah [1985] and Waltz with Bashir [2008] |
| title_full | Bearing Witness in Analog and Digital Witness Films: Ethical Aesthetics in Shoah [1985] and Waltz with Bashir [2008] |
| title_fullStr | Bearing Witness in Analog and Digital Witness Films: Ethical Aesthetics in Shoah [1985] and Waltz with Bashir [2008] |
| title_full_unstemmed | Bearing Witness in Analog and Digital Witness Films: Ethical Aesthetics in Shoah [1985] and Waltz with Bashir [2008] |
| title_short | Bearing Witness in Analog and Digital Witness Films: Ethical Aesthetics in Shoah [1985] and Waltz with Bashir [2008] |
| title_sort | bearing witness in analog and digital witness films ethical aesthetics in shoah 1985 and waltz with bashir 2008 |
| topic | digitalization documentary fabulation film genocide indexicality |
| url | https://www.mdpi.com/2313-5778/6/1/14 |
| work_keys_str_mv | AT louislevibreitsohl bearingwitnessinanaloganddigitalwitnessfilmsethicalaestheticsinshoah1985andwaltzwithbashir2008 |