Lights, Camera, Lumino-Politics: Lighting The Searchers, from Paraffin to LED
Across the past decade or so, “politically committed” strains of film studies have undergone a much-vaunted aesthetic turn. It is now widely acknowledged that political struggle is as likely to converge in and around the tangible, audible and/or visible surface of the filmic image as it is to involv...
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
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Edinburgh University Press
2018-06-01
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| Series: | Film-Philosophy |
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| Online Access: | https://www.euppublishing.com/doi/10.3366/film.2018.0072 |
| _version_ | 1811260620853477376 |
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| author | Pansy Duncan |
| author_facet | Pansy Duncan |
| author_sort | Pansy Duncan |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | Across the past decade or so, “politically committed” strains of film studies have undergone a much-vaunted aesthetic turn. It is now widely acknowledged that political struggle is as likely to converge in and around the tangible, audible and/or visible surface of the filmic image as it is to involve forces operating “within,” “beyond” or “behind” that surface. Yet while this so-called aesthetic turn has restored questions of film sound, film form and film colour to the film-political agenda, questions of film lighting are yet to feature prominently in these discussions. This essay addresses this situation through a re-reading of John Ford's The Searchers (1956), a film whose ambivalent engagement with America's troubled settler-colonial history has seen it mortgaged to depth-oriented reading methods. Countering these approaches, I argue that, even before the filmic image signifies or symptomatizes settler-colonial struggle, that struggle is played out across the surface of the filmic image in the form of efforts to control the diffusion, distribution and dissemination of light itself. In arguing this, I will show how The Searchers situates its own formal and technical efforts to regulate light's movement across the surface of the cinematic image within a history of settler-colonial efforts to regulate light's movement across varied domestic, civic and geographic surfaces. In doing so, I contend, the film both foregrounds cinema's complicity in, and delivers a searing critique of, Western efforts to control light. |
| first_indexed | 2024-04-12T18:50:06Z |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj.art-62aa2646ee6b42ef9abd12d19e6432c0 |
| institution | Directory Open Access Journal |
| issn | 1466-4615 |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2024-04-12T18:50:06Z |
| publishDate | 2018-06-01 |
| publisher | Edinburgh University Press |
| record_format | Article |
| series | Film-Philosophy |
| spelling | doaj.art-62aa2646ee6b42ef9abd12d19e6432c02022-12-22T03:20:30ZengEdinburgh University PressFilm-Philosophy1466-46152018-06-0122218420210.3366/film.2018.0072Lights, Camera, Lumino-Politics: Lighting The Searchers, from Paraffin to LEDPansy Duncan0Massey University ()Across the past decade or so, “politically committed” strains of film studies have undergone a much-vaunted aesthetic turn. It is now widely acknowledged that political struggle is as likely to converge in and around the tangible, audible and/or visible surface of the filmic image as it is to involve forces operating “within,” “beyond” or “behind” that surface. Yet while this so-called aesthetic turn has restored questions of film sound, film form and film colour to the film-political agenda, questions of film lighting are yet to feature prominently in these discussions. This essay addresses this situation through a re-reading of John Ford's The Searchers (1956), a film whose ambivalent engagement with America's troubled settler-colonial history has seen it mortgaged to depth-oriented reading methods. Countering these approaches, I argue that, even before the filmic image signifies or symptomatizes settler-colonial struggle, that struggle is played out across the surface of the filmic image in the form of efforts to control the diffusion, distribution and dissemination of light itself. In arguing this, I will show how The Searchers situates its own formal and technical efforts to regulate light's movement across the surface of the cinematic image within a history of settler-colonial efforts to regulate light's movement across varied domestic, civic and geographic surfaces. In doing so, I contend, the film both foregrounds cinema's complicity in, and delivers a searing critique of, Western efforts to control light.https://www.euppublishing.com/doi/10.3366/film.2018.0072Film lightingFilm Aestheticssettler-colonialismsurface readingJohn Fordthe Western |
| spellingShingle | Pansy Duncan Lights, Camera, Lumino-Politics: Lighting The Searchers, from Paraffin to LED Film-Philosophy Film lighting Film Aesthetics settler-colonialism surface reading John Ford the Western |
| title | Lights, Camera, Lumino-Politics: Lighting The Searchers, from Paraffin to LED |
| title_full | Lights, Camera, Lumino-Politics: Lighting The Searchers, from Paraffin to LED |
| title_fullStr | Lights, Camera, Lumino-Politics: Lighting The Searchers, from Paraffin to LED |
| title_full_unstemmed | Lights, Camera, Lumino-Politics: Lighting The Searchers, from Paraffin to LED |
| title_short | Lights, Camera, Lumino-Politics: Lighting The Searchers, from Paraffin to LED |
| title_sort | lights camera lumino politics lighting the searchers from paraffin to led |
| topic | Film lighting Film Aesthetics settler-colonialism surface reading John Ford the Western |
| url | https://www.euppublishing.com/doi/10.3366/film.2018.0072 |
| work_keys_str_mv | AT pansyduncan lightscameraluminopoliticslightingthesearchersfromparaffintoled |