Corporeal cinema. Editorial
In a 12-second clip featuring trapeze performer Luis Martinetti, shot for Edison’s Kinetoscope, the film spectator of 1894 was treated to an astonishing spectacle that bore all the hallmarks of what Tom Gunning would later identify as a “cinema of attraction”. Dressed in a tiger print body suit, Mar...
| Main Authors: | , |
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
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University College Cork
2014-06-01
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| Series: | Alphaville: Journal of Film and Screen Media |
| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | http://www.alphavillejournal.com/Issue7/HTML/Editorial.html |
| _version_ | 1818538342888767488 |
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| author | Ian Murphy Gwenda Young |
| author_facet | Ian Murphy Gwenda Young |
| author_sort | Ian Murphy |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | In a 12-second clip featuring trapeze performer Luis Martinetti, shot for Edison’s Kinetoscope, the film spectator of 1894 was treated to an astonishing spectacle that bore all the hallmarks of what Tom Gunning would later identify as a “cinema of attraction”. Dressed in a tiger print body suit, Martinetti subjected his body to a series of amazing contortions and manipulations, and in doing so presented audiences with what is perhaps the first example of a corporeal cinema. While the specific appeal of this film was undoubtedly related to Martinetti’s reputation as a performer who pushed his body to an extreme limit, a fascination with bodies—both human and nonhuman, at rest, in motion, in pain, near death—has been a preoccupation of filmmakers ever since (think back to the slaughter of an ox in Sergei Eisenstein’s Strike (1924); the slicing of an eye in Luis Buñuel and Salvador Dalí’s Un chien andalou (1929); the 1920s films of Lon Chaney; the animation of Chuck Jones). In recent years this interest in the body—as both site of violence and a sight to behold—has intensified and is mirrored by a growth in the scholarly work devoted to all matters corporeal. |
| first_indexed | 2024-12-11T21:27:47Z |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj.art-7dfde9b9fa7c4b2cb037f2178605df3e |
| institution | Directory Open Access Journal |
| issn | 2009-4078 |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2024-12-11T21:27:47Z |
| publishDate | 2014-06-01 |
| publisher | University College Cork |
| record_format | Article |
| series | Alphaville: Journal of Film and Screen Media |
| spelling | doaj.art-7dfde9b9fa7c4b2cb037f2178605df3e2022-12-22T00:50:16ZengUniversity College CorkAlphaville: Journal of Film and Screen Media2009-40782014-06-01715https://doi.org/10.33178/alpha.7.00Corporeal cinema. EditorialIan Murphy0Gwenda Young1https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1537-872XUniversity College CorkUniversity College CorkIn a 12-second clip featuring trapeze performer Luis Martinetti, shot for Edison’s Kinetoscope, the film spectator of 1894 was treated to an astonishing spectacle that bore all the hallmarks of what Tom Gunning would later identify as a “cinema of attraction”. Dressed in a tiger print body suit, Martinetti subjected his body to a series of amazing contortions and manipulations, and in doing so presented audiences with what is perhaps the first example of a corporeal cinema. While the specific appeal of this film was undoubtedly related to Martinetti’s reputation as a performer who pushed his body to an extreme limit, a fascination with bodies—both human and nonhuman, at rest, in motion, in pain, near death—has been a preoccupation of filmmakers ever since (think back to the slaughter of an ox in Sergei Eisenstein’s Strike (1924); the slicing of an eye in Luis Buñuel and Salvador Dalí’s Un chien andalou (1929); the 1920s films of Lon Chaney; the animation of Chuck Jones). In recent years this interest in the body—as both site of violence and a sight to behold—has intensified and is mirrored by a growth in the scholarly work devoted to all matters corporeal.http://www.alphavillejournal.com/Issue7/HTML/Editorial.htmlbodycorporealembodimentbody-centriccinema of attraction |
| spellingShingle | Ian Murphy Gwenda Young Corporeal cinema. Editorial Alphaville: Journal of Film and Screen Media body corporeal embodiment body-centric cinema of attraction |
| title | Corporeal cinema. Editorial |
| title_full | Corporeal cinema. Editorial |
| title_fullStr | Corporeal cinema. Editorial |
| title_full_unstemmed | Corporeal cinema. Editorial |
| title_short | Corporeal cinema. Editorial |
| title_sort | corporeal cinema editorial |
| topic | body corporeal embodiment body-centric cinema of attraction |
| url | http://www.alphavillejournal.com/Issue7/HTML/Editorial.html |
| work_keys_str_mv | AT ianmurphy corporealcinemaeditorial AT gwendayoung corporealcinemaeditorial |