Look(ing) at the Animals: The Presence of the Animal in Contemporary Southern Cone Cinema and in Carlos Busqued's Bajo este sol tremendo
Year: 2015
Type: article
Abstract: The intention of this article is to investigate the visual presence of animals in contemporary literary and cinematic productions, specifically in the films La ciénaga (2011) and La mujer sin cabeza [The Headless Woman] (2008) by Lucrecia Martel, Verano [Summer] (2011) by José Luis Torres Leiva, Perro muerto [Dead Dog] (2011) by Camilo Becerra, and in Carlos Busqued's 2009 novel Bajo este sol tremendo [Under this Terrible Sun]. Despite the fact that authors like John Berger and Akira Lippit have claimed that the animal tends to disappear in modernity, authors like Pick and Jonathan Burt have rescued a persistent animal presence in literary and flim productions as a positive element. Burt emphasises the visual agency of the animal not so much as subjectivity, but rather as an affective power facing the human observer, and Pick underlines the vulnerability of the animal on screen. In this article I show the importance of the animal-human figuration, the look between species and the mobility/immobility duality as axes around which the visual presence of animals is articulated in these contemporary Latin American cultural productions.
Author: Valeria De Los Ríos
Institution: Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile
Language: English
Topic: Cinema History and Criticism
Subfield: Visual Arts and Performing Arts
Field: Arts and Humanities
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: bronze
OpenAlex ID: W2095450334