Beyond Narrative and Plot: Godfrey Reggio’s “Visitors” as an Example of Non-fiction “Avant-doc” Cinema. Typologies of Documentary Filmmaking
Piotr Zawojski
piotr.zawojski@us.edu.plUniversity of Silesia (Poland)
https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2291-0446
Abstract
In Visitors (2013), Godfrey Reggio uses the fundamental formal procedures characteristic of his authorial style: the alternation of slow-motion and time-lapse cinematography and the synergic relationship between the images and Philip Glass’s music, which constitutes a kind of rhythmic score that determines the final editing. Although the film can be seen as another part of the Qatsi trilogy, making it a tetralogy, one should, at the same time, remain aware that it differs significantly from the filmmaker’s earlier works. The author considers Visitors as an example of a non-narrative avant-doc formula, combining the traditions of avant-garde and documentary cinema. Reading Reggio’s film makes him rethink non-narrative moving image art forms and the position of the viewer – not as a recipient of the stories presented to him, but as someone who is the producer of meaning and – in fact – becomes a storyteller himself.
Keywords:
Godfrey Reggio, Philip Glass, avant-doc, non-narrative film, experimental filmReferences
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Authors
Piotr Zawojskipiotr.zawojski@us.edu.pl
University of Silesia Poland
https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2291-0446
Associate Professor at the Institute of Culture Studies, University of Silesia in Katowice. He also works at the Faculty of Intermedia, Academy of Fine Arts in Krakow. His research interests focus on the theory of photography, film and cinema, new media and new media arts, cyberculture and technoculture. His publications include Elektroniczne obrazoświaty. Między sztuką a technologią [Electronic Image-Worlds: Between Art and Technology] (2000); Wielkie filmy przełomu wieków. Subiektywny przewodnik [Great Films of the Turn of the Century: Subjective Guide] (2007); Cyberkultura. Syntopia sztuki, nauki i technologii [Cyberculture: Syntopy of Art, Science and Technology] (2010, 2nd edition 2018); Sztuka obrazu i obrazowania w epoce nowych mediów [The Art of Image and Imaging in the Era of New Media] (2012); Technokultura i jej manifestacje artystyczne. Medialny świat hybryd i hybrydyzacji [Technoculture and Its Artistic Manifestations: The Media World of Hybrids and Hybridization] (2016) and Ruchome obrazy zatrzymane w pamięci. Reminiscencje teoretyczne i krytyczne [Moving Images Retained in Memory: Theoretical and Critical Reminiscences] (2017). He is the editor of the Film and Media section at the Polish cultural quarterly Opcje. Member of the Committee on Cultural Studies of the Polish Academy of Sciences.
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