Joel Schumacher's Comment on “Snuff Movies”
Grzegorz Nadgrodkiewicz
kwartalnik.filmowy@ispan.plInstitute of Art, Polish Academy of Sciences (Poland)
Abstract
Nadgrodkiewicz analyses Joel Schumacher’s movie Eight Millimeter (1999) in which the film director makes references to a phenomenon of the so-called snuff movies. Nadgrodkiewicz tries to show how Schumacher convinces the viewer of the existence of the organized industry of films depicting murder scenes. Nadgrodkiewicz claims that Schumacher repeated the most popular stereotypes concerning this „urban legend” but declined to acknowledge the facts contradicting existence of the films. To prove the thesis that snuff movies exist Schumacher attributed to the film such properties (issues of copies, aura and authenticity, contact with anti-pornographic discourses, voyeurism) that allow us to believe that the films are a kind of „cultural concept” rather than authentic crime accounts. The author of this analysis also points out that snuff films in Eight Millimeter take on the form of modem trompe l’oeil, which would support their status as the simulacrum with no reference in reality.
Keywords:
snuff movies, Joel Schumacher, simulacrumReferences
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Authors
Grzegorz Nadgrodkiewiczkwartalnik.filmowy@ispan.pl
Institute of Art, Polish Academy of Sciences Poland
Filmoznawca, absolwent kulturoznawstwa ze specjalnością filmoznawczą na Uniwersytecie Łódzkim. Asystent w Zakładzie Antropologii Kultury, Filmu i Sztuki Audiowizualnej w Instytucie Sztuki Polskiej Akademii Nauk. Redaktor „Kwartalnika Filmowego”. W kręgu jego zainteresowań badawczych znajduje się m.in. film religijny i biblijny, kwestie duchowości w kinie oraz zagadnienia dotyczące związków filmu i teatru.
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Copyright (c) 2006 Grzegorz Nadgrodkiewicz
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