The Terror of the Mirror Shot: The Knot between Cinema and Wild Materialism
Abstract
In the following paper, I will explore Jacques Lezra’s work by observing the potentialities of cinema to posit a question on “terror” through the mirror shot. I follow Lezra’s reading on the mirror shot, taking into account the sequence “Three Women, Three Bombs” from the film The Battle of Argel (Gillo Pontecorvo, 1966). Through that reading, I approach the image reflected on the mirror as an enigma that puts into play an imagination of “terror”, a weak concept that offers a singular chance to trace the knot between cinema and wild materialism. Thus, I seek to explore the mirror shot as a way to confront the dominant conceptions of the subject’s gaze and the cinematographic apparatus. Lastly, I refer to the mirror shots of Chantal Akerman’s films Jeanne Dielman, 23 quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles (1975), and From the Other Side (2002), considering how these shots expose, in a singular way, the horror of history.
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