Yannick Bautista

Space travel is one of the most fruitful tropes in the history of cinema. From German expressionism with Fritz Lang’s highly influential film Frau im Mond —which was one of the inspirations for the actual construction of the German V-2 rockets and the first instance where we see the famous countdown to zero before the… Read more

Thinking about the elusive concept of hospitality as delineated in Jacques Derrida’s 1999 paper “Hostipitalité”, we can advance a curious reflection on the relation between space and sovereignty in the films Saboteur (1942) and Lifeboat (1944) by Alfred Hitchcock. The original title of the paper underlines one of the aspects that Derrida seeks to uncover… Read more

We have to consider the moral implications of producing a documentary about a certain horror or pain. Arguably any film seeks to be viewed and consumed, however varied are the reasons. For this end, film narratives are plotted to be appealing, either visually, narratively or targeting the viewer’s (morbid?) interest based on social and cultural… Read more

The notion of apocalypse is a persistent myth and narrative present in every culture. Since its inception in biblical texts, it has now evolved to become a master narrative with specific imagery and plot functions. The apocalypse can be regarded as the symbol of a cleansing, a renewed order or devastating cataclysm. It can also… Read more

Isolation/Alienation The theme of isolation is predominantly linked to the figure of the mad scientist. Traditionally the doctor or scientist in a horror film is an outcast figure that goes against the “normal” social order. Through the first part of Frankenstein, Henry shines with a glow of intensity that progressively diminishes as the monster comes… Read more

Horror films are traditionally considered escapist narratives that deviate from social and historical categories. If we consider the kind of setting that Horror films traditionally favour –the haunted house, the unspecified European village, the cabin in the woods…– with their abstract time and space and plots usually unconnected with any national history, we might say… Read more

The character in Herman Melville’s “Bartleby, The Scrivener: A Story of Wall Street” (1853) with its arguably inscrutable behavior and open rejection of the conventions of social life in early capitalism has historically baffled critics and readers. I’d like to offer some notes based on the apparent binary opposition between the narrator and the title… Read more

Agnès Varda’s acutely original documentary The Gleaners and I (2000) looks at the act of gleaning from different perspectives. I’m not sure if the word perspective is the right one. It would be more accurate to say that she comes across and reflects on different kinds of gleaning. We can distinguish three different types: gleaning,… Read more

Space can be variously represented in a work of art. The depiction of quantifiable and verisimilar space has slowly become an important aspect in cinema and literature. With the rise of urban spaces and capitalism, space ceased to be abstract as in romances and has turned into a sort of referent of the ecology and… Read more

Let’s try to sketch an outline of the kind of realism that was emerging in the United States at the close of the 19th Century with the rise of urbanism and capitalist culture. I’d like to do that by looking at the figure of Mrs. Sommers, or reconstructing a kind of profile from the bits… Read more