Film in film

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The term film in film , also reflexive cinema , describes films that reflect the medium of film itself. Examples are the theming of cinema and its history ( Boulevard of Twilight , Nickelodeon , Cinema Paradiso ) or filmmaking and its difficulties ( The American Night , Eight and Half , The Player , Living in Oblivion , Inside Hollywood ). Self-reflexivity is used in conventional Hollywood films as well as in auteur films . One of the best-known representatives is Singin 'in the Rain , filmed in 1952 , in which the switch from silent films to talkies is discussed. The award-winning feature film The Artist from 2011 also takes place during this period of transition.

Reflexive cinema is usually enriched with allusions and hidden meanings (“cinematic irony”) that only cineastes can understand. Self-reflection is primarily assigned to post-classical film (such as the New Hollywood and Nouvelle Vague films ) because the world of forms of traditional cinema is a prerequisite for varying, parodying, or even criticizing it. In The Contempt (1963), Jean-Luc Godard takes the Hollywood film industry and the commercialization of film - in stark contrast to the passion and art of making films - and shows the shooting of the film itself in the opening credits.

References to the early history of film can also be made: when Robert W. Paul published The Countryman and the Cinematographe in 1901 to parody the audience's reaction to the new medium of film, the principle of film in film was more caricature than an art form. It wasn't until 1924 that Buster Keaton managed to get into Sherlock, Jr. the artistic reflection of the medium of film in a film by transferring the plot into the dream world of a film projectionist and thus working through the essence of cinema in an essayistic way .

In addition to the self-reflection of the medium of film, other media are often objects of reflection, such as photography ( Blow Up ), painting ( The Girl with the Pearl Earring , The Mill and the Cross ), the theater ( Everything about Eva , Birdman ), the Musical ( applause ), radio ( Julia and her lovers ) or television ( Network , The Truman Show , Quiz Show ).

See also

literature

  • Horst Schäfer: film in film . Self-portraits of the dream factory. Fischer, Frankfurt a. M. 1985.
  • Harald Schleicher: Film Reflections . Autothematic films by Wim Wenders, Jean-Luc Godard and Federico Fellini. Niemeyer, Tübingen 1991.
  • Ernst Karpf, Doron Kiesel, Karsten Visarius (eds.): In the mirror cabinet of illusions . Films about yourself. Schüren, Marburg 1996.
  • Matthias Kraus et al .: Cinematic self-reflections . Schüren, Marburg 2000.
  • Jürgen Felix (Ed.): Genius and Passion . Artist life in film. St. Augustin 2000.
  • Richard Meyers: Movies on Movies . New Hollywood Sees Itself. Drake Publishers, New York, London 1978.
  • Christopher Ames: Movies About the Movies . Hollywood Reflected. University of Kentucky Press, Lexington 1997.
  • Robert Stam: Reflexivity in Film and Literature . From Don Quixote to Jean-Luc Godard. Columbia University Press, New York 1992.
  • Dominique Blüher: Le cinéma dans le cinéma . Film (s) dans le film et mise en abyme. Villeneuve 1998, ISBN 2-284-00335-4 .

Individual evidence

  1. ^ A b Hans J. Wulff: Reflexive cinema . In: Lexikon der Filmbegriffe, edited by Hans J. Wulff and Theo Bender.
  2. ^ A b Philipp Brunner: Self-reflection . In: Lexikon der Filmbegriffe, edited by Hans J. Wulff and Theo Bender.
  3. ^ Jürgen Felix: Film in Film . In: Thomas Koebner (Hrsg.): Sachlexikon des Films . 2nd Edition. Reclam, 2006, ISBN 978-3-15-010625-9 , pp. 209 f .