Résumés
Abstract
“Based on the True Story of” considers how reception studies contributes to determining what constitutes effective political filmmaking and the lessons these films offer to encourage political allegiances. Prior work has indicated that filmmakers need to provide narrative frames to insure their preferred views are accessible to audiences, that excessive emotional appeals can backfire, that conspiracy narratives are more accepted if the narratives argue for complicated webs of power structure, and that markers of authorial subjectivity provide space for spectators to negotiate the material. Here analogical thinking – finding resemblances of one or more features between events in the text and the historical past – is studied for docudramas. Using the reception of Good Night, and Good Luck (2005), the essay argues two further hypotheses that also involve analogical thinking : (1) reviewers expect audiences to seek lessons and explicitly engage with a film's assumed message about contemporary politics, and (2) reviewers often reposition the lessons into other generic narrative formula which have heroes and villains.
Résumé
“Based on the True Story of” analyse la façon dont les études de réception contribuent à déterminer en quoi consistent le cinéma politique et les leçons qu’il donne dans le but d’assurer l’adhésion des spectateurs. Des travaux antérieurs ont montré que les cinéastes s’assurent volontiers, au moyen de cadres narratifs, de la lisiblité de leur point de vue auprès du public, tout en évitant de trop jouer la carte de l’émotion, par crainte de provoquer l’inverse de l’effet recherché. On sait également que les marques d’énonciation subjective sont appréciées en tant qu’elles donnent un peu de jeu aux pièces de ce puzzle démonstratif qu’est le film politique. L’article, après ce rappel, se concentre sur les traces écrites de la réception du docufiction Good Night, and Good Luck (2005), qui se divisent en deux types : (1) les critiques attendent du public qu’il retienne la leçon du film et la transpose, par le biais de la pensée analogique, à la vie politique actuelle; (2) les critiques déplacent les leçons à tirer du côté narratologique, comme s’il s’agissait d’abord de l’affrontement entre les bons et les méchants.
Parties annexes
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