“De humani corporis fabrica”: Aporetic Realism and Sensuous Film Theory
Aleksander Kmak
aleksander.kmak@gmail.comUniversity of Warsaw (Poland)
https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3724-5397
Abstract
The sensual experience of the film De humani corporis fabrica (dir. Lucien Castaing-Taylor, Véréna Paravel, 2022), comprised of recordings of real surgical interventions into the human body, highlights an aporia deeply rooted in the very category of realism: the more an image is faithful to the reality it is supposed to portray, the less comprehensible and readily understandable it becomes, ultimately failing as a credible representation. The context of sensuous film theory casts some light on this paradox by proposing various approaches to the relationship between the film’s constructed character and the tangibility of its seemingly direct experience. Situated within the context of the writings of contemporary theorists, the film appears as a sensual exercise of the gaze that enables a new positioning of both the viewer and the image, but also as a revival of the memory of the miraculous invention of the film – even from before cinema was created as a space for its experience. The reference to the history of the medium also encourages historicizing the sensual reflection, so as to reveal how corporeality, realism, and sensuality were conceptualized by selected 20th-century theorists.
Keywords:
film theory, sensuous theory, sensuous film theory, film image aestheticsReferences
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Authors
Aleksander Kmakaleksander.kmak@gmail.com
University of Warsaw Poland
https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3724-5397
Film scholar and art critic. He is currently preparing a PhD dissertation about cinema of discomfort and sensuous film theory at the University of Warsaw. He has published in Widok, Kwartalnik Filmowy, Ekrany, and Pleograf, also continuously collaborating with the contemporary art magazine Szum. He co-edited the book Cięcie ciał. Ruchome obrazy [Cutting Bodies: Moving Pictures] (2018).
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