Film Theory by Kevin McDonald

Author:Kevin McDonald [McDonald, Kevin]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780367774400
Publisher: TaylorFrancis
Published: 2022-09-15T00:00:00+00:00

Trinh explores these intersections between theory and poetry not only in her writing but also in her filmmaking practice. Her films Reassemblage (1982) and Surname Viet Given Name Nam (1989) both challenge conventional notions about knowledge and representation by combining elements of documentary and ethnography with modernist techniques. Subsequent critics have labeled these works experimental or hybrid. Bill Nichols, one of the first film scholars to devote serious theoretical attention to the documentary, describes this style of documentary as performative. It goes beyond the reflexivity and intertextuality of previous counter-cinemas while blurring the discursive boundaries between knowledge and action. What further distinguishes this mode is its emphasis on embodied knowledge (e.g., memory, affect, and subjective experience) and stylized expressivity, “while also retaining a referential claim to the historical” (Blurred Boundaries 98).

As part of this performative style, Trinh utilizes contentious strategies like reenactment. Many disapprove of this device since it appears deceitful and can be misleading especially in the context of documentary. In Surname Viet Given Name Nam, for example, women within the film recite what appears to be autobiographical testimony which is in fact not theirs. Trinh explains this strategy in terms of voice and in a way that explicitly recalls Gayatry Spivak’s question, “Can the subaltern speak?” As Trinh puts it,

I can’t say here that I only wanted to empower women, or as people like to put it, to “give voice” to the women involved. The notion of giving voice is so charged because you have to be in such a position that you can ‘give voice’ to other people.

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