"The Girl Chewing Gum" by John Smith: document and fiction
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.34640/universidademadeira2016valenteKeywords:
cinema, experimentalism, documentary, fiction, reflexivity, diegesisAbstract
This article analyses the short film The Girl Chewing Gum (John Smith, 1976) placing it in the context of experimental trend to which it is associated, linked to the structural cinema. The film is, in first place, a document of the director's gaze about the reality of common day-to-day situations, but it's much more than that because the voice that the director overlaps on the shot modify, in a disruptive way, the pro-filmic material. The "territory" of the film is thus deconstructed in ironic and radical way. To what extent is image, as a real document, transformed and "fictionalized" by the gaze (and voice) of the director? All cinema does that, certainly, but John Smith exposes this specific cinematic "territory", with a reflective and deconstructive attitude that takes viewers back to this oldest and essential question: what is cinema?
References
Camper, F. (2001). Pushed to the Limit – Films and videos by John Smith, Chicago Reader magazine, setembro. Disponível em:
http://www.chicagoreader.com/chicago/pushed-to-the-limit/Content?oid=906377 [3 de janeiro de 2016].
Carroll, N. (1996). Theorizing the Moving Image. New York: Cambridge University.
Christie, I. (2013). “English Eccentric”, in John Smith (Eds.), Tanya Leighton and Kathrin Meyer, Mousse Publishing, Italy and Sternberg Press, Germany, pp 47-70. Disponível em: http://johnsmithfilms.com/selected-writing/books/ [8 de fevereiro de 2016].
Danks, A. (2003). On the Street where You Live: The Films of John Smith, Senses of Cinema, nº 29, dezembro. Disponível em: http://www.sensesofcinema.com/contents/03/29/john_smith.html [8 de fevereiro de 2016].
Deleuze, G. (1986). La Imagen-tiempo. (2ª ed). Barcelona: Paidós Comunicación.
Balsom, E. (2015). In Focus: The Girl Chewing Gum, 1976, by John Smith, Londres: Tate Research Publication. Disponível em:
https://www.tate.org.uk/art/researchpublications/john-smith-the-girl-chewinggum/the-girl-chewing-gum-1976-by-john-smithr1175957 [12 de março de 2016].
Brydon, L. (2012). Brief Encounter: The Girl Chewing Gum, Short Film Studies, vol. 2 (2): 155-158.
Gil, J. (1996). A Imagem Nua e as Pequenas Percepções. Lisboa, Relógio D'Água.
Hersey, C. (2002). “Diegetic breaks and the avante-garde”, Journal of Moving Image Studies. nº 1. Disponível em: https://people.cs.uct.ac.za/~dnunez/reading/papers/hersey.html [10 de março de 2016].
Parente, A. (2000). Narrativa e Modernidade: Os Cinemas Não-Narrativos do PósGuerra. São Paulo: Papyrus Editora.
Schultz, M. (2011). “The Girl Chewing Gum, and the Perils of Google” in dailyserving
website, http://dailyserving.com/2011/12/the-girl-chewing-gum-and-the-perils-ofgoogle/ [10 de março de 2016].
Small, E. (1994). Direct Theory: Experimental Film / Video as Major Genre. Kansas: Southern Illinois University Press.
Stam, R. (1992). Reflexivity in Film and Literature. New York: Columbia University Press.
Stam, R. & Miller, T. (eds.) (2000). Film and Theory: An Anthology. Oxford: Blackwell Publishers Inc.
Downloads
Published
How to Cite
Issue
Section
License
Copyright (c) 2016 Carlos Valente
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.
For more information follow the link: CC Atribuição-NãoComercial 4.0
