(Un)plotting Tyranny in Aleksandr Sokurov's 'Faust'

• In Event: Liberation from Plot in Dance, Film, and Theater

Abstract

By virtue of its medium (film stock or digital) cinema relies on sequentiality, plot. In classical cinema narration (Bordwell) plot is welded to character interaction. Parametric film narration, Late Modernism's answer to classical narration (Kovács), creates plot by linking sequences stylistically, that is, by privileging elements of style over character action. Thus, while not liberating film from plot, parametric film narration liberates cinema from the dominance of character interaction, making it possible to tell a story about something by way of an ostensible narrative about something else. In my paper I will demonstrate how, through parametrically plotted style Aleksandr Sokurov tells the story of the rise of European fascism by way of the ostensible plot of Part I of Goethe's Faust.

Author

• Diane M. Nemec Ignashev, Carleton College