Rights statement: This is an Accepted Manuscript of an article published by Taylor & Francis in Interventions on 10/01/2018, available online: http://www.tandfonline.com/10.1080/1369801X.2017.1421030
Accepted author manuscript, 303 KB, PDF document
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Final published version
Research output: Contribution to Journal/Magazine › Journal article › peer-review
Research output: Contribution to Journal/Magazine › Journal article › peer-review
}
TY - JOUR
T1 - Capturing Iraq
T2 - Optical Focalization in Contemporary War Cinematography
AU - Fox, Rachel
N1 - This is an Accepted Manuscript of an article published by Taylor & Francis in Interventions on 10/01/2018, available online: http://www.tandfonline.com/10.1080/1369801X.2017.1421030
PY - 2018
Y1 - 2018
N2 - This essay investigates different registers of embedded and fragmentary focalizations in war cinematography on the Iraq War (2003–11), focusing primarily on The Hurt Locker (2008) and the HBO mini-series Generation Kill (2008), but also addressing American Sniper (2014) and the Abu Ghraib scandal. I argue the “extreme close-up” that focuses almost unilaterally on the men on the ground during the Iraq War implicates a “bigger picture”: a larger frame of discourse put forward by the corporate media and the government. This is primarily achieved through recursive narrative structures and through the use of diegetic ocular apparatuses, which are embedded on screen. These renditions of mise en abyme implicate, renegotiate, and even argue with the wide-angle perspective which frames the Iraq War.
AB - This essay investigates different registers of embedded and fragmentary focalizations in war cinematography on the Iraq War (2003–11), focusing primarily on The Hurt Locker (2008) and the HBO mini-series Generation Kill (2008), but also addressing American Sniper (2014) and the Abu Ghraib scandal. I argue the “extreme close-up” that focuses almost unilaterally on the men on the ground during the Iraq War implicates a “bigger picture”: a larger frame of discourse put forward by the corporate media and the government. This is primarily achieved through recursive narrative structures and through the use of diegetic ocular apparatuses, which are embedded on screen. These renditions of mise en abyme implicate, renegotiate, and even argue with the wide-angle perspective which frames the Iraq War.
KW - fragmentary focalization
KW - Generation Kill
KW - The Hurt Locker
KW - Iraq War
KW - mise en abyme
U2 - 10.1080/1369801X.2017.1421030
DO - 10.1080/1369801X.2017.1421030
M3 - Journal article
VL - 20
SP - 470
EP - 487
JO - Interventions: International Journal of Postcolonial Studies
JF - Interventions: International Journal of Postcolonial Studies
SN - 1369-801X
IS - 4
ER -