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Chapter 9 - Bodies Dead or Alive?

Intermediality, Ambiguity, and the Politics of Dying

from Part III - Culture’s Theological Mode of the Sacred

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 September 2021

Andrew W. Hass
Affiliation:
University of Stirling
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Summary

Both in painting and in film, Christian symbols, especially allusion to the Passion with an emphasis on its ambiguous status of the body, occurs frequently. This chapter examines paintings about dying that show up in films, in what is called intermediality. What the author gleans from Jasper’s work is an attempt to overcome binary oppositions and the separations they entail. The bridge is the imagination, which compels us to take fiction seriously as a knowledge-producing field. If we take Coleridge’s definition of fiction, “the willing suspension of disbelief”, we can see that the three main words help us to be serious about guilt and responsibility, but also about liberation, the latter through the release of fantasy. It is this view of fiction that makes it possible to overcome the dichotomies that rule the world, including the one between sacred and profane. This dichotomy is explored in works of visual art about the body, and especially the dying body, by Velázquez, Grünewald, Mantegna, Zvjagintsev’s film The Return, and the film/video project Madame B by Bal and Williams Gamaker.

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Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2021

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  • Bodies Dead or Alive?
  • Edited by Andrew W. Hass, University of Stirling
  • Book: Sacred Modes of Being in a Postsecular World
  • Online publication: 07 September 2021
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009047944.010
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  • Bodies Dead or Alive?
  • Edited by Andrew W. Hass, University of Stirling
  • Book: Sacred Modes of Being in a Postsecular World
  • Online publication: 07 September 2021
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009047944.010
Available formats
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Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

  • Bodies Dead or Alive?
  • Edited by Andrew W. Hass, University of Stirling
  • Book: Sacred Modes of Being in a Postsecular World
  • Online publication: 07 September 2021
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009047944.010
Available formats
×