(Nie)żywe obrazy. Widmowość i cielesność filmowych zwierząt
(Un)dead Images. Spectrality and Corporeality of Animals in Film

Summary/Abstract: The author analyses the film medium as an effective tool in animal studies, focusing on the issues of death and ability to re-animate dead bodies. Based on the analysis of several films ("Un animal, des animaux", dir. Nicolas Philibert, 1996; "Sirius Remembered", dir. Stan Brakhage, 1959; "Kala Azar", dir. Janis Rafa, 2020), the author shows how reflection on animal bodies and animal death brings out a paradoxical feature of cinema – its simultaneous corporeality and spectrality. Referring to the historical connections between cinema and natural history museums, the author proposes the category of a “taxidermic cinema”. This allows him to point to the role of cinema in recognizing human “vulnerability”, shared in the face of death with other animals.

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