Books by Cecilia Sayad
The Ghost in the Image: Technology and Reality in the Horror Genre, 2021
Our century has seen the proliferation of reality shows devoted to ghost hunts, documentaries on ... more Our century has seen the proliferation of reality shows devoted to ghost hunts, documentaries on hauntings, and horror films presented as found footage. The horror genre is no longer exclusive to fiction and its narratives actively engage us in web forums, experiential viewing, videogames, and creepypasta. These participative modes of relating to the occult, alongside the impulse to seek proof of either its existence or fabrication, have transformed the production and consumption of horror stories.
The Ghost in the Image offers a new take on the place that supernatural phenomena occupy in everyday life, arguing that the relationship between the horror genre and reality is more intimate than we like to think. Through a revisionist and transmedial approach to horror this book investigates our expectations about the ability of photography and film to work as evidence. A historical examination of technology's role in at once showing and forging truths invites questions about our investment in its powers. Behind our obsession with documenting everyday life lies the hope that our cameras will reveal something extraordinary. The obsessive search for ghosts in the image, however, shows that the desire to find them is matched by the pleasure of calling a hoax.
Over the past decade, as digital media has expanded and print outlets have declined, pundits have... more Over the past decade, as digital media has expanded and print outlets have declined, pundits have bemoaned a “crisis of criticism” and mourned the “death of the critic.” Now that well-paying jobs in film criticism have largely evaporated, while blogs, message boards, and social media have given new meaning to the saying that “everyone’s a critic,” urgent questions have emerged about the status and purpose of film criticism in the twenty-first century.
In Film Criticism in the Digital Age, ten scholars from across the globe come together to consider whether we are witnessing the extinction of serious film criticism or seeing the start of its rebirth in a new form. Drawing from a wide variety of case studies and methodological perspectives, the book’s contributors find many signs of the film critic’s declining clout, but they also locate surprising examples of how critics—whether moonlighting bloggers or salaried writers—have been able to intervene in current popular discourse about arts and culture.
In addition to collecting a plethora of scholarly perspectives, Film Criticism in the Digital Age includes statements from key bloggers and print critics, like Armond White and Nick James. Neither an uncritical celebration of digital culture nor a jeremiad against it, this anthology offers a comprehensive look at the challenges and possibilities that the Internet brings to the evaluation, promotion, and explanation of artistic works.
In an era defined by the instability of identities and the recycling of works, Performing Authors... more In an era defined by the instability of identities and the recycling of works, Performing Authorship offers a refreshingly new take on the cinematic auteur, proposing that the challenges that once accelerated this figure's critical demise should instead pump new life into it. This book is about the drama of creative processes in essay, documentary and fiction films, with particular emphasis on the effects that the filmmaker's body exerts on our sense of an authorial presence. It is an illuminating analysis of films by Jean-Luc Godard, Woody Allen, Agnes Varda, Orson Welles, Jean Rouch, Eduardo Coutinho and Sarah Turner that shows directors shifting between opposite movements towards authorial assertion and divestiture, palpability and disappearance, exposure and masking. In making this journey, Cecilia Sayad argues, the film author is not necessarily at the work's origin, nor does it constitute the end product. What the new concept of performing authorship describes is the making and unmaking of a subject.
Charlie Kaufman, o roteirista de Being John Malkovich, Adaptation, Human Nature and Eternal Sunsh... more Charlie Kaufman, o roteirista de Being John Malkovich, Adaptation, Human Nature and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind conseguiu ultrapassar o anonimato dos créditos finais de uma sessão de cinema para se tornar tão conhecido e responsável pela autoria dos filmes quanto seus diretores. Kaufman imprimiu sobre eles sua marca, a de um universo estranho que o espectador aprendeu a procurar e reconhecer como sendo seu.
Para discutir a figura do roteirista-autor, Cecilia Sayad traça uma breve história da trajetória do autor no cinema, do mudo ao "cinema de autor" que a geração francesa surgida com a nouvelle vague apresentou ao mundo.
Quem é esse autor, reconhecido pela exposição de suas obsessões e cuja imaginação dita o conteúdo visual dos filmes, é a questão levantada nesse livro.
Journal Articles by Cecilia Sayad
Screen, 2019
This article examines the presumed documentation of supernatural phenomena in ghost hunting reali... more This article examines the presumed documentation of supernatural phenomena in ghost hunting reality television shows. It asks how we relate to these intangible images in the context of a so-called ‘post-truth era’ which challenges mainstream sources of information while offering wide access to the production of texts and images.
One aspect of the discussion considers these reality programmes, which above all aim to entertain, as part of the horror genre, revisiting the place that reality occupies in horror scholarship. Supernatural narratives are traditionally discussed as symbolic representations of the real world—monsters stand for a feared ‘other,’ and stories metaphorically evoke personal or historical trauma. In horror criticism, supernatural tales are removed from reality, and can only address it indirectly. The reality shows in question, on the contrary, bring the occult and our life experiences closer together. Not only do they present ghosts and demons as real—in addition, these shows become a part of the individual lives of viewers, inviting participatory spectatorship. Fans interact with investigators of supernatural activity via text messages in live episodes and offer comments on internet discussion forums.
The second element of the discussion challenges notions about the ontology of the photographic and audiovisual images. It turns to nineteenth-century spirit photography as a point for comparison with digital technologies to question the presumably direct, indexical relationship between the image and material reality in light of our relationship to the photographic and audiovisual records of immaterial entities whose reality cannot be proved.
“Variations on the Author” discusses two of Eduardo Coutinho’s recent films (Um Dia na Vida, from... more “Variations on the Author” discusses two of Eduardo Coutinho’s recent films (Um Dia na Vida, from 2010, and Últimas Conversas, posthumously released in 2015) and their contribution to the general question of documentary authorship. The director’s filmography is characterized by a consistent yet self-effacing form of authorial self-inscription: Coutinho often features as an interviewer that rather than express opinions propels discourses; an interviewer that is good at listening. This mode of self-inscription characterizes him as an author who is not expressive but who is nonetheless markedly present on the screen. In Um Dia na Vida, however, Coutinho is completely absent form the image, while Últimas Conversas, on the contrary, includes a confessional prologue that moves the director from the margins to the center of his films. This article examines the ways in which these works stand out in the filmography of a director who offers new insights into the notion of cinematic authorship.
Afterthought for "Found-Footage Horror and the Frame's Undoing," published in Cinema Journal 55.2.
This article finds in the found-footage horror cycle an alternative way of understanding the rela... more This article finds in the found-footage horror cycle an alternative way of understanding the relationship between horror films and reality, which is usually discussed in terms of allegory. I propose the investigation of framing, considered both figuratively (framing the film as documentary) and stylistically (the framing in handheld cameras and in static long takes), as a device that playfully destabilizes the separation between the film and the surrounding world. The article’s main case study is the Paranormal Activity franchise, but examples are drawn from a variety of films.
Editors of Film Criticism invited a mix of established and emerging scholars to write 500-1000 wo... more Editors of Film Criticism invited a mix of established and emerging scholars to write 500-1000 words in response to the question: What is the role of film criticism today—a time of accelerated change in production, distribution, and viewing experiences? This is one of them.
Mediático, Feb 10, 2014
A tribute piece in honour of Brazilian documentarian Eduardo Coutinho, who died on 2 February 2014.
ANY ASSOCIATION bETwEEN AUTEURS AND FOOLS in the cinema immediately brings to mind the clown-like... more ANY ASSOCIATION bETwEEN AUTEURS AND FOOLS in the cinema immediately brings to mind the clown-like figures played by Charles Chaplin, Buster Keaton, Jerry Lewis, and Woody Allen, all of whom incarnate similar characters across a vast array of films and in addition direct all or many of the pictures in which they perform. Common to these “fools” is their recurring features and a certain foreignness that posits them as outsiders.
This essay examines the questions of authorship and national cinema through the concept of filmic... more This essay examines the questions of authorship and national cinema through the concept of filmic presence. Drawing from Tom Gunning’s valorization of “instants” and “presentation” in the cinema of attractions and from Deleuze’s “cinema of bodies,” the essay studies self-inscription through the director’s photographic image. Key to this analysis is Barthes’s idea of authorial figuration, which privileges physical presence over self-expression.
The object of this investigation is the work of Brazilian documentarian Eduardo Coutinho, who in the past decade has revised the role of sociologist that once defined Latin American filmmakers by shunning interpretation and analysis. Coutinho stresses the encounter between camera and subject, structuring his documentaries as talking heads. In this scenario, the author functions as a catalyst inspiring specific “performances” and narratives. By the same token, Coutinho’s documentaries emphasise the subjects’ body language, syntax and accent. Narrative and self-expression are thus replaced by process and presence.
Significação: Revista Brasileira de Semiótica 26 (Spring-Summer): 139-72, 2006
Chapter in a collection by Cecilia Sayad
Film Criticism in the Digital Age, 2015
Film Criticism in the Digital Age, 2015
This chapter discusses how the figures of film critic and film author have historically informed ... more This chapter discusses how the figures of film critic and film author have historically informed each other, and how the digital age affects the relationship between the two.
New Documentaries in Latin America, 2014
A Companion to Woody Allen, eds. Peter J. Bailey and Sam B. Girgus (Wiley-Blackwell), 2013
The presence of autobiographical elements in Woody Allen’s films has often inspired analogies bet... more The presence of autobiographical elements in Woody Allen’s films has often inspired analogies between his screen and real personas. Further emphasizing this connection are Allen’s references to his religious, ethnic and cultural identities. It follows that, in spite of the “postmodern” dimension of the director’s citational practices, his auteur image is charged with the original sense of the term, where the author’s genius and personal experiences prevail over the sociopolitical, economic and cultural contexts that inform the making of his films.
What Cecilia Sayad explores in this essay is precisely the ways in which Allen’s characters constitute vehicles for sociocultural commentary. This sociocultural dimension, she proposes, attaches an element of historical specificity to the presumably “universal” auteur. This chapter argues that the mode of standup comedy that shapes many of Allen’s appearances allows for a self-reflexive meditation about both the director’s own image and the impact of auteurism on American cinema after the 1960s. Indeed, many of Allen’s characters embody the conflict between artistry and commercialism that has marked the controversy on the question of film authorship in the United States; a conflict detected in trends in cult and camp criticism, thus prior to the famous debate between Pauline Kael and Andrew Sarris, as Greg Taylor discusses in Artists in the Audience. Furthermore, current affairs often constitute the very material of standup comics’ jokes, bringing to the films a sense of an immediate connection with the extrafilmic. While certainly reinforcing the autobiographical components of the parts played by the director, this connection with the outside world also extends to the realm of film theory and criticism, turning the auteur into an articulator of debates that were central to the reinvention of an American cinema deeply impacted by the consolidation of the European art film.
This essay’s filmography includes Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex… But Were Afraid to Ask (1972), Sleeper (1973), Love and Death (1975), Annie Hall (1977), Stardust Memories (1980), Zelig (1983), Hannah and Her Sisters (1986), Crimes and Misdemeanors (1989), Husbands and Wives (1992), and Anything Else (2003).
Estudos de Cinema – Socine IX. Eds. Esther Hamburger, Tunico Amancio, Gustavo Souza, Leandro Mendonça, 2008
Este trabalho analisa como o cinema de Godard, e mais precisamente Duas ou três coisas que eu sei... more Este trabalho analisa como o cinema de Godard, e mais precisamente Duas ou três coisas que eu sei dela, atrela a política à metalinguagem, promovendo uma prática revolucionária focada não tanto em narrativas e mensagens, mas na forma do filme, por meio da subversão de sistemas dominantes de representação.
From Camera Lens to Critical Lens: A Collection of Best Essays on Film Adaptation, ed. Rebecca Housel, 2006
Book Reviews by Cecilia Sayad
Journal of Adaptation in Film and Performance, Volume 3, Number 2, 119-21.
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Books by Cecilia Sayad
The Ghost in the Image offers a new take on the place that supernatural phenomena occupy in everyday life, arguing that the relationship between the horror genre and reality is more intimate than we like to think. Through a revisionist and transmedial approach to horror this book investigates our expectations about the ability of photography and film to work as evidence. A historical examination of technology's role in at once showing and forging truths invites questions about our investment in its powers. Behind our obsession with documenting everyday life lies the hope that our cameras will reveal something extraordinary. The obsessive search for ghosts in the image, however, shows that the desire to find them is matched by the pleasure of calling a hoax.
In Film Criticism in the Digital Age, ten scholars from across the globe come together to consider whether we are witnessing the extinction of serious film criticism or seeing the start of its rebirth in a new form. Drawing from a wide variety of case studies and methodological perspectives, the book’s contributors find many signs of the film critic’s declining clout, but they also locate surprising examples of how critics—whether moonlighting bloggers or salaried writers—have been able to intervene in current popular discourse about arts and culture.
In addition to collecting a plethora of scholarly perspectives, Film Criticism in the Digital Age includes statements from key bloggers and print critics, like Armond White and Nick James. Neither an uncritical celebration of digital culture nor a jeremiad against it, this anthology offers a comprehensive look at the challenges and possibilities that the Internet brings to the evaluation, promotion, and explanation of artistic works.
Para discutir a figura do roteirista-autor, Cecilia Sayad traça uma breve história da trajetória do autor no cinema, do mudo ao "cinema de autor" que a geração francesa surgida com a nouvelle vague apresentou ao mundo.
Quem é esse autor, reconhecido pela exposição de suas obsessões e cuja imaginação dita o conteúdo visual dos filmes, é a questão levantada nesse livro.
Journal Articles by Cecilia Sayad
One aspect of the discussion considers these reality programmes, which above all aim to entertain, as part of the horror genre, revisiting the place that reality occupies in horror scholarship. Supernatural narratives are traditionally discussed as symbolic representations of the real world—monsters stand for a feared ‘other,’ and stories metaphorically evoke personal or historical trauma. In horror criticism, supernatural tales are removed from reality, and can only address it indirectly. The reality shows in question, on the contrary, bring the occult and our life experiences closer together. Not only do they present ghosts and demons as real—in addition, these shows become a part of the individual lives of viewers, inviting participatory spectatorship. Fans interact with investigators of supernatural activity via text messages in live episodes and offer comments on internet discussion forums.
The second element of the discussion challenges notions about the ontology of the photographic and audiovisual images. It turns to nineteenth-century spirit photography as a point for comparison with digital technologies to question the presumably direct, indexical relationship between the image and material reality in light of our relationship to the photographic and audiovisual records of immaterial entities whose reality cannot be proved.
The object of this investigation is the work of Brazilian documentarian Eduardo Coutinho, who in the past decade has revised the role of sociologist that once defined Latin American filmmakers by shunning interpretation and analysis. Coutinho stresses the encounter between camera and subject, structuring his documentaries as talking heads. In this scenario, the author functions as a catalyst inspiring specific “performances” and narratives. By the same token, Coutinho’s documentaries emphasise the subjects’ body language, syntax and accent. Narrative and self-expression are thus replaced by process and presence.
Chapter in a collection by Cecilia Sayad
What Cecilia Sayad explores in this essay is precisely the ways in which Allen’s characters constitute vehicles for sociocultural commentary. This sociocultural dimension, she proposes, attaches an element of historical specificity to the presumably “universal” auteur. This chapter argues that the mode of standup comedy that shapes many of Allen’s appearances allows for a self-reflexive meditation about both the director’s own image and the impact of auteurism on American cinema after the 1960s. Indeed, many of Allen’s characters embody the conflict between artistry and commercialism that has marked the controversy on the question of film authorship in the United States; a conflict detected in trends in cult and camp criticism, thus prior to the famous debate between Pauline Kael and Andrew Sarris, as Greg Taylor discusses in Artists in the Audience. Furthermore, current affairs often constitute the very material of standup comics’ jokes, bringing to the films a sense of an immediate connection with the extrafilmic. While certainly reinforcing the autobiographical components of the parts played by the director, this connection with the outside world also extends to the realm of film theory and criticism, turning the auteur into an articulator of debates that were central to the reinvention of an American cinema deeply impacted by the consolidation of the European art film.
This essay’s filmography includes Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex… But Were Afraid to Ask (1972), Sleeper (1973), Love and Death (1975), Annie Hall (1977), Stardust Memories (1980), Zelig (1983), Hannah and Her Sisters (1986), Crimes and Misdemeanors (1989), Husbands and Wives (1992), and Anything Else (2003).
Book Reviews by Cecilia Sayad
The Ghost in the Image offers a new take on the place that supernatural phenomena occupy in everyday life, arguing that the relationship between the horror genre and reality is more intimate than we like to think. Through a revisionist and transmedial approach to horror this book investigates our expectations about the ability of photography and film to work as evidence. A historical examination of technology's role in at once showing and forging truths invites questions about our investment in its powers. Behind our obsession with documenting everyday life lies the hope that our cameras will reveal something extraordinary. The obsessive search for ghosts in the image, however, shows that the desire to find them is matched by the pleasure of calling a hoax.
In Film Criticism in the Digital Age, ten scholars from across the globe come together to consider whether we are witnessing the extinction of serious film criticism or seeing the start of its rebirth in a new form. Drawing from a wide variety of case studies and methodological perspectives, the book’s contributors find many signs of the film critic’s declining clout, but they also locate surprising examples of how critics—whether moonlighting bloggers or salaried writers—have been able to intervene in current popular discourse about arts and culture.
In addition to collecting a plethora of scholarly perspectives, Film Criticism in the Digital Age includes statements from key bloggers and print critics, like Armond White and Nick James. Neither an uncritical celebration of digital culture nor a jeremiad against it, this anthology offers a comprehensive look at the challenges and possibilities that the Internet brings to the evaluation, promotion, and explanation of artistic works.
Para discutir a figura do roteirista-autor, Cecilia Sayad traça uma breve história da trajetória do autor no cinema, do mudo ao "cinema de autor" que a geração francesa surgida com a nouvelle vague apresentou ao mundo.
Quem é esse autor, reconhecido pela exposição de suas obsessões e cuja imaginação dita o conteúdo visual dos filmes, é a questão levantada nesse livro.
One aspect of the discussion considers these reality programmes, which above all aim to entertain, as part of the horror genre, revisiting the place that reality occupies in horror scholarship. Supernatural narratives are traditionally discussed as symbolic representations of the real world—monsters stand for a feared ‘other,’ and stories metaphorically evoke personal or historical trauma. In horror criticism, supernatural tales are removed from reality, and can only address it indirectly. The reality shows in question, on the contrary, bring the occult and our life experiences closer together. Not only do they present ghosts and demons as real—in addition, these shows become a part of the individual lives of viewers, inviting participatory spectatorship. Fans interact with investigators of supernatural activity via text messages in live episodes and offer comments on internet discussion forums.
The second element of the discussion challenges notions about the ontology of the photographic and audiovisual images. It turns to nineteenth-century spirit photography as a point for comparison with digital technologies to question the presumably direct, indexical relationship between the image and material reality in light of our relationship to the photographic and audiovisual records of immaterial entities whose reality cannot be proved.
The object of this investigation is the work of Brazilian documentarian Eduardo Coutinho, who in the past decade has revised the role of sociologist that once defined Latin American filmmakers by shunning interpretation and analysis. Coutinho stresses the encounter between camera and subject, structuring his documentaries as talking heads. In this scenario, the author functions as a catalyst inspiring specific “performances” and narratives. By the same token, Coutinho’s documentaries emphasise the subjects’ body language, syntax and accent. Narrative and self-expression are thus replaced by process and presence.
What Cecilia Sayad explores in this essay is precisely the ways in which Allen’s characters constitute vehicles for sociocultural commentary. This sociocultural dimension, she proposes, attaches an element of historical specificity to the presumably “universal” auteur. This chapter argues that the mode of standup comedy that shapes many of Allen’s appearances allows for a self-reflexive meditation about both the director’s own image and the impact of auteurism on American cinema after the 1960s. Indeed, many of Allen’s characters embody the conflict between artistry and commercialism that has marked the controversy on the question of film authorship in the United States; a conflict detected in trends in cult and camp criticism, thus prior to the famous debate between Pauline Kael and Andrew Sarris, as Greg Taylor discusses in Artists in the Audience. Furthermore, current affairs often constitute the very material of standup comics’ jokes, bringing to the films a sense of an immediate connection with the extrafilmic. While certainly reinforcing the autobiographical components of the parts played by the director, this connection with the outside world also extends to the realm of film theory and criticism, turning the auteur into an articulator of debates that were central to the reinvention of an American cinema deeply impacted by the consolidation of the European art film.
This essay’s filmography includes Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex… But Were Afraid to Ask (1972), Sleeper (1973), Love and Death (1975), Annie Hall (1977), Stardust Memories (1980), Zelig (1983), Hannah and Her Sisters (1986), Crimes and Misdemeanors (1989), Husbands and Wives (1992), and Anything Else (2003).