As I looked into the inspiration for Guillermo Del Toro for the previous exercise, I thought that using the same person but looking into their work in a different way would be useful in further developing my knowledge of said person, whilst also relating it to the ideas of Post Modernism.
I decided to choose ‘Appropriation’ as my starting point and then see if, and how, it links with Del Toro’s work.
Instead of looking with a broad spectrum in mind, I thought the ideas behind Post- Modernism and Appropriation would be easier understood by focusing in on a single piece of work or even a single scene within his films. With this in mind, I began to think back through all his films I’ve watched and ended up on ‘Pan’s Labyrinth’. As I had looked into the concept of Translation within our chosen pathway, I already knew what I was looking for. My chosen scene is inside the Pale Man’s Lair in which you can see where Del Toro has used the concept of Appropriation in order to create a mood and feeling about this character.
Post Modernism is sometimes described as being, 'a shift from production to reproduction' (Heartney, 2001, p6) and the case of Appropriation, the reproduction aspect is 'taking possession of something, or taking something over' (Ward, 2003, p210). This concept is usually referring to taking something without permission, however, the original artist in the case of Del Toro's source, has been dead many years thus meaning permission would be impossible.
(http://knowledgenews.net/picturethis/goya_saturn_devouring.jpg, Steve Sampson, 29/09/09)
The 'appropriation' of Goya's 'Saturn devouring one of his children' is used within the film 'Pan's Labyrinth' through both concept as well as elements being used as part of the inspiration and creation of the Pale Man character. Through looking at both this image as well as an image of the Pale Man, you can see that Del Toro has copied the eyes.
(http://media.photobucket.com/image/pale%20man/zoyd2000/panslabyrinth-paleman.jpg, anon, 29/09/09)
This direct copy of the eyes allows similar feelings to be conjured up between each character, especially if the audience is familiar with the Goya painting. Appropriation, in this case isn't as obvious as other examples, where whole pieces are taken and then just recreated over and over again. The most common examples of this would be the Queen's head and Mona Lisa.
Another example of Appropriation within this scene is the paintings on the wall of the Pale Man's lair. As the camera pans round, we focus in on a series of paintings depicting the events in which the Pale Man has taken part in. These look as if Goya's Saturn would have done this whilst also looking like the Spanish civil war paintings that he did. This is probably more of a 'Parody' of said paintings however, as they are not mocking the paintings, can it really be classed as a Parody. Its not Pastiche as Del Toro defiantly has knowledge of the paintings as well as the events which caused them. This brings us back to these paintings falling under the 'appropriation' category.
(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n9YD2PFF31E, anon, 29/09/09) The wall paintings are 44 seconds in approx.
(http://www.worldart.com.au/images/goya-execution-of-spanish-rebels1.jpg, anon, 29/09/09)
I suppose that in these examples, appropriation is harder to see as they are used subtly unlike other examples where they are thrown in the audiences face. I feel that these examples are more like Appropriation than Pastiche or Parody as the 2P's are either mocking the original or have no concept them. In these examples, Del Toro isn't mocking the originals but rather using elements out of them as a homage to Goya.
No comments:
Post a Comment