<abstract xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"><p>I argue that the trope of the doll, recurrent throughout the films of Manoel de Oliveira, is a visual figure that beyond narrative becomes a discourse on modernity and modernism, stillness and movement, life and death. Accordingly, I propose an overview of occurences of dolls and of “dollness” throughout the work of Oliveira – from <italic>Aniki Bobó</italic> (1942) to <italic>The Strange Case of Angelica</italic> (2010) – with the aim of tracking the line of transformations of an emblematic object into an aesthetic principle, a central figure involving psychoanalytical concepts such as the Freudian “uncanny,” the fetish or the transitional object.</p></abstract>

I argue that the trope of the doll, recurrent throughout the films of Manoel de Oliveira, is a visual figure that beyond narrative becomes a discourse on modernity and modernism, stillness and movement, life and death. Accordingly, I propose an overview of occurences of dolls and of “dollness” throughout the work of Oliveira – from Aniki Bobó (1942) to The Strange Case of Angelica (2010) – with the aim of tracking the line of transformations of an emblematic object into an aesthetic principle, a central figure involving psychoanalytical concepts such as the Freudian “uncanny,” the fetish or the transitional object.

An Uncanny Cinema, a Cinema of the Uncanny. The Trope of the Doll in the Films of Manoel de Oliveira

Sapientia Hungarian University of Transylvania

Acta Universitatis Sapientiae, Film and Media Studies

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 3.0 License.

I argue that the trope of the doll, recurrent throughout the films of Manoel de Oliveira, is a visual figure that beyond narrative becomes a discourse on...

An Uncanny Cinema, a Cinema of the Uncanny. The Trope of the Doll in the Films of Manoel de Oliveira

Published Online: Oct 16, 2018

Page range: 33 - 51

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1515/ausfm-2018-0002

Keywords
uncanny, doll, fetish, transitional object, modernity, modernism

© 2018 Hajnal Király, published by Sciendo

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 3.0 License.

An Uncanny Cinema, a Cinema of the Uncanny. The Trope of the Doll in the Films of Manoel de Oliveira

Published Online: Oct 16, 2018

Page range: 33 - 51

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1515/ausfm-2018-0002

Keywordsuncanny, doll, fetish, transitional object, modernity, modernism

© 2018 Hajnal Király, published by Sciendo

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 3.0 License.

Keywords
uncanny, doll, fetish, transitional object, modernity, modernism