Identity and Identification through Film Essay

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Abstract

Perspectives on “identity” are as varied as the interactions of the concept itself within different disciplines. One perspective that has been insufficiently investigated is reflection on the concept in the social imaginary developed by film essay. Our approach assumes the use of filmic tools as the author’s personal articulation of identity and our working hypothesis is that film essay evolves and is defined according to the evolution and redefinition of the concept of identity. Authors such as Nikolas Rose, Stuart Hall, and Lawrence Grossberg provide us with a sociological and anthropological perspective on several interesting aspects of this concept—the identification process, suture, and the logic of otherness—which are explored in film essay by directors such as Orson Welles, Alan Berliner, and Chris Marker. In order to develop the functioning of this synergy, we have selected a corpus of representative film essay titles. The main aim is to show the importance and influence of the approach to this concept in film essay, which in turn, gives a new and interesting perspective to research on identity.