L'immagine sfregiata: il cinema e i volti del sacro

The essay will explore the ambiguity of cinematic close-up, which was celebrated as the site of the emergence of the sacred by 1920s film theory, but which can also be considered as both the result of an original aggression to images and an iconoclastic strategy of critical revision performed by contemporary philosophy (Levinas). Moreover, close-up mystique emerges as the theoretical basis of the complex process of sacralization/desacralization which involved film and photography in the aftermath of world war II. In particular, the analysis will focus on the fundamental role of close-up in the visual construction of the scarred face, one of the most intricate figures in classic, contemporary and experimental films; a figure which informs the whole imaginary of cinematic iconoclasm.