Parr, Timothy (2018) Presence and Absence: The World Trade Center in Film Before and After Sept. 11, 2001. Masters thesis, Concordia University.
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Abstract
This thesis traces the changing visual significance of the World Trade Center (WTC) in fiction film, from its completion in 1973, to its haunting afterlife since September 11, 2001. This study gathers and critically assembles various representations of this financial icon in order to find new meaning for the representation of the towers in film prior to 2001, along with the significance that they acquired in light of their material destruction. To do so, this study relies on a textual analysis of selected films in which the towers appear, while utilizing a stylistic and formal analysis to dissect their visual and narrative treatment. It locates the towers as a crucial node within global transnational capitalism and draws from a number of critical texts, methods, and traditions, including those of Siegfried Kracauer and Walter Benjamin, particularly, the conceptualization of the image as a ruin of its profilmic moment, and the afterlife of the image. Essentially,this thesis reconsiders the towers’ status as traces in photographic media and audiovisual culture,and examines how they have resisted a totalizing meaning. Retrospectively returning to moving images, viewers notice objects, and events that escaped their notice upon first viewing, which is the case with the Twin Towers in film post-2001 as they affect the viewer’s response in new ways.
| Divisions: | Concordia University > Faculty of Fine Arts > Mel Hoppenheim School of Cinema |
|---|---|
| Item Type: | Thesis (Masters) |
| Authors: | Parr, Timothy |
| Institution: | Concordia University |
| Degree Name: | M.A. |
| Program: | Film Studies |
| Date: | 15 June 2018 |
| Thesis Supervisor(s): | Russell, Katie |
| Keywords: | "Twin Towers" "WTC" "9/11" "Film" "Moving Images" "Fragments" "Indexation" "Afterlife" "Profilmic" "Neoliberal Globalization" |
| ID Code: | 984173 |
| Deposited By: | Timothy Leslie Parr |
| Deposited On: | 05 Nov 2018 15:28 |
| Last Modified: | 05 Nov 2018 15:28 |
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