Multimodal Rhetoric in Argentinian and Brazilian Found Footage Documentaries

Multimodal Rhetoric in Argentinian and Brazilian

Found Footage Documentaries

João Pedro Diaz Pessoa

Student Number: 11734760

joao.diaz16@gmail.com

Supervisor: Dr. Charles Forceville

Second Reader: Dr. Floris Paalman

22.927

words

(excl. notes, references, captions and Appendix)

Master of Arts – Film Studies

Programme coordinator: Dr. Abe Geil

Graduate School of Humanities

University of Amsterdam

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements... 1

Abstract... 2

Chapter 1 – Introduction... 3

Chapter 2 – Theoretical Framework on Found Footage...5

2.1 – Early Theorists: Leyda and Wees...5

2.2 – Contemporary Insights: Bruzzi, Weinrichter and Baron...7

2.3 – Theoretical Assumptions... 10

Chapter 3 – Latin America: Historical Overview and Documentary Practices...12

3.1 – Early 20th Century: The Impact of the Mexican Revolution...12

3.2 – Mid-20th Century: Cinemas of Populism and Revolution...13

3.3 – Turn of the Century: Historical Revisions and the “Subjective Turn”...15

Chapter 4 – Research Corpus and Methodology...18

4.1 Research Corpus... 18

4.2 Multimodal Argumentation and Rhetoric...19

4.3 Comparable Questions Scheme...20

Chapter 5 – The Return to Democracy: films from 1980s and 1990s...26

5.1 – La República Perdida (Miguel Pérez, 1983)...26

5.2 – Jango (Silvio Tendler, 1984)... 31

5.3 – Cabra Marcado para Morrer (Eduardo Coutinho, 1984)...36

5.4 – Montoneros, una História (Andrés di Tella, 1995)...42

Chapter 6 – The “Subjective Turn”: films from 2000s and 2010s...48

6.1 – Hércules 56 (Silvio Da-Rin, 2006)...48

6.2 – M (Nicolás Prividera, 2007)...54

6.3 – Uma Longa Viagem (Lúcia Murat, 2011)...59

6.4 – El (Im)posible Olvido (Andrés Habegger, 2016)...65

Chapter 7 – Conclusion... 70

Bibliography... 74

Appendix... 76

Table 1: La República Perdida...76

Table 2: Jango... 95

Table 3: Cabra Marcado para Morrer...106

Table 4: Montoneros, una História...111

Table 5: Hércules 56... 118

Table 6: M... 122

Table 7: Uma Longa Viagem... 126

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank my mother Malude, my father Jorge, my brothers Rodrigo and Daniel,

my cousins, vovô Demétrio, Marilene, and all my family. I thank all my special friends in

Brazil: Mariana, Carlos, Raphael, Rodrigo, Tude, Zé, Layssa, Rebeca, Victor, Luã, Sérgio,

Mariana, Thamie, Baroni, Tiago, Pereti, Riguetti, Antonio, Vecchi, Carlos, Lívia. I thank

Juliana for the love and companionship in this journey. I would not be here without the affect

and support you all gave me on this life decision.

I thank all my new friends from Amsterdam, who were so receptive, and became great

companion for fun and studies: Cecilia, Luukas, Luiza, Luna, Shant, Giovanni, Arjan, Rita,

Pei, Sara, Nic, Marco, Kayleigh, Ole.

I thank Charles Forceville for his classes, conversations, and the very insightful and

considerate supervision of this thesis. I thank Floris Paalman for his classes, partnership at the

IISG project, and for his feedback on this work. I thank all other professors and staff from

UvA, who made my study experience so fruitful with their work and dedication.

Abstract

In this MA thesis, I investigate the rhetorical role of found footage in eight Argentinian and

Brazilian historical documentaries made in the 1980s-1990s, and 2000s-2010s, that address

the theme of these countries’ military dictatorships. Found footage adds particular semantic

layers to the argumentative structure of a documentary, as images and documents from the

past are incorporated into a new filmic text.

Through cognitivist multimodal analysis, I have mapped the narrative and audiovisual

elements of every found footage sequence of the selected films. Then, I have categorized the

rhetorical functions of the sequences, under the proposed labels of “Illustration”,

“Corroboration”, “Temporal Disparity”, “Exposition”, “Irony”, “Emotion” and

“Self-reflection”. Through this mapping, I was able to compare and contrast films, countries and

periods, regarding how found footage is used to argue for a standpoint and create a memory

of the past military regimes.

Keywords:

Chapter 1 – Introduction

In this MA thesis, I will investigate the argumentative and rhetorical role of found footage in

historical documentaries made in Brazil and Argentina in two periods: the decades of

1980s-1990s, when these countries were performing a transition from military dictatorship periods

to democracies; and the 2000s-2010s, a period in which Brazil and Argentina test the

achievements of democracy. I will focus on historical documentaries that address the theme

of the military dictatorships, in different ways, in search of points of comparison and contrast

between films, countries and periods.

The focus of my analysis is on the use of found footage. Following Baron (2014), I

understand found footage as comprising all kinds of archival documents and images that are

appropriated by a new audiovisual product, but that were originally produced at a different

time and/or with a different intention than the form in which they are employed in a new film

text. Historical documentaries have traditionally used found footage to accompany their

representation about a certain moment of the past, integrating it into their argumentative

discourse structure.

Tseronis and Forceville (2017) argue that films, as multimodal discourses, can convey

information in non-verbal ways, and thus create meaning in argumentative contexts.

Furthermore, Bill Nichols’ (2017) concept of “evidentiary editing” defines the role of

montage in the creation of an argument about the historical world as a defining feature of

documentary film. Found footage adds another semantic layer, as it contains in itself traces of

its past original context, which is incorporated into the new film via its montage, and possibly

other aesthetic audiovisual features. With these assumptions, I will engage in the close

reading of the films, based on multimodal analysis, in order to investigate how they used

archival images to create discourses about the countries’ recent dictatorial past.

From the period of the 1980s-1990s, the films selected for my research corpus are La

República Perdida (Miguel Pérez, Argentina, 1983), Jango (Silvio Tendler, Brazil, 1984),

Cabra Marcado para Morrer (Eduardo Coutinho, Brazil, 1984) and Montoneros, una

História (Andrés di Tella, Argentina, 1995). These films intend to denounce positive

representations of the recent authoritarian regimes, making a historical revision. While the

first two films perform a macro-historical panorama, the last two are engaged in recovering

memories of specific activist groups, reflecting on their own political trajectories. The

selected films of this period were relevant documentaries in their own countries, in the

troubled time of their releases, and have become landmarks of the national documentary

production.

From the period of the 2000s-2010s, I will analyze the films Hércules 56 (Silvio

Da-Rin, Brazil, 2006), M (Nicolás Prividera, Argentina, 2007), Uma Longa Viagem (Lúcia

Murat, Brazil, 2011) and El (Im)posible Olvido (Andrés Habegger, Argentina, 2016).

Hércules 56 performs a mixture of subjective and macro-political analysis of a specific

episode of the Brazilian urban guerrilla movement. M and El (Im)posible Olvido are stories

of the quest of sons of disappeared political militants for answers about their parents. Uma

Argentina and Brazil’s fertile documentary productions over the past two decades, and have

had relevant circulation in film festivals

_{, and occasionally also in the commercial circuit.}

In Chapter 2, I will start with a theoretical consideration of the interpretations of

found footage on documentary studies. By comparing classic and contemporary authors, I

intend to provide a panoramic account of the ways in which this phenomenon has been

understood, provide a brief historical overview of its practices worldwide, and propose a

theoretical framework that will be useful for my own study.

In Chapter 3, I will then proceed to an account of the political history of

Latin-America, and its intimate relation to the development of documentary on the continent, with

special focus to found footage practices. I will thus contextualize the films of this thesis,

explaining their historical and cinematic backgrounds.

In Chapter 4, I will present the research corpus in further detail, and consider the

specific methodological assumptions regarding multimodal argumentation and rhetoric. From

the consideration of the proposals by Tseronis and Forceville (2017), combined with specific

assumptions regarding the nature of found footage films, I will outline an analytical model to

approach the documentaries of this research. My method consists, first, of [1] making an

inventory of all found footage sequences of each film, and then [2] consider their (probable)

original contexts (medium in which they were first presented, year and place of origin) and

[3] the specific interventions made in the archival material in the new film, in order to [4]

outline the rhetorical functions assumed by each sequence. The result of this mapping is in

Tables 1 through 8, in the Appendix section of this thesis.

In Chapters 5 and 6, I will present the film analyses based on this formulated

methodology. The films will be analyzed in chronological order of release year, and

considering the division of the 1980s-1990s and 2000s-2010s periods. After the careful

examination of the particular rhetorical strategies of the use of found footage in each film, in

the Conclusion I will compare resemblances and differences between them, considering the

differences between periods, countries, and individual films.

Chapter 2 – Theoretical Framework on Found Footage

At first, the use of found footage in film can seem a relatively easy concept to define: films

that use images from other films. This practice, however, is part of a history of changes and

different conceptualizations. Practices of reuse of images date back to the early days of

cinema, and have had a historical development mostly alongside documentary and

avant-garde films, although fictional films have also continuously made use of this practice. In the

digital age, the ease of access to archives of different sources and to filmmaking tools has

made the manipulations of found footage only increase in number, variety and complexity.

The act of appropriating images raises questions of different natures, regarding the

indexicality of the film image; the tension between an inherent meaning and the manipulation

on montage; and the relations between film, history and memory. Among the many faces of

this phenomenon, my main focus in this theoretical debate will be on the semantic and

rhetorical functions assumed by the use of found footage in historical documentaries.

I will discuss Jay Leyda (1964) and William C. Wees (1993) as two classic authors of

studies on found footage, with valuable insights, but also limitations. Stella Bruzzi (2006)

deepens the issues raised by the earlier authors, with considerations on the indexicality of the

moving image. Antonio Weinrichter (2009) makes a historical account of the use of found

footage, with interesting conceptual propositions of genre conventions around this practice.

Finally, I will present Jaimie Baron’s (2014) insightful model for understanding

manifestations of found footage in audiovisual materials. In the end of this chapter, I will

present the theoretical assumptions that I share with the authors, and that will serve as basis

for my analytical model.

2.1 – Early Theorists: Leyda and Wees

Jay Leyda is generally regarded as the first scholar to approach found footage films, even

before the term was created. Leyda (1964) traces a history of what he calls the “compilation

film”. The author does not give a precise definition of the term, but his historical description

and analytical focus is on documentary and propaganda films that reuse images from other

sources, mainly newsreels. Leyda provides a valuable historical account of a number of

compilation films that were produced since the early days of cinema, analyzing the changing

tendencies of this particular field of filmmaking across the decades. In his perspective, the

most common use of reappropriated images was for ideological and propaganda purposes.

Leyda recollects two founding stories that assert the centrality of the role of montage

in this practice. He recounts how, in 1898, French projectionist Francis Doublier created a

fake actuality film of the popular Dreyfus Case by combining isolated and generic images,

but describing them to his audience as actual depictions of the event (1964: 13-14). The

second story is of how Edwin S. Porter composed part of his famous The Life of an American

Fireman (1903) from pre-made images of firemen in action, repurposing them for fictional

and dramatic effects (14). These cases reveal how the practice of reusing footage has roots as

old as cinema itself and has also a part in the foundation of narrative cinema.

In Leyda’s perspective, it is the filmmaker’s role to change the meaning of what had

been before shot as a “neutral” actuality footage, shedding new light over previously known

images or events: “Any means by which the spectator is compelled to look at familiar shots

as if he had not seen them before, or by which the spectator’s mind is made more alert to the

broader meanings of old materials – this is the aim of the correct compilation” (45).

Reading another text by Leyda, Bruzzi highlights his definition on the differences

between regular news coverage and cinematic use of actuality footage: while “the newsreel is

limited to showing events, it is the function of a documentary to provide structure and

meaning” (Bruzzi, 2006: 27). In his early consideration of the creative role of montage in the

found footage film, Leyda praises the work of Soviet filmmaker Esfir Shub, generally

considered the first documentarist to make a film entirely out of archival images. Leyda

emphasizes how Shub is able to explicitly remove images from their original, historical

contexts, and edit them in order to “achieve effects of irony, absurdity, pathos and grandeur

that few of the bits had intrinsically” (quoted in Bruzzi, 2006: 27).

Although Leyda provides foundational scholarly work on the matter, his belief in the

neutrality of the original footage is problematic. The insightful focus on the role of montage

ignores a consideration of the original intentionality and political nature of images.

Furthermore, his notion of a “correct” way of creating a supposedly desired effect is too

normative, and does no justice to the multiple uses explored in compilation films.

Furthermore, Leyda gives no attention to the tradition of experimental films, that explored

found footage in more exclusively visual ways, considering them wrongly not interested in

the “content” of the images.

William C. Wees (1993) provides a more comprehensive view on practices of found

footage, yet also charged with problematic judgement values. On a general note, the author

emphasizes the importance of editing in understanding the use of found footage, loosely

based on Eisenstein’s concept of the psychological basis of montage, in which the viewer’s

mind would be strongly inclined to “turn juxtaposed images into something meaningful”

(16). Thus, the associative process of found footage montage

links shots conceptually, metaphorically, and thematically. As each shot contributes to a reading

of the one next to it, so the accumulated readings produce thematic categories or paradigms in

which most if not all of the film’s images fit, no matter how unrelated their original contexts

might have been (15-16).

Wees then proposes a definition of three types of montage of found footage materials,

associated with three genres: compilation (documentary), collage (avant-garde film) and

appropriation (music video).

Borrowing Leyda’s term, Wees defines “compilation” as the standard editing practice

of found footage within documentary filmmaking, in which shots are taken from other films

and organized according to a motivating “concept (theme, argument, story)” (35) and often

accompanied by verbal support. The author suggests that, although these films create

reinterpretations of old images that can be insightful or provocative, they unfortunately do not

question the images themselves as representations of the real world. In his words: “as a rule

they do not make viewers more alert to montage as a method of composition and (more or

less explicit) argument” (36).

Wees’ greatest criticism, however, is of the “appropriation” montage method, which

he considers to be characteristic of music videos. By drawing on the single example of

Michael Jackson’s Man in the Mirror (Don Wilson, 1988), the author generalizes a condition

of a post-modern absence of meaning: “the shot of a nuclear explosion in Michael Jackson’s

music video is simply one image in a stream of recycled images presented with little, if any,

concern for their historical specificity – let alone logical or even chronological connection”

(44).

Wees values the “collage” method of avant-garde films over the other practices,

considering it the most effective way to challenge traditional assumptions about

representation in art:

A creative technique that is also a critical method, collage/montage obliges the audience to

recognize the motivations behind the choice of the elements extracted, as well as the

significance of their juxtaposition (52).

Even though Wees makes clear the different effects of each methodology of editing

(and his preferences), it is not conceptually evident what are the defining aspects that

constitute each practice. He is not clear in how a critical position is achieved by collage films,

and what constitutes their difference to the other two methods. Furthermore, Wees’ scheme is

not only outdated as it is simplistic: he does not consider complexities and fluid borders

within these genres and aesthetic characteristics. There are, for example, documentaries that

flirt with formalist experimentation, experimental films that produce political reflections, and

engaged music videos that respect historical contextualization.

2.2 – Contemporary Insights: Bruzzi, Weinrichter and Baron

Stella Bruzzi (2006) draws a more complex theoretical understanding of found footage in

documentaries. First, she reflects upon the conditions of veracity of the images as documents,

drawing on the impact of the image of JFK’s murder (the “Zapruder footage”) in

North-American society. The author argues that the image feels urgent and real due to its

“combination of the accidental, the amateur and the historically significant event” (18). The

absence of beauty conveys realism, and the perception of the point of view of the amateur

filmmaker puts the viewer in the middle of the action of such a traumatic event.

However, in spite of infinite scrutiny, manipulation and enhancements, the image is

not conclusive to answer the mystery of the president’s assassination, creating a basis for

endless speculation. Bruzzi demonstrates that the veracity of the image is not contained in

itself, and re-use can provide new meanings and interpretations. This relation is not a direct

application of “neutral” original footage into an ideologically charged text, as Leyda and

Wees suggest, but a dialectical relation:

The very ‘unimpeachability’ or stability of the original documents that form the basis for

archival non-fiction films is brought into question; the document – though showing a concluded,

historical event – is not fixed, but is infinitely accessible through interpretation and

recontextualisation, and thus becomes a mutable, not a constant, point of reference. A necessary

dialectic is involved between the factual source and its representation that acknowledges the

limitations as well as the credibility of the document itself. The Zapruder film is factually

accurate, it is not a fake, but it cannot reveal the motive or cause for the actions it shows. The

The author then analyses how this relation is translated in the realm of documentary

filmmaking. Bruzzi differentiates a type of use of archival images that is expository and

illustrative versus a critical approach that favors a more political debate. In the first case, the

images are used in a straightforward manner, inserted and justified in a larger narrative, not

inviting the viewer to question the images themselves. The author focuses on the work of

North American filmmaker Emilio de Antonio to elaborate on a more critical form of using

found footage. She defines de Antonio’s films as “formally radical and rooted in the idea that

meaning is constructed through editing” (28). Without using voice-over, it is the way in

which different materials are juxtaposed that provokes effects of contradiction, irony and

satire over powerful figures:

One vivid, consistent facet of de Antonio’s work is that his collage method does not attack hate

figures such as Richard Nixon, Joseph McCarthy or Colonel Patton directly, but rather gives

them enough rope by which to hang themselves – turning often favourable original footage in on

itself (29).

Bruzzi concludes that de Antonio’s method makes explicit how images are open to

manipulation, and that “the historical event does not only reside in the past but is inevitably

connected to the present” (30). Furthermore, the author emphasizes the role of the film

structure in the understanding of an old image: “Contextualisation, not merely the image

itself, can create meaning; history (…) is perpetually modified by its re-enactment in the

present.” (36)

Antonio Weinrichter (2009) intends to provide a broad historical and theoretical

perspective of found footage films, considering the lack of a comprehensive account of the

subject. The author traces a historical genealogy of different strategies of uses of found

footage in the traditions of fiction film, documentary, and avant-garde. Despite his global

intentions, Weinrichter is mostly centered in practices made in Europe and the United States,

with few mentions to filmmakers from other regions. Nevertheless, he provides a valuable

historical account and interesting conceptual propositions.

Regarding the development of the use of found footage in documentary, Weinrichter

traces the changes from the Soviet experiments and expressive montage to an increasingly

propagandistic use during the First and Second World Wars. The author notes that this

confluence between propaganda, ideology and found footage created early standard practices

for the reuse of archival images in documentaries, which constituted a few genre conventions

for historical documentaries based on found footage (which he also calls “compilation film”).

These practices were later parodied and subverted, and the contemporary digital scene

fundamentally changes the relation to filmmakers and archives, which become ever more

object of sampling and bricolage practices.

Throughout his analysis, Weinrichter reaffirms the centrality of editing as a constant

amongst a wide variety of practices. He creates a comparison between montage and a

traffic warden that orders and controls the meanings of the shots, making them occupy a spot in

a metonymic chain. The chain is broken when an image is removed from this context, and the

meaning of the image becomes free, potential and floating, until it occupies a spot in a new

chain (46, my translation, JPD).

With the further development of documentary practices, Weinrichter suggests three

types of compilation films. First, the ones made in war times, with propaganda or

counter-propaganda purposes. Second, films made in “ends of epochs”, such as periods of wars or

dictatorships, in which filmmakers intend to recover history from the single perspective

imposed by totalitarian regimes, often using images in the opposite sense than the originally

intended in order to dismantle their discourses. Third, “retrospective” films that recover past

times, but are not necessarily connected to immediate events or contexts.

Weinrichter also defines genre conventions of the “modern compilation film”. He

argues that there is a new dominant way of dealing with archives, which is to let them

“speak” for themselves, rejecting the traditional expositional commentary. The author

characterizes an “open relation” with the archive: “If the classic compiler fixed a reading of

an image through the commentary, the modern prefers to destabilize an image’s meaning”

(104, my translation, JPD). This way, Weinrichter suggests that the modern compilation film,

at the same time, maintains the integrity of the image and manipulates it. The integrity of the

image is present in the avoidance of overtly didactic commentaries, but the manipulation of

images increases along with reflections on their materiality and indexicality.

Although not sharing an overarching historical account as Weinrichter’s, Jaimie

Baron (2014) provides a theoretical model for found footage practices that is comprehensive

and analytically rigorous. The author adopts the term “appropriation film” for any

audiovisual product that uses found footage, in a context of growing multiplicity of image

sources and forms of reuse in the digital age. The term “found footage” is also chosen in

place of “archival footage”, for example, because of the emphasis on the “foundness”, as an

element that denotes that an image was not produced by the filmmaker, but was found

(whether in an archive, on the street, or on the internet).

Baron centers the definition of “archive” not in the images themselves, but in the

relation between images, film discourse and the experience of the spectator. She argues that a

spectator watches an appropriation film and recognizes some image as archival, which then

produces a specific form of apprehension of the image, “the archive effect”. The recognition

of the “archivalness” of an image can be generated by the perception of “temporal disparity”

and/or of “intentional disparity” of a particular image within a film text itself.

Temporal disparity is the perception of elements that indicate the image was produced

in a different time. Such elements can be in the image’s content; visual elements that show

signs from a different time, such as the fashion style of people on screen, or general urban

aspects that have changed in a city landscape. The elements can be also part of the materiality

of the image, as spectators are used to recognize signs of different temporalities inscribed on

the film material (particular colors, film scratches, sound quality, etc).

Intentional disparity is the recognition of elements that indicate the image was

produced with a different intention than the one in which it is being used in the new film.

Baron gives the example of an insurgent video made by Iraqis bombing a North-American

truck, used in a US documentary about the Iraq war: this footage is not from a different time

of the rest of the film, but the way in which it is employed makes it clear that it was shot by

different people, and with a different purpose. The recognition is partially made through

extratextual knowledge, as the spectator should be able to infer an original context in which

an image had been used, through elements within the image itself.

necessarily related to the “authenticity” of the image, and so fictional films or

mockumentaries are also able to produce archive effects by precisely playing on the

conventions of archival films.

Baron analyses the relation of appropriation films with the creation of images and

reflections of the past under the frame of Hayden White’s historiographic theory of the

writing of History as narrative. White argues that the documents are not representative in

themselves of historical truths, and thus the writing of History is not an objective

reconstruction of facts based on archival research. Rather, he draws attention to how

historians often use literary tropes in their narratives – such as metaphor, metonymy, irony –

establishing creative connections between dispersed elements from their contact with the

archives. Ultimately, he argues that historians structure their whole works in terms of literary

genres, such as romances and satires.

Baron relates this historiographical approach to an explicit practice of narrativization

of the archive. She notes that the very nature of the moving image archive is even more

resistant to a single interpretation, when compared to more traditional kinds of documents.

The moving image can contain in itself a wide variety of non-intentional visual or semantic

elements, which have the potential of being reappropriated and repurposed. On this note, the

author characterizes a paradoxical nature of the archive, as being constituted by both absence

and excess:

A filmmaker (or even all of the filmmakers of the world combined) can never use all of the

indexical traces of the past in one film or even in many films. Every document is always only a

fragment of the vast trove of indexical recordings scattered throughout the world in physical or

digital form. At the same time, however, there are certain gaps in the archive – whether records

never made, lost or discarded, or gradually degraded or disintegrated over time (110).

Ultimately, Baron has the goal of analyzing how films generate conceptions about the

past by looking at how they appropriate images. From mainstream historical documentaries

that create engaging sequences manipulating their archival sources in rhythmic successions,

to highly deconstructive experimental works that reflect on the materiality of the archive

itself, appropriation films have infinite possibilities of dealing with the scattered audiovisual

registers of the past.

2.3 – Theoretical Assumptions

I consider that Baron’s focus on the textual construction of films, alongside the experience of

reception, is a powerful framework that allows for an understanding of a wide-range of uses

of found footage. I will use her concept of “found footage”, also considering the term

“archival images” as a synonym, for avoiding repetition. I will also use the term

“appropriation film”.

Baron’s specific attention to the spectator’s apprehension is well-suited for a

combination with the cognitive approach of the multimodal rhetoric analysis over the films of

this research. However, I intend to be more context-specific regarding the national and

historical backgrounds of the films.

I assume, along with Bruzzi, that the possible objective elements from an image are in

dialectic relation to its new context of use. No image is neutral in itself, but its original

intentions are subject to interference and change once it is set in a new audiovisual text. I also

assume, along with Baron, that the viewer is confronted with the possibility of at least

vaguely inferring the original intentionality and temporality of a found footage. This

information is put in play with the other elements from the new film in which it is inserted

(juxtaposing scenes, voice-over, visual or sound effects…). Thus, I shall focus on the textual

analysis to see how the reuse of images happens and what rhetorical function it acquires in

the selected Argentinian and Brazilian historical documentaries.

Despite their differences, all the selected authors have highlighted the importance of

montage in films that work with found footage. It is by the essential operation of juxtaposing

the appropriated images into a different filmic discourse that new ideas are generated into and

through old materials. My method of analysis will privilege mapping the aesthetic

audiovisual operations made on the archival images, and the narrative context that is

constructed around and by them, in order to understand what are their rhetorical functions in

the films.

Weinrichter has explored the political and ideological uses of found footage in

documentaries, but he was mostly focused on Europe and the United States. The historically

close connection between appropriation films and political disputes is also a fact in Latin

American filmmaking, given the continent’s troubled history. Based on Luna and Sourdis’

understanding that “a specifically Latin American approach to found footage has hardly been

explored and remains ignored in the great majority of texts” (2015: 53), I intend to consider

how the textual constructions of the films create specific political meanings in the Latin

American context. Significantly, the authors propose that “found footage itself appears to

become the ideal medium through which to express the tribulations of a fragmented nation”

(61).

Chapter 3 – Latin America: Historical Overview

and Documentary Practices

In this chapter, I will go over a brief panoramic account of Latin American political history

since the beginning of the 20

_{century, along with a consideration of the development of}

documentary practices in the period. Any exercise of comparative history has the risk of

superficiality. My goal here is therefore to provide a general overview of some of the

historical landmarks and political tendencies of this time in Latin America, and what was

cinema’s relation to them, with special focus to Argentinian and Brazilian contexts, and to

found footage documentary film practices.

3.1 – Early 20th Century: The Impact of the Mexican Revolution

The political history of Latin America in the 20

_{century is marked by periods of unstable}

democratic experiences, alternating and coexisting with military dictatorships. “As the 20

century opened, the most prevalent regime types were military dictatorship – exemplified by

that of Porfirio Díaz in Mexico and after 1908 Juan Vicente Gómez in Venezuela – and

civilian oligarchy – as in Chile, Argentina, Brazil, or Colombia” (Lockhart, Bushnell et al,

2019: 4).

The Mexican Revolution (1910 – 1920) was the first major political event of the

century in the region, that also had important consequences in cinematic practices. In 1910,

Francisco Madero contested the authoritarian rule of General Porfirio Díaz, who was in

charge since 1884. What began as an electoral conflict inspired the uprising of different

social groups and movements, following the contestation of the antidemocratic regime and

fighting for social reforms. A bloody civil war that lasted most of the decade took place, but

ended with the establishment of a democratic constitution in 1917 and the implementation of

the land reform in 1934. Since then, Mexico has been a long-lasting democracy, an exception

in the continent.

Burton (1990) describes how Porfirio Díaz invested heavily in the production of

positive official news footage with propaganda purposes. The rise of the revolution

stimulated new styles of filming, as the freedom from the authoritarian regime brought new

approaches on previously neglected social subjects and issues:

The outbreak of the revolution (…) transformed the way the film medium was used in Mexico.

High angles, immobile cameras, and long shots of indigenous peoples performing and workers

parading before a Europeanized oligarchy, gave way to shots of swirling masses in motion on

their own behalf (13).

Paranaguá (2003) further suggests that the Mexican Revolution had a “multiplying

effect” over Latin American documentary practices, similarly to the impact of the First World

War in Europe. Both authors recount how the vastness of images produced by Díaz’s regime

became sources that were reused in early forms of appropriation film practices. The most

notorious example is the film Memorias de un Mexicano (Carmen Toscano, 1950), that

provocatively repurposed the official State footage, along with the celebration of the images

of the combatants of the Revolution. Wood (2011) further explores how this film helped

consolidate key images of the revolution in Mexican national memory, while it also served as

source for future more radical filmmakers who contested the appraisal for the revolution, as

in Raymundo Gleyzer’s Mexico: la Revolución Congelada (1970).

3.2 – Mid-20th Century: Cinemas of Populism and Revolution

Latin America’s condition between democratic and authoritarian practices is also translated

in the phenomenon of “populism”. Populist leaders dominated part of the continent’s political

landscape in the mid-20

_{century, manipulating democratic instruments to maintain their}

power. They practiced a strong nationalist policy of internal investments on industrialization,

along with the extension of social guarantees and labor rights. These measures provided them

great popular support, which was then used for further deepening their powers, often making

use of authoritarian measures. Its most prominent examples are Juan Domingos Perón, who

ruled over Argentina between 1946 and 1955, and Getúlio Vargas, who became president of

Brazil after the deposition of former oligarch leaders in 1930. From 1937 to 1945, he

suspended elections and conducted an authoritarian regime of fascist inspiration.

Populist leaders employed incisive strategies of mass communication in order to

maintain their popular support. Radio provided the primary daily contact with the population,

but cinema also became a key part of the communication structure. State filmmaking of

actualities gained a central role, mostly with propaganda purposes, but also educational and

institutional uses. Paranaguá describes that newsreels were mostly State-mediated and with

national circulation. The author points out the limitations of these dominant practices of

actuality filmmaking: “the camera avoids ominous and worrisome issues, the always delayed

urgencies of societies stuck in social immobility” (2003: 38, my translation, JPD).

Newsreel production in Latin America was not exclusive to populist national contexts.

With the increasing presence of the United States’ cultural and political influence with the

“Good Neighbor Policy” under Franklin Roosevelt, North American newsreels also began to

have widespread circulation, with a network of 16mm production and distribution. In

addition, newsreels were part of the Cuban State communication strategy after the 1959

Socialist Revolution. International Cold War conflicts were thus materialized in the dynamics

of the production and circulation of newsreels.

This context formed some famous Latin American documentarists, who began their

careers working in newsreels. It is the case of Santiago Álvarez, in Cuba, the most famous

Latin American found footage filmmaker. Paranaguá recounts how Álvarez was in charge of

editing the Noticiero ICAIC Latinoamericano, in which agitation, propaganda and

experimentalism coexisted. From the practice of editing these films, Álvarez learned to

assemble creatively and critically a multitude of diverse materials, which were later explored

in his experimental found footage documentaries:

The shortage and difficulty of access to images lead to practices of recovery and diversion of a

peculiar material, composed by extracts of other newsreels, press pictures, TV programs or

Hollywood films. Santiago Álvarez is not satisfied in using this material, as he also transforms

and alters it, integrating it in his own film’s movement through techniques that belonged to

animation cinema. Furthermore, he inserts titles, instead of the traditional voice-over

commentary. The intertitles become graphic, optic and rhythmic devices (2003: 46, my

The second half of the 20

_{century in Latin America was also characterized by the}

rise of military dictatorships. Brazil lived a brief democratic experience between 1946 and

1964, a period in which attempts at creating political stability were thwarted by increasing

social polarization between sectors that wished more open economic and political relations to

the US, those that were in favor of more nationalist approaches, and minor socialist groups.

Vargas came back to power elected in 1954, and Kornis (2012) analyses how he reused

images produced during his authoritarian years for his democratic presidential campaign, an

early case of image reappropriation in Brazil. In 1964, Vargas’ political heir João Goulart

defended deeper social and economic reforms, which were seen by the local elites as a

“communist threat”. He was deposed by a military coup in 1964, which suspended the

Constitution and gave start to a formal dictatorship that lasted until 1985.

In Argentina, Perón faced a similar opposition to middle and upper class social sectors

that did not approve of his economic policies and demagogical leadership. He was deposed

by a military coup in 1955, which then started a period of instability and political alternation

between fragile democratic interludes (1958 – 1966; 1973 – 1976) and military dictatorships

(1955 – 1958; 1966 – 1973; 1976 – 1983) in the country. The 1970s were the most unstable

period, as the second military government faced great opposition from leftist Peronist

movements, and eventually gave way to democratic elections and the return of Perón himself

from exile. He ruled until his death in 1974, followed by his wife Isabela Perón, who lacked

popular support and was deposed by the 1976 military coup.

In Chile, the 1973 military coup was a reaction to the democratic government of

socialist Salvador Allende, which gave way to Augusto Pinochet’s dictatorship until 1990.

Uruguay, between 1973 – 1985, and Paraguay, between 1954 – 1989, went through similar

dictatorial experiences.

Politically, the South American military regimes have been characterized as systems

of “bureaucratic authoritarianism”. As put succinctly by Lockhart, Bushnell et al, “[w]hile

military men kept order with varying degrees of harshness and human rights violations,

civilian economists and technocrats would direct most other policy” (2019: 5). From an

assumption of rationalization and acceleration of economic growth, political rights and social

liberties were curbed. Opposition against the regimes was manifested in engaged artistic

productions and in the formation of left-wing groups of armed resistance. The dictatorships

responded with heavy censorship and repression, including practices of arrest, torture and

“disappearances”, many of which remain unsolved or unpunished until today.

Burton characterizes the period of the 1950s and 60s as a political and cultural turning

point in Latin America. Cineclub culture spread over the continent, along with the creation of

film festivals, magazines and film schools. This landscape brought new influences for

documentary filmmaking. Italian Neorealism’s humane themes and aesthetic strategies of

realism had profound impact on Latin American directors, inspired by a form of production

that had low budget and was able to address social questions. In addition, Burton points out

that the established tradition of European political documentary only started to circulate in

Latin America in the 1950s. The Soviet avant-garde, and the direct contact with engaged

documentary pioneer John Grierson, and radically left-wing Joris Ivens stimulated

filmmakers to explore new forms of dealing with material shot from reality. Paranaguá also

remarks the impact of the innovations brought by the cinema verité and direct cinema in the

late 1960s. The possibility of synchronized sound provided greater freedom to the camera and

added a new dimension to the role of language, which became a symbol of the search for the

authenticity of social discourses and national identity.

These influences were incorporated and radicalized, as the development of cinema

practices in 1960s Latin America generated the “Third Cinema” movement. This broad label

defines fictional and documentary films made by politically engaged filmmakers that

translated left-wing social-political preoccupations into cinematic narratives and aesthetics

that were often innovative, and always engaged with their social realities. The films

denounced the general conditions of exploration and profound inequality in Latin American

countries, while they also searched for expressions of nationhood and self-determination.

The development of new technologies, on one side, and political polarization, on the other,

result in the positioning of most of the documentarists as an alternative to the dominant

discourse. Thus, documentary assumes a function of providing counter-information and raising

awareness, inseparably connected to the establishment of new distribution circuits, other than

commercial film theaters (Paranaguá, 2003: 54, my translation, JPD).

La hora de los hornos (Octavio Getino and Fernando Solanas, Argentina, 1968) was

an urgent response to the second Argentinian military coup, and became the most notorious

example of Third Cinema worldwide. It is a documentary that uses found footage as

structuring element of its narrative. The epic ambition of portraying a panorama of the

Argentinian (and Latin American) condition is fueled by the use of a multitude of images

from newsreels, films from other directors, and even paintings that trace back the history of

colonization. The images are guided by an omnipresent voice-over narration that recounts the

continent’s history, exposing its inequalities and directly calling the people to fight. The tone

of the film is assertive, accompanied by occasional moments of radical experimentalism in

the montage. “A didactic film that offers a revision of Argentine history meant to inspire

revolutionary commitment to armed struggle, La hora demanded an active spectator who

would engage with the film’s images and messages both affectively and intellectually”

(Arenillas and Lazarra, 2016: 3). While the film is exemplary of Third Cinema’s militant

engagement, it also reveals the movement’s inherent contradiction between the revolutionary

intentions and an elitist intellectual posture.

3.3 – Turn of the Century: Historical Revisions and the “Subjective Turn”

Only after years of repression and with the world economic crisis of the late 1970s and 80s,

the military regimes lost general social and political support, and became susceptible to

popular pressures, which led to redemocratization. In contrast with the militant engagement

from the 1960s, the disillusionment with the revolutionary perspectives set the tone of the

film production in the transitional years, until today, with a different set of preoccupations

and focuses, as Arenillas and Lazarra (2016) point out:

transitions to democracy; truth commissions; persistent socioeconomic inequality; continued

battles over memory and justice; struggles for gender equality, sexual rights, and equal access to

education; as well as the return to power of leftist governments and political actors who just two

decades earlier were brutally persecuted (5).

Latin American documentary filmmaking today is diverse and in dialogue with global trends.

(…) Cross-border concerns, identity politics, transnational flows, and a questioning of the

relationship between local memories and global histories now all play a role (7).

Found footage film practices in the 1980s and 90s were aligned with these

perspectives and specially marked by historical revisions, as in Weinrichter’s account of the

films made in “end of epochs”. Filmmakers set out to question the official histories

perpetrated by the military regimes, exploring images produced by newsreels, by the state,

and by activists. In Brazil, Silvio Tendler narrates the lives of two past democratic presidents,

while also criticizing the fading regime, in Os anos JK (1981) and Jango (1984). In

Argentina, Miguel Pérez’s La República Perdida (1983) and La República Perdida 2 (1986)

recount the political history of the country from a left-wing perspective. Other documentaries

of this tendencies are Evita, quien quiera oír, que oiga (Eduardo Mignogna, Argentina,

1984), a portrait of the mythical first lady, and Jânio a 24 Quadros (Luiz Alberto Pereira,

Brazil, 1981), an ironical take on another former president.

Other filmmakers distanced themselves even more from the militant assertiveness

from the past, exploring the nuances and contradictions in the memories of different social

groups in remembering the authoritarian past. In Brazil, Eduardo Coutinho approaches the

peasant movements of the 1960s in Cabra Marcado para Morrer (1984). In Argentina,

Andrés di Tella and David Blaustein recover the life stories of the urban armed resistance

groups in Montoneros, una Historia (1995) and Cazadores de Utopías (1995), respectively.

Later, Silvio Da-Rin performs a similar investigation in Hércules 56 (2006). Far from the

revolutionary times, these films explore how the former members of these radical movements

see their actions in the present.

The deepening of subjective approaches over the years is related to the concept of a

“subjective turn” in documentary:

the consolidation of neoliberalism caused critics like Beatriz Sarlo to speak of a “subjective

turn” – a restored confidence in the subject’s right to speak – that both interfaces with and

channels struggles for equality and rights by subaltern actors. (…) This insistence on the

subjective (…) certainly has to do with rights-based claims by individuals and groups, but it

may also be telling us something important about the nature of the globalized, neoliberal era in

which we live: a time in which individualism is rampant, and social media or reality TV, among

other media, bombard us daily with first-person constructs (Arenillas and Lazarra, 2016: 5).

A new wave of Latin American appropriation documentaries is part of this tendency,

specially films made by the sons and daughters of militants that disappeared during the

regimes. These films employ self-reflective strategies in narratives of personal searches for

family and individual identity, amongst memories of the historical past. Seliprandy (2018)

makes an inventory and analysis of such “intergenerational memory” documentaries. In

Argentina, relevant examples are Los Rubios (Albertina Carri, 2003), Papá Iván (María Inés

Roqué, 2004), M (Nicolás Prividera, 2007) and El (Im)posible Olvido (Andrés Habegger,

2016). In Brazil, we could cite Diário de uma Busca (Flávia Castro, 2010), Marighella (Isa

Grinspum Ferraz, 2011), Elena (Petra Costa, 2012) and, on a similar note, Uma Longa

Viagem (Lúcia Murat, Brazil, 2011).

Other films continued to use found footage to explore broad political contexts, now

mixed with more subjective approaches. Eduardo Galeano conducts a historical overview of

the fading century in El Silgo del Viento (Fernando Birri, Argentina, 1999). Silvio Tendler

made an epic panorama of the 20

_{and 21}

_{centuries in Utopia e Barbárie (Brazil, 2009).}

Albertina Carri radicalizes the crossing between intergenerational and national memory in

Cuatreros (2016). João Moreira Salles rethinks the achievements of the 1968 cultural

revolutions in No Intenso Agora (Brazil, 2017).

Araújo (2008) characterizes the contemporary political situation and challenges of

Latin America as follows:

The region is target of great changes from the 1980s. The dictatorships fell with the exception of

Cuba, we have a working electoral calendar and there is the emergence of new social

movements and political actors, many of them connected to ethnic groups. In several cases,

these movements have presented radical militarist and nationalist perspectives, creating new

room for uncertainties, and, in other cases, the organized crime and the guerrilla bring

unprecedented apprehensions. The challenges are proportional to the democratic novelty lived

by most of the countries. Facing this context, some voices, identified as left-wing or right-wing,

point out the necessity of new centralized and authoritarian policies, as solutions to handle the

uncertainties of democracy or as something indispensable to contain the popular and populist

movements (321, my translation, JPD).

Although the remarks are more than ten years old, the author is precise in

characterizing a growing movement of popular suspicion towards recent democratic and

social justice advances. This tendency is directly related to a recent right-wing turn in

Latin-American politics, with the examples of the election of Mauricio Macri in Argentina in 2015,

and Jair Bolsonaro in Brazil in 2018.

A change of political momentum brings out new revisions of the historical past: on

April 2019, a Brazilian right-wing Youtube channel posted 1964 – O Brasil entre armas e

livros (Filipe Valerim and Lucas Ferrugem, 2019). The documentary reached 4.5 million

views in one week online, and generated controversy for its questioning of the military

dictatorship. The film gathers archival images, interviews with right-wing writers and

journalists, and a voice-over narration that guides the viewer over a new positive

interpretation of the regime. 1964 minimizes its atrocities, justifies the actions of the military

under the threat of communism, and discredits all left-wing movements of the time. Despite

its clear ideological positioning, the film unethically advocates itself as a neutral

documentary. This is an urgent example of how history and memory are part of constant

social and political struggles, and how found footage can be used to frame and manipulate

different perspectives over the same historical events.

Chapter 4 – Research Corpus and Methodology

4.1 – Research Corpus

I will investigate the argumentative role of found footage in historical documentaries made in

Brazil and Argentina, as there is a proximity of historical developments and cinematic

practices in these countries. I use the term “historical documentaries” to refer to films that

represent situations from the past that have a more or less direct relation to macro-political

events. I will focus on films that address the history of the military regimes.

The research focus is to analyze how are archival images used to build film discourses

about events from the past. How did these historical documentaries use found footage as

narrative and argumentative devices? What are the rhetorical functions of the archival images

in the construction of arguments about the historical past?

Even though the 1960s and 1970s constituted a deeply engaged political moment in

Latin America, documentary production in Argentina and Brazil did not make much use of

found footage before the 1980s, only in isolated experiences. So, within this geographical and

genre scope, I will mainly investigate two periods: the transitional years from military

dictatorship to democracy in the 1980s and 1990s, in which the urgent matters are to deal

with the traumas of the recent authoritarian regimes and a revision of the perpetrated official

history; and the contemporary democratic experiences of the 2000s and 2010s, in which the

“subjective turn” of documentary is manifested, with individual investigations that mix

personal life stories and historical developments. Within the challenging political context of

democracies in formation, these decades showcase a flourishing of documentary practices in

these countries. In both periods, there is a common tone of disillusionment with the previous

militant posture that marked the 1960s, usually accompanied, nonetheless, by the search for

new forms of social and political engagement.

While the borders of such periodization may be fluid, I hope precisely to illuminate

similarities and differences between the countries and periods through comparative

interpretation. I will focus on the way found footage is employed in the film, and on how they

contribute with the creation of an argument about a historical moment. To do so, I will

analyze two films from each country, in each period, in the chronological order of their

releases. Diagram 1 presents basic information about the films, and the abbreviation of the

titles that I will adopt for the Tables, Charts and running text:

Diagram 1: Film corpus of the research

Period

Year Country Title

Director

Abbreviation

1980s and 1990s 1983 Argentina La República Perdida

Miguel Pérez

LRP

1984 Brazil

Jango

Silvio Tendler

J

1984 Brazil

Cabra Marcado para Morrer Eduardo Coutinho CMPM

1995 Argentina Montoneros, una História

Andrés di Tella

MUH

2000s and 2010s 2006 Brazil

Hércules56

Silvio Da-Rin

H

2007 Argentina M

Nicolás Prividera

M

2011 Brazil

Uma Longa Viagem

Lúcia Murat

ULV

2016 Argentina El (Im)posibleOlvido

Andrés Habegger EIO

Through this selection of films, I intend to provide a panorama of different

approaches to history made by Argentinian and Brazilian documentaries in these periods. I

have chosen films that make compelling use of found footage materials, and that work as

examples of tendencies of the documentaries of the time, as I have described in section 3.3.

In the 1980s and 1990s period, La República Perdida and Jango are classic political

documentaries that are structured by newsreel and state found footage, accompanied by a

dominant voice-over that narrates macro-political events of Argentina and Brazil. Cabra

Marcado para Morrer and Montoneros, una História are films that get closer to individuals

in order to explore the impacts of the military regimes in particular groups. While Coutinho

approaches the peasant movements and di Tella the urban guerrilleros, both films explore the

individual perspectives with depth and intimacy, far from Third Cinema’s radicalism.

Coutinho structures his documentary over images from an unfinished 1964 fiction feature,

and di Tella uses a multitude of archival images from the 1970s to accompany the

contemporary testimonials.

From the 2000s and 2010s period, Hércules 56 is also an investigation on the

reflections and memories of former militants, that combines multiple perspectives over the

guerrilla kidnapping of the US ambassador in Brazil in 1969. The film is very much

concerned in recovering a wide array of found footage surrounding the event. M and El

(Im)posible Olvido are films made by sons of disappeared parents, structured as first-person

investigations that are fundamentally moved by scattered archival materials. Uma Longa

Viagem is a similar effort of familiar memory and subjective narrative, but centered on the

different lives of three siblings. This film features an actor that reenacts past letters from the

director’s brother, exploring archival sources in an unusual way.

Hence, all of these films rely on archival materials as important narrative and

aesthetic elements. Through formal analysis, I will compare the rhetorical functions assumed

by the found footage in each film.

4.2 – Multimodal Argumentation and Rhetoric

My investigation of the argumentative role of found footage in the research corpus will be

guided by the multimodal argumentation and rhetoric studies. Tseronis and Forceville (2017)

understand that communication is possible via the combination of different semiotic modes:

“written language, spoken language, static images, moving images, music, non-verbal sound,

gestures, gaze, and posture” (5). The authors then define multimodal argumentation as “a

rational and social activity, in which two or more modes play a role in the procedure of

advancing a standpoint and testing its acceptability” (5). If arguments are understood firstly

as a cognitive category, and not a verbal one, then images themselves can constitute

argumentative propositions.

Films, as complex multimodal texts, are able to articulate images in ways that

communicate abstract conceptions, or construe arguments, independently of or along with

verbal manifestations. Several factors play a role in the close reading of a film: visual

elements such as framing, composition, color, movement; and sound elements such as music,

dialogue and sound effects. Tseronis and Forceville emphasize that “[c]hoices made at each

of the context in which a message is communicated. In this regard, Nichol’s concept of

“evidentiary editing” is useful to understand how documentary montage typically “organizes

cuts within a scene to present the impression of a single, convincing proposal supported by

logic” (2017: 18), instead of the fictional creation of time and space continuity. Thus,

Tseronis and Forceville propose to “study documentary film as a media genre in which the

filmmaker exploits dialogue, image, and sound, and makes choices regarding the editing of

the material and the cinematography in order to argue for a standpoint” (2017: 13).

Found footage provides yet another contextual and genre layer to the films I will

analyze. As described in the development of found footage practices in US and Europe by

Weinrichter (2009), and in Latin America by Burton (1990) and Paranaguá (2003), the use of

archival images is commonplace practice in historical documentaries, and carries with it

specific conventions and characteristics. We could cite as classic practices the propaganda

use of found footage, the voice-over narration providing meaning to historical images, and

the ironical subversion of political images. Baron’s (2014) concepts of intentional and

temporal disparities as constituent traits of found footage are also fundamental tools for

identifying and interpreting them: the spectator infers a different original intention and/or

time period in which an image was produced, through the (cognitive) apprehension of

particular material and/or content characteristics on the image and sound.

4.3 – Comparable Questions Scheme

As the selected documentaries often use a wide number of images edited together, it is not

productive to look at individual shots. Thus, my strategy of analysis will be to focus on

groups of images that together constitute sequences of found footage material. To each and

every found footage sequence of each film, I have asked the same set of questions, in order to

identify patterns, and have a broad picture of the ways in which found footage is used. I have

elaborated the questions bearing in mind the conventions of the use of found footage, and

taking Baron’s model as a tool for identifying and classifying them. The mapping of

sequences of each film and their categorization is presented on Tables 1 through 8, in the

Appendix section of this thesis.

The listing of sequences for each film refers exclusively to the ones that contain some

element of found footage. It is, therefore, not a complete account of all the film, but is

restricted to all, and only all the sequences that present some archival element. The definition

of sequences can be tricky because, for example, the transition between them can contain an

audio or image overlap, instead of a clear cut. In general, my criteria for defining when a

sequence starts and finishes is determined firstly by the logical or rhetorical unity of

discourse (traditional documentary film standard), and secondly by space and time unity

(traditional fiction film standard). For analytical reasons, a part of the film that could be

considered a sequence – because it continues the same theme – might be analytically “split”,

because different styles of found footage images, or of their usage, are better understood

when divided. Similarly, sometimes a multitude of images of different origins is put together

in a short interval to create a unique idea, to serve a single rhetorical function. I have tried to

make these decisions clear in the Tables.

In the tables, I have first inserted descriptive information that helps to localize the

sequences in the film. Firstly, I have given a number for identifying each sequence, labeled