ABSTRACTS

Matthijs Engelberts (Universiteit van Amsterdam)
Beckett and Cinema

    The critical understanding of Beckett’s view of cinematography is primarily based on Beckett’s Film. However, from Beckett’s early letter to Eisenstein in the thirties up to his attitude towards filming his plays, there are quite some traces of Beckett’s ideas on the art of cinema and its development. In this presentation, I intend to determine to what degree it is possible to speak of a more or less coherent theory in Beckett’s approach of cinema. Special attention will be given to the question whether this approach is based on the assumption of the specificity of cinematic art and its medium. In the wake of this question, it is interesting to situate Beckett’s approach within the larger field of cinematic and aesthetic theory, which has subsequently, in some cases, drawn on Beckett’s work to illustrate theoretical positions.