Copyright by Laura Mareike Sager 2006 - The University of Texas at ...
Copyright by Laura Mareike Sager 2006 - The University of Texas at ...
Copyright by Laura Mareike Sager 2006 - The University of Texas at ...
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An example <strong>of</strong> <strong>at</strong>tributive ekphrasis may be found in Alfonso Plou’s<br />
drama Goya (1996), which represents several Goya pictures in brief tableaux<br />
vivants th<strong>at</strong> function as background to the main action and illustr<strong>at</strong>e an episode <strong>of</strong><br />
Goya’s life. 57 <strong>The</strong> play takes place after Goya’s de<strong>at</strong>h, when he is visited <strong>by</strong><br />
several <strong>of</strong> his friends, with whose help he recre<strong>at</strong>es and recounts his life. Often, he<br />
or one <strong>of</strong> his friends reads from Goya’s letters, while other actors represent a<br />
painting rel<strong>at</strong>ed to the scene described in the letter, in the form <strong>of</strong> a tableau vivant.<br />
This is the case, for example, with the painting La familia del Infante Luis, which<br />
is mentioned in the excerpt from Goya’s letter without details about its<br />
composition, but its simultaneous represent<strong>at</strong>ion in the background helps the<br />
spect<strong>at</strong>or visualize the image and imagine its characters (97-98).<br />
Similarly, in Jean-Luc Godard’s A bout de soufflé (1959), several images<br />
are integr<strong>at</strong>ed into the narr<strong>at</strong>ive or even into the dialog between the two<br />
protagonists, P<strong>at</strong>ricia and Michel. 58 When P<strong>at</strong>ricia says dreamingly, “I wish we<br />
were Romeo and Juliet,” Picasso’s Les Amoureux (1923), which hangs over her<br />
bed as a postcard, fills the screen momentarily. <strong>The</strong> use <strong>of</strong> this image as<br />
commentary not only adds tension to their dialog <strong>by</strong> underscoring the<br />
protagonists’ different sensibilities, but it also adds a conflict or contradiction<br />
between three different images, Picasso’s painting, a (mental) image <strong>of</strong> Romeo<br />
and Juliet, and the film image <strong>of</strong> P<strong>at</strong>ricia and Michel. <strong>The</strong>se images provide three<br />
different concepts <strong>of</strong> rel<strong>at</strong>ionships, one loving and harmonious, one loving yet<br />
57 Alfonso Plou, “Goya,” A la Mesa de los tres reyes: Buñuel, Lorca y Dalí. Goya. Rey Sancho<br />
(Zaragoza: Diputación Provincial de Zaragoza, 2000) 87-146.<br />
58 A bout de soufflé, dir. Jean-Luc Godard, perf. Georges de Beauregard, François Truffaut, Jean-<br />
Paul Belmondo, Liliane David, and Jean Seberg, 1960, DVD, WinStar TV & Video, 2001.<br />
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