Film Stills

The term “film still” only acquired a meaning with the invention of the cinematograph. The captured image had to move before we felt the need to stop it, as though the flow of images trapped us in a kind of dream that would not let us think freely. Some historians trace the critique of this hypnotic nature of images to the simile of the Platonic cave. The controversy surrounding animal locomotion and its representation occupied thinkers such as Plato or Aristotle, and goes back to Ancient Egypt, if not the caveman. E. Muybridge and E. Jules Marey took an interest and, with their cronophotographic images, settled the issue for once and for all.

Here, we analyse some historical aspects of the old relation between still and moving images. This piece is related to the 2017 Panoràmic Festival (Granollers), which explores the relation between cinema and photography, and promotes the search for new audiovisual languages and narratives (http://panoramicgranollers.cat).

Related to Soy Cámara online

9 February 2018