DEATH IN LIFE/LIFE IN DEATH: TWO FILM IMAGES OFATROCITY
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.2025/w03d2555Keywords:
Visual Metaphor, Judith Butler, Gilles Fauconnier, Michel Foucault, Nanjing Massacre, Nazi Holocaust, Susan Sontag, Mark TurnerAbstract
This study explores the unique visual metaphor of living victims of atrocity being posed as dead victims of atrocity, and vice versa. The films in question are the 2011 U.S./Chinese feature film The Flowers of War and an episode from the 1963 U.S. television series Combat! The argument is that the visual metaphor confusing the living with the dead is a unique method of depicting atrocity in a manner that circumvents the difficulty of absorbing the images in a single glance. The argument invokes the work of Judith Butler and Michel Foucault as well as the nature of the blended metaphor as described by the cognitive scientists Gilles Fauconnier and Mark Turner.
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