Date of Award
Spring 5-2021
Document Type
Thesis
Degree Name
Master of Arts (MA)
Department
Film Studies
First Advisor
Kelli Fuery
Second Advisor
Patrick Fuery
Third Advisor
Federico Pacchioni
Abstract
The model of the cinematic palimpsest helps us to critically reevaluate formal aspects of film language, relationships between film texts, and the construction of cinematic meaning in conversation with the spectator. Originating in Medieval Europe, a palimpsest is traditionally defined as a book or similar physical text “created by a process of layering whereby the existing text was erased, using various chemical methods, and the new text was written over the old one” again and again (Dillon 2005). Palimpsests rely on the core principle of in(ter)dependency, wherein each element or layer is both independent and interdependent, inherently affecting the significance of other elements around it and being affected in turn by those other elements. In this study, the theoretical model of the palimpsest is applied to three aspects of the cinematic experience, from the intra- to the inter- and extratextual levels. Emphasizing the multiplicity of the lived experience of cinematic viewership, the model seeks to explain the intersubjective, dialogic relationship of the human mind to the media technologies it encounters on a regular basis in the 21st century.
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 License.
Recommended Citation
Luedke, Lyric. Cinematic Palimpsests: Polysemy and In(ter)dependency in the Spectator Experience. 2021. Chapman University, MA Thesis. Chapman University Digital Commons, https://doi.org/10.36837/chapman.000239