DOCUMENTARY DISCOURSE: COGNITIVE AND PHENOMENOLOGICAL REFLECTIONS ON MATTERS OF REMEMBERING AND AUDIO-VISUAL MEMORY

Abstract

The article examines the ramifications of documentary discourse. The approach is formulated to give a voice to interdisciplinary research on documentary. The em- phasis on the close analysis of extracts and larger documentary entities will bring a new level to this meeting of various aspirations. It gives the possibility to create a heightened sensitivity of matters of analysis that covers similarities and differences, as well as causal and empirical reflections. The aim is to create a web of associations for these perspectives and perceive a wider approach on documentary in order to ar- gue that the meaningful appropriation of various tendencies in documentary studies requires sufficient correspondence and dialogical proneness for an understanding of the conceptual, formal and aesthetic legitimacy of this phenomenon. The essential part of the investigative strategy relies on cognitive mapping, which means a combination of individual and collective perceptions. Furthermore, cognitive mapping enables the viewer to practise distinct perceptual, phenomeno- logical and cognitive activities. It also features a methodical device that is related to a contemplative attitude towards the discourse of documentary, forming a relationship between the projected images and sounds and a mind that observes them. This leads to a method of aesthetic contemplation that is connected to a disciplinary logic of inscription which aims to produce insights and patterns of thought provoked by filmic affectations. In this article, the focus lies especially on questions of remember- ing and audio-visual representation of memory issues. The article features three film examples, which are Patricio Guzmán’s “Nostalgia for the Light” (Nostalgia de la luz, Chile, 2010), Pirjo Honkasalo’s “The 3 Rooms of Melancholia” (Melancholian 3 huonetta, Finland, 2004), and Chris Marker’s “Sunless” (Sans soleil, France, 1983). These films are cinematic re-meditations of past and present, and forms of audio-visual ethnography. The resulting inferences and elementary conclusions include that they aspire to demythologize the past, and bring forth a mode of representation, which features an elevated and sensory form of documentary discourse, connected with artistic signs of narrative, performative and aesthetic connotations.