Ran's random afterthoughts on the Lamarre reading

  1) In relation to film festival studies

One, indeed in ‘film festival studies’, one of the most important theoretical inspirations comes from Latour’s Actor-Network-Theory, in considering film festivals as assemblages choreographing the functioning and working of both human and non-human actors. For sure, probably ANT is already ‘adequate’ for approaching film festivals. But L’s reading is inspiring in the fact that he suggests how the framing of ‘technosocial assembling’, apropos Deleuze+Guatarri and Williams, may help me/us to reconsider the ANT framing (for sure it is not the only framing in the field) in film festivals. For instance, the perspective of ‘disjunctive synthesis’ may constitute a good model (for the lack of better terms…) to think about film festivals as configuring/consisting of (?) both ‘technical process’ and ‘psychosocial processes’.

2)    A possible example per Transnational Cinema?

While re-preparing my lecture (on transnational cinema) for the next week, I am thinking about how interestingly the rethinking of ‘TV infrastructure’ per L may inspire us to look at, for instance, a Sino-Japan transnational film project like Legend of Demon Cat (2017). 

Of course, we still have the primary framing of ‘technosocial assembling’. But at the same time, how about both the ‘extensive’ and ‘intensive’ dimensions that are integral to such a transnational assembling? To be more specific, if we turn to the intensive aspect, namely to rework Brian Larkin apropos what L would call the ‘perceptible aspect’, it’s so interesting to think about the interrelation between the ‘extensive’ aspect, that is, the ‘actual infrastructure’ part of the film—a mammoth set of a Tang Dynasty Chang’an city, and the awe and ‘nostalgic’ feeling (for the lack of a better term) evoked by Chen Kaige’s epic drama among the Japanese and Chinese audiences.  

Nevertheless, the difficulties arise regarding how to work on the 'imperceptible' aspect (e.g., breakdowns etc.) of the intensity per such transnational project. And also, probably it is also difficult to pin down and articulate the 'national'/'the transnational' film audiences/reception (and even like Hack san has mentioned, certain 'collectivity' per national identities??). Maybe new analytical ideas are needed??? Detailed arguments to be worked out further !