Resumen de O ensaio fílmico como obra aberta
Gabriela Machado Ramos de Almeida
This paper presents a proposition of theoretical approach to film essays as from the notion of “open work”, accordingto Umberto Eco. For this purpose, it intends to investigate how the series of audiovisual essays Histoire(s) duCinema, produced by Jean-Luc Godard between 1988 and 1998, dialogues with the model proposed by Eco in1958, which has been used since then as a theorethical-analytical instrument for the reflection on several poeticsdefined by openness. Our assumption is that this interchange is possible in two directions, considering Histoire(s)du Cinéma as a significant analytical corpus: the work of art itself, open in its ambiguities and movements, and theopen work as an epistemological metaphor. We consider essayism a relevant and constant feature in contemporaryaudiovisual culture, what is reflected in the growing interest in the subject manifested by researchers and also in theincrease of essayistic and self-reflexive films under the scope of three main audiovisual forms: documentary (mainlyautobiographical and poetic films), experimental cinema and, in a minor degree, video art (specifically media art,responsible for the approximation of some filmic experiences to video art).
