RT Article
T1 A Film-Within-a-Film: Mimetic Contagion and the Viewer in Official Competition
JF MLN
VO 138
IS 5
SP 1498
OP 1519
A1 Melcer-Padon, Nourit 1966-
LA English
YR 2023
UL https://ixtheo.de/Record/1904839266
AB "Official Competition" (2021), Gastón Duprat's and Mariano Cohn's sarcastic take about the film industry allows viewers a glimpse behind the scenes, into the phases of film-making, from the first reading to the official opening night, without screening one frame of the film itself. Paradoxically, the use of a mise-en-abyme device lures the viewers closer to the work of art, as they become active participants in the performance of the film. The following article will examine this metadrama and suggest reasons why such double mirroring cultivates greater emotions—of empathy or aversion—thanks to the exposition of the artistic strategies upon which the film is devised. Relying on Roger Caillois's concepts and on Nidesh Lawtoo's take on mimetic pathos, this article shows that the mise-en-abyme device is an important tool for the understanding of the operation of mimetic contagion.