Notions of identity: representation of the black subject and the filmmaker in digital cinema

Abstract

This study will serve to question and explore the ways in which the black subject and the filmmaker can be constructed and represented in narrative and documentary film. The arguments that follow in this written section of the thesis will serve to illustrate and support the three film projects that together make up the PhD in Film by Practice. I will begin by exploring the relationship between the filmmaker with the theoretical and practical frameworks. Alongside this I will discuss the concepts inherent in the three films produced for the PhD.

My approach to the above questions in my PhD by practice can be broadly summarised by three stages. The first stage in this approach will be to concentrate on isolating and analysing theories that have informed the three projects. The second stage will then reveal how these informed ideas have moved from one medium (the theoretical, word, text, still image) to another (the language of the moving image). Finally, I will relate the three PhD films to each other, aligning their relationships in terms aesthetics, form and content regarding the black subject. I will conclude by illustrating how these three films argue for new responses when considering representations of the black subject in cinema.