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Gianfranco Rosi
  • ISSN: 2047-7368
  • E-ISSN: 2047-7376

Abstract

Gianfranco Rosi’s (‘Nocturne’) (2020) lays a subtle but consistent formal emphasis on the air. In this article, I argue that Rosi’s filmmaking technique privileges patience and stasis and that it consequently allows manifestations of the air, including wind, breath, bubbles and smoke, to attain prominence in his shots. I draw on the work of Gernot Böhme, Tonino Griffero and Robert Spadoni to suggest that the emphasis Rosi places on the air grants the film a pervasive formal unity that literalizes the notion of cinematic atmosphere. I also argue that the film’s ‘atmospheric aesthetic’ offers up the air’s spatial and corporeal complexity as a formal cipher for the film’s themes of separation and connection, and that it offers a way of thinking through ’s intertextual relationship to Rosi’s previous film, () (2016).

Funding
This study was supported by the:
  • Cambridge Arts and Humanities Research Council Doctoral Training Partnership (Award AH/L503897/1)
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/content/journals/10.1386/jicms_00142_1
2022-06-01
2026-04-22

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References

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/content/journals/10.1386/jicms_00142_1
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  • Article Type: Article
Keyword(s): air in cinema; atmosphere in film; breath in cinema; documentary aesthetics; environmental humanities; Gianfranco Rosi; Middle East; Notturno

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