Verdades e mentiras (Verités et mensonges / F for fake, 1973), de Orson Welles, parte da história de Elmyr de Hory, um grande falsificador de obras de arte, para propor uma reflexão sobre o mercado de arte e sobre o trabalho do artista no contexto da Indústria Cultural. O filme organiza-se como uma argumentação, que disserta sobre seu contexto sócio-histórico e capta a estrutura de sentimento do período em que é produzido, podendo ser considerado um precursor do filme ensaio. Entretanto, os argumentos nem sempre confirmam as teses propostas inicialmente. Há constantes contradições entre os diferentes elementos que compõem uma mesma cena, ou entre diferentes cenas e sequências do filme, tornando necessário ao espectador realizar uma leitura a contrapelo da obra. Orson Welles incorpora aspectos da tradição cinematográfica e de sua obra e combina-os com a experimentação, que é característica de seu trabalho artístico, para investigar as relações de produção no contexto da indústria cultural e de que forma o trabalho se constitui enquanto horizonte para superação das determinantes históricas da sociedade. Ao mesmo tempo em que faz isso, o filme evidencia a si mesmo como representação, constituída a partir de um ponto de vista determinado, e assim permite que analisemos e interpretemos a verdade desse trabalho artístico, para a compreensão dos temas e aspectos da realidade que ele configura. / F for fake (Verités et mensonges, 1973), by Orson Welles, introduces the story of Elmyr de Hory, a great Art forger, in order to discuss the determinations associated to the Art Market and the work of the artist submitted to the Cultural Industry. The movie is structured as an argumentative essay, which discusses its background and captures the structure of feeling of the period. Because of the way it is organized, F for fake is sometimes referred as a predecessor of what is called nowadays essay film. However, the arguments included do not necessarily confirm the initial thesis of the film. There are numerous contradictions between different elements of a scene, and also between different scenes and sequences. It keeps the audience alert and suggests the need to interpret the story against the grain, as Walter Benjamin advocates. Orson Welles incorporates some aspects of film tradition and of his oeuvre, and associates them with the experimentation of new aesthetics, as it is characteristic of his artistic work, in order to examine the relations of production in the context of the Cultural Industry. He also analyses how labor can represent some perspective of overcoming the social and historical determinations of the society. Whilst structuring these debates, the film exposes itself as a representation of a certain point of view, and allows the audience to analyse and interpret the truth of this work of art, as well as to try to understand the association of themes and aspects of reality that it constitutes.

The audio visual essay, or ”film/video essay” as it might be better known, has in recent years started to enjoy a level of popularity previously unseen in its long and obscure history; encouraging a proper reexamination of the genre through the years, to see how it has developed and changed throughout its lifetime to finally arrive at where it is today. With a lineage stretching back across the centuries, through to the 16th -century writings of Michel de Montaigne, the essay format, either as it manifests in the traditions of literature or the audio visual mode, is a curious form of expression, preferring an indirect route towards knowledge, marked by quandary, reflection, the trying and retrying ideas in a process built around the act of searching. Because of its unusual and shifting nature, on both a formal and discursive level, coupled with a propensity for analysis and dialectical reasoning, it has been a staple of transgressive aesthetic practices, landing it with several of leading experimental filmmakers and movements of the pre- and postwar eras. Interestingly, however, in the new cultural landscape, shaped by the advent of the digital revolution, it has also been involved in a politically transgressive arena of democratized home productions, sparking discussion about the imperative conditions and potential future possibilities of media creation as a whole. To make sense of these historical proceedings, and the forces which impel them, a cohesive definition of the genre is in order, which can then be used as the basis of a functional historical model. As such, the following questions are prompted: What characteristics define the audio visual essay, in what ways has it manifested throughout its history and, by extension, how does one go about formulating a conception of its history? To accommodate these queries both an essayistic mode of analysis, concerning a work’s discursive and formalistic properties, and a chronological lineage of the audio visual essay, is proposed, and applied to different historical examples, to map out paths of development and progression as well as the genres response to the varying cultural, social, political and technological forces during its lifetime.

Verdades e mentiras (Verités et mensonges / F for fake, 1973), de Orson Welles, parte da história de Elmyr de Hory, um grande falsificador de obras de arte, para propor uma reflexão sobre o mercado de arte e sobre o trabalho do artista no contexto da Indústria Cultural. O filme organiza-se como uma argumentação, que disserta sobre seu contexto sócio-histórico e capta a estrutura de sentimento do período em que é produzido, podendo ser considerado um precursor do filme ensaio. Entretanto, os argumentos nem sempre confirmam as teses propostas inicialmente. Há constantes contradições entre os diferentes elementos que compõem uma mesma cena, ou entre diferentes cenas e sequências do filme, tornando necessário ao espectador realizar uma leitura a contrapelo da obra. Orson Welles incorpora aspectos da tradição cinematográfica e de sua obra e combina-os com a experimentação, que é característica de seu trabalho artístico, para investigar as relações de produção no contexto da indústria cultural e de que forma o trabalho se constitui enquanto horizonte para superação das determinantes históricas da sociedade. Ao mesmo tempo em que faz isso, o filme evidencia a si mesmo como representação, constituída a partir de um ponto de vista determinado, e assim permite que analisemos e interpretemos a verdade desse trabalho artístico, para a compreensão dos temas e aspectos da realidade que ele configura. / F for fake (Verités et mensonges, 1973), by Orson Welles, introduces the story of Elmyr de Hory, a great Art forger, in order to discuss the determinations associated to the Art Market and the work of the artist submitted to the Cultural Industry. The movie is structured as an argumentative essay, which discusses its background and captures the structure of feeling of the period. Because of the way it is organized, F for fake is sometimes referred as a predecessor of what is called nowadays essay film. However, the arguments included do not necessarily confirm the initial thesis of the film. There are numerous contradictions between different elements of a scene, and also between different scenes and sequences. It keeps the audience alert and suggests the need to interpret the story against the grain, as Walter Benjamin advocates. Orson Welles incorporates some aspects of film tradition and of his oeuvre, and associates them with the experimentation of new aesthetics, as it is characteristic of his artistic work, in order to examine the relations of production in the context of the Cultural Industry. He also analyses how labor can represent some perspective of overcoming the social and historical determinations of the society. Whilst structuring these debates, the film exposes itself as a representation of a certain point of view, and allows the audience to analyse and interpret the truth of this work of art, as well as to try to understand the association of themes and aspects of reality that it constitutes.

Ode to Amiel is a feature-length experimental essay film by Phyllis Redman, made as part of the requirements for earning a Master of Fine Arts in Film in the Entrepreneurial Digital Cinema track from the University of Central Florida. The film explores one woman's reaction to trauma and depersonalization disorder through the journal entries of 19th Century Swiss philosopher, Henri Frederic Amiel. Passages from Amiel's Journal Intime provide the narrative and voice over for the lead character, a grieving mother who finds herself locked behind an inescapable, invisible and immaterial barrier that separates her from the outside world. Following the guidelines of the film program, the film was produced on a micro-budget (under $50,000) level. The goal was to create a film that was effectively a no-budget film, one similar in process to that of Tarnation, an award-winning experimental film created for $200. With an actual shooting cost of under $1,000, Ode to Amiel met this challenge. This is the record of the film's progression from development to picture lock, in preparation for distribution.

This thesis examines the birth, rise in popularity, and evolution of the video essay, a subgenre of the essay found recently in online literary journals. Chapter one provides a brief history of the alphabetic essay as it expands to include photo essays, audio essays, and essay-films. The second chapter outlines the history of the online literary journal and John Bresland’s role in the introduction of the video essay as it appears in online journals. Chapter three contains an examination of the way image, text, and sound function in video essays and the tools and strategies essayists are using to create them. The fourth chapter is composed of three case studies of Bresland’s work in an attempt to analyze the continuing evolution and breadth of the form.