CHARLES UNIVERSITY IN PRAGUE FACULTY OF HUMANITIES Department of Electronic Culture and Semiotics Bc. Jakub Turčan Phenomenon Almodóvar (The Interdigitation of "Small Worlds" in the Work of Pedro Almodóvar) Thesis Supervisor: Mgr. Josef Fulka, Ph.D. Thesis Abstract Prague 2013 Abstract The paper focuses on the problem of authorship by means of an in-depth analysis of the film work of the Spanish director Pedro Almodóvar. The analysis is preceded by setting the author's work in the context of its origin, introduction of its so far existing content, as well as the concepts this work employs. Due to the hypertextual character of this postmodern oeuvre, the study is based on the concept of small worlds by Umberto Eco, hence the worlds of fiction with limited content in comparison to the actual world. The complete film work is perceived as a self- contained, yet within its character an ever open Text. The interdigitation of its small worlds is understood as a series of intratextual references, however the work also monitors its intertextual and, as a blend of these two, the transtextual content. Presenting the directors unique signature, combining several known approaches of the film creation with his own style- constituting elements, the analysis adduces the auteurist character - first described by the film...

Nous exposons dans ce mémoire les principes qui fondent, au sein de la discipline des études cinématographiques, une conception théorique de la réception d’images animées reposant sur la modalité de consommation spécifique du cinéma en salle. Notre analyse d’un ensemble représentatif d’approches théoriques et historiographiques de l’expérience cinématographique permet de relever les principes qui orientent la conception de différentes formes de médialité conférées à l’expérience du cinéma en salle. Les théories du dispositif et du signifiant imaginaire de Jean-Louis Baudry et Christian Metz proposent une conception de l’expérience du cinéma en salle qui met l’accent sur les effets de transparence médiatique de certaines composantes des salles de cinéma sur les spectateurs ainsi que sur le caractère imaginaire, symbolique et institutionnel de ces médiations. La sémio-pragmatique de Roger Odin et l’approche historiographique de la New Cinema History telle que présentée par Robert C. Allen et Richard Maltby proposent une conception de l’opacité médiatique de l’ensemble complexe des effets de médiation sensorielle, relationnelle, sociale et économique de l’expérience du cinéma en salle et dont les spectateurs font l’épreuve sur toute l’étendue de ce type de site d’exploitation et sur toute la durée de son occupation spectatorielle. Au terme de notre analyse, les différents principes relevés permettent de formuler la notion d’expérience hétérotopique du cinéma pour désigner la conception de l’expérience du cinéma en salle qui caractérise la compréhension de la réception d’images animées dans le cadre des études cinématographiques. / This thesis explores how theories of moving image reception that have or have had a significant impact on the development of film studies as a discipline are centered around the movie theater and on “movie-going” practices. The analysis of a representative set of theoretical and historiographical approaches to the cinematic experience allows for the definition of key principles that unearth various forms of mediation at play in the movie-going experience. Jean-Louis Baudry’s “apparatus theory” and Christian Metz’s notion of the “imaginary signifier” both suggest a theory of movie-going experience stressing the transparency effects on spectators of the mediation of certain architectural and technological aspects of movie theaters and focusing on the symbolic and institutional nature of this form of mediation. In contrast, Roger Odin’s semio-pragmatic approach and New Cinema History’s critical historiography (as theorized by Robert C. Allen and Richard Maltby) conceptualize the opacity of a complex set of sensory, relational, social, and economic mediations occurring in movie theaters, which last during the entire experience of the audience in these exhibition sites. By unspooling the complexity of the theoretical stances above mentioned, this thesis moves towards the definition of a heterotopic cinema experience formulated from within the context of film studies.