Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Figures
- Acknowledgements
- Introduction: Encountering the Trace
- 1 Im-Possibility of Not-Returning: Volver
- 2 Im-Possibility of Not-Sharing: Todo sobre mi madre
- 3 Im-Possibility of Not-Writing Otherwise: La mala educación
- 4 Im-Possibility of Not-Succumbing: La piel que habito
- Notes
- References
- Index
4 - Im-Possibility of Not-Succumbing: La piel que habito
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 July 2018
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Figures
- Acknowledgements
- Introduction: Encountering the Trace
- 1 Im-Possibility of Not-Returning: Volver
- 2 Im-Possibility of Not-Sharing: Todo sobre mi madre
- 3 Im-Possibility of Not-Writing Otherwise: La mala educación
- 4 Im-Possibility of Not-Succumbing: La piel que habito
- Notes
- References
- Index
Summary
[P]hilology is that venerable art which exacts from its followers one thing above all – to step to one side, to leave themselves spare moments, to grow silent, to become slow – the leisurely art of the goldsmith applied to language: an art which must carry out slow, fine work, and attains nothing if not lento. For this very reason philology is now more desirable than ever before; for this very reason it is the highest attraction and incitement in an age of ‘work’: that is to say, of haste, of unseemly and immoderate hurry-skurry, which is intent upon ‘getting things done’ at once, even every book, whether old or new. Philology itself, perhaps, will not ‘get things done’ so hurriedly: it teaches how to read well: i. e. slowly, profoundly, attentively, prudently, with inner thoughts, with the mental doors ajar, with delicate fingers and eyes. (Nietzsche cited in Galt Harpham 2009: 37, emphasis in original)
In this final chapter, I explore how La piel que habito reflects and responds to the vicissitudes and catastrophes of the past and present. Whether they be individual or collective, national or trans-national, they are all inscribed on and irrupt through the surface of the body. This reading encourages spectators to ponder how the fragments of memory and history are actualised and endure from the vantage point of the present, and how the traces and shards of the traumatic past exceed temporal boundaries. They haunt or contaminate our experience of the present, so that the traumas of the violent past are re-staged, condensed and displaced. The traces of memory and history are externalised, but also erased as they are impressed. Or, they are imprinted in the subjectivity and body without external articulation, thereby escaping from linguistic symbolisation. From this perspective, we can associate the scientific development of biogenetics and biotechnology, one of the main themes in the film, with a ‘synthetic wounding’ of the human body by scientific, technological, political and economic power – a wounding that is both literal and symbolic. This reading obliges us to keep questioning and re-conceptualising our theoretical discussions about embodied human existence. As Gianna Bouchard argues, ‘[a]s the body has become increasingly exploited, manipulated, commodified and commercialised by biotechnologies, so unease has escalated about control over and proprietary interests in all bodies, both human and non-human’ (2012: 94).
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- Information
- Aesthetics, Ethics and Trauma in the Cinema of Pedro Almodóvar , pp. 139 - 176Publisher: Edinburgh University PressPrint publication year: 2017