Nope: a parable on the cinema apparatus
Une parabole sur l'appareil cinématographique
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.21814/diacritica.5845Keywords:
Horror Cinema, Self-reflexive cinema, Cinematographic devices, Spectacle, VisibilityAbstract
Nope (Jordan Peele, 2022) follows OJ and Emerald Haywood, two brothers who work behind the scenes in the film industry. A strange sequence of events leads the brothers to suspect that there is an Unidentified Flying Object hovering their farm. In order to prove the existence of the UFO, the Haywoods try to record its image, but, in doing so, they realize that the being hidden in the sky captures those who look at it, acting like a cinematographic device. Given this framework, this essay examines how Nope, drawing on the moulds of the horror genre, creates a metaphor that questions the power of the cinematic apparatus and the devices that constitute it. Based on an analysis of how moving images and the devices that produce them are represented, this research reflects on how cinema constructs visibilities, conditions perceptions and programs affectivities. The objective is to ascertain how this self-reflective parable questions the way in which the cinema apparatus influences human ways of thinking and feeling and the way in which people orient themselves in a spectacularized reality created by images.
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