Aesthetics of Ambiguity : A critical assessment of in-person reenactment and multifaceted temporality in the films of Pedro Costa

Abstract: This thesis investigates temporal dimensions of reenactment in experimental filmmaking, with a particular focus on the prominent use of this practice in the cinema of Portuguese director Pedro Costa. The research analyzes the non-professional actors’ performances in Costa’s films and broadly explores the implications of cinematic in-person reenactment, a term coined by Ivone Margulies. More specifically, the analysis sets out to challenge the predominant discourse of documentary reenactment by bringing closer attention to the intricate expression and materiality of cinematic temporality in these films, an approach that is also informed by Gilles Deleuze’s notion of the crystal-image. This concept, I argue, enriches our understanding of temporality in relation to reenactment, and ultimately also the impact Costa’s images have in providing us with a more attentive acknowledgment of the cinematic screen event. The aesthetics activated in these works exemplify what I call aesthetics of ambiguity. Contributing to the scholarly debate on reenactment within cinema studies, this work offers new perspectives on the phenomenon from the conceptual, aesthetic, and phenomenological examples of these films. The aesthetics of Costa exemplifies the temporal ambiguity that manifests itself in instances of in-person reenactments. I argue that this aesthetics challenge – and possibly also enrich - the predominant discourse of cinematic reenactment, by loosening its traditional connection to documentary filmmaking and examining it beyond categories of the real and the fictional.