Article:
The play of iconicity in Lars von Trier’s THE HOUSE THAT JACK BUILT

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dc.creatorStavning Thomsen, Bodil Marie
dc.date.accessioned2020-08-17T10:00:54Z
dc.date.available2020-08-17T10:00:54Z
dc.date.issued2020-06-14
dc.description.abstractThis article studies the function of the iconic sign and the operation of diagram-icons in Lars von Trier’s The House That Jack Built (2018), a film about a serial killer Jack (Matt Dillon) who builds a house of corpses before being escorted to hell. What is remarkable in this film is von Trier’s specific use of filmic iconicity in probing the value of Western icons in art and architecture. In voiceover digressions from the narrative action following Jack’s serial killing, a comparison is made between the iconic power of murder on a grand scale (specified as genocides throughout history) and culturally valuated icons of art and architecture. The article focuses on the audiovisual icons in the film that invites the audience to diagrammatic readings and fabulation throughout and beyond the film’s narrative content. After a short in-troduction to the iconic sign and the diagram-icon respectively, the exploration of the film takes its starting point in how Jean-Luc Godard used the iconic force of the color red in Pierrot le Fou (1965). Even though the significant use of red throughout The House That Jack Built is justified within the context of serial killing, its many reiterations also qualifies ‘red’ as a diagrammatic feature combining iconic elements transversally. This diagrammatic feature foregrounds the film’s fabu-latory and haptic levels beyond its strictly narrative content, making way for the wider philosophical comments expounded ‘in the film’ by the figure of Verge (Bruno Ganz). His extradiegetic voice becomes in-tradiegetic in the last part of the film as his body appears, acting as a guide for Jack into a version of Dante’s hell.en
dc.identifier.doihttp://dx.doi.org/10.25969/mediarep/14324
dc.identifier.urihttps://necsus-ejms.org/the-play-of-iconicity-in-lars-von-triers-the-house-that-jack-built/
dc.identifier.urihttps://mediarep.org/handle/doc/15293
dc.languageeng
dc.publisherAmsterdam University Press
dc.publisher.placeAmsterdam
dc.relation.isPartOfIssn:2213-0217
dc.relation.ispartofseriesNECSUS_European Journal of Media Studies
dc.rights.urihttps://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/
dc.subjectAffektde
dc.subjectDiagrammde
dc.subjectFilmde
dc.subjectHaptikde
dc.subjectVisualitätde
dc.subjectIkonde
dc.subjectZeitbildde
dc.subjectacousmêtreen
dc.subjectaffecten
dc.subjectdiagramen
dc.subjectfabulationen
dc.subjectfilmen
dc.subjectfilm studiesen
dc.subjecthaptic visualityen
dc.subjectIconen
dc.subjecttime-imageen
dc.subject.ddcddc:791
dc.subject.personDante Alighieri
dc.subject.personLars von Trier
dc.subject.workTHE HOUSE THAT JACK BUILT
dc.titleThe play of iconicity in Lars von Trier’s THE HOUSE THAT JACK BUILTen
dc.typearticle
dc.type.statuspublishedVersion
dspace.entity.typeArticleen
local.coverpage2020-11-20T13:11:22
local.identifier.firstpublishedhttps://necsus-ejms.org/the-play-of-iconicity-in-lars-von-triers-the-house-that-jack-built/
local.source.epage89
local.source.issue1
local.source.issueTitle#intelligence
local.source.spage69
local.source.volume9
local.subject.gndhttps://d-nb.info/gnd/118523708
local.subject.gndhttps://d-nb.info/gnd/119409070
local.subject.wikidatahttps://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q1067
local.subject.wikidatahttps://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q133730
local.subject.wikidatahttps://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q27920121

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