Exacting the Trace: Re-archiving Film Historiography in PHOENIX (Christian Petzold, 2014)

Abstract

Turning to Catherine Russel’s concept of ‘archiveology,’ Giorgio Agamben’s notion of gesture and its reliance on Walter Benjamin’s concept of language, the article suggests that Petzold’s engagement with traces of the past in his film materializes through deconstructing film historiography and subsequently re-establishing it.

Keywords

• archiveology
• gesture
• archive
• film historiography
• giorgio agamben
• walter benjamin
• christian petzold
• phoenix