Time, Narrative and the Fixed Image

This volume focuses on the relationship between time, narrative and the fixed image. As such, it highlights renewed interest in the temporality of the fixed image, probably one of the most important trends in the formal and semiotic analysis of visual media in the past decade. The various essays discuss paintings, the illustrated covers of books, comics or graphic novels, photo-stories, postcards, television and video art, as well as aesthetic practices that defy categorization such as Chris Marker’s masterpiece La Jetee. The range of works and practices examined is reflected in the different theoretical approaches and methods used, with an emphasis on semiology and narratology, and, to a lesser extent, aesthetics and psychoanalysis. The interest of this book, however, does not stem exclusively from the range and scope of the artefacts examined, or the methodological issues that are addressed; its fundamental importance rests in the contributors’ readiness to question the differentiation between fixed and moving images which all too often provides a convenient, if not altogether convincing, starting point for image analysis. The originality and value of the contribution that Time, Narrative and the Fixed Image/Temps, Narration et image fixe makes to the body of theoretical writing on visual media lies in this challenging and comprehensive approach.