The Cinematic Writing of Juan Emar

Abstract

This article will develop the notion that the critical, metafictional and self-referential writings of Chilean author Juan Emar - from his “Notas de arte” (1924-1927) to his monumental project Umbral (1940-1964) - can be understood as a space for the resonance of a cinematic structure of perception that emerged as an essential experience during the first half of the 20th century. On the other hand, his texts, in diverse levels of enunciation, are part of the conceptualization of the same experience. In this sense, the cinematic is a polymorphic imaginary of movement perception which culminates in the avant-garde cinema of the 1920s; whereas the cinematographic is related more strictly to the phenomenon of cinema, the technological possibilities and the elements that transform it into spectacle. These poles create tension on various levels of Emarís writing: the referential, the reflexive, the formal-esthetic.