Character engagement as central to the filmmaker–subject relationship: En construcción (José Luis Guerin, 2001) as a case study

Abstract

ABSTRACTCharacter engagement is one of the main sources of emotion in the spectator. We argue that, in a nonfiction context, it is the filmmaker, who first engages with her subject, with whom she maintains long-standing everyday relations. Thus, this paper aims to explore how the filmmaker engages with real people in the process of filmmaking and how it is reflected on the screen. To this end, we will consider the notion of the ‘structure of sympathy’ posited by Murray Smith in his book Engaging Characters (1995, reprinted in 2004), which encompasses three concepts: recognition, alignment and allegiance. We will also take into account Smith’s updating of this structure in ‘Engaging Characters: Further Reflections’ (2010). In particular, we will attempt to apply Smith’s theoretical paradigm to a case study of a contemporary documentary: the film En construcción (Work in Progress, 2001), directed by Spanish director José Luis Guerin. In short, the main goal of this essay is to extend Smith’s approach, initially intended to explain the relationship between a fictional character and a spectator, to a non-fiction context, with the purpose in this case of defining the relationship between the filmmaker and the subject.