Towards a Disarmed Cinema

Abstract

In “Towards a Disarmed Cinema”, Morel begins by considering those theorists who claim that cinema commonly makes violence visible and peace invisible. To explore whether a different approach to film is possible, Morel considers the work of three film-makers who have attempted to “disarm cinema” during the past decade: Errol Morris, Rithy Panh and Joshua Oppenheimer. These examples show how film can change audience perceptions of overlooked “standard operating procedures” at the prison in Abu Ghraib, in the Khmer Rouge’s genocide in Cambodia, and in a largely forgotten massacre in Indonesia. For Morel, these and other film-makers can disarm cinema, by making the invisible visible, by opening a space for reconciliation and by envisaging a different kind of world from the one being presented.