Vertiginous hauntings: The ghosts of Vertigo

While the initial reception of Alfred Hitchcock’s Vertigo (1958) was unspectacular, it made its presence felt in a host of other films - from Chris Marker’s Sans Soleil (1983), to Brian De Palma’s Obsession (1976), and David Lynch’s Mulholland Dr. (1999). What seemed to have eluded the critics at the time is that Vertigo is a film about being haunted: by illusive images, turbulent emotions, motion and memory, the sound and feeling of falling into the past, into a nightmare. But it is also a shrewdly reflexive film that haunts filmmakers, critics, and artists alike, raising fundamental questions about the ontology of moving images and the regime of fascination (exemplified by Hollywood) that churns them out. Douglas Gordon’s Feature Film (1999), D.N. Rodowick’s The Wanderers (2016), and Lynn Hershman’s VertiGhost (2017) are contemporary examples of how the appropriation and contemplation of some the film’s most iconic motifs (the figures of Madeleine, the spiral, the copy or fake, and the fetish), themes (liebestod, obsession, the uncanny) and strategies (mirroring, duplicity, and disorientation) ask us to rethink the relation of fetishism to fabulation, and supplementarity to dissimulation and social engineering. Feature Film, The Wanderers, and VertiGhost are supplementary works, but like the original film they are about duplicity, doppelgänger, and dissimulation. What interests us is how they challenge the authority over, or even proximity to, that which returns in the form of the supplement. And ultimately, attaching themselves to the chain of forgers and forgeries, these supplementary works take their place in the vertiginous sequence of substitutions the film established: a neat allegory for a reign of the digital ghosting that Hitchcock could never have anticipated

Indefinite Visions: Cinema and the Attractions of Uncertainty

International audienceAudiovisual culture often privileges the instantly identifiable: the recognizable face, the well-timed stunt, the perfectly synchronized line of dialogue. Yet order and clarity do not come ‘naturally’ to the moving image. Light, motion, definition, compression: the conditions of recording, storing and screening can subject audiovisual media to countless variations, pulling them towards the indefinite and illegible. Filmmakers and artists often seek out and work with the resulting uncertainty, from the warping of space to the melding of senses, from glare to shadow and blur to glitch. This collection concerns itself with the aesthetics, concepts and politics of indefinite and obscured moving images, examining what is at stake in their foregrounding of materiality and mediation, evanescence and flux. Pursuing a range of approaches (spanning history, theory and close analysis), the authors in this volume investigate techniques, effects and themes that emerge from the wilful excavation of the moving image’s formal and material base

Post-1995 French cinema: return of the social, return of the political?

A key trend in post-1995 French cinema has been the return of the social. Analysing this trend, this article seeks to evaluate its politic impact. Using Hervé Le Roux’s Reprise (1997) and Agnès Varda’s Les Glaneurs et la glaneuse (2000) as key meta-texts, it suggests that the current wave of politically engaged cinema needs to be approached in new ways that recognise how films trace the impact of a politically unmediated, ‘raw’ real on groups or individuals. It further suggests that the withdrawal of political mediation gives the films an essential ambiguity and a melodramatic quality that, rather than mere cliché, may be a privileged way to engage with the violence of the real. Film is now not so much in the van but dans le bain of a diverse socio-political stirring

Update on the chemoresistance of equine intestinal parasites to anthelmintic drugs

Chemoresistance is a growing phenomenon which currently affects several types of parasites. Its economical impact in ruminant herds is proven in the southern hemisphere as well as in some countries in the northern hemisphere, but the equine species seemed relatively unaffected until the 1980’s. However, since then, cyathostomes resistance to anthelmintics has spread to such an extent that it has become a medical concern in most industrialised countries. Current control programs of small strongyles must take into account the risk of chemoresistance selection, to limit the extension of resistance to benzimidazoles and pyrantel, and prevent the development of a resistance to macrocyclic lactones. Recent publications have reported cases of probable cyathostomes resistance to avermectin and moxidectin. Up until now, the avermectin/milbemycin group was the only resistance-free anthelmintic class in horses. Preventing the extension of this resistance, such as seen with benzimidazoles, is of paramount importance. Worming programs must be part of a reasoned approach, taking into account epidemiological data as well as levels of infestation. Medical measures must be associated to preventive farming practices. Beside the cyathostomes, other equine parasites may become resistant to anthelmintic, especially ascarids (Parascaris equorum). Three recent publications reported a suspected Parascaris resistance to macrocyclic lactones. After a synopsis on chemoresistance, the author describes the epidemiological situation of parasitic helminths in horses. The methods to prevent or at least slow down this phenomenon are discussed.Le phénomène de chimiorésistance touche aujourd'hui plusieurs classes de parasites. Si l'importance économique est avérée en élevage de ruminants dans l'Hémisphère Sud et quelques pays de l'Hémisphère Nord, les Equidés semblaient relativement épargnés jusque dans les années 1980. Depuis cette période, la chimiorésistance des cyathostomes aux benzimidazoles s'est étendue, jusqu'à prendre une importance médicale dans la majorité des pays industrialisés. Les mesures de lutte contre les petits strongles doit aujourd'hui prendre en compte les facteurs de sélection de la résistance, pour en limiter l'extension vis-à-vis des benzimidazoles et du pyrantel et l'apparition vis-à-vis des lactones macrocycliques. Des publications récentes font état de l'apparition probable de cette résistance des cyathostomes à l'ivermectine et à la moxidectine. Les avermectines/milbémycines représentaient jusqu'alors la seule classe thérapeutique préservée, chez les Equidés, par ce phénomène. Il devient donc primordial d'éviter une extension telle qu'elle a été vue avec les benzimidazoles. Les vermifugations doivent être raisonnées et prendre en compte l'épidémiologie et les niveaux d'infestation. Les mesures sanitaires doivent obligatoirement accompagner les mesures médicales. À côté des petits strongles, d'autres parasites des Equidés pourraient laisser apparaître des populations chimiorésistantes, en particulier les ascarides, Parascaris equorum. Trois publications récentes font état d'une suspicion de résistance aux lactones macrocycliques. Après un rappel du phénomène de chimiorésistance, l'auteur dresse un bilan épidémiologique de la situation pour les helminthes endoparasites des Equidés. Il présente ensuite les mesures visant à prévenir, sinon ralentir, ce phénomène