Autoficción en el cine contemporáneo: las narrativas de Paolo Sorrentino, James Gray y Steven Spielberg

Elpidio del Campo Cañizares; Juan Gorostidi Munguía

doi:10.31637/epsir-2025-750

Authors

Elpidio del Campo Cañizares Miguel Hernández University of Elche https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1044-3230
Juan Gorostidi Munguía

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.31637/epsir-2025-750

Keywords:

autobiography, autofiction, Paolo Sorrentino, É stata la mano de Dio, James Gray, Armageddon Time, Steven Spielberg, The Fabelmans

Abstract

Introduction: Recently, several filmmakers have adopted the autobiographical narrative as a form of expression. This approach raises several questions: the first is to elucidate the differences between fiction and autobiography. Another unique element lies in the cinematic form itself: if these films adopt the methods of conventional narrative, how does this form of representation affect the verisimilitude of the narrative and its reception? Methodology: The methodology employed will be based on the classical studies of narratology by Batjin and Todorov and on research on autobiography as a search for self-identity according to Bourdieu (the rhetorical illusion) and Lejeune (the phantasmagorical pact). Results: Filmic autobiography has mutated towards a more explicit and naked dissection of the self. Discussions: Our study is based on the analysis of the new narrative strategies that underpin filmic autobiography. We will study the modes of representation of the self in the films È stata la mano de Dio (Paolo Sorrentino, 2021), The Fabelmans (Steven Spielberg, 2023) and Armageddon Time (James Gray, 2023). Conclusions: These films constitute an example of how the construction of the autobiographical "I" and the perception of one's own existence are closely linked to fiction.

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Author Biographies

Elpidio del Campo Cañizares, Miguel Hernández University of Elche

Elpidio del Campo is a Full Professor at the Miguel Hernández University of Elche. He has a PhD in Audiovisual Communication with the thesis: Alexander Mackendrick. From praxis to film theory. His cinematographic research has been published in scientific journals: Atalante. Revista de estudios cinematográficos and Comunicación: revista Internacional de Comunicación Audiovisual, Publicidad y Estudios Culturales, and book chapters: I “videosaggi” di Tag Gallagher come paradigma di nuovi modelli di analisi cinematográfica in Critofilm. In Critofilm. En Cinema che pensa il cinema. Fondazione Pesaro Nuovo Cinema Onlus (2016) and El guion adaptado. Estudio de Un día perfecto (León de Aranoa, 2015). In M. Viñarás Abad, A. Gregorio Cano, & R. Casañ Pitarch (Eds.), Lo audiovisual bajo el foco del siglo XXI (pp. 181–193). Tirant Humanidades.

Juan Gorostidi Munguía

Juan Gorostidi has a phD in Hispanic philology, a degree in Anglo-Germanic philology and a Master of Arts in Medieval Studies. He has taught History of Cinema at the University of Navarra, at the SEK-Segovia University and Literature and Cinema at the Miguel Hernández University of Elche. He has edited Andrei Tarkovski's volume Sculpting in Time, published the monograph The Night of the Hunter by Charles Laughton and has collaborated in publications such as L'Atalante, La Furia Umana, Shangrila or Versión Original.

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