In-Between Histories: Intermedial Configurations in Radu Jude’s Collage Film “The Dead Nation”
In-Between Histories: Intermedial Configurations in Radu Jude’s Collage Film “The Dead Nation”

Summary/Abstract: The first part of my article briefly discusses the main theories of intermediacy by differentiating between “processional” and “ontological” understanding of the concept. Despite inherent differences (especially terminological), many theorists (from the Russian Formalists to the 21st century researchers of the topic) tend to consider film as the intermedium par excellence, due to its syncretic and multimedial nature. However, intermediacy remains a tricky concept, since both the “medium” and the prefix “inter-” need further contextualization. The second part of the article considers Radu Jude’s collage film The Dead Nation. Fragments of Parallel Lives (2017) by focusing on the intermedial relations established on various levels in the movie. In the 83-minute film, old photos representing everyday life scenes overlap with fragments from a Romanian-Jewish writer’s diary and pieces of propaganda discourse from the late 1930s-till early 1940s in Romania, the time of war, political turmoil and racial persecution. My aim is to show that the intermedial tension in The Dead Nation does not rely on montage, but on the spectator’s capacity to comprehend and respond to the media hybridization in the film and to its political implications.

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