Self-referentiality in Orson Welles' Sketch Book (1955)
Similarities and Parallels with YouTuber Narrative
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.62161/revvisual.v16.5364Keywords:
Self-reference, YouTube, Television, Welles, Narrative, BBC, AnalysisAbstract
Orson Welles created "Orson Welles' Sketch Book" in March 1955, a documentary series for the British BBC. It consisted of six episodes, each lasting fifteen minutes, where Welles shared a series of personal anecdotes accompanied by sketches he drew himself. Despite the apparent simplicity of the concept, Welles implemented a set of strategies where self-reference stood as a fundamental driving force of the narrative. Nearly seventy years later, we can observe that this approach is remarkably similar to that adopted by the majority of so-called YouTubers, content creators who utilize social media to disseminate their messages. Through an analysis of the content of these programs, we will extract the self-references made by Orson Welles and compare them with some of the studies conducted on this type of storytelling.
Downloads
References
Bordwell, D. & Thompson, K. (1995). El arte cinematográfico. Paidós.
Burgess, J. y Green, J. (2009). YouTube: Online Video and Participatory Culture. Polite Press.
Caballero-Gálvez, A., Tortajada, I., & Willem, C. (2017). Autenticidad, marca personal y agencia sexual: el posfeminismo lésbico en Youtube. Investigaciones Feministas, 8(2), 353–368. https://dx.doi.org/10.5209/INFE.55005 DOI: https://doi.org/10.5209/INFE.55005
Callow, S. (1996). Orson Welles, Volume 1: The Road to Xanadu. Vintage.
Callow, S. (2015). Orson Welles, Volume 3: One Man Band. Vintage.
Campbell, W. J. (2010). Getting it wrong: ten of the greatest misreported stories in American journalism. University of California Press.
Cantril, H. (1940). The Invasion from Mars: A Study in the Psychology of Panic. Piscataway. DOI: https://doi.org/10.2307/2262541
Carnegie, D. (2012, 10 de marzo). New Twists on Houdini's Russian Tour. The Magic Detective Blog. https://www.themagicdetective.com/2012/03/new-twists-on-houdinis-russian-tour.html
Cascajosa Virino, C. C. & Zahedi, F. (2016). Historia de la televisión. Tirant humanidades.
Casetti, F. y Di Chio, F. (1991). Como analizar un film. Paidós.
Cerf, B. (1948). Shake Well Before Using: A New Collection of Impressions and Anecdotes, Mostly Humorous. Simon and Schuster.
Cobos, J. (1993). Orson Welles: España como obsesión, Vol. II. Filmoteca de la Generalitat Valenciana.
Cocker, H. L., y Cronin, J. (2017). Charismatic authority and the YouTuber: Unpacking the new cults of personality. Marketing theory, 17(4), 455-472. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/1470593117692022
Cox, J. (2014, 1 de septiembre). Fact checking history´s Houdini. Part One. Wild About Harry. https://www.wildabouthoudini.com/2014/09/fact-checking-historys-houdini-night-one.html
Gallop, A. (2011). The Martial are coming: The True Stoy of Orson Welles´ 1938 Panic Broadcast. Amberley.
García-García, F., y Gil-Ruiz, F.J. (2018). ‘Youtubers’, mundos éticos posibles. Index Comunicación, 8(2), 151-188. https://journals.sfu.ca/indexcomunicacion/index.php/indexcomunicacion/article/view/382
Genz, S. (2015): My Job is Me. Postfeminist celebrity culture and the gendering of authenticity. Feminist Media Studies, 15(4), 545-561. https://doi.org/10.1080/14680777.2014.952758 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/14680777.2014.952758
Gómez-Pereda, N. (2014). YouTubers: fenómeno de la comunicación y vehículo de transmisión cultural para la construcción de identidad adolescente. Universidad de Cantabria. https://goo.gl/pEYLqp
Han, B. (2020). How do YouTubers make money? A lesson learned from the most subscribed YouTuber channels. International Journal of Business Information Systems, 33(1), 132-143. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1504/IJBIS.2020.10026504
Heylin, C. (2006). Despite the System: Orson Welles Versus the Hollywood Studios. Chicago Review Press.
Hidalgo-Marí, T., y Segarra-Saavedra, J. (2017). El fenómeno youtuber y su expansión transmedia. Análisis del empoderamiento juvenil en redes sociales. Fonseca, Journal of Communication, 15(15), 43. https://doi.org/10.14201/fjc2017154356 DOI: https://doi.org/10.14201/fjc2017154356
Jerslev, A. (2016). Media times| in the time of the microcelebrity: celebrification and the YouTuber Zoella. International journal of communication, 10, 19.
Kalush, W. y Sloman, L. (2006). The Secret Life of Houdini: The Making of America's First Superhero. Simon and Schuster.
Laffond, J. C. R., Galán Fajarlo, E. y Moraga, Á. L. R. (2014). Historia de los medios de comunicación. Alianza Editorial.
Lange, P. (2007). Commenting on Comments: Investigating Responses to Antagonism on YouTube. Society for Applied Anthropology Conference. https://goo.gl/Kbjq2q
Lanier, D. (2001). The Idea of a John Barrymore. Colby Quarterly, 37(1), 5.
Leaming, B. (1986). Orson Welles. Tusquets Editores.
Liammóir, M. M. (1947). All for Hecuba: An Irish theatrical autobiography. Methuen.
Linne, J. (2016). La “multimidad”: performances íntimas en Facebook de adolescentes de Buenos Aires. Estudios Sociológicos, 34(100), 65-84. http://dx.doi.org/10.24201/es.2016v34n100.1389 DOI: https://doi.org/10.24201/es.2016v34n100.1389
Márquez, I., & Ardèvol, E. (2018). Hegemonía y contrahegemonía en el fenómeno youtuber. Desacatos, (56), 34-49. https://doi.org/10.29340/56.1876 DOI: https://doi.org/10.29340/56.1876
McGilligan, P. (2015). Young Orson: The Years of Luck and Genius on the Path to Citizen Kane. HarperCollins.
Nichols, B. (1997). La representación de la realidad. Paidós.
Pelttari, S. (2022). Emotional self-disclosure and stance-taking within affective narratives on YouTube: A qualitative case study of four Spanish YouTubers. International Journal of Language and Culture, 9(2), 292-321. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1075/ijolc.22050.pel
Plantinga, C. (1997). Rhetoric and representation in non-fiction film. Cambridge University Press.
Renov, M. (1993). Theorizing Documentary. Routledge.
Ripppy, M. (2018). The death of the Autor: Orson Welles, Asadata Dafora, and the 1936 Macbeth. En J. N. Gilmore y S. Gottlieb, Orson Welles in Focus: Texts and Contexts (pp. 11-33). Indiana University Press. https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctt21215qj.10 DOI: https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctt21215qj.6
Sabich, M.A., y Steinberg, L. (2017). Discursividad youtuber: Afecto, narrativas y estrategias de socialización en comunidades de Internet. Revista Mediterránea de Comunicación, 8(2), 171188. https://cutt.ly/WggJIkw DOI: https://doi.org/10.14198/MEDCOM2017.8.2.12
Sarmiento, Á. G. (2023). Contexto, narración y estilo en "Orson Welles´ Sketch Book". En X. M. Morales Investigación y experiencias educativas centradas en la creatividad artística. Música, cultura audiovisual y artes escénicas en la sociedad de las pantallas (pp. 467-487). Dykinson.
Sarmiento, Á. G. y Martínez, V. C. (2022). Propuesta metodológica para el análisis de la forma documental. De la cuantificación a la cualificación. Comunicación y Métodos, 4(1), 9-25. DOI: https://doi.org/10.35951/v4i1.151
Schwartz, A. B. (2015). Broadcast hysteria: Orson Welles's War of the Worlds and the Art of Fake News. Macmillan.
Scolari, C. (2008). Hipermediaciones. Elementos para una Teoría de la Comunicación Digital Interactiva. Gedisa.
Scolari, C. A. (2009) The grammar of hypertelevision: An identikit of convergence-age fiction television (or, now television simulates new interactive media). Journal of Visual Literacy, 28(1), 28–49. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/23796529.2009.11674658
Tapia, R. C., y Rivera-Rogel, D. (2020). Una mirada a los youtubers de la Comunidad Andina. Revista Ibérica de Sistemas e Tecnologias de Informação, (E35), 377-389.
Tarbox, T. (2013). Orson Welles and Roger Hill: A Friendship in Three Acts. Bear Manor Media.
Tomás, J. C. Z., y Marín, D. R. (2020). El movimiento youtuber en la divulgación científica española. Prisma Social, (31), 212-238.
Vera, J.J. y Roca, D., (2018). Creación de la marca personal deldivulgador científico a través de la web. En J. L. Zurita, J. Serrano-Puche y M. Gil Ramírez (Eds.). Comunicación periodística ante los nuevos retos (pp. 507-522). Gedisa.
Walters, B. (2009, 17 de diciembre). Orson´s TV revolution that never was. The Guardian Film Blog. https://www.theguardian.com/film/filmblog/2009/dec/17/orson-welles-television
Weinrichter, A. (2004). Desvíos de lo real. El cine de no ficción. T&B y Festival de Las Palmas.
Zunzunegui, S. (2005). Orson Welles. Anaya.
Downloads
Published
How to Cite
Issue
Section
License
Those authors who publish in this journal accept the following terms:
- Authors will keep the moral right of the work and they will transfer the commercial rights.
