Comparative Cinema 24: Echoes and reverberations: reflections on film trilogies
N/A
Organization: Universitat Pompeu Fabra
Echoes and reverberations: reflections on film trilogies
As “a chameleon form that is utterly determined in some contexts, but malleable, transformative and evocative in others” (Perkins y Verevis 2012, 17), the trilogy has been used to designate radically different sets of films, from films with discrete narrative structures but interdependent in the chronological construction of a larger narrative arc (Christopher Nolan's Batman trilogy or M. Night Shyamalan's “Eastrail 177” trilogy, composed of Unbreakable [2000], Split [2016] and Glass [2019], for example), to films that, without necessarily coinciding in characters, settings or tone, do coincide in authorship, and are interpreted as variations on the same theme (Michelangelo Antonioni's alienation trilogy, composed of L'Avventura [1960], La Notte [1961] and L'Eclisse [1962], or Rainer Werner Fassbinder's BRD trilogy, composed of The Marriage of Maria Braun [1979], Lola [1981] and Veronica Voss [1982], for example).
In the introduction to the collection of essays Film Trilogies: New Critical Approaches (2012), one of the only texts that have interrogated the trilogical form and its applications, Claire Perkins and Constantine Verevis noted this multifacetedness and the difficulty of developing an adaptable and comprehensive concept that transcends a mere numerical coincidence. There, designations such as “planned trilogy,” “organic trilogy,” “threequel,” and “critical trilogy” helped both editors navigate the expansiveness of the term, which responds to different conditions of existence at industrial, creative, and discursive levels. With case analyses focusing on works by Sofia Coppola, John Ford, Wes Craven, Jacques Rivette, Abel Ferrara, Kim Ki-young, Michael Haneke, Park Chan-wook, and others, the volume stands as a fundamental text in a field that has been little explored, despite the popular use of the term.
It is under the distinctions that Perkins and Verevis make that one can differentiate between pre-structured trilogical forms, governed by principles of progression, cohesion and/or codependency, in which a “knowledge of foreclosure and limitation” is traced (2012, 6), and improvised forms, which are constituted either by the non-predefined addition of second and third parts—which may or may not contribute to constructing meaning, in addition to building a progressive chronology of events—or by a critical interpretation that unifies them beyond what the directors might have originally intended. The many examples of film trilogies draw a path that runs through both “commercial” and “auteur” cinema, regardless of geographical origin. In an apparently even-handed way, thus, “trilogy” can be used to designate both The Lord of the Rings (2001-2003)—an adaptation of a literary work that was already trilogical in itself—as well as The Godfather (1972-1990)—whose universe was expanded thanks to the success of the first film—, the multiple trilogies that allow the segmentation of Aki Kaurismäki's work, or even the “Koker” trilogy by Abbas Kiarostami (Where is the Friend's Home? [1987], Life, and Nothing More… [1992] and Through the Olive Trees [1994]), which was promoted by critics but not recognized as such by the director himself, for whom the spatial coincidence of the Iranian village of Koker was more of an “accident” than a connecting thread.
Behind the term's versatility, we can also find different analytical and discursive appreciations, a fact also contemplated by Perkins and Verevis. The study of trilogies, thus, has oscillated between examinations of an authorial approach and others focused on the nature of trilogies as “multiplicities” (Klein and Parker, 2016), in this sense adjacent to film and television forms which are usually denigrated, such as remakes, sequels, reboots, and spin-offs, among others. As Carolyn Jess-Cooke (2009) identifies, this link with the authorial has allowed the trilogy, as a form, to escape the critical opprobrium that surrounds other forms of multiplicities, especially sequels.
The authorial trilogy as a loose binding form refers to an exploration of style, themes, and concerns associated with a specific creative figure's originality, versatility, and prolific nature, a connection not necessarily mediated by a common narrative universe. In this sense, the frontier between the trilogy and the very concept of authorial calligraphy is blurred: what unites the pieces of an “authorial” trilogy with each other? And what separates them from the rest of the work of said director? Likewise, through “critical trilogies”, considered as such due to an interpretative, analytical and/or critical assessment, film criticism can suggest a codependency of meaning that was not there before or was not consciously intended by its creators. A meaning that is retroactively and externally ascribed to the films. By bringing together several films of the same director under the concept of “trilogy”, critics propose a preferential mode of consumption and suggest the possibility that the films can be inserted in a network of echoes and reverberations even more specific and concrete than the notion of “authorship” and “style”.
Through this issue, Comparative Cinema invites contributors to continue exploring the multifaceted nature of trilogies, whether by reflecting on the link between trilogy and authorship, by examining the interpretations that emerge from the specific study cases and how they are linked to an authorial figure, or by reflecting on the implications of the trilogical structure itself, whether from a “commercial” or “authorial” perspective. Therefore, the call is not limited to considering trilogies that have been recognized as such by their own directors, but is also open to designations that may come from critics themselves, even when the trilogy in question, such as in Kiarostami’s case, might have been rejected by its own director.
The articles, which should be comparative in methodology—either within the films that constitute the trilogy or in comparisons between different trilogies—and be between 5,500 and 7,000 words in length, may include, but are not limited to:
- Explorations of trilogies as an industrial, textual, and critical concept
- Encounters and disagreements between the “commercial” and the “authorial” trilogy
- Narrative structures and/or thematic, tonal, and visual reverberations in specific case studies
- The structuring of an entire authorial work under the concept of a trilogy (for example: Aki Kaurismäki or Theo Angelopoulos)
- The trilogy as a rereading of an authorial style (“critical” trilogy) (for example: Abbas Kiarostami’s Koker trilogy; Ingmar Bergman’s trilogy Through a Glass Darkly [1961], Winter Light [1963], and The Silence [1963]); Wim Wenders' road trilogy, consisting of Alice in the Cities [1974], The Wrong Move [1975] and Kings of the Road [1976], among other examples).
- The trilogical organization as an autobiographical, autofictional or character-building tool (for example: Bill Douglas's trilogy, composed of Bill Douglas, My Childhood [1972], Bill Douglas, My Ain Folk [1973] and Bill Douglas, My Way Home [1978]; Márta Mészáros's diaries, Diary for My Children [1984], Diary for My Loves [1987] and Diary for My Parents [1990]; or Terence Davies's trilogy, composed of Children [1976], Madonna and Child [1980] and Death and Transfiguration [1983])
- The trilogy as world-building (for example: Gregg Araki's “Teen Apocalypse Trilogy”, composed of Totally F***ed up [1993], The Doom Generation [1995] and Nowhere [1997]; Peter Jackson's The Lord of the Rings trilogy)
- This call for papers includes “planned” trilogies, projected with a trilogical structure from their conception; “accidental” trilogies, in which two more films are added after the success of a first one, originally conceived as a stand-alone; and “critical” trilogies, whether or not they have been ratified as such by their directors.
Important dates
Submission of full texts: February 28
Reviews: March
Submission of final reviews: April 30
Publication of the issue: Summer 2025
Contact: comparativecinema@upf.edu
https://raco.cat/index.php/Comparativecinema
Recommended bibliography
Bainbridge, Caroline. 2004. “Making Waves: Trauma and Ethics in the Work of Lars von Trier.” Journal for Cultural Research 8 (3): 353–70. https://doi.org/10.1080/1479758042000264984
Coates, Paul. 2002. “Kie?lowski and the Antipolitics of Color: A Reading of the ‘Three Colors’ Trilogy.” Cinema Journal 41, no. 2: 41–66. http://www.jstor.org/stable/1225851
Feinstein, Howard. 1983. “BDR 1-2-3: Fassbinder’s Postwar Trilogy and the Spectacle.” Cinema Journal 23, no. 1: 44–56. https://doi.org/10.2307/1225071
Hanke, Bob. 2019. “Roy Andersson's Living Trilogy and Jean-Luc Nancy's Evidence of Cinema.” Film-Philosophy 23 (1): 72-92. https://doi.org/10.3366/film.2019.0099
Jess-Cooke, Carolyn. 2009. Film Sequels: Theory and Practice from Hollywood to Bollywood. Edinburgh University Press.
Klein, Amanda Ann and R. Barton Palmer. Cycles, Sequels, Spin-offs, Remakes, and Reboots: Multiplicities in Film and Television. University of Texas Press.
Kinder, M. (2004). Reinventing the motherland: Almodóvar’s brain-dead trilogy. Journal of Spanish Cultural Studies 5 (3): 245–260. https://doi.org/10.1080/146362004000282109
Lange-Churión, Pedro. 2012. “The Salta Trilogy: The Civilised Barbarism in Lucrecia Martel’s Films.” Contemporary Theatre Review 22 (4): 467–84. doi:10.1080/10486801.2012.718272
Mulvey, Laura. 2007. “Repetition and Return. The Spectator’s Memory in Abbas Kiarostami’s Koker Trilogy.” Third Text 1: 19–29. https://doi.org/10.1080/09528820601138121
Palmer, R. Barton. 2010. “Before and After, Before Before and After: Godfather I, II and III.” In Second Takes: Critical Approaches to the Film Sequel, edited by Carolyn Jess-Cooke and Constantine Verevis, 65–86. SUNY Press.
Perkins, Claire and Constantine Verevis. 2012. Film Trilogies: New Critical Approaches. Palgrave Macmillan.
Perkins, Claire. 2008. “Remaking and the Film Trilogy: Whit Stillman's Authorial Triptych.” The Velvet Light Trap 61: 14–25. https://doi.org/10.1353/vlt.2008.0010
Rumble, Patrick. 1996. Allegories of Contamination: Pier Paolo Pasolini's Trilogy of Life. University of Toronto Press.
Wang, Yiman. 2015. “Serial, Sequelae, and Postcolonial Nostalgia: Wong Kar-wai's 1960s Hong Kong Trilogy.” In A Companion to Wong Kar-wai, edited by Martha P. Nochimson. https://doi.org/10.1002/9781118425589.ch18
Wee, Valerie. 2005. “The Scream Trilogy, ‘Hyperpostmodernism,’ and the Late-Nineties Teen Slasher Film.” Journal of Film and Video 57 (3): 44–61. http://www.jstor.org/stable/20688497
https://raco.cat/index.php/Comparativecinema
Comparative Cinema