A jaguar in Paris: Teo Hernández’s shamanic cinema
Thomas Matusiak
Studies in Spanish & Latin American Cinemas September 1, 2021 DOI: 10.1386/slac_00060_1 (opens in new tab)
Study at a glance
AI-extracted from the abstract| Characteristics | Theoretical or philosophical paper Peer reviewed |
|---|---|
| Topics | Shamanism |
| Key points | Argues that Teo Hernández's experimental films and writings elaborate a film theory grounded in an auto-ethnographic appropriation of primitivist tropes, through which he constructed a shamanic filmmaker persona. Contends that films such as Nuestra señora de París and Pas de ciel build a cinematic ritual intended to induce trance in the spectator and the filmmaker, a practice inseparable from his postcolonial experience as an undocumented immigrant in Europe. |
Abstract
Teo Hernández (Ciudad Hidalgo 1939–Paris 1992) began a prolific career as an experimental filmmaker after entering a self-imposed exile in Paris in 1966. With no formal training, he completed dozens of films on the amateur format of Super 8 before his untimely death at the height of the AIDS epidemic in France. Hernández’s cinema cannot be separated from his postcolonial experience as an undocumented immigrant in Europe. Based on his audio-visual and written work, this article examines how the filmmaker elaborated a unique film theory grounded in an auto-ethnographic appropriation of primitivist tropes. Through this queer exilic cinema, Hernández crafted an authorial persona around the figure of a shamanic filmmaker. I take the films Nuestra senõra de París/Our Lady of Paris (Hernández 1981–82) and Pas de ciel/No Sky () as a point of departure to examine the construction of a cinematic ritual capable of inducing trance in the body of the spectator and the filmmaker.
Comparable studies
Other theoretical and historical papers on shamanism, most cited first.
| Study | Year | Design | Participants |
|---|---|---|---|
| Ayahuasca Shamanism in the Amazon and Beyond | 2014 | Theoretical or philosophical paper | |
| Shamanism as the Original Neurotheology | 2004 | Theoretical or philosophical paper | |
| Cognitive Neuroscience, Shamanism and the Rock Art of Native California | 1998 | Theoretical or philosophical paper | |
| From Culture to Experience: Shamanism in the Pages of the Soviet Anti-Religious Press | 2020 | Historical analysis | |
| Anthropology, Shamanism, and Alternate Ways of Knowing–Being in the World: One Anthropologist's Journey of Discovery and Transformation | 2010 | Reflective essay or personal narrative |