Opacidad y potencia de las imágenes. Mujeres trabajadoras en la industria textil

Abstract

Photography provides an indication of “that was” (Barthes, 1982) in film narration, beyond its fictional o documentary nature. However, sits treatment requires specific methodological precautions if it is a documentary production of historical themes. This work will analyze the use of frames and photographs in the documentary film De Alpargatas. Work Stories (Fernando Álvarez, 2009). It is an investigation around themes not addressed by works written at the time of making this film: the daily work and union participation of women factory workers crossed by gender tensions imposed by hegemonic representations. The analysis will focus on frames from Leaving the Lumière Factory (1895) and an advertising film for the Alpargatas Company (1969). From the photographic corpus included en this production, some images founded in the GeneralArchive of the Naation and in the Panorama de Alpargatas Magazine edited by the Company, will be analyzed. The possibilities offered by the images as “luminous traces” (Debois, 2008) and the necessary specific precautions taken, in this case, by the cinematographic narration will be especially considered. In this way, the impossibility of “purity” of the images will be analyzed through the voices of the workers.