The look and the touch of evil. Notes on technologies of violence in Godless

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Cet article examine l’imaginaire de la violence dans la minisérie Godless en révélant les façons dont la tradition des films western classiques est revisitée en relation aux phénomènes contemporains de violence à travers les signes et les traces du mal, cachés dans la structure narrative et esthétique et exprimés à travers le comportement des personnages.

This paper examines the imaginary of violence in the miniseries Godless in order to reveal how the tradition of the classic westerns revisited is related to contemporary phenomena of violence through signs and traces of evil, hidden in its narrative and aesthetic structure and expressed through the behavior of the characters. The reflection focuses on the cinematic representation of violence, combining revelations of new sources of significance (Castoriadis); the changing patterns in the western genre and in media technologies (Jenkins); and the concept of "technologies of violence," as related to technologies of the imaginary (Machado da Silva) but also to the idea of a system for establishing the aesthetics of violence, evil, and fear (Benjamin) as an expression of social and cultural dynamics.