Serie, reti, nodi: matematica e narrazione filmica

Starting from some texts on cinema by Alain Badiou, the essay notes the analytical use of terms from the terminology of mathematics (such as series, networks and nodes) to analyze works by Jean-Luc Godard and Michelangelo Antonioni. The word “series”, seen from this perspective, then acquires a new applicative potential; it becomes, in fact, the model of a possible dynamic structure of a filmic or audiovisual work in general. A structure that, of course, does not exhaust the meaning of the images, but allows for the organization within it of the formal choices necessary for the production of meaning. A film can therefore also be analyzed by tracing the serial structures it contains; or, on the other hand, a series of films can be seen precisely as a series because they each have a common element that, isolated from the context, can be seen as part of a “series”. Starting from these premises, the essay identifies some of the fields of application of such a conceptual shift, from video essay practices to Ejzenštejn’s reflections on the logarithmic spiral to recent generative models of narrative structures intended for the construction of serial works.