No. 38 (2025): In-between Spaces: Between Disaffection and Political Representation
Articles

Orson Welles’ The Stranger as an Unexpected Site of Mediation and Political Engagement

Sibley Anne Labandeira Moran
Universidad Carlos III de Madrid
Published June 26, 2025

Keywords:

Orson Welles, found footage, performative images, images of atrocities, mediation, political engagement
How to Cite
Labandeira Moran, S. A. (2025). Orson Welles’ The Stranger as an Unexpected Site of Mediation and Political Engagement. Bajo Palabra, (38), 223–240. https://doi.org/10.15366/bp2025.38.010

Abstract

This paper centers on Orson Welles’s film The Stranger (1946) and its use of footage of concentration camps shot by allied troops in 1945. The scene where it is included lasts only a few minutes, but the implications are far-reaching in relation to both issues of historical representation and broader debates on the use of visual records as documents, as evidence and as emotional triggers. The use of these images is also a performative one, in the sense that they determine the action of characters within the narrative, on the one hand, and that they are meant to interpellate the audience, on the other.

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