(Janua Linguarum) Edward Branigan-Point of View in the Cinema_ a Theory of Narration and Subjectivity in Classical Film-Mouton de Gruyter (1984)

Point of View in the Cinema

Consecutive Shots from Alfred Hitchcock's Vertigo (1958), discussed on pages 117-119.

Approaches to Semiotics

66

Editorial Committee Thomas A. Sebeok Roland Posner Alain Rey

Mouton Publishers Berlin · New York · Amsterdam

Point of View in the Cinema A Theory of Narration and Subjectivity in Classical Film

Edward Branigan

Foreword by David Bordwell

Mouton Publishers Berlin · New York · Amsterdam

Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication

Data

Branigan, Edward, 1945— Point of view in the cinema. (Approaches to semiotics ; 66) Bibliography: p. Includes index. 1. Moving-pictures — Philosophy. 2. Moving-picture plays - History and criticism. 3. Point of view (Literature) I. Title. II. Series. PN1995.B717 1984 791.43'01 84-8406 ISBN 90-279-3079-1 (Netherlands)

© Copyright 1984 by Edward Branigan. All rights reserved, including those of translation into foreign languages. N o part of this book may be reproduced in any form — by photoprint, microfilm, or any other means - nor transmitted nor translated into a machine language without written permission from the author. Typesetting: Sulzberg-Druck GmbH, Sulzberg im Allgäu. - Printing: Druckerei Hildebrand, Berlin. - Binding: Lüderitz & Bauer Buchgewerbe GmbH, Berlin. Printed in Germany.

To Evelyn, Henry, and the memory of my father Robert.

Contents

Contents

VII

List of Figures Foreword by David Bordwell Acknowledgments

IX X XIV

Chapter 1 The Problem of Point of View 1. Narration and Narrative 2. Two Theories: Point of View as Perception and as Attitude 3. Point of View as Identification 4. Point of View as Language 5. Point of View as a Logic of Reading

1 1 5 9 14 16

Chapter 2

29

Film as System

Chapter 3 Narration 1. Narration as Symbolic Activity 2. Levels of Narration 3. Two Ways of Reading: By Error or by Hypothesis 4. Elements of Classical Representation 5. The Elements of Representation in Film

39 39 42 50 56 61

Chapter 4 Subjectivity 1. Subjectivity as Narration 2. The Classification of Subjectivity into Types 3. Types of Subjectivity 4. Mental Process Narration 5. The Problem of Color and Sound

73 73 76 79 85 94

Chapter5 The Point-of-view Shot 1. The Elements of POV 2. The Framing of POV 3. A Repertory of Simple Structures

103 103 109 Ill

Chapter 6 Character Reflection and Projection 1. Metaphorical Framing 2. Character Reflection 3. Character Projection

122 123 127 132

VIII

Contents

Chapter 7 The Modern Text: Subjectivity under Siege from Fellini's 8 i / 2 to Oshima's The Story of a Man Who Left His Will on Film 1. Origin: The Problem of Authorship 2. Vision: The Status of the Image 3. Time: The Relation of Narration and Narrative 4. Frame: The Relation of Spectator and Spectacle 5. Mind: Toward a Redefinition of Character

143 146 151 155 157 159

Chapter 8 Metatheory 1. Empiricist Versus Rationalist Theories of Point of View and the Process of Embedding 2. Recent Approaches to Narration 3. Summary of My Theory of Narration 4. Some Functions of Narration

168

Appendix Orthodox Theories of Narration 1. Orthodox Literary Theories of Point of View and a Fatal Distinction: Telling Versus Showing 2. Hugo Münsterberg and Film Psychology 3. Andre Bazin: Point of View as a Real Condition of Vision 4. The Categories of Jean Mitry 5. From Literature to Film: Narration as Consciousness

190 190 196 198 212 216

Suggested Further Reading

231

Index

233

168 174 176 180

List of Figures

Chapter 4 Figure 1 Types of Subjectivity in Classical Film Narration Defined as the Interaction of Three Variables

98

Figure 2 The Relation of Four Types of Subjectivity and Two Types of Objectivity in Classical Film Narration Where Time is the Textual Present

99

Chapter 5 Figure 1: Alternate Sites for the Location of Shot Β (Point/Object) Following Shot A (Point/Glance)

118

Chapter 7 Figure 1 A Semantic Square Illustrating One Thematic System of 81/2 and its Four Conclusions

163

Appendix Figure 1 Wayne Booth's Major Categories for the Analysis of Literary Point of View

195

Figure 2 Norman Friedman's Major Categories for the Analysis of Literary Point of View

196

Figure 3 Bruce Kawin's Major Categories for the Analysis of Filmic Point of View

221

Foreword by David Bordwell

Insofar as a foreword constitutes an interpretation of what follows, it enjoys the rare privilege of being a commentary designed to anticipate the text it glosses. Other interpretations (reviews, critiques) should ideally be read only after you have assimilated the book; but here is a reading you are invited to grasp before you meet the text. (Of course, since a book is a manipulable object, you can resist this and skip on to the text proper, but you can also read the foreword and skip the rest. I do not advise the latter course.) I mention the curious advantage enjoyed by prefatory material as a way of minimizing the force of a distinction I am about to make. If you read this book in the programmed order, you may despite efforts of will take my distinction as a key to the many that will follow; but I mean it only to situate, from a standpoint that does not necessarily correspond to yours or the author's, the ideas that I find most provocative in this work. The academic study of film is very young, the theory of film narration — put most loosely, how films tell stories — younger still. Yet for a long time theorists and filmmakers have held tacit assumptions about narration, and these have precedents in theories of narration in other storytelling media. We can consider these assumptions and theories as falling into two broad categories. In the Poetics, Aristotle distinguishes among the means of imitation (the medium, e.g., painting or language), the object of imitation (some aspect of human action), and the mode of imitation (how something is imitated). He goes on to isolate the possible modes: "The poet may imitate by narration — in which he can either take another personality as Homer does or speak in his own person unchanged — or he may present all his characters as living and moving before us." The basic difference is between telling (haple diegesis) and showing (dia tnitneseös). The secondary difference lies within the category of telling: does the poet speak in his/her own voice or through a character's? The dust has not yet settled on all the controversies over these troubling and fertile formulations. We can, nonetheless, employ Aristotle's distinction simply to demarcate two fundamental conceptions of narration. Diegetic theories conceive narration to consist either literally or analogically of verbal activity: a telling. Mimetic theories conceive narration as consisting either literally or analogically of the presentation of ä spectacle: a showing. Note, incidentally, that since the difference applies only to the "mode" of imitation, either theory may be applied to any medium. You can hold a mimetic theory of the novel if you believe that the narrational methods of fiction fundamentally resemble those of drama; and you can hold a diegetic theory of painting if you posit visual spectacle to be analogous to linguistic transmission.

Foreword

XI

Variations in the two approaches can be seen in the history of literary theory. Around the beginning of the twentieth century, mimetic theories of fictional narration began to emerge. Henry James and Percy Lubbock proposed that the novel be analyzed as a theatrical or pictorial representation. By advocating the "dramatic method", by comparing the novel to a painting or a series of scenes, and by equating narration with a perspectival point of view, James and Lubbock effectively collapsed the question "Who speaks?" into the question "Who sees?" These critics then used this theory to valorize the nonintrusive author (Lubbock) and character as a "center of consciousness" (James). A little later, however, Slavic theorists began to rethink fictional prose in linguistic terms. The Russian Formalist critics, especially Viktor Shklovsky and Yuri Tynjanov, suggested that not the pictorial image but the verbal "device" was central to narration. There appeared studies of how narratives were derived from linguistic tropes and considerations of how skaz (a pseudo-oral narrative style) revealed an explicit speaker. In effect, the Formalists analyzed the dramatic and pictorial homogeneity prized by James and Lubbock as simply the products of verbal composition. At the same period, Mikhail Baxtin proposed to consider the novel as not a point of view upon some imaginary world but a melange of discourses: the novelistic mode of narration was nothing more or less than a certain historically determined set of linguistic uses. More recently, this diegetic tradition has become familiar to us in continental structuralism and semiotics, with their attempt to model the study of film upon the patterns and categories of language. What of cinema's theoretical tradition? We can see the mimetic tendency flourishing as a rationale for mainstream filmmaking. It is a commonplace of Hollywood practice that telling a story consists of making the camera a perspectival eye scanning the world of the fiction. "The most effective way of telling a story on the screen," observes John Cromwell, "is to use the camera as the story-teller, selecting and concentrating upon objects which are the center of dramatic interest." A similar model underlies Andre Bazin's thinking when he describes classical cinematic representation as involving a theatrical event occurring independent of the camera, the eye of the spectator. On the other hand, Russian Formalist film theory, many of the theoretical writings of Eisenstein, and much of the semiotic analysis of film during the 1970s can be seen to assume a variety of languagebased models of narration, invoking concepts of "inner speech", enonciatiott, discourse, and so forth. In analyzing Vampyr, for instance, Mark Nash seeks to describe the film's troubling sense of space as a product of the shifts in "pronoun functions" which the spectator attributes to the shots. At first sight, the theory which Edward Branigan presents in this book might seem to straddle the two tendencies, since he draws upon thihkers in both traditions. Yet it seems to me that at bottom Branigan is proposing the most detailed mimetic theory of filmic narration that we have. I hasten to add that he is not thereby accepting a simple referential realism (nor, incidentally, did Aristotle).

XII

Foreword

The mimetic assumptions go deeper. Despite his many mentions of "telling", Branigan (relying on Barthes) constructs a field of terms — origin, vision, time, frame, object, and mind — which form a mimetic model of classical representation. For him, the "subjective" aspects of narration in any medium remain interpretable within the terms and relations that constitute classical representation, and the controlling features of that field are spatial and optical, not linguistic. Most of Branigan's analogies to language serve simply to illustrate how basic narrational processes can manifest themselves in different forms and materials of expression. As a mimetic account, this theory marks several significant departures in the tradition. Branigan effectively criticizes the communication model of narration, a task long overdue in Anglo-American circles. The book brings out the extent to which mainstream mimetic theories have relied upon the elastic notion of an invisible, idealized observer, a convenient spook whom critics can summon up whenever they desire to "naturalize" style. The book also makes exhaustive (occasionally exhausting) distinctions among types of subjectivity; after this, we will have much more precise ways of tracing the fluctuations among a character's vision, dreams, wishes, and so forth. Branigan also explains the necessity of distinguishing levels of narration. Finally, the book makes a case for what we might call a "structuralist poetics" of film. This last point requires some comment. In the drive to explore the psychoanalytic and ideological functions of cinema, contemporary film theory has neglected consideration of what 1960s semiology took as a primary task: the explication of the intersubjective but tacit conventions whereby we "make sense" of texts at a literal, denotative level. Metz's Grande Syntagmatique constitutes a faulty but exemplary instance of how one might chart the underlying structure of cinematic forms and significations. Branigan's work suggests a return to this goal. Consider several qualities of his approach. — It is grounded in an understanding of the minutiae of film style (as the Grande Syntagmatique was not, on the whole), yet it analyzes style as manifesting superficial variants of underlying paradigms. — It is a functional approach, stressing not isolated devices but their operations in defined contexts. The analysis of The Best Years of Our Lives (Chapter 6) is a good instance. — It is generative. Here, I think, is what the approach owes to linguistics, specifically Chomsky's: the model of a method. The six elements of classical representation are used to generate a typology of possible modes of subjectivity. — The approach emphasizes the cognitive skills of the "reader". The psychoanalytic approach has tended to ignore the role of cognition in making sense of texts; Branigan's stress upon the role of hypotheses and his redefinition of "the camera" are important thrusts in accounting for key aspects of how the viewer construes and constructs the space of a film.

Foreword

XIII

In sum, this book seeks to spell out some codes whereby spectators make sense of films—codes that may draw upon primary processes of the unconscious but which also have a stability and coherence that are still far from understood. To this extent, the book's development of the mimetic tradition confronts and takes up the challenge of a linguistically-based semiotics. If my pre-reading of the text that follows were to run true to form, I would now suggest some hesitations—suspicions about some distinctions (will the hypothesis/error couplet stand up?), doubts about some conclusions (is showing versus telling necessarily a fatal distinction?), disagreements about phrasing and argumentative shape. But these would only reinforce the hortatory, horizon-setting quality of prefaces, strengthening this Foreword as not only the first word but the last. The rest falls to the reader.

Acknowledgments

The present work is the result of two major revisions to my doctoral dissertation from the University of Wisconsin, Madison (1979). The dissertation has been considerably expanded, refined and updated. I have treated point of view as a concept which addresses the issue of how a spectator interprets descriptions of sensory data which appear in a text. My aim has been to show that the concept can be applied in a precise manner to a pictorial system without resort to hypothetical observers, vague psychological terms, states of consciousness, or simplistic analogies to literary theory. Although my argument draws on an analogy with transformational generative grammar, equally important connections might have been explored with generative case grammar. Portions of the following chapters have been published elsewhere. Chapter 5 is an expanded version of "Formal Permutations of the Point-of-View Shot", Screen v. 16 n. 3 (Autumn 1975), pp. 5 4 - 6 4 . 1 have added new, variant POV structures and many new examples as well as anchoring the POV shot within a wider theory of narration and subjectivity. Chapter 7 originally appeared as "Subjectivity Under Siege - From Fellini's 8—1/2 to Oshima's The Story of a Man Who Left His Will on Film", Screen v. 19 η. 1 (Spring 1978), pp. 7 - 4 0 . The main additions are a discussion of mirror shots in section 3 and additions to the footnotes. Parts of chapter 1, section 5; chapter 3, section 3; and chapter 8, section 1 are incorporated in "The Spectator and Film Space - Two Theories", Screen v. 22 η. 1 (1981), pp. 5 5 - 7 8 . 1 am grateful to the Society for Education in Film and Television Ltd. for permission to reprint this material. Frame enlargements from The Story of a Man Who Left His Will on Film appear through the courtesy of New Yorker Films. Frame enlargements from The Best Years of Our Lives, copyright 1947 Samuel Goldwyn, Jr., were provided through the courtesy of The Samuel Goldwyn Company and the kind efforts of Tom Bodley and Bruce Polichar. All the stills are frame enlargements made from 16mm prints of the films except for the stills from The Best Years of Our Lives which were made from a 35 mm print. I am deeply grateful to Ben Brewster, who has applied his keen editorial skill and contributed precision and insight to many passages. He has provided wise counsel. I am also grateful to the University of Wisconsin, Madison Department of Communication Arts and particularly to the late Ordean Ness, for support and encouragement; to the University of Wisconsin, Madison Graduate School for a

Acknowledgments

XV

Knapp Fellowship; to the Wisconsin Center for Film and Theater Research; to the University of California, Los Angeles Film Archives and its Director Robert Rosen and Assistant Director Edward Richmond; to the University of Iowa Department of Communication and Theatre Arts and Chairman John Bowers; to Dudley Andrew; to Jacqueline Black and Patrice Petro; to my teachers, Jeanne Allen, Joe Anderson, Tino Balio, Keith Cohen, Peter Schofer, and Mary Sirridge; to fellow students of film, Ed Azlant, Serafina Bathrick, Marty Dolan, Darryl Fox, Vance Kepley, Barbara Pace, Kristin Thompson, Maureen Turim, Diane Waldman, and many others; to Ronald Gottesman; and to Janet Staiger for a careful commentary on an earlier version of this book. Russell Merritt's penetrating work on the manuscript disclosed weak points in places which had seemed secure. I have profited immeasurably from his attention to detail, his courses, and his sense of humor. We have had many absorbing conversations. My debt to David Bordwell began when he first taught me how to thread a film projector and has grown steadily in the nine years since that time. He always has been extremely generous in providing bibliography and has read and reread various drafts with unflagging energy and good humor. He has provided many valuable suggestions. Much of this work has been inspired by his lectures, seminars and writing, and by the joy and discipline he brings to bear on problems of film theory. Finally, I wish to thank my fourteen-month-old son, Alex, for his boundless energy which has served as an example and my wife, Roberta Kimmel, for her patience, companionship, and loving support over the years. Edward Branigan July 1983 Santa Monica, California

CHAPTER 1

The Problem of Point of View

1. Narration and

Narrative

In talking about novels and films, critics often employ such terms as author, narrator, character and reader. When a text is considered as an object for contemplation, there must of necessity be some conception of a subject who presents the text (author), tells the story (narrator), lives in the fictional world (character), and who listens, watches, and desires that the story be told (viewer). But how exactly do we conceive of these subjects and their relation to the text? Furthermore, what does it mean to speak of the 'point of view' of an author, narrator, character or reader? The answers will depend on the critic's underlying assumptions about the nature of aesthetic texts. These assumptions may be based, for example, on theories of information, communication, expression, phenomenology, psychoanalysis, Marxism, linguistics, cultural study, and many others. In each case a different theory emerges of authorship, narration, character, and of the act of reading or comprehension. Thus a range of issues are implicated in the notion of subjectivity. It is perhaps best in illuminating the issues to begin with a specific text and the critical reaction to it and then move to problems of greater scope. American critics were astonished by the subjectivity of Henning Carlsen's Hunger (1966). Renata Adler suggested that it was a film about a 'state of mind'; Stanley Kauffman spoke of the work's 'essential solipsism'; and Arthur Knight, referring to the main character, stated: 'Seldom has a film been able to get so far inside a man (particularly if that man is an artist) that we can not only understand but empathize with his most absurd and outrageous actions'.1 Subjectivity here has something to do with 'perceiving' and also, perhaps, with 'feeling'. Leaving aside for the moment the question of whose perception, it is clear that the term subjectivity is not used to describe what the film is about — a particular character, topic or theme —but rather to describe in some way how the film presents or portrays its character or story. Thus a distinction must be made between the telling of a story and what is told by that story. 'Subject matter' becomes the result of a process of telling. Subjectivity, then, is the process of knowing a story — telling it and perceiving it. In this book, present participles such as telling, presenting, portraying, repre-

2

Chapter One

senting, giving, framing, narrating will often be used to refer to this process, while what is told will be referred to as a character, object, event, theme, or simply the narrative. With narrative texts, the distinction will often be rendered as that between narration and narrative, and occasionally as discourse and narrative. It is, however, valid for non-narrative statements and can be rendered more generally as Snonciation and enonce (enunciation and enounced).2 I will reserve the term discourse to refer to the totality of meaning generated by a textual system, and keep narration or enunciation to refer to that subsystem which implicates a subject in an activity: telling, watching, listening. The result of that activity is an object: what is spoken of, told, watched, listened to (whatever else it may be called, e.g., character, event, theme, etc.). In short, narration refers not to the story itself, but to the knowing of the story. (Note that an analysis of how we come to know the story is distinct from our belief in its truth or falsity.) There are various sorts, or better, levels of narration in a text. One such level is character narration, or what I will call subjectivity in a narrow sense; for instance, the point-of-view (POV) shot, 3 in which we see what a character sees from his or her point in space. In this narrow sense, subjectivity will refer to the narration given by a character in the narrative, but it should be remembered that, in actuality, each successive level of narration implicates a new subject — a fictional or hypothetical perceiver — in an activity of seeing (e.g., listening, telling, displaying) an object (i.e., what is seen, heard, displayed). 'Subject' and 'object' are not fixed terms but indicative of a relationship between two elements. A table may be the object of the vision of a character who may be the object of a voice-over narrator who may be the object of attention for a viewer; or, stated the other way around, the viewer may be the subject for a voice-over narration which may be the subject for a character who may be the subject who nominally produces (sees) the table. The boundary lines between subject and object, narration and narrative are never absolute; they shift according to the scope of the analysis. The text, then, is a hierarchical series of pairs of (nominal) subjects and objects, in which a subject/object pair may. at any time become an object for a higher-level subject. It is a set of Chinese boxes, one inside the other, with each successive box or level introducing a new relation of subject and object. There is thus subjectivity in every narration, including the so-called 'neutral' shots of a film. In its widest sense, subjectivity refers to the perceptual context of every utterance within the text whether explicit or implicit. However, when used without further gloss in this book, subjectivity will mean character narration or perception. The vital distinction between narration and narrative needs a bit more discussion. Consider the statement Ί am lying'.4 It is paradoxical, because if I am lying then I must also be lying when I say that Ί am lying' and hence when lying about lying I must actually be telling the truth, which contradicts the original statement that Ί am lying'. The paradox, however, may be resolved by postulating two levels of language (analogous to narration and narrative). The original sen-

The Problem of Point of View

3

tence is interpreted as two statements: one involving an object language about Τ and 'lying' and a second, implicit statement given in a metalanguage about the circumstances of the uttering of the first statement. The metalanguage involves a second Τ speaking about the very statement Ί am lying'. It can be made explicit by expanding the original sentence to Ί assert that I am lying' or, Ί say: "I am lying" '. The word Ί ' now appears twice but in each case has a different function, or role, in the discourse. A relationship is signified whereby one statement (metalanguage) places another statement (object language) within a special context or frame. A gap is created between a metalanguage and an object language, or between narration and narrative. The metalanguage is a narration which 'mentions' or is about another language. There is not a single Ί ' but two distinct T s ' . 5 The distance between them constitutes the realm of point of view, which is the relationship between narration, or different narrations, and narrative (an object language). However, a narration is not always as evident as in this simple example and is sometimes misleading. The reader is thus forced to experiment with various hypotheses, searching for a scheme which clarifies how the text is to be perceived and hence what it is about. The reader's comprehension of a text depends ultimately on the discovery of a perceptual method — that act of perceiving objects — to which the text already bears witness. Narration, then, is not a person or state of mind, but a linguistic and logical relationship posed by the text as a condition of its intelligibility. It is a way of measuring the presentation and perception of objects. The relation of subject to object may change in the course of a text; that is, the gap may change between the subject of the telling ( Ί assert t h a t . . . ' ) and the subject of what is told ('... I am lying'). In this way the text is fragmented, divided into a series of subject-tellings. At the minimum, however, there will be at least one narration in a text, one role for a subject {'I assert that I am lying'). Typically, there will be many narrations although I shall postpone to later chapters a discussion of the reasons for the splitting of narration into levels. An actual reader is also a subject in the scheme of narration/narrative. The reader is defined by the ability to frame (locate, survey) all the divisions of the text, thus providing them with an apparent unity. Obviously, the term subject covers a multitude of narrator/perceivers (an author is also a perceiver). In order to make concrete this notion of multiple subjects, or rather, the process which splits the subject into multiple roles of presenting/perceiving/narrating, think of a visit you have made to the movies with friends. You can probably form a picture in your mind of a scene showing yourself seated in a movie theatre with the friends nearby. You are able to 'look around' the theatre and notice details. Even more important, you are able to see yourself clearly in the scene, perhaps as you walk down the aisle and take your seat. At the time this actually occurred, however, you could not see yourself in this manner, you could only see your friends from your seat in the theatre. Now, however, at a later time, it is perfectly easy, indeed natural, to

4

Chapter

One

see yourself as if you were an invisible witness at the scene observing from an ideal (another) place in the room. In a sense, at this later time, 'you' are no longer 'you'. Thus the memory function reveals a splitting of the subject: you framing yourself in a new 'objective' perspective. The new perspective is a particular transformation of the original experience. It is misleading to claim that what is seen is 'objective' in the sense that it must be 'free of error'; rather it is objective only in the sense of 'being framed' in a particular way. It would be more accurate to speak of narration by a 'new' subject framing (enclosing, embedding) the 'old' subject. 'You' are neither the image of you sitting in the theatre nor the framing of this image at a later time, but rather something greater than either, the capacity to frame, a capacity that is only demonstrable by ceaselessly framing. Where linguistic shifters are a key index of subject position in natural language, the spatial point from which an image is viewed becomes an index of subject position in pictorial language.6 As for the film you saw, you will probably remember just 'the film' and not the specific angle from which it was viewed in the theatre; that is, you have fashioned an 'ideal' view of the film from nowhere, or everywhere, in the theatre, not from where you actually sat.7 This ideal or objective view of the film is exactly the product of a reframing of the experience in the light of what you 'know' — the result of seeing, not the seeing itself. The fact that a film is objectified is a measure of the transparency of the reframing process. And your reaction to the film is determined, in part at least, by how the film itself frames and reframes, establishing different relations with your memory and imagination. The film is a discourse which itself creates a set of subject positions for the viewer, just as the viewer is able to frame and reframe the film and create subject positions for the presumed 'author' of the film. Memory is only one of many processes which split the subject. One can, for instance, look across a room and, simultaneously, imagine how one looks from that point across the room. The same effect can be created using a mirror, which falsifies spatial position so that when you see yourself in the mirror, you see (1) a reflection of yourself, and/or (2) yourself (your face) as if you were in the position of the mirror looking back at yourself. The mirror objectifies an imaginary process whereby one identifies oneself. It is perhaps not surprising, then, that certain kinds of mirror shots in film will be central to a type of subjectivity which I will call reflection (chapter 6). The distinction between narration and narrative is a methodological one or, if one prefers, 'theoretical', because in actuality each is part of the other, like the front and back sides of a sheet of paper. One cannot conceive of a narrative without there being a performance, a giving of the narrative, and, similarily, one cannot conceive of a performance without there being something which is performed. Narration and narrative are a single complex phenomenon.8 One cannot subtract narrative from discourse and hope to have pure narration as a residue. The separa-

The Problem of Point of View

5

tion achieved in my analysis of the paradoxical sentence Ί am lying' was accomplished through the use of theoretical terms and was itself the product of looking, framing — subjecting — the world to a distance. 9 . The purpose of such a distance (eventually, a theory) is to explain the phonomenon in terms external to it, and thus to escape saying merely 'it is what it is'. 10 The fact that theoretical terms are about objects in the world rather than being, in the first instance, objects in the world does not sanction an invidious distinction between illusion and reality in which theoretical work is seen as a curiously suspect enterprise akin to sorcery. All that is claimed is that one requires a 'point of view' — a theoretical perspective — in order to bring the very distinction narration/narrative into existence so as to talk about point of view in the first place. A theory frames and arranges the data and that frame should never be confused with what is framed. The aim of this chapter and those that follow is to present such a theoretical perspective. To return to the example of the critical reaction to the film Hunger, Penelope Gilliatt asserts that the film is: a true invention of subjective cinema. It stays inside one man's skull [the main character's], and everything in it expresses that man. We see the world through a singular mind housed in the body of an indigent. His moods sweep the film: bile, pride, phantom hope, fury, fantasies of due grandeur that are outwardly unapt in a bum . . . The experience of the film is the experience of being this character. 11 If character subjectivity is a special form of narration, that form still has to be specified. Attempts to define narration have fallen into four very broad categories, depending upon whether the central activity is one of sensory perception, attitude, identification, or language. Gilliatt here demonstrates aspects of the first three approaches, which I will examine in turn before extending the approach I have already introduced, which is a special version of the fourth.

2. Two Theories: Point of View as Perception and as

Attitude

The starting-point for the attempt to anchor subjectivity to a direct perceptual quality is something like Gilliatt's statement that 'we see the world through a singular mind'. The approach seeks to expand, in a literal fashion, the 'we see' into a set of spatial and temporal constraints on our vision — what the film presents to us. These constraints are to be interpreted as modelling the activity of a unique perceiver: we see 'through a singular mind'. For example, it is claimed that our perception of pictorial space is related to some person's monocular vision. The lines of linear perspective are used to define a hypothetical point of vision from which the space is ordered and made intelligent (perceived). This viewing position

6

Chapter

One

lies outside12 the represented space and corresponds to that place where a hypothetical observer of the scene, present at the scene, would have to stand in order to give us the space as pictured. More generally, the claim is that we see the 'picture of x' in the same way as a hypothetical observer would see 'x'. Point of view becomes a function of the position of the hypothetical observer who stands in for the viewer of a painting or movie, that is, we are invited to imagine ourselves within a certain perceptual array. (Secondary criteria such as distance and angle can then be used to further characterize our point of view; for example, closeness is linked to greater 'involvement', a low angle to our 'domination'.)13 The emphasis is on a viewer recognizing — recreating — a pictured space by discovering a series of perceptual equivalences. The archetypal device of this sort in film is the point-of-view (POV) shot, where the camera assumes the spatial position of a character in order to show us what the character sees; the camera lens, so to speak, becomes the eye of the character (hence also the metaphor 'camera eye'), with the result that our sensory perception is restricted to that of the character. The perception of space involves many complex issues in sensory psychology,14 bearing not only on the spatial perception of real viewers but also, by extension, on the construction of space and the potential construction of space by narrators/observers 'in' the picture; that is, our perceptual abilities dictate what may be constructed for us. Film writers, however, have generally not worked at the level of a viewer's real sensory perception but instead have concentrated on a higherlevel perception, on certain perceptual 'forms' or 'effects', which are already familiar to the viewer and so can be disrupted by the filmmaker in order to disorient and shock him or her into new patterns of perception. The psychophysics of perception is not studied, but rather a set of material forms or possibilities which, it is assumed, determine how we actually see; for instance, the possible ways that editing techniques affect our perception of space and time, such that film as a whole creates a perceptual 'illusion' which can be reinforced or shattered for a viewer. The work of Noel Burch provides an illustration of these tendencies. Burch treats the POV shot strictly as a formal parameter controlling the divergence and convergence of image and word, where divergence is linked to external shots of character and convergence to 'subjective' shots.15 He seems to value the POV shot for its potential to bring shot transitions 'forcibly' to the viewer's 'attention'. 16 The POV shot is only a subset of the general class of spatial and temporal articulations between shots; what is important here is not so much a system of narration but the potential to administer perceptual shocks to the viewer (Burch is drawing on the Russian Formalist notion that art depends on prolonging and renewing perception through a process of 'defamiliarization').17 One way to understand the subjectivity of Hunger, then, is to list its subjective devices. POV shots are indeed utilized in the film and sometimes appear in conjunction with an overexposed image: that is, we not only see what the character sees, but also how he sees it. The specific use in Hunger suggests the character's

The Problem of Point of View

7

failing eyesight, the onset of hunger hallucinations, etc. Also prominent in the film are devices allied to the POV shot such as eyeline matches (we see what the character sees when he sees it although not from his point in space) and dream sequences. One might even add the large number of camera movements which follow character; dolly-in and close-up shots of character (the film ends on a close-up); and such narrative moments as the character speaking about his mental state. Objects and events in the film reveal, point to, character traits. All of these devices strengthen the sense of character by doubling and multiplying it throughout the text and at different levels. But several of these devices are no longer strictly formal, but depend on a particular conception of narrative to assign them their significance. Perhaps the most famous film to utilize POV shots is Lady in the Lake (Montgomery, 1946), where the entire film — with several important exceptions — is ostensibly a single travelling POV shot. Critical opinion, however, is almost unanimous that the film, though 'subjective', is a mere trick, a curiosity, or a failure, whereas Hunger is hailed as a brilliant, almost flawless example of subjective cinema. It seems that something more — beyond the merely formal — is required for a film to be 'genuinely' subjective. The difficulty of equating optical (perceptual) POV with the experience of being that character (feeling the character's feelings) leads critics toward attitude, identification, or language as additional conditions on subjectivity, or as an entirely new attempt to define subjectivity. Nick Browne, for instance, argues that point of view is a complex interaction between our way of viewing and what we view; and Seymour Chatman asserts that two differing points of view may exist concurrently in a single shot: we may see through one character's eyes while our sympathy is for another character.18 Both attitude and identification are attempts to deal with what used to be called pragmatics — the study of the relations between symbols and their users. Andre Bazin demonstrates the shift toward the statement of someone's attitude as point of view when he describes an elaborate circular camera movement in The Crime of M. Lange. It creates the impression, he says, of dizziness, of madness, of suspense.19 Bazin interprets a formal technique (camera movement) in terms of its psychological effects on a viewer (dizziness), its place in the narrative (suspense), and perhaps as an embodiment of a character's state of mind (seized by anger, madness). Camera movement at that moment becomes the objective correlative of the viewer's disposition toward narrative and character. Jean Mitry goes one step further in his inventory of the large-scale forms of subjectivity in film.20 He finds five kinds: the POV shot, memory images, purely mental or dream images, subjectivising the objective (the camera participates with and mirrors a character's mental state), and imaginary or fantasy narrative. It is apparent that the inventory itself is phenomenal, that is, derived through the senses and somehow self-evident: when we watch a film we simply experience these forms. But more than sensory experience is at stake. The inventory depends on a psychology of viewer attitudes and responses; only at that level can such appar-

8

Chapter

One

ently disparate phenomena as the POV shot and the fantasy genre be reconciled under the common heading of subjectivity. It is not immediately clear in what ways the forms are related to one another (which mental states produce subjective forms? which do not?) or whether there.may be more than five kinds. In effect, Mitry defines film technique by analogy with the psychological conditions of seeing everyday life, an approach shared by such writers as Hugo Münsterberg, Ernest Lindgren, and Karel Reisz and Gavin Millar. For other writers (e.g., Wayne Booth, Norman Friedman, Dudley Andrew, Nick Browne and Bruce Kawin), it is not just the attitude of the viewer which is important but also the beliefs and moral values of 'stand-ins' for the viewer as well as the attitudes of those 'speaking to' the viewer. The viewer's attitude becomes a composite of various hypothetical observers, characters, narrators, implied narrators, and the author. Thus Gilliatt says of the main character in Hunger·. 'Everything in [the film] expresses that man . . . His moods sweep the film: bile, pride, phantom hope, fury, fantasies of due grandeur ., .' 21 Attention centers on the human psyche and the states of consciousness expressed in and by the text. But if the film expresses the character, then of whom — what attitude — is the film an expression? Of an author? If so, subjectivity comes to mean 'we see what the author saw'. Note the hierarchy implicit in the verb tenses: we see after and as subsidiary to an Original — the author's vision. Unfortunately, if the text is viewed in this way, as a communication from author to reader, one can make art objects appear trivial (or worse) by asking why an author doesn't simply say what he means (has in mind) instead of leading us through a hide-and-seek game of fictions and indirections. We can now better understand why it is that certain 'stylized' works (i.e., works which seriously violate a set of norms either within the work, in other works by the same author, in a genre, studio style, period of style, order of discourse, etc.), such as the nouveau roman, are said to exemplify 'extreme subjectivity'.22 The extreme subjectivity is that of the author, his or her attitude toward the world as disclosed in the work. The stylization is so unique, so unfamiliar that it can only be a 'personal' work. The author's attitude, in the end, becomes the 'moral' of the story. A weaker version of authorial attitude confines itself to the implied commentary or 'tone' of a work (e.g., irony). The danger of simplistic accounts of authorship and/or the postulation of 'psychotic' narrators to account for discrepancies in a text is that they provide, like allegory, a totalizing reading of the work. 23 Subjectivity seems to circulate endlessly about the human agent, with the artwork reduced to a conceit. The attraction of such a communication model for empirical study, on the other hand, is that it clearly specifies a psychologically real viewer whose attitude formation may be measured and then 'extended' to the characters in the fiction. Identification, too, can then be probed in behavioral terms.24 Critics, however, are seldom interested in empirical study, with the consequence that 'psychological attitude' becomes an extraordinarily vague term, as its many varieties attest. A detailed

The Problem of Point of View

9

treatment of the work of Booth, Friedman, Bazin, Mitry, Kawin and others, as well as of the problems raised by communication and expression theories is provided in the appendix. The case of Sergei Eisenstein is more difficult. In his later theoretical writing, 25 he seems to conceive of point of view as an attitude. He isolates the 'problem of portraying an attitude toward the thing portrayed' and says: At once the question arises: with what methods and means must the filmically portrayed fact be handled so that it simultaneously shows not only what the fact is, and the character's attitude towards it, but also how the author relates to it, and how the author wishes the spectator to receive, sense, and react to the portrayed fact. 26 In The Film Sense Eisenstein describes the creative process as a sensual or imagistic thinking which appears to lead if not to communication with the spectator then at least to a parallel interaction where there is correspondence but no causal connection with the spectator (cf. Leibnitz's doctrine of parallelism, involving a pre-established harmony, in the philosophy of mind). Before the inner vision, before the perception of the creator, hovers a given image, emotionally embodying his theme. The task that confronts him is to transform this image into a few basic partial representations which, in their combination and juxtaposition, shall evoke in the consciousness and feelings of the spectator, reader, or auditor, that same initial general image which originally hovered before the creative artist.27 If we construe Eisenstein's theory as dealing with attitude, then it must be said that that attitude is neither the personal attitude of an artist, nor an attitude determined by Pavlovian reflexology (his early theory), nor a transcendental one (e.g., 'universal humanism'), but rather it is a socially relative attitude which is, in the widest sense, political and specific. 28 Eisenstein stressed the importance of a politically consistent and singular viewpoint (as well as a concomitant organic fusion of the text and synesthesia), remarking that 'the "ancient" cinema was shooting one event from many points of view. The new one assembles one point of view from many events'.29

3. Point of View as Identification A third approach to subjectivity centers on the beholder's relationship with the text, namely, the problem of identification or its opposite alienation. Popular usage of the term identification refers vaguely to a process whereby the beholder

10

Chapter One

recognizes some 'similarity' between himself/herself and a character or situation in a film. Identification, here, is not an attitude but a process of forming and reforming one's identity in comparison with or against something else. A typical statement is that a film encourages us 'to identify with the emotional predicament of the central character'. 30 Something more than 'understanding' or 'meaning' is at stake; rather, identification deals with our emotional response, involvement, appreciation, empathy, catharsis (Aristotle), or feeling toward the film. Identification relates to our active participation with a text. We 'care' about the characters, it is said. Thus Knight says of Hunger that we not only 'understand but empathize' with the central character. 31 Gilliatt goes even further and simply collapses the main character of Hunger onto the viewer (total identification): 'The experience of the film is the experience of being this character'. 32 A more systematic approach is developed by Edward Bullough, who uses 'psychical distance' to measure the beholder's relative identification-with/distance-from the artwork. For him, psychical distance is a separation between beholder and artwork caused both by the 'distancing-power' of the individual and by the 'nature' of the artwork. Psychical distance means that the art object is experienced apart from the individual's practical needs and attitudes, leaving the emotions free to move toward and be attributed to the object. More subtly, the split is ultimately not one between individual and object but one within the self: between one's bodily or spiritual 'being' and one's 'affections' — perceptions, emotions, ideas. 33 Bertolt Brecht developed a theory of theatre around an 'alienation effect' or 'distanciation'. Brecht wanted the spectator to criticize scenes and this was impossible if her or she identified with them. Various attempts have been made to apply his theory to film. 34 In addition, attempts are sometimes made to forge a causal link with the perceptual conditions of viewing a film, such as the suggestion that the spectator naturally 'identifies' with the lens of the camera in a dream-like reverie.35 Bullough's 'psychical distance', too, is only a more general form of the perception of space, both between the spectator and art object and as represented within the art object.36 Recently a new brand of psychoanalytic criticism inspired by Jacques Lacan's re-reading of Freud has re-addressed the problem of identification. This new psychoanalysis is not directed toward the pathology of a character or theme (and what that reveals of the author), nor toward the search for phallic symbols, etc., in the text; rather, the emphasis is on the text itself as a discourse, the processes it reproduces, and the relation it poses to a beholder. It is as if the text were on the psychoanalyst's couch, speaking about its family of readers. Both the real author and a real beholder are replaced by the 'subject', which is a 'position in discourse'. The 'attitude' approach to point of view assumes a coherent, consistent individual overcome by momentary 'states of mind', whereas for psychoanalysis, the prob-

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11

lem is the very formation of the individual's identity. In psychoanalytic theory, the individual is never a unity, but is traversed by contradictory and hidden (unconscious, repressed) forces, and it is these forces which are the center of inquiry, not surface effects like attitudes. The application of psychoanalysis to texts depends on an analogy: processes of the unconscious are like (though not reducible to) the processes of language. Consequently, there is an effort to link psychoanalytic terms to language, and vice-versa. An example of the former is the linking of condensation and displacement, respectively, to metaphor and metonymy. An example of the latter is the interpretation of the necessary distance — discussed earlier — between the enunciation (narration) and enounced (narrative). If the gap widens too far, the result is neurosis; if the gap closes, the result is psychosis. 37 The analysis of enunciation becomes an analysis of Freudian primary processes and the constitution of the 'subject'. 38 In order to extend psychoanalysis to film, 39 an additional analogy is needed: processes of film must be like (though not necessarily reducible to) the processes of language. Psychoanalysis of the film text as derived from Lacan begins with the fundamental distinction between narration and narrative. 40 Both of these aspects of a text are conceived as organized along two axes: (1) a play of presence/absence between the author as subject and a narrator, i.e., any of the author's representatives in the text (e.g., a character who tells or acts out a story); and, (2) a play of identity/difference between the viewer as subject and a narratee, i.e., any of the viewer's representatives in the text (e.g., a character who listens or watches). 41 (The narrator and narratee need not be personified as characters, but may sometimes be 'effaced', i.e., be represented as implicit positions in the text.) The purpose of these games is not to move a message (information) between a sender and a receiver (as in a communication model), but to replay, as Paul Willemen says, 'one single procedure: the mise-en-scene of lack, i.e., castration'. 42 Although Pursued [Walsh, 1947] contains rhetorical procedures to provoke an illusion of inexorable but smooth progression (e.g. the abundant use of dissolves for transitions, the overall circularity of the narrative construction, etc.), the entire text is in fact one field of criss-crossing chains of semantic and expressive motifs, of permutations and shifts within one triadic structure on the model of the oedipal situation, with most of the signs functioning simultaneously on many levels. 43 The self that the individual recognizes as his or hers depends equally, for psychoanalysis, upon what that individual rejects, fails to recognize, or represses.44 Similarly, the fictional text in its figuration of a subject depends on a repressed text. 4 5 The repressed text is the true object of inquiry — that which cannot be directly named in the text (fear of castration) but only endlessly circled with — replayed through — signifiers. Because the text is, at its most basic, the replay of a

12

Chapter

One

certain psychodrama of repression, one must redefine traditional notions of character, action, author, and finally, the viewer. Character is no longer a stable unity (analogous to a human being) but a function in the text which is constantly being split, shifted and reformed elsewhere (just as the human subject is racked by contradictory drives from different conscious and unconscious levels). Character is a construction of the text, not a priori and autonomous. It is not a 'first fact' for literary criticism through which the remainder of a text is interpreted, made intelligible. Rather, character exists to serve and to mask unconscious forces as they are played out in a drama which implicates the viewer. Thus a character may at one moment be a narrator and at another a narratee. As the notion of character becomes more fluid, so too does the boundary between how the film presents a character and what that character presents within the film; for example, a character's flashback as well as the non-person, 'objective' shots which introduce the flashback are both forms of the same strategy, and are not on different 'levels of reality'. Characters and their 'privacy' are truly fictions of the text. As Willemen puts it, the text is exactly a 'product of a desire to make a desire recognized', with characters providing only temporary hiding-places for signifiers of desire. 46 Therefore it is the discourse's an entirety that becomes the object of psychoanalysis. This allows psychoanalytic mechanisms — the primal scene, the Oedipus complex, family romance, seduction, fetishism, phantasy, voyeurism, exhibitionism, etc. — to be employed in the description of discourse, its production and engagement with a subject. Character is only a surface feature of the discourse. Like character, the actions and events of a story are deconstructed by a psychoanalytic reading. For example, the desire to know often appears in the story as a set of enigmas posed, delayed and resolved. For Willemen, the measuring out of knowledge in this way suggests the Freudian concepts of repression and deferred action as well, one might add, as the mechanisms of disavowal and the return of the repressed. 47 Note that these Freudian concepts implicate a subject/perceiver: they are defined by their relationship to a conscious and unconscious system. Thus even the actions and events of a story are not pure and neutral nor the real object of inquiry but depend on their place in an emerging identity and its regulation of desires. One might go further and postulate that the classic text marshals desires and then moves to satisfy them; that is, to reassure the fears accompanying desire (which, in turn, suggests a replaying of desire but only to conceal fear/desire anew). Desire is always in a lack and so always lacking: the play of desire is a ceaseless lack of satisfaction of desire. 48 On the other hand, texts might begin with stasis — an end of desire — and move in the opposite direction, forcing the viewer to actively reconstruct the desire of which the text is already the trace. When a viewer refuses to reconstruct the text in the latter way, what remains is what he or she began with: lack of desire, boredom. Gertrud (Dreyer, 1964) comes to mind.

The Problem of Point of View

13

Psychoanalysis, in its search for the repressed text, also upsets the notion of author. The circulation (circularity) of desire — often repressed desire — in the text requires two points: self and other (I-you). Surface features of the text — such as characters, voice-over narrators (and voice-over narratees) — are only transient masks for the desire to know and be known. As readers, all that we know, finally, about that desire which seeks to make a desire recognized is the series of letters spelling out the Other's name — the director — which is not to be confused with the interviewable person of the director or even a collection of interviewable persons subsumed under that name (parents, co-workers, acquaintances, etc.)· 49 If the Other organizing presence were capable of being interviewed, then the analysis would revert to a simple communication model (the communication of desire) and the psychopathology of authors — the dynamics of creativity and great men. The alternative that there is, finally, no Other presence is equally unpalatable. To assert that neutral, seemingly omniscient shots in a film are just the world, objectively presented for the objective eye (the perfect viewer) is to fall into an empirical theory which cuts desire short. Geoffrey Nowell-Smith notes that: The psychoanalytic approach cannot rest content with the observation that the internal construction of a film is one which situates the events portrayed as lacking any enunciating subject. For psychoanalysis is crucially concerned with the intersubjectivity of the construction of meaning. In the absence of a subject of enunciation on the side of the film it is hard to see what position is possible for that other subject, that of the spectator him/herself. The spectating subject requires the relation to an other in order to situate itself, and somewhere the film must provide it with that other. 50 Thus another conception of the author is needed — a conception intermediate between the two empirical possibilities of an interviewable author and no author (pure objectivity). The new conception of author must recognize that the purpose of, the interest served by so-called neutral shots is the regulation of unconscious desire. This author, as Other, then becomes known only through a series of personal marks systematized in the text. The interviewable author is simply another viewer with no special access to the text and only imperfectly aware of its operation. Stephen Heath relates Orson Welles to his film Touch of Evil (1958) in the following way: When Welles declares "I hate women but I need them" ... which is effectively the position of the narrative economy of Touch of Evil in the force of its logic . . t h e conclusion is not that the film is the expression of Welles but that it is to be understood in its functioning in relation to an Oedipal logic which is the subject-positioning of film and Welles. 51 The aim of psychoanalysis is not to expose an author who then 'expresses' himself

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Chapter One

through a text but to analyze the network of desire which holds captive both text and author. 52 The same argument could be traced through again with respect to locating the self — ultimately, the viewer. The result is that psychoanalysis does not focus on the responses of real viewers (as they emerge from the movie theatre) nor accept a perfect viewer (perfectly objective and hence invisible), but rather postulates an intermediate, hypothetical viewer who is caught up by, and subject to, a system of desire. In psychoanalytic theory, the viewer as a subject is positioned through its representatives in the text (narratees) and through identification with other patterns of marks. Since both author and viewer are on exactly the same level as producers of the text — subjects of its system — subjectivity is, strictly, neither in the one nor the other but in both/and in a necessary simultaneity (as in self/other). Thus for Willemen, the real subject lies in the difference between self and other — what each represents for the other — the relation of viewer and author created through the phantasy scene (text).53 It is a fundamental assumption that the human being is irretrievably split and not an autonomous whole. The split is that of self/other or various inflections of it, such as conscious/unconscious, I/ego, ego/id, etc. As psychoanalysis draws closer to an analysis of language, that split is seen mirrored in the irretrievable split (distance) between the subject of the enunciation and the subject of the enounced. The 'splitting of the subject' within discourse itself is what allows contradictory and unconscious processes to be presented by language. The splitting of the subject is deemed the very ground of intelligibility of both discourse and the human. The author/viewer is then only a version of the split subject which exists in every utterance and in the human subject as self/other. Communication models fail because they concentrate on ideal 'messages' rather than on the underlying processes which generate these messages: in addressing another, a subject equally addresses itself. It is not the message which is fundamental but the constitution of the positions Ύ and 'you' 54 which may or may not be separate 'persons' and which may, in any case, be modeled through language. Starting with the text, psychoanalysis aims to reconstruct these various subject positions, ultimately revealing the 'author as subject' and the 'viewer as subject'. In the approach, the author and viewer are on exactly the same level as producers of the text; the process is not 'one-way' — one is not active, the other passive.55

4. Point of View as Language Much work has been done applying linguistic methods to the study of texts, but relatively little bearing on the specific problem of point of view. Most of the latter has concentrated on an elaboration of the function of shifters (i.e., personal and demonstrative pronouns, verb tenses, the definite article 'the', and time and place

The Problem of Point of View

15

indices like 'this, that, here, there, now, then, past, two years ago, soon, later, tomorrow') 56 and on Emile Benveniste's distinction between discours (discourse) and histoire (history).57 These concepts, by drawing out the time, place and person associated with an utterance, provide it with a context, i.e., a 'point of view'. However, because the very concept of point of view seems to demand an observing consciousness (a point) and the unified character of traditional criticism,58 more recent structural criticism of literature has tended to ignore point of view, or even to replace it by an analysis of 'codes', and, in S/Z, Barthes speaks somewhat vaguely of 'origin' and 'destination' as a way, perhaps, of displacing 'author' and 'reader'. 59 As for pictorial systems, Elliott Sober has suggested that linear perspective is the reciprocal of linguistic indices — i.e., words which point to something, like 'this, here is, in front of me', etc. 60 — while Mark Nash has made an ingenious attempt to apply discours and histoire systematically to Vampyr (Dreyer, 1932), by defining six 'pronoun functions' in film — roughly a first, second and third-person function under both discours and histoire.61 Both these analyses obviously depend on an analogy between pictorial systems, film in particular, and natural language. In chapter 2, I will argue that film is a language system, but this is not to assert a thorough-going analogy between film and natural language. Structuralists like Barthes, Benveniste and Jakobson take natural language to be a primary modeling system for all other language systems, and eventually culture itself, with the result that the latter yield to the science of linguistics.62 Others, especially Christian Metz, 63 hold that natural language only partially overlaps other systems, so that linguistics is only a subset, though admittedly a powerful one, of the more general study of signifying systems, semiotics, with the consequence that it remains an open question how far specific linguistic analyses may be pursued into film. This debate over the relation between words and pictures frequently neglects a vital issue: the nature of human cognition, i.e., the internal representational system which processes words and pictures. Assuming that the brain is not perfectly redundant, the demonstration — through physiological and experimental evidence — of two processing systems64 would strongly support the notion that words and pictures do not entirely overlap (and thus neither can be posited as a master system). On the other hand, if human processing is unitary, there is support for a strict structuralist view, although there still remains room to argue for a fundamental difference between words and pictures. 65 Current evidence seems to favor the existence of two processing systems in the brain, and hence the partial independence of pictorial systems from natural language. Nash's assumption in analyzing Vampyr is that there exists 'sufficient similarity' 66 between a pictorial system and natural language to justify the use of Benveniste's linguistic categories. Histoire, for Benveniste, refers to a total absence of first and second-person pronoun markers as well as the absence of present and fu-

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Chapter One

ture tenses (because these qualities refer to a speaker and the time of speaking — the moment of discours). Nash, however, interprets histoire to be the absence of authorial personal marks, 67 so that, for example, he lists the point-of-view shot under first-person histoire (the author is completely concealed behind a character). But if the POV shot where we see objects at the exact time the character sees them is to have a linguistic analogue, surely it must represent the Τ of a character who says Ί see'. Furthermore, if any image can be said to be in the present tense, it must be the POV shot. It is no answer to reply that the POV shot is analogous to a direct quotation embedded in a text otherwise in the mode of histoire, for such a quotation is, according to Benveniste, discours.68 Nash is, in fact, following Tzvetan Todorov's interpretation of Benveniste.69 Nash and Todorov diverge sharply from Benveniste because of a profound split in theoretical inquiry between rational and empirical assumptions. Chapter 8 will assess the far-reaching impact of this split for all theories of point of view. A final point about Nash's application of linguistic categories concerns the place of the reader — the 'you' of I—you address. For Benveniste, the 'you' exists simultaneously and in opposition to any narrating instance (an Ί') along an axis which he terms the 'correlation of subjectivity'.70 For Nash, however, the reader has been compartmentalized and only occasionally appears; the scenes he analyzes are almost entirely composed of strings of first and third-person pronoun functions. This suggests that in a filmic system the reader has become passive and secondary to the narrating agency. In the approach that I shall develop, the reader will be present at all times as a co-producer of the text along with the narrator.

5. Point of View as a Logic of Reading Definitions of point of view based on perceptual and sensory qualities — preconditions of the intelligibility of film — possess an admirable specificity, but they are altogether too narrow and formal. Point of view becomes a device cut off from narrative context and dependent on a real (Mitry) or ideal (Burch) psychology of the viewing experience. The perceptual approach leads to an inventory of phenomenal forms which (for Mitry) are self-evident and (for Burch) reveal themselves perceptually by patterns of repetition and variation. There is scarcely a hint in these theories of how the simple perception of, say, color and editing discontinuities relates to human cognition and the processing of complex forms (e.g., narrative). Ideology is also a problem, for the devices of film are either 'neutral' forms independent of use, or else inherently ideological — stamped with an original sin from which there is no escape. 71 If a perceptual theory stops short of the perception of real viewers, then it often sets up the camera (camera lens, camera angle, distance, etc.) as the point of intelligibility of filmic space. In this way pro-

The Problem of Point of View

17

filmic material divisions, such as the camera and the shot become the primary terms in the system, instead of, say, narrative codes. If the perceptual approach is too narrow, identification is too broad. Identification often neglects textual features or simply dissolves them in a search for psychical mechanisms. Colin MacCabe, for example, distinguishes a 'look' from a 'point of view'. 72 Identification implies an important but much wider inquiry which deals with the act of viewing and what is viewed by a spectator as well as, perhaps, the determinate social moment of the viewing.73 I will work at the other end of the signifying process and begin with specific textual and symbolic acts. Although I shall generally be asking different sorts of questions, my approach has important points of contact with a psychoanalytic one. In Freudian terminology, I will be examining the 'secondary' process and the forms of 'bound' energy in the conscious/preconscious system as opposed to the 'primary' process and 'free' energy of the unconscious. The theory that point of view is an attitude of some sort — of a viewer, implied observer, character, narrator, implied or real author, ect. — is based on the assumption that the bearer of the 'attitude' is 'like', or simply is, a real person who expresses himself/herself in a way which communicates with the viewer as a person. By contrast, I will be dealing not with, e.g., characters and their (?) attitudes but with codes of character and the ideology of the text. The concept of psychological attitude is wholly replaced by those of textual production and ideology. I will take point of view to be a property of a language system, thus working toward a general theory of representation in film. However, this theory will not be merely a formal catalogue — a taxonomy of the possible types of narration and subjectivity in film — but an explanatory account of how film narration can be understood by a spectator. This aim is analogous to the goal of modern linguistic theory as stated by Naom Chomsky: The central fact to which any significant linguistic theory must address itself is this: a mature speaker can produce a new sentence of his language on the appropriate occasion, and other speakers can understand it immediately, though it is equally new to them . . . Normal mastery of a language involves not only the ability to understand immediately an indefinite number of entirely new sentences, but also the ability to identify deviant sentences and, on occasion, to impose an interpretation on them . . . On the basis of a limited experience with the data of speech, each normal human has developed for himself a thorough competence in his native language.74 It is my belief that a film spectator, through exposure to a small number of films, knows how to understand a potentially infinite number of new films. The spectator is able to recognize immediately repetitions and variations among films, even though the films are entirely new, and outwardly quite distinct. Certain deviant or

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Chapter

One

unusual narrations can also be identified and, often, interpreted. I believe that this ability to understand — however it is acquired — is evidence of the prior knowledge, or competence, of a spectator. The goal, then, is to explain the 'reading act' in terms of the generally unconscious methods employed in decoding texts. Note that whether or not pictures themselves are held to be symbolic in nature, the claim here is merely that a narrative arrangement of pictures is symbolic and so permits certain linguistic analogies. The theory attempts, not to encompass all films, but to explain a single — though very large — class of films, which I shall call 'classical'. A field of investigation cannot be clearly delimited in advance of the theory dealing with that subject matter; in fact, one of the functions of theory is to make its objects more precise. 75 I shall not, therefore, define the 'classical film' in advance, but rely on the analysis to produce the notion. My main purpose, however, is to examine the viewer's knowledge about film, particularly the conditions in film narration which give rise to what a viewer recognizes as 'meaning'. The term 'meaning', however, is itself a problem because it is applied in so many contexts by different writers. I will take meaning to be the end result of a series of judgements and inferences made by a reader about the underlying structure of a text. These judgements may be systematized, for analytical purposes, as a set of rules (or 'codes'). The rules — which we may think of as formation rules or transformations — are finite in number and operate upon a finite set of basic elements; neither the rules nor the elements are dependent on physical properties (the material of the medium) or on formal, surface properties of the text. The rules and elements are 'abstract' and structural in nature. In this way, the rules may be used to relate meanings and texts which are outwardly quite dissimilar. The possible surface features of films are indefinite in number, but they are derived from the finite system of rules and elements; they are the result of the generative capacity of the system. If there were no system or the system were not generative (but only, say, taxonomic), then there would be only an infinite number of texts, unique unto themselves, with no possibility for the reader to learn and predict meaning from instance to instance.76 By 'predict', I mean that a reader must begin somewhere — must risk a hypothesis — and my belief is that these hypotheses are not random. A text is a specific junction — a working through — of the hypotheses and shared conventions by which a community fabricates meaning for itself. Thus, in general, I will emphasize structural similarities rather than the (endless) differences among texts, because only the former directly illuminates the underlying structure which permits endless variety. (If there is only difference, then one is led to an extreme version of an empirical theory of learning and knowledge.77) As an analogy, consider the following sentences which look quite different: 1. John played tennis.

The Problem of Point of View

19

2. My friend likes music. 3. The professor will give the lecture. Chomsky points out that, in one sense, these sentences are 'similarly understood'. This fact 'could not be explained in terms of a grammar that did not go beyond the level of words or morphemes'. 78 The reason for the similarity is that the sentences are derived from the same underlying phrase structure: noun phrase— verb—noun phrase. In a like way, I will attempt to uncover some of the underlying similarities in a narrative, pictorial system which allow a spectator access to a wide range of texts. These similarities must go beyond the level 'camera' or 'shot', just as the modern study of the syntax of natural languages depends on units both less than, and greater than, the word. It has long been accepted in film study that the shot cannot be equated with the word, but we can now see that this equation is never reached, for neither the shot nor the word is determinante in an analysis of either a film or a linguistic system. We cannot expect such phenomena as the 'camera', properties of the camera (e.g., position, distance, angle), or the 'shot' to be decisive terms in our reading. 79 Rather, surface features ebb and flow in importance according to their place, at a given moment, within the ordered set of inferences and hypotheses we make about the text and its underlying structure. My contention is that our understanding of film is not ad hoc but depends on a shared set of rules or assumptions (= meaning). The aim of my theory, therefore, will be to give an account of the logic and procedures of our reading — how we come to understand not just a single text but a range of texts and potential texts. While a system of rules and elements may be instantiated in, say, a particular film, one should never take the film to be the system. Thus the films I cite will have a curious status. They will act as illustration and example, not as decisive proof for the system. In this respect, they have the same status as the sentences analyzed in linguistics. My choice of examples will be primarily from American, French, Italian and Japanese sound films, but this should not be taken to mean that films made in other countries or films of different sorts (comedy, animation, silent) are necessarily excluded from the theory I will develop. I will not be concerned at all with historical questions,80 even though meaning depends ultimately on cultural units, and culture, in turn, has an historical dimension. I will start with the fundamental distinction, discussed earlier, between narration and narrative. It should be stressed that the narration/narrative distinction is a requirement of logic. It blocks certain paradoxes which would otherwise arise if a statement is allowed to refer to itself independently of the situation of its utterance in a discourse. The distinction cannot be reduced to any of the following dichotomies, which have long held film theory in a vise: 81 medium/message form/content

20

Chapter One signifier/signified technique/nature text/context parole/langue discours/histoire specificity/story (or rhetoric).

The next step will be to break down narration into five basic elements — origin, vision, time, frame, mind. Narrative, as the object of narration, will usually be referred to simply as 'object'. The combination of these elements gives rise to types of subjective narration. I am not, though, primarily interested in deciding whether a particular shot sequence in a film is one or other type of subjectivity. It is more important to map a logic of reading which will make explicit the competing hypotheses among which a reader must select in choosing one or other type of subjectivity. It must be emphasized that perceiving the six elements alone will not suffice because narration, ultimately, resides in the pattern or rule which governs the relations of the elements to each other. Subjectivity, for example, is ultimately a rule which is learned and through which we anticipate and decode texts. The elements themselves are not the pattern.82 The six elements of representation are designed to avoid a simple form/content split, where a content is supplied by neutral forms and ideological criticism is confined to 'themes'. Instead, the representing activity itself — defined in terms of these six elements — is grounded in ideological assumptions.83 In thinking through what is meant by textuality — representational activity — we must redefine many terms which have hitherto seemed obvious. Thus, in the following chapters we will re-examine such terms as camera, character, author, Art, and Man — the pre-eminently 'human'. One should be aware that much of the terminology in common use contains a built-in, often hidden, reference to Man. The measurement of camera distance, for instance, is referred to the human body as a center of attention. Every close-up looks like every other close-up, with the result that one is invariably surprised by the actual appearance of an actor — he or she is a different size from what we believed. Many of the concepts used to analyze narration are referred to the human body or mind (e.g., narrator). Even the concept of point of view as it has developed historically in criticism is complicit with an ideology which takes Man to be the untroubled unity of all sense, strategically located at the center of the world.84 Both Man and his point of view must be relocated as a function of the discourses of man rather than as an essence which surpasses society and is capable of all possible views, and points of view. In short, I will argue that point of view is a feature of a text accessible to a logic of reading. I will attempt to demystify point of view by breaking with the idea that

The Problem of Point of View

21

it is an entity or a feeling 'possessed* by authors or characters. Instead I will focus upon concrete, textual mechanisms which make point of view into a symbolic process, not a site for 'consciousness' and speculations about the human psyche. Point of view is part of the generative capacity of a text and is one aspect of a reader's general competence.

NOTES 1. Renata Adler, review in The New York Times (Aug. 13, 1968), p. 45; Stanley Kauffman, review in The New Republic 159 (10) (Sept. 7, 1968), p. 28; Arthur Knight, review in Saturday Review 51 (36) (Sept. 7, 1968), p. 53. 2. See Geoffrey Nowell-Smith, "A Note on History/Discourse", Edinburgh '76 Magazine 1: 27; Gerard Genette, "Narrative Discourse (Introduction)", Film Reader 2 (Evanston, 111.: Northwestern Univ., 1977), pp. 38—41; see also n. 4 and 40 below. 3. In the chapters to follow, I will use either hyphens between the words 'point-of-view' or the abbreviation 'POV' to indicate the specific filmic device known as the 'POV shot'. Otherwise 'point of view' without the hyphens will refer to a general concept applicable to any narrative medium. 4. The solution to the Ί am lying' paradox in terms of levels of language has its roots in Bertrand Russell's 1903 theory of logical types (Principles of Mathematics, Cambridge Univ., appendix B) and, specifically, in his introduction to Ludwig Wittgenstein's Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus (N.Y.: Harcourt Brace, 1922), p. 23 and in the work of Alfred Tarski (1936). A later version of Tarski's theory, "The Semantic Coriception of Truth and the Foundations of Semantics", is reprinted in Herbert Feigl and Wilfrid Sellars, eds., Readings in Philosophical Analysis (N.Y.: Appleton-Century-Crofts, 1949), pp. 52—84. See also Russell, An Inquiry into Meaning and Truth (London: George Allen and Unwin, 1940), ch. 4, "The Object-Language", pp. 62—77. The distinction enonciation!enonce is a direct translation of Russell und Tarski's insight. The Ί am lying' paradox is an instance of Gregory Bateson's 'double bind'. The statement which can be neither true nor false is held analogous to the behavioral injunction — central to schizophrenia — which can be neither obeyed nor disobeyed. See Anthony Wilden, System and Structure (London: Tavistock, 1972), pp. 2 1 - 2 2 , 1 0 3 - 1 0 6 , 110-124. In a lighter vein, see Raymond Smullyan, What is the Name of This Book? (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1978) and Douglas Hofstadter, "Metamagical Themas", Scientific American 244 (1) (Jan. 1981), pp. 2 2 - 3 2 . 5. Note that this operation does not depend on equating the word Τ with a real person. It is a purely linguistic operation making use of a special class of words called 'shifters', in which the subject pronoun Ί' has been 'split' or 'divided' by the discourse. For more on linguistic shifters, see ch. 1, sec. 4 and ch. 8, sec. 1. 6. I will argue that there are additional indexes of subject position in pictorial language; see ch. 3, sec. 4. 7. Actually, one is already forming an 'ideal' view of the film while watching it. See text accompanying n. 23, ch. 4 and text accompanying n. 50, ch. 8. 8. For other arguments on the inseparability of enonciation and enonce, see Tzvetan Todorov, "Categories of the Literary Narrative", Film Reader 2 (Evanston, 111.: Northwestern Univ., 1977), pp. 32—33; cf. Jonathan Culler, Structuralist Poetics (Ithaca,

22

9.

10.

11. 12.

13.

14.

15. 16. 17.

18.

Chapter

One

N.Y.: Cornell Univ., 1975), pp. 197-200. See also ch. 8, η. 1 for a linguistic analysis from the perspective of transformational generative grammar. See Charles Stevenson, "On the 'Analysis' of a Work of Art" in Francis Coleman, ed., Contemporary Studies in Aesthetics (N.Y.: McGraw-Hill, 1968), pp. 6 9 - 8 4 . Stevenson distinguishes between two ways of looking at an artwork — a 'dissective' or theoretical attention and a 'synoptic' attention which gives an experienced 'net impression'. To speak of theoretical understanding does not deny that there may be other ways of understanding and acting in the world. See also Arthur Danto, What Philosophy Is (N.Y.: Harper and Row, 1968), pp. 7 1 - 7 3 , 9 8 - 1 0 0 . It is true that a theory, by its use of theoretical terms, reestablishes a tautology, but the crucial difference is that now, at a remove from the phenomenon, explanation of a kind is possible. The phenomenon has not simply been translated into an equivalent language of new (obscure) terms — synonymy — but has been placed within a differential hierarchy and becomes the object of a new system; consequently, the theory is about the phenomenon. Note particularly that while a logical formula in a theory may be a tautology, the statement that it is a tautology is itself 'not a tautology but an empirical statement' (Hans Reichenbach, quoted by Nelson Goodman, 'Review of Reichenbach's Elements of Symbolic Logic', Problems and Projects, N.Y.: Bobbs-Merrill, 1972, p. 415). Penelope Gilliatt, review in The New Yorker 44 (26) (Aug. 17, 1968), pp. 74, 77. What happens when a picture — by including within itself a picture of a mirror, say — tries to represent that external point from which its space mightl be viewed is examined by Michel Foucault vis-ä-vis the sight lines in the Velazquez painting 'Las Meninas' in The Order of Things: An Archaeology of the Human Sciences (N.Y.: Vintage Books, 1970), pp. 3 - 1 6 . But cf. Joel Snyder and Ted Cohen, "Reflexions on Las Meninas: Paradox Lost", Critical Inquiry 7 (2) (Winter 1980), pp. 429-447. Cf. Kenneth Roberts and Win Sharpies, A Primer for Film-making: A Complete Guide to 16 mm and 35 mm Film Production (Indianapolis, Ind.: Pegasus, 1971), pp. 137-139. See Julian Hochberg, Perception (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 2nd ed., 1978); Ε. Η. Gombrich, Julian Hochberg and Max Black, Art, Perception, and Reality (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Univ., 1972); James Gibson, "The Information Available in Pictures", Leonardo 4 (Pergamon, 1971), pp. 2 7 - 3 5 ; Gunnar Johansson, "Visual Motion Perception", Scientific American 232 (6) (June 1975), pp. 7 6 - 8 8 ; Perception: Mechanisms and Models, readings from Scientific American (San Francisco: W. H. Freeman, 1972); Rudolf Arnheim, Art and Visual Perception (Los Angeles: Univ. of Calif., 2nd ed. 1974); R. L. Gregory and Ε. H. Gombrich, eds., Illusion in Nature and Art (N.Y.: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1973); William Ivins, On the Rationalization of Sight (N.Y.: Da Capo, 1973); John Kennedy, A Psychology of Picture Perception (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1974). Noel Burch, Theory of Film Practice trans, by Helen Lane (N.Y.: Praeger, 1973), pp. 7 9 - 8 0 . Ibid., p. 78. Viktor Shklovsky, "Art as Technique" trans, by Lee Lemon and Marion Reis, Russian Formalist Criticism: Four Essays (Lincoln: Univ. of Nebraska, 1965), pp. 11 - 1 2 . See in general Kristin Thompson, Eisenstein's "Ivan the Terrible": A Neoformalist Analysis, (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton Univ., 1981), esp. ch. 1, "A Neoformalist Method of Film Criticism", pp. 8—60. Nick Browne, "The Spectator-in-the-Text: The Rhetoric of Stagecoach", Film Quarterly 29 (2) (Winter 1975-76), pp. 33, 34, 36 ("A spectator is several places at once — with the fictional viewer, with the viewed, and at the same time in a position to evaluate

The Problem

19.

20. 21. 22. 23. 24.

25.

26. 27. 28. 29. 30. 31. 32. 33.

34. 35.

of Point of

View

23

and respond to the claims of each."); Seymour Chatman, "What Novels Can Do That Films Can't (and Vice Versa)", Critical Inquiry 7 (1) (Autumn 1980), pp. 134, 139 n. 4. Andre Bazin, Jean Renoir trans, by W. W. Halsey II and William Simon (N.Y.: Dell, 1973), p. 46. The camera movement actually covers two shots in the scene, which I discuss in the appendix, sec. 3. Christian Metz, "Current Problems of Film Theory: C. Metz on J. Mitry's L'Esthetique et Psychologie du cinema, II", Screen 14 (1/2) (Spring 1973), pp. 4 5 - 4 9 . Gilliatt, 1962, p. 74. Stephen Heath, The Noveau Roman (Philadelphia: Temple Univ., 1972), p. 114. Jonathan Culler, Structuralist Poetics (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell Univ., 1975), pp. 200-202. Andrew Tudor, Image and Influence: Studies in the Sociology of Film (London: George Allen and Unwin, 1974), pp. 22—23,76,128; Tudor, "Film and the Measurement of its Effects", Saeen 10 (4/5) (1969), pp. 148-159. See James Linton, "But It's Only a Movie", Jump Cut 17 (1978), pp. 1 6 - 1 9 . Specifying 'interest' is yet another version of viewer or character attitude, though with the emphasis on material consequences (benefits, losses). Sometimes an analysis of character attitude is extended to include the 'ideology' of a text. Ideology, however, is a complex matter and far-reaching in its scope. Therefore I prefer to deal with it separately, rather than as a species of point of view. See text accompanying n. 83 and 84; and see ch. 7. David Bordwell, "Eisenstein's Epistemological Shift", Screen 15 (4) (Winter 1974/75), pp. 3 2 - 4 6 ; Ben Brewster, "Editorial Note" on Eisenstein's Epistemological Shift, ibid., pp. 2 9 - 3 2 ; Bordwell, "Eisenstein's Epistemology: A Response from David Bordwell", Screen 16 (1) (Spring 1975), pp. 142-143. Sergei Eisenstein, "The Structure of the Film" in Film Form trans, by Jay Leyda (N.Y.: Harcourt, Brace and World, 1949), pp. 150-151, 159, 168 (Eisenstein's emphasis). Sergei Eisenstein, The Film Sense trans, by Jay Leyda (N.Y.: Harcourt, Brace and World, 1947), pp. 3 0 - 3 1 , 1 2 - 1 8 (Eisenstein's emphasis). Sergei Eisenstein, "The Structure of the Film", p. 168; "Colour Film" in Notes of a Film Director trans, by X. Danko (N.Y.: Dover, 1970), p. 124. Quoted by Stephen Crofts and Olivia Rose, "An Essay Towards Man with a Movie Camera", Screen 18 (1) (Spring 1977), pp. 55 (Eisenstein's emphasis). Andrew Britton, "'Pursued': A Reply to Paul Willemen", Framework 2 (4) (Autumn 1976), p. 8. Knight, 1968, p. 53. Gilliatt, 1968, p. 77 (my emphasis). Edward Bullough, " 'Psychical Distance' as a Factor in Art and an Aesthetic Principle", The British Journal of Psychology 5 (1912-13), pp. 89, 91, 94. Bullough resolutely rejects communication and self-expression theories of art; pp. 113-116. This article has had enormous impact. It is reprinted and discussed in several other articles in George Dickie and R. J. Sclafani, eds., Aesthetics: A Critical Anthology (N.Y.: St. Martin's, 1977), pp. 758-782. Screen has devoted two issues to Brecht: 15 (2) (Summer 1974) and 16 (4) (Winter 1975/76). Hugo Mauerhofer, "Psychology of Film Experience", Penguin Film Review 8 (1949), pp. 103-109; reprinted in Richard MacCann, ed., Film: A Montage of Theories (N.Y.: E. P. Dutton, 1966), pp. 2 2 9 - 2 3 5 ; Erwin Panofsky, "Style and Medium in the Motion Pictures", in Daniel Talbot, ed., Film: An Anthology (Los Angeles: Univ. of California, 1959), p. 19; Walter Benjamin, Illuminations (N.Y.: Schocken, 1973), p. 230; Christian Metz, "The Imaginary Signifier", Screen 16 (2) (Summer 1975), p. 52, 56;

24

36. 37. 38. 39.

40.

41.

42. 43. 44. 45. 46.

Chapter One Susanne Langer, Feeling and Form (N.Y.: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1953), p. 413. For a bibliography on cinema as dream, see Dreamworks 1 (1) (Spring 1980), pp. 88—93. Bullough, pp. 8 7 - 8 8 , 96. Wilden, pp. 28, 4 6 0 - 4 6 1 . Christian Metz, "The Imaginary Signifier", Screen 16 (2) (Summer 1975), p. 28 n. 13; Stephen Heath, "Difference", Screen 19 (3) (Autumn 1978), p. 67. See Charles Altman, "Psychoanalysis and Cinema: The Imaginary Discourse", Quarterly Review of Film Studies 2 (3) (August 1977), p. 264; Laura Mulvey, "Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema", Screen 16 (3) (Autumn 1975), pp. 6 - 1 8 ; Metz, "The Imaginary Signifier", pp. 4 6 - 5 9 ; Heath, "Difference"; Paul Willemen, "Notes on Subjectivity: On Reading Edward Branigan's 'Subjectivity Under Siege'", Screen 19 (1) (Spring 1978), pp. 5 8 - 5 9 , 63; Griselda Pollock, Geoffrey Nowell-Smith, Stephen Heath, "Dossier on Melodrama", Screen 18 (2) (Summer 1977), pp. 105—119. See generally articles published in the journal Camera Obscura; "John Ford's Young Mr. Lincoln" by the editors of Cahters du Cinema, Screen 13 (3) (Autumn 1972) reprinted in Bill Nichols, ed., Movies and Methods (Los Angeles: Univ. of Calif., 1976); Rosalind Coward and John Ellis, Language and Materialism: Developments in Semiology and the Theory of the Subject (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1977); and Stephen Heath, Questions of Cinema (N.Y.: MacMillan, 1981). See also the interpretation of the shot/reverse shot system whereby the agency of an 'absent-one' fuses filmic space which otherwise would be perceived as discontinuous in the spectator's imaginary relationship with the film. Daniel Dayan, "The Tutor-Code of Classical Cinema", Film Quarterly 28 (1) (Fall 1974), pp. 2 2 - 3 1 ; William Rothman, "Against the System of the Suture", Film Quarterly 29 (1) (Fall 1975), pp. 4 5 - 5 0 ; Barry Salt, "The Last of the Suture?", a letter in Film Quarterly 31 (4) (Summer 1978), p. 64. These articles are based on the work of Jean-Pierre Oudart which is translated in Screen 18 (4) (Winter 1 9 7 7 - 7 8 ) . Metz, "The Imaginary Signifier", pp. 14 n. 2, 28 n. 13, 76 n. 33. In psychoanalytic criticism, the word 'discourse' is often substituted for what I have called narration or enunciation. Heath speaks of "the implacable disjunction of narrative and discourse, enonce and enonciation, the impossibility of holding entirely on the subject-position of the one the subject-process of the other" ("Film and System: Terms of Analysis" P. I, Screen 16 (1), Spring 1975, pp. 4 9 - 5 0 , 1 0 , 70). The implacable disjunction is also stated in terms of an 'excess': "a discourse is always more than its message and the 'more' is the logic of that economy". The problem for classical discourse is how to contain the excess or gap and achieve an effect of homogeneity (P. II, Screen 16 (2), Summer 1975, pp. 109—110). See also Kristin Thompson, "The Concept of Cinematic Excess", Cine-Tracts 1 (2) (Summer 1977), pp. 5 4 - 6 3 . Paul Willemen, "The Fugitive Subject" in Phil Hardy, ed., Raoul Walsh (Edinburgh Film Festival, 1974), pp. TL—IS. See Colin MacCabe, "Walsh an Author?", Screen 16 (1) (Spring 1975), pp. 1 2 8 - 1 3 4 ; Andrew Britton, op.cit. Willemen, "The Fugitive Subject", p. 73. Ibid., p. 81. fimile Benveniste, Problems in General Linguistics trans, by Mary Meek (Coral Gables, Fla.: Univ. of Miami, 1971), ch. 7, "Remarks on the Function of Language in Freudian Theory", p. 75. Peter Baxter, "On the Naked Thighs of Miss Dietrich", Wide Angle 2 (2) (1978), pp. 21, 23. Willemen, "The Fugitive Subject", p. 74; see also pp. 70, 83; and Willemen, "Notes Towards the Construction of Readings of Tourneur" in Claire Johnston and Paul Willemen, eds., Jacques Tourneur (Edinburgh Film Festival, 1975), pp. 16—35.

The Problem of Point of View

25

47. Ibid., p. 67; see the dictionary of Freudian terms, J. Laplanche and J.-B. Pontalis, The Language of Psycho-Attalysis (N.Y.: W. W. Norton, 1973). 48. For psychoanalytical criticism, the story is only a pretext for the spectator to work through endlessly a series of fantasies. Paul Willemen analyzes the look of the spectator and camera in relation to the film Lola Monies (Ophuls, 1955) as follows: But as the "real" object is never that which the look finds, always landing on a standin, the look is offered (moves to) scene after scene, each constituting a trap for it, something in which it can loose itself, something to "fill" the eye and capture it, but nevertheless always lacking what it is looking for, and thus forever re-launching the wish to look again or to look elsewhere. [Paul Willemen, "The Ophuls Text: A Thesis" in Willemen, ed., Ophuls, London: British Film Institute, 1978, p. 71.] 49. 50. 51. 52.

Willemen, "The Fugitive Subject", pp. 70, 71, 74. Geoffrey Nowell-Smith, p. 28. Heath, "Film and System", P. II, p. 107 (my emphasis). Mark Nash situates Carl Dreyer as follows: The textual subject "Dreyer" is neither the biological individual, now dead, nor the totality of that individual's traces in the real, but the effect of a specific series of transformations, the result of a process of play with signification on the terrain where the cinematic institution and given social formations intersect. [Dreyer, London: British Film Institute, 1977, pp. 3 0 - 3 2 . ]

Nash argues that the 'body' of the Dreyer-text is marked by a conversion hysteria. 53. Willemen, "The Fugitive Subject", pp. 86—87. See Heath, "Difference", esp. pp. 1 0 6 - 1 1 0 . For the Lacanian definition of subject, see Heath, "Anata mo", Screen 17 (4) (Winter 1976—7), pp. 5 0 - 5 4 . Heath distinguishes three instances of the spectator as subject in a film — preconstruction, construction (or reconstruction) and passage ("Repetition Time: Notes Around 'Structural/Materialist Films'", Wide Angle 2 (3), pp. 9—11). For a comparison of the notion of subject with other theories of literary production, see Loy Martin, "Literary Invention: The Illusion of the Individual Talent", Critical Inquiry 6 (4) (Summer 1980), pp. 6 4 9 - 6 6 7 . 54. According to Coward and Ellis, pp. 79—80: The fundamental problem with the conception of language as communication is that it tends to obscure the way in which language sets up the positions of " I " and "you" that are necessary for communication to take place at all. Communication involves more than just a message being transmitted from the speaker to the destinee: the speaker is at the same time the destinee of his own message, because he is capable of deciphering a message as he is speaking it and because he cannot say anything that he does not in some way understand. Thus the message which is intended for the other person is in one sense intended for the person who speaks: you talk to yourself from the place of another. Equally, the destinee can only decipher what he is capable of speaking himself. Thus communication involves not just the transfer of information to another, but the very constitution of the speaking subject in relation to its other, and the way in which this other is internalised in the formation of the individual. This area, the area of the constitution of the speaking subject, is the terrain of psychoanalysis whose very raw material is language, whose object of study is the subject in so far as he speaks. 55. See ch. 3, sec. 1. 56. There is some disagreement as to which variation in the verbal paradigm — aspect, mood, tense, gender, person, voice, number, etc. — are shifters. Cf. Benveniste,

26

57. . 58. 59.

60. 61.

62.

63. 64.

65. 66. 67.

68. 69.

Chapter

One

ch. 1 8 - 2 3 with Roman Jakobson, Selected Writings 2 (The Hague: Mouton, 1971), pp. 1 3 0 - 1 4 7 . For more on shifters, see ch. 8, sec. 1. Benveniste, op.cit., and see generally Culler, Pt. 1: "Structuralism and Linguistic Models", op.cit., pp. 1 - 1 0 9 , 1 9 4 - 2 0 2 . Ann Banfield makes an important revision in the distinction discours and histoire in "Where Epistemology, Style, and Grammar Meet Literary History: The Development of Represented Speech and Thought", New Literary History 9 (3) (Spring 1978), pp. 4 4 6 - 4 4 8 . See Fredric Jameson, "The Ideology of Form: Partial Systems in La Vieille Fille", SubStance 15 (1976), esp. pp. 3 9 - 4 7 ; Willemen, "Notes on Subjectivity", pp. 4 8 - 5 0 ; and appendix, sec. 3. Roland Barthes, S/Z trans, by Richard Miller (N.Y.: Hill and Wang, 1974), sees. 12,20, 57, 62 and 64. Cf. Jurij Lotman who defines narration in purely physical terms (montage vs. long take) without reference to a subject, Semiotics of Cinima trans, by Mark Suino (Ann Arbor, Univ. of Michigan, 1976), chs. 4, 8, and 9. Elliott Sober, "Mental Representations", Synthese 33 (1) (June 1976), p. 118. Mark Nash, "Vampyr and the Fantastic", Screen 17 (3) (Autumn 1976), pp. 2 9 - 6 7 . Steve Seidman applies Nash's scheme with some refinements in "The Innocents: Point of View as an Aspect of the Cinefantastic System", Film Reader 4 (Evanston, 111.: Northwestern Univ., 1979), pp. 2 0 1 - 2 1 3 . Roland Barthes, Elements of Semiology trans, by Anhette Lavers and Colin Smith (Boston: Beacon Press, 1967), "Introduction", pp. 9 - 1 2 ; Barthes, "The Structuralist Activity" in Richard and Fernande DeGeorge, eds., The Structuralists: From Marx to LeviStrauss (N.Y.: Doubleday, 1972), pp. 1 4 8 - 1 5 4 ; Benveniste, ch. 2, "A Look at the Development of Linguistics", p. 25; Roman Jakobson, "Linguistics in Relation to the Other Sciences" in Selected Writings 2 (The Hague: Mouton, 1971), pp. 6 5 5 - 6 9 6 . Christian Metz, Language and Cinema trans, by Donna Jean Umiker-Sebeok (The Hague: Mouton, 1974); Metz, Film Language: A Semiotics of the Cinema trans, by Michael Taylor (N.Y.: Oxford Univ. Press, 1974). Howard and Diane Levie, "Pictorial Memory Processes", Audio-Visual Communication Review 23 (1) (Spring 1975), pp. 8 1 - 9 7 ; Allan Paivio, Imagery and Verbal Processes (N.Y.: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1971); Michael Gazzaniga, "The Split Brain in Man", Scientific American 217 (2) (August 1967), pp. 2 4 - 2 9 . See generally Umberto Eco, A Theory of Semiotics (Bloomington: Indiana Univ., 1976), pp. 1 7 2 - 1 7 4 . Such a difference leads to a curious situation in which the capacities of a community's representational systems outstrip the ability of the community to use the systems. See Sober, p. 140. Nash, "Vampyr", p. 38. Although the systems are ultimately incommensurable, Sober speaks of the usefulness of 'approximate reductions' of the pictorial to the linguistic (pp. 1 1 0 - 1 1 1 , 138-146). Nash, "Vampyr", p. 39. Nash does not fully address the question of what counts as a sufficient disturbance in the text (by camera angle, camera movement, an unexpected shot change, abrupt sound, unusual dialogue, etc.) to authorize the appearance of the author in discours (authorial personal marks). One needs at least to devise a series of background sets (see text accompanying n. 21). Nash primarily limits himself to comparing Vampyr against the background of a genre, but other backgrounds may bring forth additional (different?) authorial marks. Benveniste, ch. 19, "The Correlations of Tense in the French Verb", pp. 207 n. 6, 209. Tzvetan Todorov, "Language and Literature" in Richard Macksey and Eugenio Donato, eds., The Structuralist Controversy: The Languages of Criticism and the Saences of Man (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Univ., 1972), pp. 130—133. This article appears as ch. 1 of Todorov, The Poetics of Prose trans, by Richard Howard (Ithaca,

The Problem

70.

71. 72. 73. 74.

75.

76.

77. 78.

of Point of View

27

N.Y.: Cornell Univ., 1977), pp. 25—28. For details, see the text accompanying n. 21, ch. 8. Benveniste, ch. 18, "Relationships of Person in the Verb", p. 204. A second axis, the correlation of person, opposes Ί-you' to 'he'. See also ibid., ch. 21, "Subjectivity in Language", pp. 2 2 3 - 2 3 0 , and ch. 14, "Active and Middle Voice in the Verb", p. 150. Cf. Jean-Louis Baudry, "Ideological Effects of the Basic Cinematographic Apparatus", Film Quarterly 27 (2) (Winter 1 9 7 4 - 7 5 ) , pp. 3 9 - 4 7 . Colin MacCabe, "Theory and Film: Principles of Realism and Pleasure", Screen 17 (3) (Autumn 1976), p. 15. Nick Browne, "The Spectator-in-the-text: The Rhetoric of Stagecoach", Film Quarterly 29 (2) (Winter 1 9 7 5 - 7 6 ) , p. 33; MacCabe, p. 25. Noam Chomsky, "Current Issues in Linguistic Theory" in Jerry Fodor and Jerrold Katz, eds., The Structure of Language: Readings in the Philosophy of Language (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1964), pp. 5 0 - 5 1 . See also Chomsky, Language and Mind (N.Y.: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, enlarged ed., 1972), pp. 1 0 0 , 1 7 0 - 1 7 1 . This fact of ordinary language use is referred to as 'creativity'; Chomsky, Language and Responsibility, a conversation with Mitsou Ronat trans, by John Viertel (N.Y.: Pantheon, 1979), pp. 75, 94, 9 8 - 9 9 , 1 0 8 - 1 0 9 , 1 1 5 , 1 5 6 , 1 8 0 . On the term'competence' see pp. 4 8 - 5 0 , 57, 109; text accompanying n. 49, ch. 8 infra. Cf. Chomsky's remarks on the concept of a 'grammar' in The Logical Structure of Linguistic Theory (N.Y.: Plenum, 1975), p. 61. For a discussion of the issues involved in defining the classical film see David Bordwell and Kristin Thompson, Film Art: An Introduction (Reading, Mass.: Addison-Wesley, 1979), pp. 5 7 - 5 9 , 1 6 1 - 1 7 3 , 2 9 3 - 2 9 8 , 3 1 2 - 3 1 6 , passim. Cf. Sober, pp. 107, 1 0 9 - 1 1 0 , 1 1 9 - 1 2 0 ; Donald Davidson, "Truth and Meaning", Synthese 17 (3) (Sept. 1967), pp. 3 0 4 - 3 2 3 . For an application of the concept generative in the context of aesthetics see Mari Riess Jones, "Only Time Can Tell: On the Topology of Mental Space and Time", Critical Inquiry 7 (3) (Spring 1981), pp. 5 5 7 - 5 7 6 . On the meaning and importance of "generative" in linguistics see Bent Jacobsen, Transformational-Generative Grammar: An Introductory Survey of its Genesis and Development (N.Y.: North-Holland, 1977), pp. 2 1 - 2 3 . A different approach to transformations is given by Todorov, "Narrative Transformations" in The Poetics of Prose, op.cit., pp.225, 229—230. In addition to the generative nature of transformational grammar, Chomsky speaks of the 'generative factors' in a broader, 'conceptual system' (beyond semantics) which, together with the grammar, constitutes our knowledge of language; Rules and Representations (N.Y.: Columbia Univ., 1980), pp. 5 4 - 5 5 ; 1 8 0 - 1 8 1 . In the context of sensory psychology, Julian Höchberg and Virginia Brooks have argued the importance of schematic or cognitive maps, not necessarily visual in nature, which a viewer test in watching a film; "The Perception of Motion Pictures" in Edward Carterette and Morton Friedman, eds., Handbook of Perception 10, "Perceptual Ecology" (N.Y.: Academic, 1978), esp. pp. 2 8 4 - 2 8 8 . See ch. 8, sec. 1. Chomsky discusses the first two of the sentences in Syntactic Structures (The Hague: Mouton, 1975), p. 86. It is also possible that sentences which look quite similar are based on very different underlying structures and hence are differently understood. For example, "John is easy to please" and "John is eager to please". The difference may be illustrated in that one can say "It is easy to please John", but not *"It is eager to please John"; or "John's eagerness to please . . . " , but not "'"John's easiness to please . . . " . See Chomsky, "Current Issues in Linguistic Theory", sees. 2.2, 4.1; Chomsky, "Remarks on Nominalization" in Roderick Jacobs and Peter Rosenbaum, eds., Readings in Eng-

28

79. 80.

81. 82. 83.

84.

Chapter One lish Transformational Grammar (Waltham, Mass.: Ginn, 1970), p. 189. See also Chomsky, Syntactic Structures, sec. 7.6; Language and Mind, pp. 1 5 1 - 1 5 4 . Cf. Pascal Bonitzer, "Here: The Notion of the Shot and the Subject of Cinema", Film Reader 4 (Evanston, 111.: Northwestern Univ., 1979), pp. 1 1 5 - 1 1 6 . For an historical analysis which ties certain devices to an emerging notion of point of view in early cinema, see Ben Brewster, "A Scene at the 'Movies'", Screen 23 (2) (July/August 1982), pp. 4 - 1 5 . Geoffrey Nowell-Smith, pp. 26—27; Metz, "The Imaginary Signifier", p. 14 n. 2; Heath, "Film and System" P. I, p. 70. Cf. Julian Höchberg, "The Representation of Things and People" in Gombrich, Höchberg and Black, eds., Art, Perception, and Reality, op.cit., pp. 6 8 - 6 9 . Jacques Derrida and psychoanalytic criticism have addressed issues of origin and vision in this sense. See Jacques Derrida, "Structure, Sign, and Play in the Discourse of the Human Sciences" in Macksey and Donato, eds., The Structuralist Controversy, op.cit., pp. 247—272; Vincent Leitch, "The Lateral Dance: The Deconstructive Criticism of J. Hillis Miller", Critical Inquiry 6 (4) (Summer 1980), pp. 5 9 3 - 6 0 7 ; Edward Said, "Molestation and Authority in Narrative Fiction" in J. Hillis Miller, ed., Aspects of Narrative (N.Y.: Columbia Univ., 1971), pp. 4 8 - 4 9 , 68; Christian Metz, "The Imaginary Signifier", and "History/Discourse: Note on Two Voyeurisms", Edinburgh '76 Magazine (1); 2 1 - 2 5 ; Heath, "Difference", esp. pp. 5 1 - 5 5 , 8 3 - 1 0 1 ; Julia Kristeva, "Ellipsis on Dread and the Specular Seduction", Wide Angle 3 (3) (1979), pp. 4 2 - 4 7 . See Michel Foucault, p. xxiii and ch. 10, "The Human Sciences", esp. pp. 386—387; Jonathan Culler, pp. 2 7 - 3 1 ; John Ellis, "Art, Culture and Quality: Terms for a Cinema in the Forties and Seventies", Screen 19 (3) (Autumn 1978), pp. 2 0 - 2 1 ; Alain RobbeGrillet, "Nature, Humanism, Tragedy" trans, by Richard Howard in For A New Novel: Essays on Fiction (N.Y.: Grove, 1965), pp. 4 9 - 7 5 .

CHAPTER 2

Film as System

Every process of signification is a formal play of differences.1 The unit in isolation has no meaning in itself but depends on its relation to similar units which were not chosen and are not present (in linguistics, the paradigm), and its relation to neighboring units which are present (in linguistics, the syntagm).2 Meaning depends on these relationships. Knowing a language comprises, at least, knowing the units and what relations are possible. An important consequence of the belief that meaning is a play of difference is that there are no inherent meanings. For example, a dissolve in film does not inherently signify a short lapse of narrative time; in a particular system, however, a dissolve may mean just that (in His Girl Friday, Hawks, 1940, but not The Diary of a Country Priest, Bresson, 1950). In addition, meaning is not unique — other physical properties may serve the same function. For example, a flashback dissolve may be replaced by another device (e.g., a shot of black swirling clouds in Ivan the Terrible, Part II, Eisenstein, 1946) precisely because it is system, not material form, which determines meaning. Moreover, a system is not a material on some larger scale — at least in any simple sense — because most elements of a paradigm are not present in a given text. Difference and system depend on a large collection of texts and potential texts. Subjective narration also depends on our recognition of a system. For example, a superimposition may indicate an image is to be attributed to a character's dream state (as opposed to the character's 'objective' reality) but only if the super is part of a dream structure. As a minimum we would require that the super not be used for every shot in the film; that is, the super's differential position in the film (with respect to cuts, dissolves, fades, whatever) must be established and the super must also appear in combination with certain other elements (random superimpositions will not do to establish a dream sequence). Moreover, there may be two or more different types of supers in a film. All that is required is that the filmic system distinguish by other differentiating means non-subjective from subjective supers (through voice-over, narrative context, etc.). Systematicity also presupposes that our level of inquiry encompasses more than one film. Meaning structures are not unique to one film but extend over a range of films which may be compared as to meaning.3 Consequently no one film is the sys-

30

Chapter Two

tern, only an instance — a transformation — of the system. Thus we attempt to determine the structures involved in reading not just one film, but a range of films. The emphasis will be on uncovering the shared set of rules or norms which render a work intelligible.4 We will not be primarily concerned with what a part, or the work as a whole means (the business of interpretation) but how, under what conditions, the work produces meaning (becomes intelligible). The resultant theory, therefore, will not explain the essence, the inherent nature of the object called film. Instead it will center on the process of reading, how we know film, how its meaning is understood.5 A traditional question in aesthetics has been 'what is art?'. Some of the answers which have been developed suggest that art is appearance (Plato), imitation (Aristotle), rhetoric, message, ideology, dream, myth, expression, pure form, and/or beauty, among many others. I ask a different question, 'What is representation?'. What relation holds between A and Β such that A 'represents' or 'stands for' B? 6 (Note that Β is, in some sense, 'not present'. The exact sense in which it is 'not present' must be elaborated by a theory.) Furthermore, distinctions among the arts — film, theatre, painting, sculpture, etc. — and even between art and science are subsidiary. The primary issue is a general theory of symbolization, of the 'modes and means of reference'.7 The project is to sort features, elements, and processes of signification rather than to classify texts as aesthetic or non-aesthetic8 or become caught up in the distinction between film and literature, film and theatre, etc. These latter sorts of questions are only another way of asking, 'what is art?', i.e., 'what is film, what is literature, what is theatre?'. Once we concentrate on symbolization we discover that the present boundaries of aesthetic objects are neither inevitable nor the only possible boundaries; in fart, talk about aesthetic 'objects' and 'aesthetics' has often been designed to cut short talk of historical context and ideology which are held to be external to considerations of timeless values like beauty, form, and human nature. Beauty and form are ultimately pointless. Barthes notes that Beauty can point only to itself: "Like a god (and as empty), it can only say: I am what I am".9 Our problem, rather, is to analyze how a text constructs a subject who will propagate the text, who will say of it·. 'It is beautiful'. Consequently, neither 'object' (in the sense of artifact) nor 'aesthetics' will be decisive categories in my theory of narration. If the critical activity is a search for the conditions of meaning in a text, are there any limits on the search? In other words, where are the structures which are located by the critic? On the one hand we insist they be rooted in the work, that they be perceptible; on the other hand, we insist that they be greater than the work, part of a more general meaning system. How perceptible then is 'perceptible'? In film criticism the problem of how perceptible is 'perceptible' typically involves such questions as, how 'valid' is a particular critic's reading of a film, what is the role of rereading a film — seeing it many times10 — and what is the place of

Film as System

31

an editing table where a critic can examine individual frames in the analysis of a film (something which cannot be done during a normal screening). 11 In fact, even a single frame is perceptible during the normal projection of a film, and even if the frame is 'not seen' — is not brought to consciousness — it does not follow that our overall perception of the form of the film remains unaffected. It is one of the functions of criticism to bring specific features to the attention of viewers and thereby to reduce to concrete terms what otherwise would be metaphorical statements and vague feelings about the film. Criticism does not aim to reproduce the experience and responses of the 'naive' viewer or the 'innocent eye' — notions which are part of an ideology of transparency — but rather to free the viewer from a terrorism of the text 1 2 and to extend a viewer's threshold of perception. H o w valid is a particular critic's reading of a film? I shall posit three general restraints on the activity of film criticism. First, at the level of the material text, a meaning structure must exist through multiple codings; that is, through repetitions, doublings, multiple determinations. This is a requirement of pattern, of coherence. Barthes puts it this way: It is by the regular return of the units and of the associations of units that the work appears constructed, i.e., endowed with meaning; linguistics calls these rules of combination forms, and it would be advantageous to retain this rigorous sense of an overtaxed word: form, it has been said, is what keeps the contiguity of units from appearing as a pure effect of chance: the work of art is what man wrests from chance. This perhaps allows us to understand on the one hand why so-called nonfigurative works are nonetheless to the highest degree works of art, human thought being established not on the analogy of copies and models but with the regularity of assemblages; and on the other hand why these same works appear, precisely, fortuitous and thereby useless to those who discern in them no form·, in front of an abstract painting, Khrushchev was certainly wrong to see only the traces of a donkey's tail whisked across the canvass; at least he knew in his way, though, that art is a certain conquest of chance (he simply forgot that every rule must be learned, whether one wants to apply or interpret it). 13 Barthes' approach involves fundamental assumptions about the nature of human consciousness and is not without experimental support. 1 4 Multiple coding is important because if a material unit exists in isolation, there is no guarantee that it does not exist by chance alone. In order to provide a — more or less sure — pathway for reading a unit must be repeated to emphasize its formal presence within an infinity of possible units, possible meanings. The requirement, then, is that a signified be represented by not one, but a cluster of signifiers, all having the same, or nearly the same, signifieds. Multiple coding is a requirement that evidence be supplied for a reading and that the reading be inter-

32

Chapter

Two

subjective. For example, the caption under an advertising photograph1 tertitle in silent film operates to limit reading precisely by overlapping signifieds with the visual image. The title often repeats what is 'significant' in the pictorial image. In this way meaning is limited, controlled. As an example of multiple coding at work consider the following repetitious dialogue which introduces a character flashback in The Locket (Brahm, 1946). NORMAN: Nancy, all you've got to do is think. How did you feel when you saw the bracelet? Why did it tempt you? You must have thought of something? NANCY: I did. I did. Oh, it's awful. NORMAN: What is, Nancy? NANCY: What I thought of. NORMAN: What did you think of? NANCY: Something that happened when I was a child. Although we already know Nancy well at this point in the film, her name is mentioned twice. The camera slowly dollies in from a two-shot of Nancy and Norman to Nancy alone, and finally to an out-of-focus, extreme close-up of her crumpled handkerchief which she holds to her face. Although the framing continually changes (dolly-in) what remains the same — what unifies the representation — is Nancy herself to whom we draw closer. Her eyes are distracted; she seems to be looking at nothing in particular. The inference we make is that her attention is not focused on the objects around her. (If these objects were to be shown now, it would be disruptive of the flashback.) Her perception turns inward, to her thoughts which are mentioned many times in the dialogue. She starts to cry for 'no' reason. She buries her head in the handkerchief, finally closing off external vision. There is now a dissolve from the out-of-focus handkerchief and her voice changes to a far-away, echo sound. Compared to the typical scene in the film — which uses cuts as transitions, non-echo-chamber sound, and is in focus — this transition marks an ambiguous, temporal relation. The voice-over continues though we don't see Nancy. In what sense is she still present? How does she continue to unify the representation? We hear the past tense used by Nancy ('Something that happened ...') and we see a small child ('... when I was a child'). By an overlap of signifieds, dialogue and visual image anchor a particular meaning: This is Nancy when she was a child. While time in one sense is marked as discontinuous, it is also marked as continuous in another sense; namely, discontinuous as to narrative space — we are no longer in a living room — but continuous as to character. The narration thus covers a discontinuity by positing character time as its unification. More specifically, the time of character memory will now justify the telling of the story. The above illustrates the function of multiple coding, although it by no means

Still 4:

Strangers on a Train (shot 3 A) (page 128).

Still 1:

Last Year at Marienbad

Still 2:

(see discussion on page 104).

Strangers on a Train (shot 1) (page 128).

Film as System

33

exhausts the excessive or repetitious signifiers. Important also is the fact that the flashback, as it progresses, maintains a certain consistency, thus validating, retrospectively, a particular reading. The small child, for example, is several times called 'Nancy'. A number of signifiers may converge on one signified, as we have just seen, or one signifier may involve several signifieds. An example of the latter is the handkerchief held by Nancy. It has at least three functions: It is a trait of character, it is part of an action (Nancy cries, raises it to her face, as opposed to wiping her face on her sleeve), and it helps to introduce (motivate) a new level of narration when it fills and then blurs the screen (necessitating a transition). Thus three functions have been collapsed — integrated — into a single object. The handkerchief is part of the story and yet it also serves to tell the story. These functions cannot be separated without doing violence to the 'homogeneity' of the object. In this way what is represented obscures the labor of representing; object and symbol are confused. The same may be said of an earlier flashback in the film where a character who is smoking happens to blow smoke in the camera lens as the flashback begins. Again, there seems to be no narrator, no rhetoric, only the world. The narration is traced here only by its economy and continuity. The signifiers of multiple coding may be divided into three classes: repetition, doubling, and multiple determination. Repetition occurs where identical signifiers appear two or more times and share a signified, e.g., repeating a word or phrase in successive verses (anaphora). Doubling occurs where different signifiers in the same material of expression share at least one signified, i.e., synonyms. Multiple determination is the appearance of signifiers in different materials of expression, which share a signified, e.g., a square painted red with the word 'red' underneath. The red square and the word 'red' share 'redness' but not 'squareness' (unless perhaps the letters are block printed to suggest that quality); hence, the multiple determination here serves to foreground redness. Since a signifier may have a number of signifieds associated with it in various ways — for instance, through denotation or connotation — one might further classify multiple coding according to how the common signifieds are linked; for example, the word under the red square might have been 'blood' (red is a connotation) or the past tense verb, 'read' (red is then a homonym). The types of multiple coding depend on the materials of signification. But it is not as easy as one might think to decide what those materials are. Film, for example, is generally assumed to be composed of five materials: noise, music, speech, written titles, and moving photographic images.16 The problem is that the division is somewhat arbitrary and distinctly phenomenal. What really distinguishes noise from speech? Is α cappella singing music or speech? If writing is a material, why no categories for different styles of printing, different written languages, or mere nonsense scribbling? At a certain level, isn't writing simply a pure graphic form? Moreover, the category of moving photographic images covers a great deal of ter-

34

Chapter Two

ritory including mise-en-scene (acting gestures, locale, lighting, costume, a painting on the wall), camera (lens, angle, position, distance, height, focus, filters, camera movement), editing, and other properties of images (graphics, color, slow motion, reverse motion, split screen, laboratory processing, film stock, tilted images). If, for example, one wished to speak of color as a material — an object for the senses (color is no more abstract than the category 'music') — then color would have to be divided into pertinent units, e.g., black, grey, white or red, green, blue, or whatever. Then one could speak of color repetitions, color doublings (i.e., harmonies and motifs, where two colors go together because each recalls something of the other), and color multiple determinations (e.g., a red square with the word 'red' underneath). We shall not be precise in defining the materials of film because our level of inquiry is meaning and the codes which fix meaning. The fact that meaning does not depend on any particular materials or material divisions is a recurrent theme of this study and will be encountered many times in many different contexts. Multiple coding is important here only as a first condition of meaning — meaning versus chance, disorder. Multiple coding creates significant form because it shows that successive decisions are made on the basis of previous decisions. Further distinctions — such as, repetition, doubling, and multiple determination — depend on how one defines the materials and for what purpose. A second restraint on the activity of film criticism is that, at a meta-textual level, a meaning structure must exist as a culturally-based construct. A text cannot be read in an infinity of ways. Something can have meaning only if there are other meanings it cannot have. One can speak of ways of reading a poem only if there are other imaginable ways that are inappropriate. Without restrictive rules there would be no meaning whatsoever. 17 Meaning is limited by cultural constraints on the activity of reading. Eco has in fact defined meaning in terms of cultural units and rejected definitions involving referents, the 'real' world, Platonic, or psychical entities.18 There is a corollary: In order for a text to change cultural meanings or the cultural procedures of reading, the text must cite those rules or codes which will be violated and so give rise to a new code. Finally, at a theoretical level, a meaning structure is limited by the assumptions, however broad, underlying the theory which generated the structure. Criticism at this level is metatheory. We will examine these limits in chapter 8. One important meaning system in a text is narrative. It is clearly trans-media and thus is not defined by the material of expression. A particular narrative may appear in the oral and written tradition, theatre, song, dance, pantomime, painting, stained-glass windows, comic books, movies, local news, conversation. This is not to deny that there exist important non-narrative aspects of a text.

Film as System

35

Narrative may be described through a set of codes. A code here is a correlational rule that couples (relates) the elements of a syntactic type of system to a semantic type of system. It is thus not a static sign but a way of describing systematic relationships and differences. Different sorts of rules may be involved with varying powers to correlate, shift, and replace elements; there is no single rule which simply joins a signifier to a signified. The code represents an established social convention — a cultural practice — and therefore must be learned. Thus the structure generated by codes is a special sort of structure since it depends on skills or procedures which are culturally acquired. The cultural/ideological basis of codes is vividly demonstrated by Roland Barthes' Mythologies.19 In S/Z, Barthes proposes a set of codes by which to analyze narrative. He finds five codes in a Balzac short story which, he claims, create structures important to a type of narrative — the classical narrative. The codes are not meant to be an exhaustive description of classical narrative but they are suggestive of the problems faced in narrative analysis. The codes are as follows. The hermeneutic code is a series of parallel and interrelated questions threading a narrative. More specifically, the hermeneutic is that code which at various times names a subject, states a condition, proposes a question, delays its answer in multifarious ways, and finally discloses the answer (usually at the 'end') which is the truth of the narrative. 20 Perhaps the most famous of all enigmas in film is that of Citizen Kane (Welles, 1941): who or what is "rosebud"? The proairetic is that code of actions, consequences, gestures, and behaviour which become sequences (e.g., stroll, murder, rendezvous) when and because they are given a name in the process of reading. The proairetic is a cause-effect chain whose logic is that of the probable, of practical experience, of psychology, of culture, of history, of what is familiar: the 'already-done', 'already-written', or 'already-seen'. 21 The semic is a code which includes the connotations of persons, places, or objects. The semic constructs the characters and ambience of narrative. A character is nothing but a galaxy of apparently trifling data which has coalesced around a proper name or — we might add — for the visual arts, coalesced around the pictorial image of a 'body'. 22 The cultural or referential code refers to any generally accepted body of knowledge or wisdom generated by a culture, e.g., psychology, history, science, literature, aphorism. 23 It is an inter-textual code since, strictly, it refers to other cultural texts. Finally, the symbolic is a code of meaning/relation based on the figures of rhetoric, the traits of the body, or economic (exchange) systems.24 In addition, Barthes, adapting concepts defined by Benveniste, recognizes two basic operations which may be performed on the codes — distribution and integration. 25 Distribution — which Barthes also refers to as articulation, segmentation, or form — is a process along any one code which disperses its elements, often

36

Chapter Two

inserting 'unpredictable' expansions between the elements. Perhaps what is often referred to as character 'development' is a distributional property of the semic code. Integration — which Barthes also refers to as meaning — is a process among two or more codes, a braiding and weaving of codes. In this way hierarchical relationships are, or may be, established among the codes. For example, Barthes finds that the semic is, in the classic text, often glued to the hermeneutic;26 in film narrative, for example, the 'stranger' often exists solely to pose an enigma, or an object (e.g., The Maltese Falcon, Huston, 1941) solely to be the object of inquiry. Code operations are necessary because no narrative code can stand perfectly alone and still form a narrative. In order for narrative to exist the codes must interact one with another at some minimal level. A proairetic sequence operating strictly alone — 'to depart, to travel, to arrive, to stay' — would seem to have scant interest as a narrative. Note that the sequence — not limited by narrative — allows an infinity of the other codes. For the semic: an infinity of travelers journeying to numberless places.27 Barthes asserts that "what is told is the 'telling'. Ultimately, the narrative has no object: the narrative concerns only itself: the narrative tells itself'.28 If all that is told is only the telling, then there cannot be stray or insignificant details (why are they there? to what do they refer?). To say, however, that everything is significant in the text 29 is not to say that everything is equally significant. The function of integration is precisely to specify hierarchical relations among the codes. The Russian Formalist concept of the 'dominant* — the preeminence of certain elements and the resulting deformation of other elements — is closely related to integration. 30 To speak of hierarchical relations or levels is to examine the structuration of a work rather than to merely describe the structures within the work. If codes are derived from the culture, then what of the operations among the codes? Through what force are codes selected and organized — twined together — by operations of distribution and integration? How does a specific narrative come to be? And furthermore, once the narrative exists, how is it that it is recognized (activated, consumed)? To solve these problems Barthes suggests that narrative is not enough — there must also exist narration. 'Narrative, viewed as object, is the basis of a communication: there is a giver of narrative and a recipient of narrative.'31 This leads Barthes to examine what he terms codes of narration. These new codes — as well as their distributional and integrative relations with the codes of narrative — will be the subject of the remaining chapters.

NOTES 1. Julia Kristeva, "The Semiotic Activity", Screen, 14 (1/2) (Spring/Summer 1973), pp. 3 7 - 3 8 ; Umberto Eco, A Theory of Semiotics (Bloomington, Ind.: Indiana University, 1976), p. 38.

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37

2. Roland Barthes, "The Structuralist Activity" in The Structuralists: From Marx to LeviStrauss ed. by Richard and Fernande de George (Garden City, N.Y.: Anchor, 1972), pp. 1 5 1 - 1 5 2 . 3. Tzvetan Todorov, The Fantastic: A Structural Approach to a Literary Genre trans, by Richard Howard (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell Univ., 1975), pp. 1 7 - 2 0 , 1 0 1 - 1 0 2 ; see also his definition of 'poetics' and 'reading' in "How to Read?" in The Poetics of Prose trans, by Richard Howard (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell Univ., 1977), pp. 2 3 5 - 2 3 8 . 4. Barthes, "The Structuralist Activity", pp. 1 4 8 - 1 5 4 ; Jonathan Culler, Structuralist Poetics (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell Univ., 1975), ch. 6 "Literary Competence", pp. 113 — 130. 5. Eco, pp. 4 6 - 4 7 . See esp. Jonathan Culler, "Beyond Interpretation" in The Pursuit of Signs: Semiotics, Literature, Deconstruction (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell Univ., 1981). 6. On the various theories of representation see the following as well as works cited therein: Richard Wollheim, "Representation: The Philosophical Contribution to Psychology", Critical Inquiry 3 (4) (Summer 1977), pp. 7 0 9 - 7 2 3 ; Elliott Sober, "Mental Representations", Synthese 33 (1976), pp. 1 0 1 - 1 4 8 ; Ε. H. Gombrich, Julian Hochberg, and Max Black, Art, Perception, and Reality (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Univ., 1972). The theories of representation mentioned by Wollheim are the following: causal, illusion, arousal of sensation, semiotic, resemblance, information, and seeing-in. 7. Nelson Goodman, Languages of Art: An Approach to a Theory of Symbols (Indianapolis, Ind.: Hackett Publishing, 2nd ed., 1976), p. xi. See Nelson Goodman, Ways of Worldmaking (Indianapolis, Ind.: Hackett, 1978), ch. 4, "When is Art?", pp. 5 7 - 7 0 . 8. Goodman, Languages of Art, pp. 2 5 4 - 2 5 5 , esp. ch. 6, pp. 2 2 5 - 2 6 5 . 9. Barthes, S/Z trans, by Richard Miller (N.Y.: Hill and Wang, 1974), sec. 16 (Barthes' emphasis). Cf. Nelson Goodman, "Merit as Means" in Problems and Projects (N.Y.: Bobbs-Merrill, 1972), pp. 1 2 0 - 1 2 1 . 10. Cf. Barthes, S/Z, sec. 9. 11. Cf. Thierry Kuntzel, "Le travail du film I", Communications 19 (1972) pp. 2 6 - 2 7 ; Barthes, "The Third Meaning" in Image-Music-Text trans, by Stephen Heath (N.Y.: Hill and Wang, 1977), pp. 6 5 - 6 8 ; Raymond Bellour, "The Obvious and the Code", Screen 15 (4) (Winter 1 9 7 4 - 7 5 ) , pp. 7 - 8 , 17 n. 7; Barbara Pace "Step by Step" (unpublished mimeograph: Univ. of Wis., Madison, 1976), pp. 3 - 5 . 12. Richard Howard, "A Note on S / Z " , preface to Barthes, S/Z, p. ix. Barthes argues that it is vital for analysis that the film image be removed from the time of projection; "The Third Meaning", pp. 6 5 - 6 8 . 13. Barthes, "The Structuralist Activity", pp. 1 5 2 - 1 5 3 . See also Ben Brewster, "Notes on the Text 'John Ford's Young Mr. Lincoln' by the Editiors of Cahiers du Cinema", Screen 14 (3) (Autumn 1973), pp. 3 3 - 3 5 . 14. For example, cognitive psychology emphasizes an active perceiver who constructs and tests hypotheses about sensory data. See Ulric Neisser, Cognitive Psychology (N.Y.: Appleton-Century-Crofts, 1967); "The Processes of Vision," Scientific American 219 (3) (Sept. 1968), pp. 2 0 4 - 2 1 4 . See also work by James J. Gibson, Ε. H. Gombrich, R. L. Gregory, and Julian Hochberg. 15. Barthes, "Rhetoric of the Image", in Image-Music-Text, pp. 3 2 - 5 1 . 16. Christian Metz, "Methodological Propositions for the Analysis of Film," Screen 14 (1/2) (Spring/Summer 1973), p. 90. 17. Culler, Structuralist Poetics, p. 252. 18. Eco, pp. 6 6 - 6 8 , 5 8 - 7 2 , 1 6 1 - 1 7 1 ; see esp. Culler, Structuralist Poetics, pp. 2 4 1 - 2 5 4 . 19. Roland Barthes, Mythologies trans, by Annette Lavers (New York: Hill and Wang, 1972). For the complexities of codes, see Eco, pp. 3 6 - 3 8 , 9 0 - 9 1 , 191, 2 6 1 - 2 7 6 . 20. Barthes, S/Z, sec. 32, 37, 89.

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21. Ibid., sec. 36, 56, 86. 22. Ibid., sec. 28, 41, 81. See Stephen Heath, "Film and System: Terms of Analysis" Pt. II, Screen 16 (2) (Summer 1975), pp. 1 0 2 - 1 0 7 ; Richard Dyer, Stars (London: British Film Institute, 1979), esp. Pt. Ill, subsections "The Notion of Character" and "The Construction of Character", pp. 99—142. 23. Barthes, S/Z, sec. 11, 59, 87. 24. Ibid., sec. 92 and pp. 2 6 2 - 2 6 3 . 25. Roland Barthes, "An Introduction to the Structural Analysis of Narrative", New Literary History 6 (2) (Winter 1975), p. 242. See Emile Benveniste, Problems in General Linguistics trans, by Mary Meek (Coral Gables, Fla.: Univ. of Miami, 1971), ch. 10 "The Levels of Linguistic Analysis," pp. 1 0 5 - 1 0 7 ; Culler, pp. 1 2 - 1 3 . 26. Barthes, S/Z, sec. 73; cf. sec. 68. 27. Ibid., sec. 15, 68, 77. 28. Ibid., sec. 91 (Barthes' emphasis). 29. Barthes, "Structural Analysis of Narrative", pp. 2 4 4 - 2 4 5 , 249; Culler, Structuralist Poetics, pp. 1 3 - 1 4 . 30. Kristin Thompson, Eisenstein's "Ivan the Terrible": A Neoformalist Analysis (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton Univ., 1981), p. 34. 31. Barthes, "Structural Analysis of Narrative", p. 260. Barthes continues (his emphasis), "In linguistic communication, I and you are presupposed by each other; similarly, a narrative cannot take place without a narrator and a listener (or reader)."

CHAPTER 3

Narration

1. Narration as Symbolic Activity Narration is the activity of giving a narrative. It is a dialectical process between narrator and reader through which is realized a narrative. In the same way that the construction (writing) of the text involved the imaginary construction of a reader, so the concrete reading entails an imaginary construction of the organiser of the text. 1 The very definition of a 'sign' given by C. S. Peirce depends on a transaction involving a reader: "A sign, or representamen, is something which stands to somebody for something in some respect or capacity".2 It still remains, however, to define that 'dialectical' process or 'transaction'. One possibility, for example, is that the exchange is a communication between narrator and reader. Barthes argues that "In linguistic communication, I and you are presupposed by each other; similarly, a narrative cannot take place without a narrator and a listener (or reader)".3 A second possibility is that the process is an expression, a showing forth of someone's inner experience. Both of these theories assume that the artwork has a first cause — an authority, an author. Thus a good place to begin a discussion of narration is with the author. Who is the giver of the narrative? Traditional literary theory has answered that narrative comes from a living person — the author — even if the person sometimes doesn't exist (e.g., with driftwood — the found object) or can't always be identified (the oral tradition, folk tales, etc.) and even if there are many persons involved as author and even if the reader at times becomes his own author (dreams, daily life, the Ouija board). The result is that the author is an essential subject, and narrative is the communication and/or expression of that subject for the benefit of a reader. The theory that I will develop refuses to make that connection for several reasons. First, the adequacy of a communication model can be challenged on linguistic grounds.4 Although the words Ύ and 'you' function to alter the context for understanding an utterance (they are linguistic shifters), it does not follow that the central purpose is an 'exchange of messages' between those points. I do not mean to imply that communication theories cannot provide valuable insights into certain

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forms of meaningful behavior, but only that they do not provide the best analysis of artworks nor do they provide the basis for a general theory of signification. Second, there are major difficulties with expressionist assumptions and the required status of authorial intentionality.5 Third, once a causal connection is admitted between author and artwork (and/or between reader and artwork) it is difficult to avoid a chain of other causal connections, such as that between the author and his or her reality, which is then carried to (distorted in) the artwork. Therefore, where the traditional critic speaks of 'levels of reality' in an artwork, I prefer 'levels of narration'. A text is constructed before it can ever be made into a copy of reality or a referent.6 I will assume that there are specific cultural codes which are used to suggest a copy, a 'likeness';7 and what is termed 'realism' is only the dominant form of discourse in a particular society.8 I will assume that the artwork is a symbol system — a fiction for something which is not literally present. A fourth reason for rejecting a traditional view of authorship is that the idea of a real-life author leads to an elitist conception of art whereby the author becomes a first cause and his message or expression trickles down through the text to the mass of readers. Recent critical movements, like psychoanalysis and structuralism, insist that the activity of writing and the activity of reading are on equal planes and in fact together generate the text. Or, as Barthes suggests, the book chooses the reader as much as the reader chooses the book.9 The critic, too, like the author, operates on language and is able to open new potentials for meaning. In this sense reformulating the process of reading brings into being new writings. Finally, one can never locate the author as a real-life person because the artwork provides no context within which to locate the author. For example, in film, even if the auteur appears in the film (Hitchcock, Renoir), we cannot recognize the 'auteur' who placed him or her within the narration. There always exists a narrator or act of narration beyond which it is impossible to go. Ultimately there exists a frame which cannot disclose its own act of framing, and thus a film will always have an apersonal component. Hitchcock appearing in his own film is not the director made manifest but a figure trapped as an object of a film process. If the narrator is not a real-life author, then who is he or she? To state the question in this manner betrays the fact that we have not yet left traditional notions of persons, personalities, day-to-day reality. We cannot ask for a biological person; instead, we must seek a symbolic activity — the activity of narration. This activity of narrating (or, of reading) is a role or function — a particular relationship with respect to the symbolic process of the text. For convenience, however, I shall continue to use the terms 'narrator' and 'activity of narration' interchangeably, provided that it is understood that 'narrator' is a metaphor, an anthropomorphism. The living author of a narrative can in no way be mistaken for the narrator of that narrative ... The one who speaks (in the narrative) is not the one who writes (in real life) and the one who writes is not the one who is.10

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41

Signs of the activity of narration are embedded in the discourse, hence detectable by a semiotic analysis. According to Barthes the task is to describe the two subcodes "through which the narrator's and reader's presence can be detected within the narrative itself'. 1 1 The linguistic analysis of literature illustrates the method and some of the problems encountered in describing codes of narration. Although such an analysis does not rule out a modified version of communication theory, it clearly displaces the notion of an author as personality. For Barthes, signs of the reader usually appear as second person narration ('y° u ') rather than as first or third person ( T or 'he'), though signs of the reader can be a great deal more subtle when the narration is not explicitly tagged and yet functions to place the reader. On the other hand, for Barthes, signs of the narrator in linguistic discourse usually appear as first or third person narration — the personal or impersonal mode. The use of a pronoun like 'he', however, still does not guarantee the apersonal form of narration. And there are further complexities when the narration is not explicitly tagged with signs of the narrator. 1 2 Just as the use of pronouns for Barthes does not necessarily decide the level of narration, so the use of quotation marks around a sentence is not decisive as to narration. It is often said, for example, of Greek and Shakespearian tragedy that a particular character 'speaks more than he knows'. This is an acknowledgement that the character carries a narrational load greater than that explicitly attributed to him. The reader, in other words, is in a position to recognize at least two levels of meaning. The first is constrained by what the character knows (believes, says); in addition, however, because of the reader's privileged view of context (what a character does not know, what other characters know, what a narrator knows, etc.), the reader may recognize a second level of meaning in a character's speech functioning, say, as foreshadowing, suspense, irony, etc. A second level of meaning is evidence that another narration is at work, often effaced and omniscient. In fact, simultaneous with character narration there is always present an underlying omniscient, third person narration which creates the fictional appearance of other narrations or levels within the text. The story is always greater than the sum of what all the characters know. Even when the story is presented entirely in the form of dialogue (e.g., theatre) the illusion created is that each character has his own limited story to tell, unique and different from the others, when, of course, the characters are all telling a single story. Therefore, while a linguistic analysis of literature begins with surface features, such as, pronouns and quotation marks, other procedures are necessary in order to make fine discriminations among types of narration, especially narration which seeks to conceal itself or mislead. H o w does the real-life author, whom we know principally through such conglomerates of cultural coding as newspapers, magazines and film title sequences, relate to the codes of narration ? The author is located in the text only as a subcode of the code of narration and not as someone who speaks, expresses the codes. The 'author' is a hypothesis constructed by the reader to render a text or group of texts

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intelligible. It is culture, through its readers, which generates the author. The opening shot of Touch of Evil (1958) is called 'Wellesian' or attributed to 'Orson Welles'. More exactly it should be attributed to a system of reading which culture has designated as the Orson Welles subcode. 13 When an interviewable author speaks about his product, he speaks only as another critic — not even as a privileged critic, much less as an extension of the text. The author is neither the narrator of the text nor a character within the text, for all three exist in different contexts and within different sets of relations. The author exists as the product of a specialized attention by the reader. An argument similar to the one above may be applied to the actual readers of texts so that what we are speaking of in each case is 'an image implicit in the text, not a real author or reader'. 14 The actual viewer of a film, for instance, is known through such conventions as his or her 'ten best films' list. That is, through such a list we may construct a specialized subcode of readership which would represent one distinct and idiosyncratic attention to texts by one reader. The ability to group traits together under the heading 'author' or 'reader' increases one's perception of the text and its features.

2. Levels of

Narration

Fundamentally there is only a single activity of narration in a text, or, personifying that activity, there can be only a single narrator in the text. 15 This narrator, however, may delegate some or most of the duties of narration to another narrator who gives the story. The 'delegation' of these responsibilities is an act of framing·, that is, the 'new' narrator must be identified — referred to — before we recognize a 'story within a story'. Now this naming of a new narrator is in a sense a fiction (an alias), for the old narrator is still fully in control. The new narrator exists only because of a larger narration; the existence of the new story-telling activity may be revoked at any time. What has really occured is that the old narrator wishes us to understand (to accept the illusion) that someone new is now speaking and accepting the responsibility for what is said. Nevertheless, there always exists an underlying omniscient, third person narration which creates the fiction of other narrations and coexists with these other levels of narration. The effect of changing narrators is to change the relationship of the reader to the giving of the narration. In short, the introduction of a new narrator is a formal acknowledgement that the conditions have changed under which we acquire knowledge from the text. The change in narration may be measured in two equivalent ways: either by assuming that the narration proceeds from a single source but generates multiple readers or that the reader's position of reception is constant while the narration divides into different levels each with a nominal narrator.

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If, for example, in a prose passage there is a description of what a character is thinking as well as a description of the character's surroundings (what is on the table, what is out the window) we may say that there is one narrator while the reader stands both in the character's mind and, at a later time, in the same room with the character by the window perhaps. Or we may say that there is only one reader but two sources of narration: one from the mind of the character and one from a point in the same room with the character. Note that this example identifies two narrators, but there are many, many more possibilities. Consider a narrator who makes 'mistakes', 'misleads' or deliberately 'deceives' the reader, 'refuses' to speak, 'hesitates' because of lack of knowledge, knows 'more' than any character, or who 'predicts' future events. In addition, there is a wide range in the amount of background and detail that may be provided about the narrator. He or she may be just as involved in the story as a character or may be reduced to an anonymous voice. Also one should not forget that parallel to the narrator there may be voice-over narratees and characters who fill in for the reader by voicing doubts, wondering what will happen next, and so forth. We may sketch some general classes of production by a narrator and reader as origin and destination of narration in relation to differences in diegesis. The term diegesis is a subcategory of origin in that it seeks to assign a source to the space, sound, titles, dialogue, etc. of a film on the basis of whether (and how) one or more elements are within or outside story space. More specifically, the diegetic in film comprises those elements which give rise to the fictional world of characters, landscapes, and events. The diegetic is the implied spatial, temporal, and causal system of the characters.16 I will interpret the diegetic to include those aspects of the fictional world which are accessible to the characters. Thus a sound, for instance, is non-diegetic if it is not, and could not be, heard by a character even if the sound later also functions diegetically (as in a sound bridge between scenes).17 The problem addressed by the concept of diegesis is the relation of character to sound and space. Character is thus a potential site for narration (character subjectivity), for we may encounter space through a character who sees, hears, tells the story to us. As the relation between character and sound/space changes, so too does the viewer's relation to character and sound/space: we achieve a different perspective on the story. Using the concepts origin, destination, and diegesis we may now give a more complete breakdown of the classes of production with respect to narrators and readers. The omniscient18 or third person narrator is that level of narration which is assigned no origin by the text; what has no origin is the omniscient, and that is precisely its authority: it is anything and everything. It is, seemingly, only the 'world'. Ascribing the narration to 'God' still does not provide an origin but only names our inability to name an origin. The subjective or first person narrator is that level of narration attributed to a particular origin within the narrative diegesis (character) or outside the narrative diegesis (e.g., an identifiable voice-over nar-

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rator). In the latter case, all that is required is that an origin be specified; the time and place of the narration need not be identified nor related to diegetic time and place. The voyeuristic reader is the unseen and unacknowledged spectator for whom an address is, apparently, unaddressed (to no one); that is, the text does not acknowledge its viewer. The world, seemingly, is caught unawares. By contrast, the personal is a direct second person address. In diegetic narration, the personal is a character who receives (listens, watches) the story; for example, the bystander in a scene who exists only for his or her reaction shot. A personal address may also be aimed outside the narrative diegesis, for instance, when a character stares at the camera and points a gun into the camera (The Great Train Robbery, Porter, 1903). If we order these classes of production from general to specific, the following scheme results: Narrator 1. N o origin (omniscience) 2. Origin located in non-diegetic time and space 3. Origin in diegesis

Reader 1. N o destination (voyeurism) 2. Destination located in nondiegetic time and space 3. Destination in diegesis

Origin should not be confused with its textual manifestation in any particular case. A character or several characters 19 as well as other sorts of entities may function as an origin. Character, however, is not identical to origin, but is only an instance which complies with a more 'abstract' 2 0 structuring principle — namely, origin. The task, then, is to identify those markers that divide the text into levels of narration (diegetic and non-diegetic) and to identify the exact function of narrator and reader for each level, especially in the intermediate classes of production (class number two, above). The general problem is to relate, on the one hand, the act of perceiving (narrating/viewing) to, on the other, the subjects and objects of a text (which in a diegetic frame comprise characters and their world of objects). The term we need to specify this relation is 'camera'. Later in the chapter we will carefully examine the concept of camera. For now, I want to suggest that the camera should be understood as the viewer's contact with a fluctuation of space. It is the pretext for our hypotheses and speculations about the text. The camera is simultaneously a materialization of a visual symbol system and the labels we apply to that system, just as a string of letters is simultaneously the line of a novel and the words we must apply. In a sense, then, it is misleading to speak of one camera, the camera; rather, we should speak of many cameras — a series of consecutive labels we apply to the fluctuation of space. The labels we apply to space may be verbal as well as nonverbal (gestural, pictorial, diagrammatic, etc.). 21 This does not mean, however, that there is no difference between verbal and pictorial narration. Gerard Genette has observed that a

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45

dissymmetry exists within verbal narration. A story may very well be told in words without specifying the place where it happens and whether this place is more or less distant from the place where it is now being told; nevertheless, it is almost impossible not to locate the story in time with respect to the narrating act since the story must necessarily be told in a present, past, or future tense. 22 Thus in a verbal narrative the temporal determinations of the narrating act are more salient than the spatial determinations. By contrast, this dissymmetry is exactly reversed in pictorial narration. A picture initially is atemporal and will remain so unless the discourse assigns it a temporal reference; nevertheless, a picture invariably discloses its spatial determinations for the reason that the picture must necessarily be taken from some angle and location. The French novelist and filmmaker Alain Robbe-Grillet states: The cinema, whether or not there is a character to assume the point of view, is under the absolute obligation of always defining it — the photo has to be taken from a given point; the camera has to be somewhere. If there are changes of perspective during the course of the description, they will not go unnoticed; in one way or another they will have to justify themselves. 23 It is not necessary to decide whether the above dissymmetry in pictorial narration is of an ontological order; for present purposes it is enough to say that the spatial properties of a picture are at least initially more important than other properties and hence may serve as a reference with which to measure the general activity of narration. Therefore in specifying the classes of film narration, we will begin with spatial properties, such as, the placement and movement of the camera. Camera placement may be characterized as either motivated or unmotivated. In one sense, the term 'unmotivated' is not well-chosen since all camera locations must be justified in some way, that is, bear some relation to the narrative. I will define an unmotivated camera as one which has a function other than the following: (a) (b) (c) (d)

To establish scenographic space; To follow or anticipate movement by a character or object; To follow or discover a glance; To select a narratively significant detail (e.g., an inserted dolly shot of an object or facial expression); (e) To reveal character subjectivity. Unmotivated camera movement is a mark of class two narration since it achieves a certain independence from the diegesis but without becoming an invisible omniscience. It is evidence of an activity of framing which lags behind or else searches out narrative detail; that is, its knowledge is not perfect. 24 For example, in Vampyr (Dreyer, 1932) we often seem to arrive a moment too late to witness significant events (see chapter 5, section 3 on the closed POV). By contrast, in Que la bete meure (released as This Man Must Die, Chabrol, 1969) a character exits in

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one shot and we cut to a black screen. After a moment a small rectangle of light appears, the lights are switched on, and the character enters what we now see to be a new room. The point here is that the camera is ahead of the action; it is already waiting in a darkened room for the arrival of the character. At the end of L'Ecltsse (The Eclipse, Antonioni, 1962), the camera appears but the characters never show up. Further distinctions within the general category of unmotivated camera may be necessary when analyzing a particular text. For example, there are degrees by which a camera may be ahead of the action. The camera of Que la bete meure is in actuality quite powerful since it is able to accurately and decisively predict events. Camera placement is also important in defining the intermediate class on the reader's side. In the classic text, a key issue is whether or not a character stares into the camera. The prohibition against the look into the camera rests, perhaps, on the fact that this look is the only one for which there is no possible eyeline match. Such a match would show us the camera itself (the camera's absence in this situation would be just as revealing) and threaten the rough equation of profilmic and diegetic space. The line of camera sight is an important discontinuity which threatens the smooth unfolding and extension of diegetic space into an infinity. Avoiding the camera, then, preserves the spectator's status of invisible voyeur. By contrast, staring directly into the camera implies another (a new) relation between the character and spectator, provided, of course, that the text also establishes a consistent pattern of character glances which are not directed at the camera. In this situation, a direct look at the camera cannot be toward an off-screen character, but must be a look outside diegetic time and space — not, of course, a look into the movie theatre but nevertheless a look which is closer to the spectator's own sight line. At the conclusion of Nights of Cabiria (Fellini, 1957), Cabiria glances at the camera for only a moment, suggesting a direct address but without firmly breaking from voyeuristic presentation. Bazin praises the moment both for its permanent ambiguity and its power "to remove us quite finally from our role of spectator". 25 Thus the relation of spectator to text (reading) may be structured and undergo change just as much as the relation of narrator to text (narrating). We can speak of unmotivated camera movement and direct address to the camera only because there exists some conceivable standard or background of neutral narration and reception. There must always exist in a text an underlying level of omniscient narration — that which frames but is not itself framed — and voyeuristic reception — that which looks but is not itself seen — which together create the fictional appearance of other levels of narration. In this sense, omniscient narration and voyeuristic reception are methodological constructs with which to measure the differential position of other forms of telling and knowing. Hence narration can be characterized separately by a narrator and a reader. For instance, contrary to the assertion in many film textbooks, there is no requirement in a POV shot (subjective narration) that the person viewed must stare back into

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47

the camera (personal address). The narration can be just as subjective and the address just as voyeuristic when the actor does not return the stare. The latter is, in fact, the usual form of the POV shot. This misunderstanding stems from a failure to distinguish between production by a narrator and production by a reader. Since the narrator and reader appear in pairs for each level of narration, in order to determine the different levels either the narrator or the reader may be fixed, and the variation of the other activity measured. The narrator and reader subcodes are perhaps best thought of not as two separate facts but as aspects of the same process viewed under different conditions. I have chosen to speak of levels of narration with respect to a single point of reception. Thus in the main I will not be concerned with the variety of readers or stand-ins for the reader (narratees) generated by the text even though these stand-ins are often explicitly represented in the text. In film, for example, the character being addressed in a conversation is a narratee. We are also accustomed by classic films to the presence and reactions of other characters in the scene; or mere onlookers who are important in the text precisely for a reaction at a particular point (the reaction shot). Just as there are non-diegetic, voice-over narrators, there may also be voice-over narratees — such as the laugh track in television comedies. For the moment, however, I will set aside the signs of the reading act — signs of reception — and concentrate on the subcode of the narrator. The problem will be, as Nick Browne states, to characterize "the narrating agency or authority which can be taken to rationalize the presentation of shots", 26 and, one assumes, the presentation of shot transitions, camera movements, sounds, etc. The decision to speak of levels of narration is a methodological decision and does not imply that authors conceive their work on such levels nor that readers scan these levels from one position. The dynamic of an actual reading probably involves a mixture whereby at times the reader perceives a new narrator and at other times changes his own position. Of course a narrator has some control in that he can make it easier or harder for the reader to identify a change in narration. For instance, by omitting a pronoun or using the 'wrong' one, a narrator conceals narration and instead encourages the reader to change position. Barthes cites two examples of concealed narration, or what he calls "cheating on the person of the narration", where a character in an Agatha Christie story is described from within even though he is already the murderer, and in another Christie story the murderer is simply made to say Ί'. 2 7 Similar instances may be found in film. In Stage Fright (Hitchcock, 1950) there is a character flashback which is an outright lie because, unknown to the viewer, the character is the murderer. At the end of these stories the reader sees he or she was tricked: a new level of narration suddenly appears which accurately places the murder. Thus the enigma resides in the narration — its structuration — rather than where it is expected to be for a classic text: at the level of narrative (in the 'story'). Two schemes have been developed in order to describe levels of narration: au-

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thority and difference. In the first, terms like 'omniscient', 'imperfect omniscient', 'objective', 'subjective', and many others, have been employed in order to characterize the authority of the narration at certain points, that is, the extent of the knowledge presupposed by the narration, what it can predict. This approach may be critized on two grounds. First, to the extent that such categories involve realist conceptions of art, they fail for the same reasons that the concept of a real-life author fails to explain narration. The terms automatically carry into the text the notion of a world of objects and sentient beings, when the important question is how, and in what measure, the text relates to the world. The relation is less direct than the terms suggest. Second, the categories are vague. With respect to 'imperfect omniscient' one might first ask what is 'failure' and, secondly, when — under what conditions — may narration 'fail'? . A second approach to the description of narration is one which merely indicates the change in narration: that is, it marks differences so that we are aware when a new or another level of narration has begun. The word often used by this approach is 'voice'. 28 The approach may be criticized in three ways. First, like 'omniscient', voice has realist connotations. A voice implies a speaker. Second, it is not enough to mark different narrations. We need a concept of the relation between different narrations — the structuration of narration. We need to talk about levels because everything is not equally significant in a text — there are dependencies and hierarchies. The categories of authority, e.g., 'imperfect omniscience' have the virtue of suggesting relations between narrations. To speak of an imperfect omniscience, for example, is already to measure a failure or contradiction with respect to some other narration within the text. Finally, 'voice' already has a special meaning in rhetoric and grammar, which only confuses matters of narration.29 What is needed is a term to replace 'narrator' which has no realist overtones (an activity without an actor), marks new levels, and indicates the possibility of interrelations among levels. In the absence of such a new term, we shall employ the old terms to speak of narration, provided that these qualifications are understood. A text with only one narration has no levels of narration. But with two or more narrations a hierarchy is established. It is conceivable that several narrations might exist on an equal plane but in order to define what that 'equality' would mean in a specific text and in order to account for the juxtaposition of these equal narrations, it is still necessary to construct at least one possible, higher level narration of greater generality. The notion of level implies not only a hierarchy but also that there exists a relation between the immediate narration and the other narration^) on either side. The relation is specified by the text and runs a spectrum from a minimal relation to a maximal relation within the 'boundary' of the text. The boundary of a text or an artwork is culturally determined; for example, what is hanging on the wall in a museum is the painting; what we take from the shelf is the book; what arrives in a film canister is the film. In order to contest this

Still 8:

The Best Years of Our Lives (shot 2) (page 135).

Still 6:

Strangers on a Train (shot 4) (page 128).

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boundary an artwork must appear within the boundary and inscribe the old boundary. Thus in A Movie (Bruce Conner, 1958), film leader with the usual numbers (and some not so usual) is included within the film itself and in Entr'acte (Clair, 1924) the (first!) end title is explosively shattered as the film defies convention and continues on. A film, is, of course, finally contained by cultural practices: the lights dim or rise in the theatre, the chairs are arranged in a certain direction, reviews are written. Cultural reading practices like 'genre', 'style', and 'authorship', by setting norms and expectations for the viewer, display a film's significance and point up its features, even if it is labeled 'difficult', 'avant-garde', or 'nonsensical'. At the minimum end of the spectrum, then, the relation between two narrations is that both appear within the boundary of the artwork. This minimal relation — some would say no relation — is nevertheless important because it generates meaning. Consider, as an analogy, the image track and the sound track of a film. N o matter how disparate the image and the sound (are there even common units?), their mere juxtaposition within the boundary of a film — a syntagmatic relation created by brute force — means the reader will try to discover a relation. H e may fail with respect to the narrative but he will not entirely fail at the level of discourse which encompasses a wider class of narratives with which the reader is already familiar. Thus a syntagmatic relation always has some consequences for meaning even if it becomes 'excess' or noise with respect to a reading convention. To ask another question, is it possible to say about editing that a particular juxtaposition has no meaning? What would a completely meaningless cut look like? On the basis of past experience the viewer can always generate one or more hypotheses and projections. The fact is that whether one is speaking of relations of image and sound, the join of two shots, or of two narrations within the boundary of an artwork, it is impossible to escape the influence of context; at the very least, a meaningful relation exists because two elements appear together with the result that a viewer will attempt to determine their logical relation and what element might conceivably follow next. The fact that a minimal relation must exist explains the apparent paradox of saying that there really is only one narration which creates the fiction of other levels, i.e., delegates its responsibility in whole or part, explicitly, implicitly, or by trickery, to another narration. At least, the sum of all the relations in a text is an activity of narration, is a reference point (an 'omniscience') from which to measure any other level of narration. This one narration is, in fact, just everything the viewer knows about the underlying structure of the text. It is also possible that a given text will be scrupulous about specifying the relation between two narrations; that is, the relation between levels is at a maximum. Consider, for example, the subjective flashback in classical films. The narration carefully specifies the new 'flashback' narration: the character who will be responsible for the narration (through 'memory') is named and shown to us; the flash-

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back is enclosed or marked at both ends (e.g., by dissolves to and from the same character); when we return to the story we do not expect to have missed any of the story while we were in the past; and so forth.

3. Two Ways of Reading: By Error or by Hypothesis The units of narration, like codes of narrative, do not exist on a material level but on the level of meaning, of intelligibility, of reading. Hence we cannot say in literature that the unit of narration will be the sentence or even the word; for instance, the use of the word 'he' may actually be part of a disguised personal narration (Ί'). 3 0 Likewise in film we cannot say that the unit of narration must be the shot or the sequence. Discontinuities in material do not necessarily mark the discontinuities (units) we seek in the narrational system. The converse is also true: Continuities in material do not necessarily mark the outline of a single narration. In literature, for example, Barthes has found that within the sentence narration may change many times. 3 1 In film a camera movement is a continuity which may include several distinct narrations. 32 On the other hand, the so-called spatial continuity of Hollywood is actually a system which may organize a single narration out of discontinuities in material (different shots). What we need then are units of structure which derive from the text (are multiply coded) which will not necessarily be co-extensive with the material divisions of the text. This accords with the fact that a similar meaning may be given through different materials and likewise that narrative is trans-media. An element of a code — Barthes' hermeneutic, say — may appear in any number of materials (as implied by the notion of multiple coding) or, conversely, a given material may function in any of the code systems, and it is these codes (rules, hypotheses, procedures) underlying the text and accounting for our comprehension of it that have to be studied. Thus in order to describe the code of narration, that code must in fact be a structure (differential position and transformation); the structure must be contained within the culturally defined boundaries of the artwork; it must be multiply coded at the material level of the artwork though not necessarily co-extensively with material divisions; and it must be generated by a cultural reading process and thus have only epistemological status. Let's begin with an example. Character A catches sight of character Β and moves toward B. In the next shot the camera continues A's movement toward Β but without showing A. The camera reaches Β who reacts with surprise at the unexpected approach of A. So far the situation seems to be this: We began with neutral, impersonal space (character A) and then changed to subjective space (glance of A, camera movement picking up A's movement, distance between A and Β decreases, absence of A). The subjective space, here, is that of the familiar,

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traveling point-of-view shot where we see as «/from character A's eyes as A moves to B. It is the filmic equivalent of the statement, Ί see ...'. Now, however, something happens which throws this account into doubt. Character Β reacts not by looking into the camera (our hypothesis was camera = character A) but by looking 30 degrees to one side and conversing with A (whom we hear but still do not see). How do we interpret the sequence? One interpretation, which I shall term the 'error' theory, is that we were simply in error — the space was and remains impersonal. The camera was never in fact character A but only moved parallel to A. Paul Willemen uses stronger language. He asserts that the revealed 'gap' between camera and character A is a marked intervention of the author — the intrusion of another (The Other) organizing presence into the narration. The sudden appearance of the author creates a 'shock effect' 33 for the viewer. But in what sense were we wrong? Was it a mistake on our part, or careless camerawork? Was it an accident that we believed the shot to be subjective? Certainly not. If there is a 'shock effect' on the reader, it must depend on an initial 'misreading' of the sequence which we suddenly recognize to be false; that is, the misreading is relevant to — functions in — the reading of the text and in that sense is not a misreading at all but a necessary part of an on-going process of interpretation. There is a second major problem with the 'error' interpretation. It is an all or nothing interpretation: either the narration is or is not subjective. There may be room for ambiguity but not for the semi-subjective (examples of which we will examine in chapters 4 and 6). The error interpretation assumes that the entire shot as a unit (the camera movement toward B, the glance of Β 30 degrees off-screen, etc.) must be either subjective or not. This assigns a material division in the text (the shot) a determining role in narration. The camera, also, is conceived of as a concrete entity which either is the character (by following in the character's footsteps) or is not (by following a different, though parallel, path). Thus both the 'shot' and the 'camera' become primary terms in the search for levels of narration. The error interpretation relies on material divisions in the text so that one speaks literally of a subjective shot or subjective camera. Segmentation of the text — finding the beginning and end of a unit of narration — is an acute problem for the 'error' theory because it must answer the question, with respect to what 'entity' or formal device is the interpretation in error? Let's examine how the 'misreading' in our example arose. We assumed, after seeing character A glance toward Β and begin moving toward B, that the subsequent shot presented the camera as having located at A's point in space and continued A's movement (i.e., time was continuous). This was not an unreasonable belief; in fact, there were many cues for it (we approach B, we don't see A anymore, etc.) and perhaps no contrary cues (though relevant cues may have been omitted — a deliberate undercoding of the space). Can we not say that the best hypothesis at this time, based on the available evidence, is that the sequence is subjective? Later,

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new cues will present themselves (B's stare 30 degrees off-screen) which will require us to revise our hypothesis. In this sense the shot is subjective for a time and nonsubjective at a later time. It can be both because what is measured is a change in hypothesis, not a change in shot. It does not matter where the camera 'really' was located; at an earlier moment, the space simply was represented as subjective (or was both subjective and objective) according to a valid hypothesis and then shifts to objective. Part of the camera movement is subjective even if part is not. This second interpretation I shall term a 'reading hypothesis' theory. By contrast, the 'error' theory links the inexplicable camera movement to a mistake of the reader, to a trick, a trap — or better — to an author made manifest. The 'hypothesis' theory asserts that reading includes making mistakes, even forgetting. Reading is a process of Ί name, I unname, I rename'. It does not settle a text into truth, error, or author. As Barthes says, To read, in fact, is a labor of language. To read is to find meanings, and to find meanings is to name them; but these named meanings are swept toward other names; names call to each other, reassemble, and their grouping calls for further naming: I name, I unname, I rename: so the text passes: it is a nomination in the course of becoming, a tireless approximation, a metonymic labor. 34 The example under discussion is more general than might at first appear. Consider a shot we initially believe to be subjective but, in following the object of a character's attention, reveals at the end that the character is watching the object from a distant place,35 or a subjective shot which contains a match on action from a slightly different angle,36 or ends with the character merely stepping in front of the camera, or with part of a character's shoulder appearing in frame (as the camera moves away from the character). Carefree (Sandrich, 1938) opens with a shot tossing from side to side and is followed by a pan to a drunk and swaying character at a distance from the camera. All of these cases, according to the 'error' theory, involve the realization — retrospectively — that the camera and character are in different places and hence the shot could never have been subjective or, in the case of the match on action, one of the shots cannot be subjective or, in the Case of Carefree, the shot is self-contradictory: an image is unmistakably subjective and yet is shown to be a mere eyeline match. My original example used the eyeline cue of a second character, B, who was assumed to be looking at A and thus by not looking at the camera proved that A was at a distance. Suppose it turns out that Β is not looking at A but at something else? The error theory must say that we were fooled again and that 'really' the author's momentary appearance was an illusion. In short, the hypothesis theory forces us to recognize that character subjectivity is more prevalent and plays a much greater role in classical films than previously thought. What is at stake at the minimum (without additional narrations) is a four-term relation among character, camera, object, and narrator/viewer (perceiver); logi-

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cally speaking, these terms complete a quadratic predicate and at any given moment describe the point of view. In order to describe a changing point of view (diachrony) one must consider how these terms change through time; that is, through a succession of camera placements (editing), camera movement, character movement, optical transitions, etc. The relationship among the four terms can shift at any time and in many ways and is frequently analyzed by postulating a look of some type operating between the terms.37 Contemporary film and literary theory has begun to address three of these terms: the notion of character, the status of the various objects in a symbol system, as well as the relationship of text and spectator. Little, however, has been said about the entity 'camera'. We must now reconsider the notion of camera in light of a 'reading hypothesis' theory. I will define the camera not as a real, profilmic object (which leads to misunderstanding about the viewer's access to reality) but as a construct of the reader — a reading hypothesis which seeks to make intelligible the spaces of a film.38 Space, in turn, is defined by the placement and displacement of frame lines. The frame is stressed because it is the measure and logic of the simultaneity of textual elements. To frame is to bracket an array of elements (usually in two or three dimensions). The frame is a perceptual boundary which divides what is represented from what is not represented: here it is, and not there. The displacement of frame lines is often that of 'camera' movement, but includes zoom shots, optical and special effects, rack focus, split screens, animation, and other movements of the frame lines. Thus it is more accurate to consider the camera as a label we as viewers apply to certain spatial effects of the text. (Spatial effects may be differentiated with precision through the use of methods derived from sensory psychology.) In this way one can say that the text creates its camera. The classic text, in particular, surrenders to that familiar reading competence (that coherence) which we name as the 'camera' — itself compounded of those six spatial effects we label as the dolly, track, crane, pan, tilt, and lateral tilt. The hypothesis is not just anything a reader may conceive but must be internally justified (systematic, multiply coded, etc.) and, ultimately, must reflect shared assumptions/expectations of a community with respect to a set of texts. The way we read is inter-subjective and depends on cultural convention just as a language belongs not to an individual but to a group. Moreover, since film space and narration do not depend on real space or actual narrators for their intelligibility so the camera does not depend on a real camera object which must be — retrospectively — either 'here' or 'there' in concrete space and not in both places or in neither place. The 'error' theory searches for a final, complete meaning — the correct meaning — rather than measuring the flux of perceiving (and narrating). Obviously no decisions can be made without weighing the evidence supplied by the text. Nothing that has been said rules out another set of perceptual cues (consistent or inconsistent) which leaves a given sequence uncertain, underdetermined,

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ambiguous, misleading, multiple, contradictory, undefined, hidden, or inadvertent as well as prey to a host of evaluative claims — good, bad subtle, ineffective, etc. It is of interest to note that certain camera movements (e.g., the lateral tilt where the frame is angled on an edge) and especially certain combinations of movements are prohibited or 'repressed' by the classic text. (The lateral tilt is virtually confined to the representation of disturbed, subjective states.) One aspect of Michael Snow's films is the extent to which the films refuse that familiar coherence known as the 'camera' (Wavelength, 1967; *—> aka Back and Forth, 1969; La Region Centrale, 1971). According to a reading hypothesis theory, then, the camera is not a profilmic object which is shifted from place to place, but a construct of the spectator, a hypothesis about space — about the production and change of space. The camera is simply a label applied by the reader to certain plastic transformations of space. It is not a matter of guessing the location of a profilmic object. Indeed the profilmic camera doesn't exist, in the usual sense, when one considers animation. The fluid and moving camera we project in watching animated films contrasts sharply with the inert camera of the animation stand. A modification in our notion of camera leads to a corresponding revision of the concept of diegesis. Earlier we defined the diegetic as those elements in a film which constitute the spatial, temporal, and causal system of the characters. But there are two ways to approach this definition depending upon whether our theory of reading is by error or by hypothesis. In effect, I have already chosen the latter approach by, for example, suggesting that the test for non-diegetic sound is that it is not, and could not be, heard by a character. Consider the following example. The embrace of two lovers in a room is accompanied by an unexpected, booming sound of a steamship whistle. We assume, on the basis of cues presented, that the whistle is not a proper part of the room and thus is non-diegetic in origin and functions like a burst of music to accentuate this particular moment in the narrative. The whistle serves as a metaphor transferring such attributes as steamy, torrid, sensational to the love scene. Now, however, suppose the camera pans to a radio or to a window revealing a steamship at dock, or there is a cut (or dissolve) to a new scene on board a steamship, distant in time and place, but which nevertheless continues the whistle sound. Using an error theory of reading, the whistle sound in all these cases suddenly becomes diegetic, even in the extreme case of a sound bridge to a new scene. The earlier part of the sound is converted, retrospectively, into a diegetic sound. In this approach to reading, the sound bridge is diegetic and was always diegetic even though at one time we believed it to be non-diegetic. Our first belief that the sound was non-diegetic was accidental, mistaken, and of passing consequence. Note particularly that with this definition of diegetic there is no difference in function between a sound that is first presented as non-diegetic and then becomes diegetic as opposed to one that is

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first diegetic and then becomes non-diegetic. The entire sound is simply diegetic; the actual perceiving of the sound is irrelevant. By contrast, using a hypothesis theory of reading, we find that that part of the whistle sound which is juxtaposed to the lovers' embrace remains non-diegetic even though at a later time the remainder of the sound becomes diegetic (when we see the radio, or the ship nearby). In this approach it is our relationship to character and sound which has changed and that is what is being measured. The advantage of this approach is that it maps a process of reading — a sequence of hypotheses made by the reader — and it preserves the fact that inferences have been made; for example, a sound which is first non-diegetic and then diegetic involves the hypothesis that it is the same sound. The question is still open, however, to examine the grounds of that belief and to ask how the sound functioned non-diegetically in the reading (as a trap for the reader, a metaphor, authorial comment, etc.?). Thus the 'same' sound may have different/««ctions at different times. What is important in analyzing a logic of reading are the conditions of our belief, moment by moment (and how it is manipulated), rather than such formal divisions as camera movement, shot change, mise-en-scene, and sound. In sum, the error theory seeks to assign an absolute division between diegetic and non-diegetic without taking into account the position of the viewer, namely the hypotheses the viewer must make about the story. The error theory relies on a formal definition independent of the act of perceiving. The difference between the two approaches can be clearly seen in the analysis of a sound bridge. In an error approach, once the transition to a new scene reveals a diegetic source, then the entire sound over both scenes is recast as diegetic.39 This is because what is being measured is the absolute status of a sound, not, as in the hypothesis approach, the shifting relation of sound to a perceiver (character, viewer). The hypothesis approach denies the apparent continuity of a sound bridge in favor of a split function for the sound. In the case of the steamship whistle: first, as non-diegetic and metaphoric and second, for the new scene only, as diegetic and part of a reality effect. The error theory, at its extreme, relies on formal or material divisions in the text (subjective camera, diegetic sound) which exist apart from a perceiver. The hypothesis theory, on the other hand, tends to emphasize the role of a perceiver by favoring more 'abstract' principles or procedures which structure the text. Here, a perceiver is actively labelling spaces and speculating about the relation of character and sound according to that perceiver's acquired principles and habits. By contrast, in an error approach the reliance on formal categories means that the viewer is a passive receiver of stimuli (even if surprised by unfamiliar stimuli). The 'corrections' a viewer makes would seem to be based on a simple feedback model of perception in which the viewer remains essentially passive. The error theory utilizes a linear model of perception (i.e., a model based upon a sequential flow chart and incorporating a feedback loop) which seeks to fix a beginning, middle, and end. Indeed, the 'end' of a segment is

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considered the point at which to measure the truth (the outcome) of a text ('this is/was diegetic; it is not/was not non-diegetic as we first believed'). The error theory tends to formally demarcate units so that an end can be fixed and the truth known.40 At its extreme, an error theory dispenses with the perceiver altogether which — considering that other subject, the author — amounts also to the belief that there are texts, or parts of texts, which have (or need) no author or no narrator (= the world objectified). For a hypothesis theory, however, the absence of a narrator is only an effect of the text; that is, the narrator is still fully present, though 'effaced'.

4. Elements of Classical Representation Barthes has described the project of classical representation in the following way: The theatre is precisely that practice which calculates the place of things as they are observed: if I set the spectacle here, the spectator will see this; if I put it elsewhere, he will not, and I can avail myself of this masking effect and play on the illusion it provides. The stage is the line which stands across the path of the optic pencil, tracing at once the point at which it is brought to a stop and, as it were, the threshold of its ramification. Thus is founded ... representation. Representation is not defined directly by imitation: even if one gets rid of notions of the "real", of the "vraisemblable", of the "copy", there will still be representation for so long as a subject (author, reader, spectator or voyeur) casts his gaze towards a horizon on which he cuts out the base of a triangle, his eye (or his mind) forming the apex. The "Organon of Representation" ... will have as its dual foundation the sovereignty of the act of cutting out [decoupage] and the unity of the subject of that action.41 Basically, Barthes sketches a pictorial theory of representation. It depends on a subject (spectator/author) who stands at a particular point and cuts out — sets apart — through the use of vision a distant segment of space. The cutting out occurs through time (a duration) and may be ordered with respect to other segments cut out at different times. The time of this cutting out by a subject is the time of narration and should not be confused with temporal references within whatever is cut out, that is, narrative time; for instance, a calendar on a stage set reveals the time of the narrative action, not the time of the narration. Thus, in order for an object to be represented for a subject, it must be cut out through time by vision from a particular place and under pressure of a logic or purpose. Here we find an exhaustive account not only of the elements of representation but also of the relations binding them. A represented object does not simply exist but is brought into existence through a process. As Barthes indicates, this process is more complicated

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than making a 'copy' of something. In fact, we may generalize and say that there are six elements of classical representation in the visual arts. Their most general formulation is as follows (more specific applications will be considered in subsequent chapters): origin

The origin is that beginning point or source of the space from which the representation derives.

vision

Vision is a force: the activating instance or cause (the gaze) which brings representation into being from an origin.

time

Time is a process which links the units of representation into a whole — a continuity — or specifies where the units are not whole — a discontinuity. It is the measure and logic of a sequence, or succession, of framed parts. 42

frame

The frame is a perceptual limit or boundary which divides what is represented from what is not represented with respect to (from) an origin: Here it is (and not there). The frame is the measure and logic of the simultaneity of parts. To frame is to bracket an array using some principle (see below, mind) of exclusion/inclusion.

object

The object is that which is represented; that which is revealed (framed) as the object of vision. Mind is that condition of consciousness — sentience — which is represented as (not is) the principle of coherence of the representation. That is, inscribed within the representation is the principle of its own intelligibility, the logic of its appearance before us. For example, the object appears because it is represented as a memory or because it is represented as it 'normally' appears to us.

mind

As an example of the act of representation consider in film the point-of-view (POV) shot. This shot is actually a new — different — level of narration given by a character as distinct from a more 'impersonal' or neutral narration on either end of the POV structure. The activity of narration has been transferred to a character within the narrative. (Such a transfer is an integrative operation — see chapter 2.) Let us define the POV shot and isolate the various units of representation. The POV shot is a shot in which the camera assumes the position of a subject in order to show us what the subject sees. More precisely, the POV shot is composed of six elements usually distributed in two shots as follows: Shot A: Point/Glance 1. Point:

establishment of a point in space.

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Three Glance:

establishment of an object, usually off-camera, by glance from the point.

Between Shots A and B: 3. Transition: temporal continuity or simultaneity. Shot B: Point/Object 4. From Point: the camera locates at the point, or very close to the point, in space defined by element one above. 5.

Object:

Shots A and B: 6. Character:

the object of element two above is revealed.

the space and time of elements one through five are justified by — referred to — the presence and normal awareness of a subject.

The variation and combination of the elements of the POV shot will be discussed in detail in chapter 5. We see by comparison what the general units of representation have become in the specific narrational instance of the POV shot. Origin has become a point in space (occupied by a character); vision has become a glance; time is continuous; frame is defined by a particular point in space previously shown; and the object is a diegetic object continuous with character (with a character glance). Where is the unit of representation which we have termed 'mind'? It is implicit in the concept of 'glance', for a glance does not make sense unless we imply the existence of a sentient observer in whose viewpoint we may participate. It is explicit in the concept of 'character' as conceived in the nineteenth century novel. Stated another way the structure of narration described as the POV shot is not intelligible unless, as a condition of that intelligibility, the structure also inscribes a notion of the mere presence or existence of consciousness. A further inscription of consciousness - the contents of consciousness - is not necessary. More specifically, what is required is that aspect of character coding which Heath terms 'person' or body.43 Without a sense of character presence we cannot recognize the new level of POV narration. The representation will still be intelligible, but only as part of, say, the omniscient narration bordering on each side; that is, without character presence we do not recognize a discontinuity in narration (POV level) but merely ascribe the representation to a broader narration perceived as continuous on each end of the POV structure. The role of mind as a unit of representation may become clearer when we consider certain variations of the unit, such as a POV structure which purports to represent the views of a snake, an invisible spirit, or even of a dead man. In these 'deviant' cases mind is taken in a metaphorical sense to represent the coherence of the

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representation; the assertion, for example, is that the consciousness of humans is like that of snakes. Understanding by a viewer, here, depends on the metaphorical transfer, not on whether such a transfer is successful, plausible, nor on whether 'mind' can be said to exist in the first place. There are, of course, other conditions of mind which — when recognized and understood — provide the condition for the intelligibility of an act of representation. Memory, for example, is a mental condition crucial to the narrational structure called a flashback in film. Ann Banfield presents a stronger case for mind which, in her terminology, is the 'inner subjective personality'. Language, she says, does not create the inner subjective personality, rather it "reflects the belief that a preexistent self manifests itself through language". 44 Banfield regards this belief as a condition of universal grammar, whereas, I would tend to attribute it to conventions given by culture. We agree, however, on the importance of such a construct in the activity of reading. Perhaps an analogy would clarify the idea of mind as a reading term. Rudolf Arnheim contends that one of the ways that an observer understands the composition of a painting is by hypothesizing the effects of gravity. 45 By imagining a downward force field acting on the graphic forms, the observer is able to bring out relevant features of the composition, e.g., symmetry, balance, pattern, 'weight', and others. My contention is that 'mind' is a hypothesis of this sort and can be used successfully to expose pertinent features of some texts. I want to emphasize, however, that in my view of narration there is no consciousness of a narrator to produce (originate) sentences which then control meaning for a reader but exactly the reverse: the systematic restrictions perceived by the reader within a text are simply labeled as 'narration' in order to be located when needed in the logical process of reading. Rather than a sentence being used to frame or embed another sentence because it is the narration of a narrator, it is called narration because it is used to frame and restrict; and rather than the narration being used to frame because it tracks the consciousness and intentions of a narrator, the meaning of consciousness is to be interpreted not as transcendental but in terms of sentences which frame and are framed. Just as meaning does not depend on intention so there is no need to construct a consciousness behind the fiction to explain the production of that meaning (narration). I reject Wayne Booth's assertion that "In fiction, as soon as we encounter an Ί ' we are conscious of an experiencing mind". 4 6 Instead, what is at stake is the manipulation of symbols by the reader. In the following chapters I will demonstrate ways in which narration can be concretely analyzed in literature — such as, through embedding and shifters — as well as the filmic manifestations of these devices. The units of representation are not part of the real world, they are coded entities which exist in the artwork and satisfy the requirements of structure mentioned above (section 3); and codes are cultural constructs. Thus the units are of use only insofar as they are defined by the society, and, for the individual reader, employed

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to decode artworks or, for the author, employed as conditions of intelligibility in the construction of an artwork. 47 Thus it is fruitless to search for neutral terms which escape social production and ideology. The concept of 'mind', for example (often stated as 'mind versus body'), is a pervasive, culturally recognized category. Whether or not mind is 'true' or 'really exists' is irrelevant; it is a cultural fact (category) which is widely employed to generate meaning, intelligibility, discussion. The same may be said of the other units even though Einstein has demonstrated (theorized) that time, for instance, cannot under any circumstances be separated from space (the representational unit of frame implies space). What Einstein means is more radical than appears at first glance. Space exists not because it is strung-out in time, but only because it is referenced to the changes in space (velocity, acceleration) experienced by an observer and can never be separated from such changes. This notion of interdependent time and space does not exist in the culture that generates classical artworks. For the classical work time and space are cultural facts necessary to the giving and receiving of narrative so long as it remains within the boundary of those cultural readings. Time and space in the classic system are separable and absolute. This might suggest that codes are determined forever, and the artwork thus limited by its culture. But culture and its codes exist in a dialectical relation. The former exists only because a sign or a code may be established (and possibly changed) for a real object thus displacing that object; whereas, the codes, and new codes, exist only because the culture exists which permits displacement.48 Thus one of the functions of the aesthetic text (as well as other texts, such as the critical text) is to change the very codes which give rise to aesthetic texts. Because the codes are epistemological structures derived from the already-known, changing the codes — whether mere variation on a code or destruction of a code — has the effect of changing our perception and our activity of making meaning. It is not that the text contains a kernel of 'truth' about the real world but that the text reworks our perception and so suggests that the world might be perceived in relation to other structural systems. This notion is similar to certain Russian Formalist concepts, e.g., de-familiarization.49 Eco argues that: a text of the aesthetic type . . . arouses the suspicion that the correspondence between the present organization of the content and 'actual' states of the world is neither the best nor the ultimate. The world could be defined and organized (and therefore perceived and known) through other semantic (that is: conceptual) models.50 It is quite possible then to conceive of an activity of narration which is not premised on the six units of classical representation but on a radically different form of perception and representation.51

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5. The Elements of Representation in Film The most general problem that a viewer must confront about film narration is how to justify successive spaces and new scenes. The problem is not that we simply acquire new information but that we acquire it in a variety of ways and these ways must be justified. For example, in The Rules of the Game (Renoir, 1939) the shots of rabbits and pheasants in the forest preparing to flee from the hunters are of an entirely different order from the camera set-ups of the hunters. The former are impossible views for any character in the film." Similarly, in Psycho (Hitchcock, 1960) how is it that we are privileged to see Norman Bates in secret conversation with his mother? Furthermore, though we may see him with his mother, certain aspects of the staging continue to serve as much to conceal as to reveal the story. 53 In Touch of Evil (Welles, 1958) the first shot, which begins as a close shot, could reveal the identity of the murderer but does not, through a combination of such devices as camera angle, lighting, composition, camera and character movement. This complicated tracking shot is, according to film culture, such a breathtaking achievement (Orson Welles as virtuoso) that we quite forget that the function of the shot is to conceal enough of the story so that the telling can proceed. The point is that these instances — not at all atypical — provide the viewer with a sudden and special access to the story. In a literary mode, they might be marked out as 'objective', or the result of a (limited) 'omniscient' narration. These labels do not mark absolute categories so much as indicate a certain relative status among the narrations of a particular text. 54 In addition, we should not forget that there are a great number of conceivable images which are absent because they are deemed 'untimely', 'ineffective', or 'irrelevant' to the story; still others are forbidden by society. The power to select, arrange, and evade leaves a trace in the text which we label as a greater or lesser power to know (and to tell). This trace and its shifts will not go unnoticed and the viewer must, in one way or another, rationalize his or her method for acquiring knowledge about the story. Thus the viewer will project a sequence of hypotheses to justify the continuing presentation of space. There must be some explanation for the shift from what we see now to what we see next. Alternatively, we can say that the text, by presenting and rationalizing a method for knowing the world — a 'point of view' — confronts a spectator in the most profound and subtle way with a representation of what that world is or might be. One of the concepts we employ to mark these shifts is 'origin', that is, we segment the narrative into levels by assigning each level a center or causal agency which can be taken to produce the space. In this way, we can establish a relative order among the narrations. Origin is a general, structural description of narration and is more than its manifestation in any particular case. It is not always the 'camera' or a 'character', although either may at times act as a privileged point from which we measure the flow of space. Thus aspects of camera placement may

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become relevant in describing narration. An obvious example is the POV shot; another example is the extreme long shot which closes many films by increasing the camera-to-character distance and so, metaphorically, breaking our contact with the story. Another property of camera placement is its relative location in possible/impossible space. The usual scene in a classical film is narrated as if from the point of view of an observer capable of moving about the room. 55 To the extent that the camera is located in an 'impossible' place, the narration questions its own origin, that is, suggests a change in narration. A shot from inside a refrigerator as the refrigerator door opens, for instance, suggests a new sort of observer; narrative perhaps from the point of view of a frozen steak. The sudden change in narration occurs through the denial of a convention (possible camera locations, possible observers) and does not automatically mean that the film has become modernist, only that there has been a shift in narration. In evaluating a text, one must consider the interrelations of all the levels of narration. Examples of impossible shots are as follows: The shot of a ceiling which becomes transparent so that we see a person walking in the room above (The Lodger, Hitchcock, 1926); an alleged camera movement up the outside of a skyscraper (The Crowd, Vidor, 1928) or through a wall; or where the camera is located inside the wood of a locked door (Vampyr, Dreyer, 1932), a wall (Possessed, Bernhardt, 1947), a mirror (A Hen in the Wind, Ozu, 1948), 56 a fireplace (Since You Went Away, Cromwell, 1944; Tender Comrade, Dmytryk, 1943; Son of Frankenstein, Lee, 1939), a cabinet (What Ever Happened to Baby Janef, Aldrich, 1962; Charley Varrick, Siegel, 1973), a packing crate (Judith, D. Mann, 1966), a desk (The Front Page, Wilder, 1974), behind a bookcase (The Black Book, aka; Reign of Tenor, A. Mann, 1949), a dumbwaiter (La Chienne, Renoir, 1931), in the black void between or beyond walls (La Ronde, Ophuls, 1950), or under a train (Once Upon a Time in the West, Leone, 1969). In Man with a Movie Camera (Vertov, 1929), however, we see how a shot from under a train is created and so the shot appears possible. And what do we say about 'unlikely' though not impossible camera positions? For example, a shot from the middle of a bubbling stream at water level (No Regrets For My Youth, Kurosawa, 1946), a shot from the gas pedal upward to the driver of a car (Four Daughters, Curtiz, 1938), or a shot of miners trapped by a cave-in who are never found (The Stars Look Down, Reed, 1939). Eccentric or unusual framing within a film may also be evidence of a shift in narration. In Not Reconciled (Straub, 1965) a diagonal dolly-in on the young Johanna ends with her on frame left with empty space on the right. This sort of framing is common in the film and is certainly not the kind which centers objects of attention in the center of the frame, as we supposedly do in real life when we look at an object of interest.57 In Chinatoum (Polanski, 1974) a car parks directly in front of the camera totally obscuring the view and 'necessitating' a boom movement over the hood of the car. Eccentric framing, however, depends upon its

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relation to other framings in the film. Sudden, extreme low angle shots and lateral tilts are often eccentric but in The Fugitive (Ford, 1947) and The Third Man (Reed, 1949), respectively, such shots become the norm against which the straight-on and horizontal angle appears eccentric. The concept of origin also contains its denial — the notion of omniscience. What has no origin is the omniscient and that is precisely its authority — it is anything and everything. For example, in The White Rose (Griffith, 1923) who or what activity is responsible for the words of such intertitles as the following? Despite his jealous contempt, a voice as strong as life itself, cries out within him. [Teazie] lights the room, like an altar lamp, with the terrible mystery of Woman's unselfish love. Though neither knows it — this is farewell. The latter title is even more interesting when one discovers at the end of the film that it was not, after all, farewell. Even with an intertitle as simple as 'one month later', we simply cannot say who is responsible because no origin can be located — except that of the 'passing of time', the 'story', or the 'world'. Our search for an origin can be discerned in one of the most pervasive of film narrating/reading conventions: sound perspective. According to this convention, sounds which are loud are deemed close to the camera, i.e., to the source of vision, while softer sounds are more distant. The convention, which clearly depends on assigning an origin to the space, also clearly subordinates sound to vision by referencing aural information to a point in space. Our ability to look achieves a certain priority. This illustrates a second unit of representation — vision. In the visual arts, which include theatre and cinema, vision has a direct and concrete manifestation: scenic space. Two hypotheses are possible concerning the creation of this space. The first and more radical would assert that space is inherent in the visual arts and its specific use in each visual medium is what defines .it (specificity). The position can be seen in Aristotle, Lessing, Hegel, and most postKantian aesthetics. Thus in cinema editing would be privileged insofar as it is a ceaseless working upon space. A second, more moderate hypothesis, which I shall adopt, is that space may be taken as a reference against which other devices may be measured. Establishing a reference point is not the same as establishing a metaphysical origin. Therefore this hypothesis has the advantage that it makes no ontological claims for a medium and accords with a notion that narrative is trans-media and need not be given in a visual art. Space as a reference point for narration is assumed by Stephen Heath when he describes the narration in Touch ofEvil. 'm terms of the "perspective position of vision". 58 With respect to character, vision is symbolized by the eyes, which have the power to generate images and space by glance, look, sight, and gaze. The impor-

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tance of character vision for the activity of representation has often been emphasized. In psychoanalytic criticism, the dialectic of 'looking at' and of 'being looked at' is a crucial articulation of desire.S9 Eisenstein, Foucault, and Gombrich have emphasized the use of eyelines and pictures of eyes in the modeling of space.60 Thus we may define narration in the visual arts as a positioning of the viewer with respect to a production of space, and subjectivity as a. production of space attributed to a character. A third unit of representation is time. There are two sorts of time which concern narration. First, the time of the telling — the time of representation — and, secondly, the time of what is told — the represented. In film, for example, the time of narration of the POV shot is the same as the time of the narrative — in other words, we experience (we receive narration) contemporaneously with a character in the narrative. However, in a flashback structure there is a discontinuity in the narration (marked, say, by a dissolve) which allows us to place what is narrated with respect to other things which are narrated. So a narrative event is perceived as in the 'past', prior to other events. In the classical film this effect of the narration is often justified by character memory (the subjective flashback). Note that while the narration points to the past, the narrative is still in the present (for the character who tells or the characters living in that past, there is only the present). It is narration which assumes a past tense and not narrative, and thus it is narration which ultimately constructs the time of the text. As stated by Barthes, "the relationship between the speaker and the referent on the one hand and that between the speaker and his utterance on the other hand are not to be confused, and it is only the second relationship which determines the temporal system of discourse". 61 It is not possible to measure the time of the telling (narration) by, for example, looking at one's watch in the movie theatre or glancing at the projector. To do so would be to place a larger time frame around narration; that is, to reference the text to real life. This larger context, which incidentally includes real-life authors, is not part of a structural analysis of the text. 62 Time therefore exists in a text only as constructed by the text itself, i.e., through narration. In film there are many powerful cues for temporal continuity, such as the match on action, continuous sound which bridges a cut, eyeline matches, and camera movement. On the other hand devices like slow motion, the freeze frame, or superimposition in film narration often function to break one temporal unity in order to introduce a different unity and often a different narrational level. (Time is only one of the units of narration.) In La ]etee (Marker, 1964) an unattributed voice-over (which begins as a written title precisely in order to mute the connotation of a personal corporeal entity as the source of the spoken words) provides a constructed, apersonal temporal unity against which the viewer is able to measure rather startling transformations of character 'time': in a film composed, on one level, of still shots, a man as a child is witness to his own murder as an adult; the

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film explores the temporal logic of the apparently anomalous tense, 'was future', 63 that is, a man attempts to understand how he witnessed his future death. These categories of time depend on concepts of narration and narrative; namely, on those levels of the discourse which also define 'character'. The formal categories of time developed by, say, Noel Burch 64 are necessary (and point to a coded system) but are not sufficient to define narration; for example, a match on action may, but need not, signify continuous time. One needs to refer to narrative context which may be unclear or override this expectation. Burch's categories are not exhaustive either. Consider an open, undefined time (e.g., fast reverse motion), as well as ambiguous, contradictory, multiple (e.g., stop motion), and simultaneous times. Again, it is narrative that finally determines temporal relations, not the formal ways of joining shots. The fourth unit of representation is frame. In film this is decoupage.65 For Heath, framing is fundamental because it is the mechanism which limits the potentially unlimited meaning of the discourse.66 Framing sets a boundary; if there were no boundaries, then the system would be totally open and everything would be related to everything else — which is true but trivial. Historically the act of framing in film has, for analytical purposes, been conceived as two distinct operations: selection and organization — cutting elements out of a (prior) context and then establishing a new set of relations among those elements.67 Burch emphasizes the process of selection when he analyzes 'off-screen space' as against a process of organization which is commonly symbolized by the proscenium arch or 'composition'. 68 However, these two aspects encompass all six of my units of representation. There is a much narrower sense, the unit 'framing' in those six, which merely says 'See this'; it is the boundary which actualizes what is framed. It presupposes a selection process (mostly units of origin and vision); namely, if I stand here, I see this — if I stand there, I see that. It looks forward to a process of organization. What we see, then, depends also on what we do not now see (from another origin, vision, etc.), and may never see. Representation is premised upon, and is condemned to struggle against, a fundamental absence. Object is the fifth unit of representation. Ultimately the object of narration is narrative, what is represented. The structures or codes which rule narrative will not directly concern this inquiry. Also I will have little to say about specific objects of character vision, preferring instead to concentrate on the mechanisms, the conditions of that seeing. The final unit of representation is mind. I have already noted the role of mind in terms of that level of narration called subjectivity where a mental function is attributed to character; for example, memory in a flashback, the mere presence of mind (consciousness) in a POV shot, etc. Here I want to consider other levels. Intuitively we feel that artworks, though detached, are still 'human', not alien. As Susan Sontag says:

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Chapter Three The complex kind of willing that is embodied, and communicated, in a work of art both abolishes the world and encounters it in an extraordinary intense and specialized way. This double aspect of the will in art is succinctly expressed by Bayer when he says: "Each work of art gives us the schematized and disengaged memory of a volition." Insofar as it is schematized, disengaged, a memory, the willing involved in art sets itself at a distance from the world. 69

We know that readers become involved with artworks (emotion, exhilaration, pleasure, vicarious thrill). Can we account for this involvement on the level of narration? How can one explain the emotional appeal of the physical properties of artworks? And how does Man enter art as author and reader? As Barthes says, classic representation depends on what is cut out by an eye or mind. 70 We will consider three possibilities. One approach would be to speak of real-life authors, to measure their involvement with the text on a scale of 'emotional distance' from it, and thus to discover what attitudes or motives of the author infect his or her work. An example given by Jose Ortega y Gasset involves the differing emotional distances of four potential authors who view the death of a man: his wife, a doctor, a journalist, and a painter. 71 I reject this approach because I have already rejected textual analysis with respect to real authors. At a micro level, the search for attitude is a search for character attitude. This leads to a view of subjectivity in terms of human psychological traits and motives (Jean Mitry) rather than as a textual activity which depends upon/reasserts an ideology of character. Another approach emphasizes actual readers or, in a more refined version, a certain collection of such readers — what Riffaterre calls a 'superreader'. 72 The collective ecstasy of the readers is averaged out to obtain a net response to the text. I reject the attempt to measure the effects the narration may have on a reader for reasons similar to those which led to a rejection of the real-life author. Finally, there is intelligibility as a measure of Man in the text. The codes and structures which determine intelligibility do not exist in any one text. Structure exists only when works are compared. But each work is a manifestation of structure, a specific working out of the codes which produces the intelligibility of that text. 73 The apprehension of a system of intelligibility in a specific text is the apprehension of a human quality in the text. The apprehension of coherence is the apprehension of a volition, a will. What is important is not the meanings themselves but the fabrication of meaning, which is nothing less than "humanity tirelessly undertaking to create meaning, without which it would no longer be human" 74 . Implied in this assertion is a definition of Man not as, say, a featherless biped (Plato) or a rational animal (Aristotle) but of Man as both producer and product of systems of signification. It is not meaning, but the system of meaning which reveals Man. The project of

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structural criticism, according to Jonathan Culler, is " t o read the text as an exploration of writing, of the problems of articulating a world". 7 5 With this approach it is possible to speak of coherence or intelligibility without taking the next step and implying a consciousness — a corporeal though invisible body blended with the text which must be searched out and reconstituted.

NOTES 1. Paul Willemen, "The Fugitive Subject", in Raoul Walsh ed. by Phil Hardy (Edinburgh Film Festival, 1974), p. 86. 2. C. S. Peirce, Collected Papers of Charles Sanders Peirce, v. 2, ed. by C. Hartshorne and P. Weiss (Harvard Univ.), para. 228 (my emphasis). 3. Roland Barthes, "An Introduction to the Structural Analysis of Narrative", New Literary History 6 (2) (Winter 1975), p. 260. See also Roman Jakobson, "Linguistics and Poetics" in The Structuralists: From Marx to Levi-Strauss ed. by Richard and Fernande de George (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1972), pp. 85-122. 4. Noam Chomsky argues on general grounds that "communication is only one function of language, and by no means an essential one", Reflections on Language (New York: Pantheon, 1975), pp. 69, 5 6 - 7 7 . When one deals with fictional uses of language, a communication theory becomes even more dubious; Ann Banfield, "Where Epistemology, Style, and Grammar Meet Literary History: The Development of Represented Speech and Thought", New Literary History 9 (3) (Spring 1978), pp. 4 1 5 - 4 5 4 ; "Narrative Style and the Grammar of Direct and Indirect Speech", Foundation of Language 10 (1973), pp. 1 - 3 9 . On communication theories, in general, see Eco, pp. 3 2 - 4 7 , 139-142; Roman Jakobson, "Linguistics and Poetics" in The Structuralists op.cit., pp. 8 9 - 9 7 ; Seymour Chatman, Story and Discourse: Narrative Structure in Fiction and Film (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell Univ., 1978), pp. 28, 146-151. 5. Expression theories grow from the Romantic movement of the first half of the nineteenth century and reach fruition in the work of Tolstoy and Dewey. An idealist version of expression was developed by Croce and Collingwood. See Monroe Beardsley, Aesthetics from Classical Greece to the Present (New York: Macmillan, 1966), esp. ch. 10. For recent expression theories see, e.g., Rudolf Arnheim, Toward a Psychology of Art (Los Angeles: University of California, 1966) and Elias Schwartz, The Forms of Feeling: Toward a Mimetic Theory of Literature (Port Washington, N.Y.: Kennikat, 1972). For criticism, see John Hospers, "The Concept of Artistic Expression", Proceedings of the Aristotelian Sodety, 55 (1954-55), pp. 3 1 3 - 3 4 4 ; David Best, Expression in Movement and the Arts (London: Lepus, 1974); Nelson Goodman, Languages of Art: An Approach to a Theory of Symbols (Indianapolis, Indiana: Hackett Publishing, 2nd ed. 1976), pp. 4 5 - 5 0 ; Ε. H. Gombrich, Art and Illusion: A Study in the Psychology of Pictorial Representation (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton Univ., 2nd ed. 1961), ch. 11 "From Representation to Expression", pp. 359-389. On the problem of intentionality see William Wimsatt and Monroe Beardsley, "The Intentional Fallacy" and "The Affective Fallacy" in Wimsatt, Verbal Icon (Lexington, Ky.: University of Kentucky, 1967); see also Beardsley Aesthetics: Problems in the philosophy of Criticism (New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1958).

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6. Umberto Eco, A Theory of Semiotics (Bloomington, Indiana: Indiana University, 1976), pp. 5 8 - 7 2 , 1 6 1 - 1 7 1 , 2 6 1 - 2 7 6 . See generally, Ε. H. Gombrich, Art and Illusion, op.cit. 7. Eco, pp. 1 8 9 - 2 1 7 . See generally, Gombrich. 8. Goodman, pp. 3 4 - 3 9 ; Barthes, S/Z, trans, by Richard Miller (New York: Hill and Wang, 1974), sec. 23; Stephen Heath, The Nouveau Roman (Philadelphia: Temple University, 1972), p. 20. 9. Roland Barthes, The Pleasure of the Text trans, by Richard Miller (New York: Hill and Wang, 1975), p. 27. 10. Barthes, "Structural Analysis of Narrative", p. 261 (Barthes' emphasis). 11. Ibid., p. 260. Barthes rejects any attempt to probe the narrator's 'motives' or measure the 'effects' of narration on a reader, p. 260. See also Barthes, S/Z, sec. 21, 59, 60, 68, and esp. 12, 20, 64. 12. See Seymour Chatman, "The Structure of Narrative Transmission", in Style and Structure in Literature ed. by Roger Fowler (Ithaca, New York: Cornell University, 1975), pp. 235—237; Jonathan Culler, Structuralist Poetics (Ithaca, New York: Cornell University, 1975), pp. 192—202; Barthes, "Structural Analysis of Narrative", pp. 2 6 0 - 2 6 4 ; Barthes, S/Z, sec. 64; Barthes, "To Write: An Intransitive Verb?" in The Structuralist Controversy, ed. by Richard Macksey and Eugenio Donato (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University, 1972), p. 140. 13. Stephen Heath, "Film and System: Terms of Analysis", P. I in Screen 16 (1) (Spring 1975), pp. 11, 3 7 - 3 8 ; P. II in Screen 16 (2) (Summer 1975), pp. 1 0 7 - 1 0 8 ; Edward Buscombe, "Ideas of Authorship", Screen 14 (3) (Autumn 1973), pp. 7 5 - 8 5 ; Stephen Heath, "Comment on 'The Idea of Authorship'", Screen 14 (3) (Autumn 1973), pp. 8 6 - 9 1 ; Geoffrey Nowell-Smith, "Six Authors in Pursuit of The Searchers", Screen 17 (1) (Spring 1976), pp. 2 6 - 3 3 ; and see ch. 7, sec. 1. On the general status of proper names, see Eco, pp. 86—90; Barthes, S/Z, sec. 28, 41. 14. Tzvetan Todorov, The Fantastic: A Structural Approach to a Literary Genre, trans, by Richard Howard (Ithaca, New York: Cornell University, 1975), p. 20. 15. Cf. Barthes, S/Z, sec. 60. This view entails the concept of effaced narration; see ch. 8, sec. 1. 16. The term 'diegetic' was introduced into film studies by fitienne Souriau. See L'Univers filmique (Paris, 1953), p. 7; "La Structure de l'univers filmique et le vocabulaire de la filmologie" in Revue internationale de filmologie, 7—8, pp. 231—240; Christian Metz, Film Language: A Semiotics of the Cinema trans, by. Michael Taylor (New York: Oxford University, 1974), pp. 9 7 - 9 8 . 17. Further distinctions are possible. For instance, one might define as intra-diegetic a sound which can be heard by only one character, e.g. character thought. 18. I should clarify my use of the term 'omniscient'. Usually in literary criticism omniscient narration refers to intrusive narration where the 'author', or some anonymous voice, actively interjects commentary and reveals character motives based on a superior form of knowledge. Generally, however, I will blend this type of omniscience with another type often taken as its opposite: a pure, camera-like objectivity which purports to simply show characters and events from a neutral external viewpoint. I will not usually make a distinction between these types of omniscience because I believe that in some sense these opposites join together so that the second type — a purely objective view — is merely the result of a narrator's silence. To be more precise, I will reject the distinction telling/showing and will adopt a rationalist metatheory which posits the existence of silent, effaced narrators. I will usually employ the term omniscience, therefore, to refer loosely to a collection of won-character types of narration. When required, one can always be more precise in arranging the various levels of omniscient narration according

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20.

21. 22. 23. 24.

25. 26. 27. 28.

29. 30. 31. 32.

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to their differential position within a text. For further discussion of these issues see ch. 8, sec. 1 and appendix, sec. 1. As examples of a plural origin consider a POV shot of what two persons see; or a production of space generally limited to what a group of persons see or might see. In the opening of The Naked Spur (Mann, 1953) a group is threatened by an unseen enemy who is rolling boulders down upon them. We do not see the enemy until the group itself has climbed the hill to confront the villain. As an analogy, consider the fact that a literary point of view of first or third person may be either singular or plural; Ann Banfield, "Style and Grammer", p. 420 n. 11. By 'abstract' I have in mind something like that property of phrase structure grammar which Noam Chomsky isolates as abstract. See Syntactic Structures (The Hague: Mouton, 1957), sec. 4.2, pp. 30—32; Reflections on Language, pp. 3 1 - 3 2 , 102. Cf. Nelson Goodman's treatment of labels in Languages of Art: An Approach to a Theory of Symbols (Indianapolis, Ind.: Hackett, 2nd ed. 1976). Gerard Genette, Narrative Discourse: An Essay in Method trans, by Jane Lewin (Ithaca: Cornell Univ., 1980), p. 215. Quoted by Inez Hedges, "Substitutionary Narration in the Cinema?", Sub-Stance 9 (1974), p. 46; Barthes, "Diderot", p. 38. Examples of unmotivated camera movement include the murder of Batala in The Crime of M. Lange (see appendix, sec. 3) and the marsh scene in Sunrise (see appendix, sec. 3). For analyses utilizing this concept see Noel Burch, To the Distant Observer: Form and Meaning in the Japanese Cinema (Los Angeles: Univ. of Calif., 1979), pp. 2 2 2 - 2 2 3 ; David Bordwell, The Films of Carl Theodor Dreyer (Los Angeles: Univ. of Calif., 1981), pp. 1 5 3 - 1 6 4 ; Brian Henderson, "Toward a Non-Bourgeois Camera Style", Film Quarterly 24 (2) (Winter 1 9 7 0 - 7 1 ) ; Arthur Danto, "Moving Pictures", Quarterly Review of Film Studies 4 (1) (Winter 1979), p. 19. Andre Bazin, "Cabiria: The Voyage to the End of Neorealism", trans, by Hugh Gray, What Is Cinemav. 2 (Los Angeles: University of California, 1971), p. 92. Nick Browne, "The Spectator-in-the-Text: The Rhetoric of Stagecoach", Film Quarterly, 29 (2) (Winter 1 9 7 5 - 7 6 ) , p. 26. Barthes, "Structural Analysis of Narrative", p. 263. See also Robert Champiguy, What Will Have Happened: A Philosophical and Technical Essay on Mystery Stories (Bloomington, Indiana: Indiana University, 1977), pp. 39, 80—81. Barthes, S/Z, sec. 20; Edward Branigan, "Formal Permutations of the Point-of-View Shot", Screen 16 (3) (Autumn 1975), pp. 5 4 - 6 4 . Cf. Heath, "Film and System", P. II, pp. 108 — 109. The word 'address' is also common. For Gerard Genette's special use of the concept of voice see Narrative Discourse: An Essay in Method trans, by Jane Lewin (Ithaca: Cornell Univ., 1980), pp. 2 1 2 - 2 6 2 , and "Narrative Discourse (Introduction)", Film Reader 2 (January, 1977), pp. 3 8 - 4 1 . Barthes, "To Write", pp. 1 4 1 - 1 4 3 . See n. 12. Roland Barthes, "Structural Analysis of Narrative", p. 262. For example, an unmotivated portion of a camera movement has a different narrational function from the motivated portion; also, narration may move from objective to subjective and back within a single camera set-up. On the former, see the analysis of a camera movement from The Crime of M. Lange (appendix, sec. 3) and, on the latter, the analysis of camera set-ups from 8 1/2 (ch. 7, sec. 5) and The Quiller Memorandum (ch. 5, sec. 3), and see ch. 5, sec. 2. The example I am using is based on Paul Willemen's analysis of a sequence from Pursued (Walsh, 1947). In this connection it does not matter that his description of the actual shots in the film is not accurate. Willemen, "Fugitive Subject", pp. 71, 88; Andrew

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Britton, "'Pursued': A Reply to Paul Willemen", Framework, 2 (4) (Autumn 1976), p. 8. Like Willemen, Mark Nash finds proof of the author when a subjective sequence is revealed to be 'false'. Mark Nash, "Vampyr and the Fantastic", Screen 17 (3) (Autumn 1976), p. 41 (the non-assigned first-person pronoun function). Barthes, S/Z, sec. 5. See the analysis of sequences from Cronaca di un Amore (Story of a Love Affair, Antonioni, 1950) by Noel Burch, Theory of Film Practice trans, by Helen Lane (New York: Praeger, 1973), pp. 7 8 - 7 9 and La Dolce Vita (Fellini, 1961) by Seymour Chatman, Story and Discourse: Narrative Structure in Fiction and Film (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell Univ., 1978), pp. 1 6 0 - 1 6 1 . See also ch. 5, sec. 2. An example may be found in the opening scene of Dark Passage (Daves, 1947) when Vincent Parry (Humphrey Bogart) assaults a man. The reading hypothesis theory allows us to say that both of these shots may be subjective — a continuous POV of the same character. See, e.g., Paul Willemen, "Letter to John", Screen 2, (2) (Summer 1980), pp. 5 3 - 6 5 . I examine alternative theories of the camera in "What Is A Camera?" in Patricia Mellencamp and Philip Rosen, ed., Cinema Histories, Cinema Practices (Los Angeles: American Film Institute, 1984), pp. 8 7 - 1 0 7 . To my knowledge, the nature of a camera has been directly addressed by only two authors. See David Bordwell, "Camera Movement and Cinematic Space", Cine-Tracts 1 (2) (Summer 1977), pp. 1 9 - 2 5 ; and Irving Pichel, "Seeing with the Camera", Hollywood Quarterly 1 (2) (Jan. 1946), pp. 138 — 145, reprinted in Richard Koszarski, ed., Hollywood Directors 1941-1976 (N.Y.: Oxford, 1977), pp. 6 9 - 8 1 and reprinted as "Change of Camera Viewpoint" in Lewis Jacobs, ed., The Movies as Medium (N.Y.: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1970, pp. 1 1 3 - 1 2 3 . See David Bordwell and Kristin Thompson, Film Art: An Introduction (Reading, Mass.: Addison-Wesley, 1979), p. 206. Explaining metaphors is especially difficult for an error theory of reading because what seems metaphorical at one moment (say, non-diegetic sound) becomes simply an error, a misinterpretation, when a literal sense appears. Closely related is the general problem of analyzing figuration in a text. Christian Metz argues that a particular image or theme may recur in a text, yet the semantic trajectories which produce that image (and hence our act of reading) may be quite complex and different in each case. A figure may initially appear as a non-diegetic metaphor but later as a (diegetic) metonymy, or a metaphor mixed with a metonymy. A hypothesis theory attempts to map this course of our reading, to capture the changes in figuration across the same image, rather than simply saying, for instance, that the image is "really" only a metonymy. Christian Metz, The Imaginary Signifier: Psychoanalysis and the Cinema trans, by Celia Britton, Annwyl Williams, Ben Brewster and Alfred Guzzetti (Bloomington: Indiana Univ., 1982), pp. 1 9 0 - 1 9 1 , 303 n. 7. I owe this observation to Janet Staiger. Roland Barthes, "Diderot, Brecht, Eisenstein", Screen 15 (2) (Summer 1974), p. 33 (Barthes' emphasis). My definitions of time and frame utilize a well-established psychological distinction between successivity and simultaneity; for suggestive comments on the distinction, see Roman Jakobson, "Visual and Auditory Signs", and "On the Relation Between Visual and Auditory Signs" in Selected Writings 2 (The Hague: Mouton, 1971), pp. 3 3 4 - 3 3 7 , 338-344. Heath isolates five levels of character in film: agent, character, person, image, and figure; "Film and System", Pt. II, pp. 1 0 1 - 1 0 7 . Ann Banfield, "Where Epistemology, Style, and Grammar Meet Literary History: The Development of Represented Speech and Thought", New Literary History 9 (3) (Spring 1978), p. 449 (my italics).

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45. Arnheim also makes stronger claims about the importance of gravity in the perception of forms. Rudolf Arnheim, Art and Visual Perception (Los Angeles: University of California, 2nd ed. 1974), pp. 2 3 - 2 4 , 3 0 - 3 2 , 101-103, 184-187; The Dynamics of Architectural Form (Los Angeles: University of California, 1977), ch. 2 "Vertical and Horizontal". See also Irvin Rock, "The Perception of Dissorientated Figures", Scientific American 230 (1) (January 1974), pp. 7 8 - 8 5 . 46. Wayne Booth, "Distance and Point-of-View: An Essay in Classification", Essays In Criticism 11 (1) (January 1961), p. 65. As a contrast to Booth's view, see Coward and Ellis, Language and Materialism, pp. 130-135. 47. Cf. Culler, pp. 249-254. 48. Eco, pp. 22, 24. 49. Kristin Thompson, Eisenstein's "Ivan the Terrible": A Neoformalist Analysis (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton Univ., 1981), ch. 1, "A Neoformalist Method of Film Criticism", pp. 8 - 6 0 ; Eco, p. 264; and see ch. 1, sec. 2. 50. Eco, p. 274. 51. Barthes, "Diderot", pp. 3 3 - 3 9 ; Barthes, "Structural Analysis of Narrative", p. 263; Culler, p. 200; and see ch. 7. 52. For stills from the scene see Edward Branigan, "The Spectator and Film Space — Two Theories", Screen 22 (1) (1981), p. 71. 53. See Franfois Truffaut's interview in Hitchcock (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1967), pp. 2 0 6 - 2 1 0 (including stills from the scene). 54. Cf. V. F. Perkins' analysis of the 'controlled viewpoint' in Rope (Hitchcock, 1948), The Loudest Whisper (a/k/a The Children's Hour, Wyler, 1962) and River of No Return (Preminger, 1954); Film as Film: Understanding and Judging Movies (Baltimore, Md.: Penguin, 1972), pp. 124-133. 55. See ch. 7, sec. 4. See also Heath, "Narrative Space", Screen 17 (3) (Autumn 1976), pp. 9 5 - 9 7 . 56. Donald Richie, Ozu (Los Angeles: University of California, 1974), pp. 151-152. 57. Karel Reisz and Gavin Millar, The Technique of Film Editing (New York: Hastings House, 2nd ed., 1968), p. 257. 58. Heath, "Film and System", p. I, p. 51. See also text accompanying n. 22 above. 59. Willemen, "Fugitive Subject", p. 88; Christian Metz, "History/Discourse: Note on Two Voyeurisms", Edinburgh '76 Magazine 1, pp. 2 1 - 2 5 ; and see Heath's discussion of Lacan's statement "I am looked at, that is, I am a picture", in "Anata mo", Screen 17 (4) (Winter 1976-77), pp. 5 5 - 5 6 . 60. Sergei Eisenstein, The Film Sense trans, by Jay Leyda (New York: Harcourt, Brace and World, 1947), pp. 101-105; Michel Foucault, The Order of Things: An Archaeology of the Human Sciences (New York: Vintage Books, 1970), ch. 1; Ε. H. Gombrich, "Illusion and Art" in Illusion in Nature and Art ed. by. R. L. Gregory and Ε. H. Gombrich (New-York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1973), esp. pp. 2 0 2 - 2 0 7 ; Heath, "Anata mo", Screen 17 (4) (Winter 1976/7), pp. 6 2 - 6 6 . These writers draw on examples from painting. Occasionally in film a scene will make direct use of the represented glance of a portrait. In Shirley Temple's Curly Top (Cummings, 1935) and Dovzhenko's Arsenal: The January Uprising in Kiev in 1918 (1929) portraits come to life. In other ways a portrait also comes to life in Laura (Preminger, 1944) — for Laura is not really dead — and in 8 1/2 (Fellini, 1963) where a priest appears just as lifeless and austere as a portrait. In addition, many films move between freeze frames and live action. See also ch. 5, sec. 1 on the importance of the glance to a POV structure and its variations. 61. Barthes, "To Write", p. 138.

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62. Barthes discusses these sorts of problems under the heading of 'narrative situation' in "Structural Analysis of Narrative", pp. 2 6 4 - 2 6 6 . 63. Cf. Nelson Goodman, "Talk of Time", Problems and Projects (New York: Bobbs-Merrill, 1972), pp. 2 1 2 - 2 1 3 . On temporal logic, see Hans Reichenback, Elements of Symbolic Logic (N.Y.: MacMillan, 1947), sec. 51 "The Tenses of Verbs", pp. 2 8 7 - 2 9 8 . In ch. 7, I will analyze in detail another film, The Story of a Man Who Left His Will on Film, which utilizes apparently illogical time. 64. Burch, ch. 1 "Spatial and Temporal Articulations", pp. 4 - 8 . 65. Cf. ibid., pp. 3 - 4 . 66. Heath, "Film and System", p. II, p. 98. 67. Sergei Eisenstein, "The Cinematographic Principle and the Ideogram", Film Form trans, by Jay Leyda (New York: Harcourt, Brace and World, 1949), pp. 4 0 - 4 1 . 68. Burch, ch. 2 "Nana, or the Two Kinds of Space", pp. 17—31. 69. Susan Sontag, "On Style", in Against Interpretation (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1966), p. 30. 70. Barthes, "Diderot", p. 33, quoted in text at n. 41. 71. Jose Ortega y Gasset, "The Dehumanization of Art", in The Dehumantzation of Art and Notes on the Novel (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University, 1948), pp. 1 4 - 1 9 . 72. Michael Riffaterre, "Describing poetic structures: Two approaches to Baudelaire's les Chats" in Structuralism, ed. by Jacques Ehrmann (Garden City, N.Y.: Anchor, 1970), pp. 2 0 2 - 2 0 4 ; cf. Todorov on the "sensualist postulate", The Fantastic, pp. 9 5 - 1 0 0 . 73. Barthes, S/Z, sec. 65. 74. Roland Barthes, "The Structuralist Activity" in The Structuralist: From Marx to LeviStrauss ed. by Richard and Fernande de George (Garden City, N.Y.: Anchor, 1972), p. 153; and also pp. 150, 1 5 3 - 1 5 4 . See also Ernst Cassirer, An Essay on Man: An Introduction to a Philosophy of Human Culture (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University, 1944), ch. 2 "A Clue to the Nature of Man: the Symbol", p. 26; Geoffrey NowellSmith, "Introduction to 'Signifying Practice and Mode of Production'", Edinburgh '76 Magatine 1: 61; Colin Turbayne, "Metaphors for the Mind", Logic and Art ed. by Richard Rudner and Israel Scheffler (New York: Bobbs-Merrill, 1972), esp. "The Mind as Reader and Writer", pp. 70—77. 75. Culler, p. 260; see esp. pp. 255—265; Eco, pp. 3 1 4 - 3 1 7 .

CHAPTER 4

Subjectivity

1. Subjectivity as Narration I have defined narration as the textual activity of telling and receiving through which a narrative is realized. Subjectivity, then, may be conceived as a specific instance or level of narration where the telling is attributed to a character in the narrative and received by us as if we were in the situation of a character. For convenience, I shall limit subjectivity to those moments when the character functions within the diegetic world of the text and set aside hybrid cases in which a character also functions in a larger narrational frame where the viewer is differently addressed, such as a voice-over commentary which introduces the story. (These other narrational frames are often referred to by adding a prefix to the word diegetic — metadiegetic, extradiegetic, non-diegetic, intra-, homo-, hetero-, and paradiegetic. In the hybrid cases, two narrational levels are integrated through the person — body — of a single character who addresses the audience in a special way as well as participating in the story world where the character is 'oblivious' of the audience.) The act of 'telling' or representing is first of all a creation of space, a display of the visual through acts of vision. 1 Of particular importance is the relation between two of the six general terms of representation, frame and origin. Subjectivity in film depends on linking the framing of space at a given moment to a character as origin. The link may be direct or indirect. In the POV structure it is direct, because the character is shown and then the camera occupies his or her (approximate!) position, thus framing a spatial field derived from him or her as origin. In character 'projection', however, which will be examined later, there is no coincidence of space, rather space is joined to a character by other logical or metaphorical, means. What is important, therefore, in determining subjectivity is to examine the logic which links the framing of space to a character as origin of that space. It should be emphasized that this logic is a matter of convention. There is nothing 'natural' about the POV shot or other subjective structures. The POV shot cannot be recognized until we learn its elements and attach special significance to them. There is no necessity that a glance be followed by what a character sees nor even that because the camera assumes the spatial coordinates of a character that

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we see what the character sees or if we do see what the character sees, that this is anything more than coincidental. It is a remarkable fact that we are able to abstract from a pictorial display containing an immense amount of information the single property of camera 'position' and then relate it to a new set of hypothetical coordinates containing a character and familiar objects, but now differently oriented. Furthermore, the POV structure depends upon us making certain assumptions about the space depicted in the film image; for instance, that the space of the character is three-dimensional, continuous, and expands outward beyond the frame lines. In a real space the camera and character could not occupy the same point at the same time; nevertheless, in the POV shot they do exactly this and without interfering with one another. The contradiction, here, is resolved through an ideology (that is, a reading convention) which takes the camera (and, more broadly, narration) to be invisible and the character to be real.2 Thus characters by not looking directly into the camera — preserving its invisibility — gain the power to move freely within space and time independently of a 'narrative' or 'spectator' of which they must know nothing. This perhaps explains the absence in the classic text of POV shots were we see, simultaneously, the person who looks and what is looked at, through, say, the use of a superimposition3 or split screen. Such an articulation would damage a certain conception of character by showing us an impossible — unreal — conjunction of space. The resulting spatial discontinuity could not be motivated at a diegetic level. It would entail a camera that is in two places at once and — since the view of the subject depicts the space from which the view of the object derives but without revealing a camera — would mean that the camera is also invisible even to itself. If the view of the subject is from the place of the object, then each camera would be shown to be invisible to the other. Thus the assumption of two cameras in two places also leads to a contradiction. In short, a 'total' POV shot would raise many new problems and contradictions and undermine the careful logic of the conventional POV shot. The problem here is not the non-appearance of an image of the camera, for, as I have argued, the term 'camera' should be understood not as a profilmic object, but as a reading hypothesis of the spectator about space (a label applied to certain spatial effects). Rather, the problem arises in the following way: although the superimposition or split screen image of a 'total' POV presents for us two, simultaneous and comprehensible hypotheses about narrative space, that is, we see two related images at the same time, we are, in addition, forced to rationalize the juxtaposition of these hypotheses or images. Since the total space is more than the sum of the two partial spaces, and neither the character nor an invisible witness can be the center of the combined space — a witness, for example, could not see both the character's face and what the character is looking at without a shift in attention — we must instead posit a non-diegetic source with the power to interrupt time. Even though, at a formal level, the split screen image is equivalent to an

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edited sequence of two shots, this equivalence is blocked in the classical cinema because of an ideology which seeks out a stable origin and aims to reassert the logic of a diegetic world — a unity of vision within the visible world we see around us. The articulation of a total POV is permissible, of course, if accomplished solely through editing or mise-en-scene (for example, by utilizing a mirror) for that reaffirms the reality of space without questioning its representation; and superimpositions may be used where a new and separate reality is specified, for example, a dream. These remarks, though, simply repeat the dominant way of thinking about and dividing up reality in the classical scheme. What is a 'dream' or a 'memory' but a way of thinking about that reality? And the POV shot but a way of teaching us an awareness of familiar space — of space as we already know it? These forms, however, are not the only ways of apprehending the world. As a system they depend on 'repressing' unacceptable forms, such as the total POV. Character narration requires that all the six elements of narration be referred to character. For example, in the subjective flashback, the origin is specified as a character; vision is character introspection; time is the mental time of character; frame is what is placed before us by the character's memory (i.e., 'memory' is the principle of exclusion/inclusion defining the representation); object is the display of memory; and mind is the character's state of memory, which is the nominal logic, the coherence, of the representation. When all six units of representation are referred to character, the unity of that representation is, exactly, the character as subject; and the telling or representing is called subjective. By contrast, consider a scene in which a character is alone, becomes glassy-eyed, speaks to an absent person, and fondles objects of memory (Griffith's Painted Lady, 1913, andSorrows of Satan, 1926). Clearly the text encourages an interpretation related to character memory; elsewhere in the text the character is not glassy-eyed, speaks to present persons; and we ourselves remember the object for it was specially marked earlier in the story. Nevertheless, this scene is non-subjective. The crucial factor is that the framing of the scene — the displaying of space — is not distinguished from other parts of the text (static camera, neutral angles, etc.) and hence we cannot attribute the present framing to the character as origin. The character is merely the object of another narration which is non-character in origin. The mere speech or appearance of a character, even if an assertion of a mental condition, without more, is insufficient to establish the character as the source of the space. Hence recording a character's declaration from a 'neutral' angle is commonly called impersonal narration because the framing is independent of the character. This non-character narration may itself be splintered into levels. For example, an anonymous voice-over narration in the film or the appearance of the director to introduce his film (The Little Theatre of Jean Renoir, Renoir, 1969; Napoleon, Gance and Lelouch, 1971) might contrast with a more effaced, though still objec-

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tive, narration in later portions of the film where scenes are merely 'presented'. There are innumerable types of narration beyond a strict character narration which can serve as a reference narration. These include the following: the familiar voice-over character separated from the story by time (the words "When I was young ... a long time ago" open The Reivers, Rydell, 1969); a voice-over character with something very important to conceal from us (Laura, Preminger, 1944); a sarcastic and mischievous narrator (A Letter To Three Wives, J. Mankiewicz, 1949); an oddly ironic narrator (Barry Lyndon, Kubrick, 1975); a character who speaks from the dead (Sunset Boulevard, Wilder, 1950; The Human Comedy, Brown, 1942); the voice of God or of angels (It's a Wonderful Life, Capra, 1946); the voice of History and Judgment (e.g., an opening explanation of the French Revolution in The Black Book, aka; Reign of Terror, A. Mann, 1949); an unidentified voice from cosmic space confirming that the planet Earth has been utterly destroyed by a doomsday bomb (Beneath the Planet of the Apes, Post, 1970); intertitles which label broad segments of the story (The Sting, Hill, 1973) (which are analogous to the narrator who speaks the chapter titles, even if only numbers, in a novel); and an epigraph (Young Mr. Lincoln, Ford, 1939). Other more complicated narrations seem to cross several categories. The Night of the Hunter (Laughton, 1955) opens with a character who will appear much later in the film, speaking to us and to her children (who appear and disappear in superimposition) from a black void (decorated with stars in the background). She speaks about, and at times apparently quotes, Biblical passages (a new embedded narration) and this is meant to illuminate both her subsequent actions and the narrative which follows (a religious fanatic is a psychopathic killer). The possible kinds of narration — the levels and their interrelationships — do not immediately concern me except to suggest caution in setting up rigid categories. For present purposes, a reference narration will simply be constituted by any non-character origin, vision, time, frame, and object which is not unified by a coherence ascribed to a diegetic character or character's mind. Such a reference narration will serve to foreground the forms of character subjectivity.

2. The Classification of Subjectivity into Types The types of subjective narration depend upon three variables: time, frame, and mind. The remaining three elements of representation — origin, vision, and object — are invariant for all types of subjectivity in the classical film. Subjectivity, by definition, depends on equating origin with character. A point in space must be established and related to the space occupied by a character; that is, character or the perspective position of character will be designated as the origin of a production of space for the viewer. Vision, too, is always related to character — space exists as

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seen by, or generated by, a character, though the activity of seeing may become metaphorical, as in memory or dream. Finally, the object of vision — what a character sees — is irrelevant to the form or type of that seeing. A character may see the same thing in many ways: in reality, in a dream, in a flashback, etc. What we are interested in is how, under what conditions, a character may see, not specifically what he sees. Thus in all cases, a character, through an act of vision directed toward an object, becomes the origin of a production of space for the viewer. Variation across the other three elements of representation — time, frame, and mind — serve to divide subjectivity into major types. (See figure 1.) The time of a character's vision may be represented as present, past, future, or undefined. The first three categories of time depend on a code of textual marking which suggests either temporal continuity or simultaneity. The match on action, for example, is the archetypal cue of temporal continuity in the classical system of time. (In other systems, such as, Last Year at Marienbad [Resnais, 1961] it need not unequivocally signify continuity.) After establishing a large-scale temporal unity as continuous or simultaneous, the text may proceed to locate it with respect to other temporal unities — hence, a textual present, past, or future may be defined but only with respect to some other point in the text. Present, past, and future are the result of the text's power to sequence — to order and then re-order. Undefined time is a category which includes all other temporal relations; that is, non-continuous and non-simultaneous time (e.g., temporal repetitions, reversals, expansions, contractions, ambiguities, contradictions, etc.). When undefined temporal relations are attributed to character in the classical system, they are interpreted as a purely mental time of the character, e.g., a dream sequence or an audio premonition (Shoot Loud, Louder ... I Don't Understand, De Filippo, 1966); when not attributed to character, the sequence, for example, may be a montage which summarizes part of the story, illustrates an action which is repeated many times, etc. In fact, a montage of this type may explicitly cite the passage of time by superimposing the days of a calendar or showing successive newspaper headlines. Strictly speaking, a character may not experience the future except through visions of dream, hope, foreboding, etc. — which may or may not turn out to be accurate. (I set aside the science fiction genre which allows such devices as time machines.) Therefore at the level of character narration there is no difference between undefined time and future time. To allow a character absolute predictive power with respect to the text — the future events of the story — is to undermine the classic notion of character as a copy of a real individual, unified and autonomous, non-contradictory, moving freely within the limits presented by space, time and culture. In the classic text, a character with future powers would no longer be considered a character, but rather a hypostatization of a larger narrational frame (involving non-diegetic powers) dictated by the 'author', God, Life, fate, or whatever. Hence, in figure 1, a horizontal dotted line appears between undefined and

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future time to indicate that for the classic character the subjective future is only another aspect of mental time. The future is what may be imagined. Frame is a second element of representation which fixes the field of subjectivity. Frame is defined with respect to an origin and, for subjective narration, the origin is a character — a certain 'point' in space. When the camera locates at that point, or very close to that point, we shall say that the framing is 'from the point'. This is shorthand for a statement that the logic which implicates character with the telling of the narrative is purely spatial: a congruence of character and camera position in space, e.g., the POV shot. There are, however, other sorts of logical constructions which may tie character to camera framing. These framings will be termed 'from the point by metaphor' and will be examined in more detail in the next section and in chapter 6. Since the classic text rarely utilizes a strict framing from the character's point in space for dreams or flashbacks (notable exceptions are Hunger, Carlsen, 1966 and Mine Own Executioner, Kimmins, 1948), a vertical dotted line appears in figure 1. In all cases of subjective framing, however, there is a logical construction which acts to subordinate (embed) a series of object spaces with respect to the original space of character. If there exists no logic — no cultural reading practice — which links character and frame, then the framing will be termed 'not from the point'. This framing, in order to distinguish subjective narration, will be called an objective or reference narration. The mental condition of the character is the last element of representation which determines the types of subjectivity. As noted earlier, the concept of mind is given by the culture. The category of mind includes systems of intelligibility or states internal to the individual and is commonly contrasted to the external world or the 'body'. These internal systems have been given assorted names like memory, dream, fear, foreboding, hope, fetish, and so forth. What is important is that these systems may be cited by the text; and when they are attributed to a specific character we shall say there exists a mental 'condition'. The coherence or intelligibility of the flashback, for example, depends on a reference to the condition of memory. By contrast, when there is no citation of an internal system of character — when the character appears as opaque surface — then there exists no representation of mental condition; we are given no clue how to select or apply an appropriate psychological state. In speaking of mental states I am not reinscribing the psychology vital to the systems of Bazin and Mitry; instead 'mind' is a set of labels or categories given by the culture. The notion of 'memory', then, is useful as a reading convention — a way in which the spectator makes sense of a representation — not as a determinate trait shared by viewers, authors, narrators, and characters in a film. Instead of saying 'no condition' we should say 'no special condition', that is, 'normal awareness', for as we shall see in the next chapter the POV shot depends on the presence of a character who is perceiving in a 'normal' way, i.e., according

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to a particular set of conventions.4 For instance, in the POV shot the image is commonly in focus and undistorted by filters or unusual focal lengths, the camera is steady, the character is invisible (i.e., we do not see his hair, eyebrows, or nose but only the object he sees), there is no indication of the blinking of eyelids or the sound of breathing, and so forth. When the character turns his head or walks forward, the camera pans or dollys smoothly and very slowly — which is not at all like the visual field of a person who is moving. These conventions are designed so that the audience can perceive objects clearly. Conventions can, of course, change; an unsteady, handheld camera today may represent normal movement whereas it used to be reserved for special conditions like a character who was wounded (A Fistful of Dollars, Leone., 1964) or drunk. The distinction between normal and abnormal perception — central to the classical forms of subjectivity — has an ideological point. Distortion of image space becomes associated with an abnormal condition. In Bigger Than Life (Ray, 1956) the image turns red to represent the psychotic rage of a character. The character must be mad, we believe, to attack the middle class values of home, family, and religion — the proof being that his vision has been affected. Undistorted vision is often the mark of truth and sanity in the classical text. 5 In summary, with two categories of mental condition (condition/no condition), three categories of framing, and four of time, a matrix of 24 combinations is possible. In figure 1, eight of these are labeled objective narration, for if the framing is not linked to character it does not matter, for the purposes of defining subjective narration, whether a mental state is attributed to that character (by 'expressive' acting, lighting, or decor; or by psychologically revealing speech) because the character is merely the object of a larger system of framing. There may, of course, be a number of non-character levels of narration within the text. Figure 1 also shows 16 possible types of subjective narration. Of the 16, there are as indicated, six major forms of subjectivity: reflection, POV, perception, projection, flashback, and mental process. Figure 2 illustrates how the first four of these are related with time fixed at the 'present'. In the chapters to follow I shall examine the six major forms of subjectivity in more detail.

3. Types of Subjectivity I now wish to examine the nature of character vision and its importance for one type of subjectivity: the perception shot. It must be emphasized that an element of representation is part of a semantic system — narrative — and is not defined by its matters of expression. See, for example, the diverse list of cues for character 'glance' which function as signs of one element of representation, 'vision', given in chapter 5, section 1.

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Character vision varies across the different subjective structures: from the mere look or appearance of a character (see chapter 6) to a glance, to sight and finally to gaze. The gaze is that familiar form of character vision where a character instead of glancing at an object, glances inward and becomes introspective. Instead of a turn of the head followed by an eyeline match, a character, for example, begins to stare (at 'nothing'), his eyes glaze over, he falls silent or his speech becomes distracted, and the camera dollies-«« to a close-up; for the object of a gaze is inward, one of dream, or memory. Finally, perhaps, the character's eyes close, proving that there is no external object of vision. In the case of character sight, what is important is not so much that a character sees something, but that he experiences difficulty in seeing. What is revealed is not the external object of a glance nor an internal state of the character, but a condition of sight itself. This feature of character vision is exploited in the perception structure which differs from the POV structure in one important respect: In POV there is no indication of a character's mental condition — the character is only 'present' — whereas in the perception shot a signifier of mental condition has been added to an optical POV. A common perception structure is the out-of-focus POV shot which indicates that a character is drunk (Merrily We Go To Hell, Arzner, 1932), dizzy (from a blow on the head in Murder My Sweet, Dmytryk, 1944), drugged (Sam Spade in The Maltese Falcon, Huston, 1941; La Rupture, Chabrol, 1970), injured (The Chase, Penn, 1966; No Man of Her Own, Leisen, 1950), or hypnotized (The Man Who Knew Too Much, Hitchcock, 1934). Altered vision may also be the result of tears in the eyes (The Man Who Knew Too Much), liquor thrown in the face (Lady in the Lake, Montgomery, 1946), snow on one's glasses (Days of Youth, Ozu, 1929), poor eyesight (Easy Virtue, Hitchcock, 1927), almost total blindness (On Dangerous Ground, Ray, 1951), or because the character's head is underwater (Saboteur, Hitchcock, 1942). The crucial factor is not what particular device is used, but how it participates in a subjective structure. Random changes in focus will not establish drunkenness. To use an out-of-focus shot to signify drunkenness requires at least that other shots in the film are in focus and that the change in focus appears in combination with certain other elements enumerated in the perception structure. Any number of other devices besides camera focus can serve to signify a mental condition, such as optical effects (wavy lines to indicate sickness, Pinocchio, Disney, 1940; blurred image to indicate pain, Land of the Pharaohs, Hawks, 1955), a diffusion filter, a split image (as a drunk character sees double in Daddy Long-Legs, Neilan, 1919 and The Last Laugh, Murnau, 1924), a radical change in the key lighting (as a drug takes effect in Notorious, Hitchcock, 1946), a zoom-in as Shaft spots a suspicious person (Shaft, Parks, 1971), and perhaps even an intertitle.6 Also, as we shall see with The Birds (Hitchcock, 1963), the perception shot may span a number of shots or portions of shots. The conclusion, once again, is that subjec-

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rive narration cannot be defined with respect to purely formal properties of film (focus, shot, etc.) but, rather, must be defined as a certain kind of statement about narrative (the conditions under which it is told, perceived, and known) and these statements may assume different forms within and across media. The various devices of the perception shot — camera focus, set lighting, and the zoom — become metaphors for vision; that is, the condition of being drugged supposedly results in a blurred vision which is like that of a change in focus or change in light intensity. A zoom would be analogous to a character's sudden discovery and heightened interest in an object; and a zoom which rapidly alternates in and out may be analogous, in the proper context, to a character's simultaneous attraction to and repulsion from an object (Mamie, Hitchcock, 1964). In all these cases (1) a perceptual state is signified and (2) camera position is that of character position — an optical POV. The question now arises, what happens as we begin to relax the second requirement so that there is a reference to a state of perception but not precisely from the character's point in space? In The Birds a POV shot of a woman who sees a dead man is followed by two quick cuts in to the dead man's face.7 The structure is, strictly speaking, no longer POV, because the view is now 'too close' to the dead man (the woman has not leaped forward twice to get a better view). One might, however, classify the structure as a deviant POV since a quite common variant of POV cheats away from the subject toward the object (without changing the angle) so that the viewer can better see the object (see chapter 5, section 3). There is another possibility. In Notorious Alicia (Ingrid Bergman) glances toward a table. We then dolly-in on a key lying on the table. Here one might argue that the dolly-in is functionally commutable with a zoom shot of the sort in Shaft. To go a step further, one might say that in The Birds the two instantaneous changes in camera position (through the device of editing) are functionally commutable with both a zoom shot and a dolly shot. To make a distinction among these examples solely on the basis that one is a zoom shot, a second is a camera movement, and the third rapid cutting is an arbitrary decision which misses the narrative structure. What is conveyed in all three examples is the heightened attention of a character; in The Birds, it is the shock and fear of discovering a corpse. By this reading, then, the example from The Birds is a perception shot where the device which signifies the perception — two quick cuts — also weakens 8 the link with character (since, strictly, it is no longer an optical POV). The spectator in all three examples is confined, not to a character's location, but to a character's sight line. Movement along the sight line may take various forms and may even become relatively free (as in Vertigo, Hitchcock, 1958) so long as the character's attention is strongly marked. These examples illustrate what may be termed a dynamic perception shot. Suppose we weaken the connection with character even further. In Small Change (Truffaut, 1976) a boy sees a travel poster depicting a woman in a night-

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dress with a man in a sleeping car of a train. We then see a quick series of extreme close-ups of parts of the poster, a non-diegetic, diffuse image of a beautiful woman and finally a shot of the boy as he shakes his head in order to 'wake up' from a daydream. There is here, like the perception shot, a representation of a mental state: the sexual fantasy of a young boy. Unlike the example from The Birds, however, the spatial connection with the subject is further attenuated. The use of extreme close-ups and special music (including a loud noise which wakes the boy out of his daydream) prohibits even a loose reading of optical POV. We can imagine other devices which could have been added to the sequence which would further separate it from the framing of a perception shot; namely, differing angles, several abrupt dolly-in shots on the poster, a lateral tilt, etc. Even with these additions, however, and omitting the non-diegetic (specifically, intra-diegetic) insert, the sequence remains subjective because the framing is connected by a narrative inference, or by metaphor, to a particular subject. The representation is meant to be a projection of the boy's fantasy. Note that (except for the non-diegetic insert) it cannot be a dream sequence because we do not see what the boy's mental images might be, but rather these images are only (perhaps) suggested by showing us objects external and present to the character in continuous, present time; there are no cues for a discontinuous, undefined mental time. Let's go one step further. Imagine the same scene in Small Change but without the sexual fantasy. The boy sees the poster but only as one object among many — there are simply a series of shots detailing his surroundings. A mental condition is no longer represented; as in a POV shot, the boy is only present and aware. The framing, though, may still be connected to character by, for example, eyeline matches revealing the boy's curiosity and investigation of his surroundings. This subjectivity is reflection. We see what he sees, when he sees it. If we add to these two conditions 'from where he sees it', then we have returned to a strict POV shot. We have completed one possible circuit through the subjectivities (figures 1 and 2). We started with POV and then moved to an out-of-focus POV — a perception shot — then to the border between perception and projection (Notorious; The Birds) — a dynamic perception shot — to projection (Small Change) to reflection (eyeline matches) and finally back to POV. At any time we might have dropped out of the subjective into the objective by failing to justify the framing of space as either from the character's location in space or metaphorically related to the character as a producer of space. The line between objectivity and both projection and reflection is particularly delicate since these latter are, exactly, intermediate forms of subjectivity. It should not be thought, however, that because projection and reflection depend on metaphor to connect character to the framing of space, that these forms are therefore obscure and doubtful. Metaphorical meaning is no more vague or illicit than literal meaning and both are susceptible to precise analysis.9 Although we cannot explain in general the metaphorical application of a term or device, neither can we explain in general its literal application.10

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In the textual present there are five possibilities for narration — four subjectivities and an assumed neutral or reference narration. The reference narration may describe a character's internal state or merely show the character from the outside. It includes a spectrum of forms from unmotivated camera placement and movement through, for example, eccentric framing, perfect views, and the impossible camera (see chapter 3, and chapter 7, section 4). The impossible camera transcends 'normal' or familiar space, time, and/or causality and thus is more powerful than a perfect view which usually is limited by the laws of the diegetic world. The above devices, or conventions, are not innate marks of objective narration but are merely available to manipulate the shifting boundaries of knowledge among the characters, narratees and spectator of the classical text. A particular text, of course, may display underdetermined or equivocal cues so that the narration will seem to border on any two — and sometimes more — of the above four subjectivities and reference narration, with some combinations possible in more than one way. 11 Another sort of ambiguity arises when the same sequence — because of a narrative demand — shares two subjectivities, at the same or different times. (Multiple subjectivities are especially difficult to justify using an 'error' theory of reading rather than a 'hypothesis' theory in the discovery of levels of narration.) Notorious provides an example. There is a shot from the position of a character (Ingrid Bergman) lying on a bed showing us what the character sees, but the image is slightly tilted laterally. The shot occurs four times in the scene. At first, one interprets the tilted image as an effect of the character's severe hangover — a mental condition stressed by the narrative. In this reading, the subjectivity is a perception structure. However, later in the scene, the tilted image begins to revolve as the character's head shifts position. Now the structure seems to be a POV structure where the tilted image is merely a secondary cue of spatial position implying no mental state, similar to the low camera angle of a subject who is looking upward or the moving camera of a subject who is walking. The text hesitates: the structure may be perception or POV or both. 12 There are still other ways a text may create uncertainty. Not every turn of the head is a glance. The cues for an element of representation, like glance, may be a matter of degree — from the obvious to the subtle to the 'implied' to the novel to the nonexistent. There may also be cues which are contradictory. The contradiction may eventually be resolved — contained — by the narrative system or it may persist and open fundamental gaps in the order of discourse underlying the narrative, as in a film I will examine in chapter 7, The Story of a Man Who Left His Will on Film. Finally, not every glance creates a stable subjective structure. Suppose a character glances at something but then looks away (glances again?) just before the next shot. The following shot is thus held in a tension of ambiguity: to which glance does it refer or do the glances cancel one another so that there is no glance? This problem involves the rules of combination or syntax of the elements within a

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structure. Some structures are so much a departure from the standard that they subvert a subjectivity. I shall not consider the range of variation of the elements or the syntax of elements for all subjectivities. Such variation leads to 'deviant' forms of subjectivity. In practice, deviant as well as ambiguous forms are exceptionally rare. A temporally deviant POV shot, for example, would utilize the cue of camera position (its location at a point in space occupied by a character) — which does suggest a character as origin — yet the narrative would deny any cue for character memory. It would be as if a character could glance into the corner of a room and see a past space. Deviant forms, in one way or another, challenge the rules we use to make sense of classical discourse, and hence challenge assumptions about our knowledge of characters and the world. The following brief inventory suggests the range of deviant flashbacks. In Sattsho the Bailiff (Mizoguchi, 1954), the origin of a flashback — and hence, its status with respect to character — is questioned when a flashback begins with the son, but concludes through his mother. Character vision — the causal relation between narrating character and narrated past events — is resolved in the memory flashcuts of Petulia (Lester, 1968), Straw Dogs (Peckinpah, 1971), and The Pawnbroker (Lumet, 1965) but unresolved in Muriel (Resnais, 1963) which may or may not be the sudden recollections of character. In a more complex way, Not Reconciled (Straub, 1965) and Celine and Julie Go Boating (Rivette, 1974) destroy the very notion of character as an introspective, psychological unity who is capable of unifying narrative cause/effect chains. Also the temporal boundaries of a flashback — when it starts and ends — are obscurely marked in such films as Belle de Jour (Bunuel, 1966), Haunts (Freed, 1977), and The Sandglass (Has, 1981), and not marked at all in Last Year at Marienbad (Resnais, 1962). The framing of a flashback — whether the narration in fact proceeds from character — is questioned when a flashback is left open and the viewer is apparently left in the past (Une Simple Histoire, Hanoun, 1959). The nature of memory — that object which is represented — is troubled when there are discrepancies between a character's voice-over, his writing, and the visual representation of an event (The Diary of a Country Priest, Bresson, 1950): which is the more 'accurate' memory? In a more obvious way, this is the net effect of four very different versions of an event recalled by different witnesses in Rashotnon (Kurosawa, 1951). And finally, the mental state of a character is at issue when the viewer discovers that a flashback is false — we see something which never occurred. Thus the character was motivated not by memory but by a desire to cover the truth (Stage Fright, Hitchcock, 1950; Harold Lloyd's Grandma's Boy, Newmeyer, 1922). In Singin' in the Rain (Kelly and Donen, 1952) the visuals of a flashback contradict the accompanying character voice-over narration to comic effect. In The Locket (Brahm, 1946) the device of character memory is stretched quite thin when the text offers a flashback within a flashback within a flashback and in The Saragossa

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Manuscript (aka Adventures of a Nobleman, Has, 1965) it becomes a maze from which there is no escape as we attempt to follow nine interlocking and multileveled flashbacks of various characters. One should keep in mind that as the connection between character and the framing of space becomes attenuated, a sequence is more likely to be interpreted as a non-character (i.e., objective) flashback. For example, a non-character flashback is inaugurated in Written on the Wind (Sirk, 1956) by a gust of wind which turns back the pages of a calendar and in Beau Geste (Wellman, 1939), after everyone in the garrison is dead, by a title which announces, 'Fifteen years earlier in England'.

4. Mental Process Narration Mental process narration, or more loosely, the 'dream sequence', depends principally on the occurrence of undefined temporal markers and the existence of a character's mental condition as the unity, or coherence, of the representation. In addition, the logic which links the character to the framing of the image may be either directly spatial (where the camera assumes the position of the character's spatial perspective, as in a POV shot) or more indirect and rhetorical. (See figure 1.) In the latter case, a logical network of equivalences is created which acts to substitute, symbolically, a character for the origin of the framing. These rhetorical constructions involve a certain metaphorical transfer and are at the heart of the reflection and projection subjectivities. I thus defer to a later chapter a discussion of metaphorical framing. From the very beginning, films sought to represent the dreams and visions of characters.13 A conservative way to accomplish this was through the use of a dream balloon where the dreamer (suitably dazed or asleep) was shown in the same frame with a second, inset scene representing his dream. The inset could be played out on a second, smaller set on the same stage (Histoire d'un Crime, Zecca, 1901) or given through superimposition (The Life of an American Fireman, Porter, 1903), rear screen projection, matte shots (Dream of a Rarebit Fiend, Porter, 1906), split screen, etc. In all cases, the inset is linked to a character by juxtaposition (and by other cues). It is also shown to be subsidiary to the character, that is, framed or controlled by the character (it appears and disappears while the character remains in place). The relationship of the character to what is played out in the inset may vary widely, being interpreted as the character's dreams, hopes, fears, desires, forebodings, speculations, etc. The mental process sequence thus encompasses a range of temporal relations with respect to character, not just the usual dream fantasy. For example, a sequence in Kuleshov's By the Law (1926), using only dissolves, corresponds to a conditional perfect tense:14 "If I had brought my new found riches home to my mother, I would have seen ... and heard her

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say . . . " . In Dark Passage (Daves, 1947) a character approaches a door in response to a knock. We see the door from the character's POV but then there is a dissolve through the door to reveal a person standing outside, but still seen roughly from the angle of the first character (though at a much closer distance). The dissolve, here, marks the transition to a mental process sequence (where the framing is roughly 'from the point'); that is, we see what the character would have seen (note the verb tense) if the door were not present or if the character had decided to open the door. The mental process sequence ends with a dissolve back through the door, returning to the original POV shot. This example is closely related both to a temporally deviant POV shot (a cheated POV shot where the camera is moved closer to the visitor), and to an objective shot. If the tie with character is loosened (by using, say, a straight cut instead of a dissolve to the other side of the door and by using several different angles to reveal the visitor), then the production of space would be closer to that of a non-subjective omniscience, providing the viewer with an immediate and ideal — the best — view of the scene. What is important to the mental process sequence is that new, undefined temporal relations are introduced; time is no longer continuous or simultaneous. For instance, what is the temporal relation between that which slowly appears in superimposition and everything else in the image? When a temporal discontinuity is referred to — justified by — a mental condition of character, then we label it, in the reading, as a 'subjective' sequence and when the temporal discontinuity is undefined, that is, neither present, past, or future, then we label it as a form of mental process narration. A good example of the dream balloon technique may be found in The Crowd (Vidor, 1928) where small images are superimposed on a man's forehead. His outward manner becomes agitated as he reacts to these images (his dead daughter is running toward him). A supervisor passes by and remarks, "Looks to me like you haven't got your mind on your work". More complicated sequences may be found in Shock Corridor (Fuller, 1963), Of Human Bondage (Cromwell, 1934), Brief Encounter (Lean, 1946), Vertigo (Hitchcock, 1958), and especially A Christmas Carol (Marin, 1938). It is not, of course, necessary that the dream narration be presented simultaneously with the neutral, framing narration (the dreamer asleep or dazed) as in the dream balloon technique; the narrations may as well be presented consecutively. It will be worthwhile to trace a set of transformations that carry us from the dream balloon technique to the dream as consecutive space. As a first step, consider a shot of the dreamer followed by a shot of a nearby space (perhaps the object of a glance by the dreamer) on which the dream is then superimposed. The dream is still co-present with a neutral narration (we simultaneously see the dream and a part of the dreamer's 'real' space) but the dreamer himself is now off-screen. As a second step, consider a dream balloon which is followed by a cut into the inset scene which is then played out in several shots and followed by a cut back to the

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dream balloon (i.e., there is a time when the dream completely dominates the frame). The dream image itself need not be separately marked, e.g., by shooting it out of focus, through a filter, with unusual music or lighting, slow motion, etc. As a third step, consider simply a cut from the dreamer to the dream (which dissolves in, filling the frame as before) and then, later, back again without showing both dream and dreamer in the same space. The transitions here (cut/dissolve) may be further simplified to either a dissolve or a cut. The above sequences are functionally equivalent, i.e., are transformations of one another. We have thus arrived at a dream sequence in which all of the elements are presented consecutively. The dream balloon technique would seem to be the simplest of the representations; the others differ from it in the number of inferences that a viewer is required to make. Thus it would not be surprising to find that dream balloons historically preceded the other sequential techniques and that the latter were at first accompanied by strong secondary cues, e.g., intertitles and acting gestures. The equivalence of these techniques, in terms of our understanding, demonstrates that dream sequences depend on a common, underlying structure. As an example of a dream presented consecutively, consider the following four shots from Isn't Life Wonderful (Griffith, 1924). 1. 2. 3. 4.

title: 'Hunger-Haunted' medium shot of a starving man who is weary, exhausted, and penniless steaming turkey on lavish dinner table medium shot of man staring (repetition of shot 2).

Although the man is juxtaposed with his vision through straight cutting rather than through a composition where both appear in the same frame, the vision (shot 3) is still framed by a larger narration (shots 2 and 4). The vision itself remains temporally and spatially undefined, i.e., it is not in diegetic space. Shots 1 and 2 explicitly state the character's mental condition which is taken to rationalize the presentation of shot 3 (= a hunger hallucination, not an event in diegetic space). It should be emphasized that there is nothing to prevent manipulation of the filmic cues in order to produce a dream sequence which is uncertain, underdetermined, ambiguous, misleading, multiple, contradictory, undefined, hidden, or inadvertent. For instance, by using a different transition to enter the dream than to come out of the dream or by simply omitting shot 4 above — which encloses the hallucination — one weakens the inference that the framing proceeds with respect to a character as origin (is this, instead, a 'comment' by an author? was there no dream? is the dream continuing? is it that dream and reality intermingle? etc.). Further, can it be his dream if the character does not stare into space with a vacant look on his face in shot 2, but rather moves busily around the room? What if his face is not shown at all or the character is turned away from us? Also, the temporal markers might be altered to suggest, for instance, that the turkey is, at that moment, on a friend's table. Shot 3 then becomes a crosscut to another scene

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and/or what the character is thinking about. The character could also, simply, be staring out his window and into a neighbor's window to see the turkey. So far we have concentrated on the requirement that cues suggesting an undefined time may be presented either in a simultaneous or consecutive format. In order to discuss a second requirement for a dream sequence — the role of framing — we must recognize that there are, in actuality, two narrations: a neutral narration which acts to frame the dream narration or, stated the other way around, the dream narration becomes the object of a larger, neutral narration. Each of these narrations may be described in terms of the six elements of representation. The elements, however, are not the same from level to level — they are 'split apart'. In particular cases, they may be very closely related but they are never identical for the reason that they function differently in the levels. Consider the following sequence of shots, omitting many of the details: 1. character glance 2. object of character glance 3. superimposition of a new object (a dream). In some sense, the object of shot 2 has been generated by the character of shot 1 (the character's attention).15 That object is then replaced in shot 3 by a new, nondiegetic object of character perception. The two objects are related through the character but, in addition, may be more or less related to each other (i.e., evince a split object). For example, under the pressure of a man's desire in Of Human Bondage, a skeleton in an anatomy class turns into the figure of a beautiful woman. The early cinema often did not take advantage of this potential for signification: the new, dream object would appear in an otherwise blank part of the frame (= null object). The character may also be split apart. The dream of shot 3 may be expanded into a series of shots in which the character himself reappears, i. e., the character dreams about himself so that he, like the object, is split. As an analogue, consider the sentence, Ί imagined that I saw a beautiful woman'. The repetition of the linguistic shifter Ί' conceals the fact that the two T s ' are neither instances of a third, transcendent Τ nor are they exact replicas but rather there is a slight difference: The Τ who sees the beautiful woman may be a repressed side of the Τ who imagines. The two T s ' are mobilized in different contexts and that difference becomes the basis for a production of meaning; specifically, the process called dream narration. Further elements of representation, besides character (origin) and object may be split. The undefined time, for instance, of the superimposition in shot 3 may be interpreted in a given case as 'arising from' the continuous present time of the character's world. The point here is that although each level of narration may be described in terms of the elements of representation, one should not assume that

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an apparent repetition of an element implies that the two elements function identically in the narration. The subordination of the dream narration to a larger, framing narration can easily be achieved by using POV and/or perception shots. In The Locket (Brahm, 1946) a series of POV shots set up a logic linking character to the framing of the visuals. The POV shots, however, are unusual in that they show the floor as the character walks and hence already suggest that the character is not looking at something so much as thinking of something. Graphically, the floor is an empty space which must be filled, completed with narrative significance. Accordingly, we soon see across the floor wavy superimpositions of faces and past events which are temporally undefined with respect of the other spaces in the scene. (The two optical effects of waviness and superimposition are instances of multiple coding — a doubling.) 16 The sound track, too, offers contradictory temporal markers: voices from the 'past' (i.e., the textual past) suddenly appear out of context, one after another in a sound montage. The continuity of diegetic music (a wedding march) is interrupted by an unattributed, ominous source of music. In addition, sound from a music box, knocked over by the character in another part of the house, reappears at a constant volume — irrespective of distance and the character's changing distance from the box. Other characters do not seem to hear the sounds. These sorts of temporal disjunctions lead to an undefined time which is unified17 only through a particular character. The objects we see and hear are, the text insists, selected, organized, and given significance by that character system called mind; in this instance, the character's mental condition is one of fear and guilt. In Duck, You Sucker (Leone, 1971) a dolly-in to the eyes of Juan is followed by a POV shot revealing Shawn. Then a title is superimposed around Shawn revealing Juan's hidden desires and plans. The temporal placement and duration of the title is anomalous with respect to objective time, but consistent with character time. Similarly anomalous is the intercut of a rapid pan shot across a series of windows to indicate dizziness just before a character faints (The Man Who Knew Too Much, Hitchcock, 1934). The window intercut illustrates how our notion of time is bound up with the narrative. Since the film does not otherwise single out a bank of windows as important, the intercut cannot be read as a crosscut of simultaneous time (at least as an initial hypothesis). Instead, the windows themselves are not significant in the narrative, the intercut is very brief, the pan is so rapid that nothing else is legible, the character 'looks' faint, etc., all of which contribute to a reading of undefined time for the intercut. Although a perception structure may be an integral part of a mental process sequence and though both involve the mental state of a character, the two remain distinct. For example, drunkenness might be represented by an out-of-focus POV shot coupled with a hand-held camera ( = perception structure). The character is then represented as staggering about, imperfectly aware of his surroundings. But if, in addition, we begin to witness 'impossible' events and a succession of new,

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perhaps unlikely, spaces (even if the framing remains from the character's optical point in space), the temporality of the sequence is called into question. We begin to shift from the continuous, diegetic time of the perception structure to some other set of temporal relations — the mental process structure. No longer is it drunkenness per se which is being represented (blurred vision, unsteady balance) but a state of mind — a state of reverie — in which the meaning of space, time, cause/effect, etc., are to be found in — referred to — character. Both perception and mental process structures are utilized in a spectacular sequence of character drunkenness in Murnau's The Last Laugh (1924). The above examples of mental process narration show that undefined time may be marked, formally, in any number of ways: on the soundtrack, with superimpositions, titles, slow motion, spinning images, intercuts, lighting, or color. Screen time itself may be used as a marker: By lingering over a series of objects (a form of slow motion!) which have no narrative significance, the duration of the shot exceeds its narrative function (say, of establishing locale) and instead serves to mark a change in narration (My Uncle Antoine, Jutra, 1972). Art films of the 1960s discovered and aggressively explored the camera as a subjective marker by employing unusual camera locations, angles, and movements. Contradictions in the mise-enscäne may also be used to suggest undefined time. Consider the use of exaggerated size (The Boy Friend, Russell, 1971), distorted size (the Dali sequences in Spellbound, 1945), or sudden 'impossible' events (cf. 'impossible' camera positions), such as a head swinging inside a bell (Tristana, Bunuel, 1970), or a woman hanging upside down (The Ladies' Man, Lewis, 1961). I do not mean to suggest that every dream sequence is exactly like every other dream sequence so that they may be matched up in a one-to-one correspondence. There are a myriad subtle differences which may be exploited for meaning; for example there may well be a difference between a dream which occurs while the dreamer is asleep and one that occurs when the dreamer accidently stumbles upon it being played out, seemingly, in real space;18 and whether the dreamer sees himself, and in what relationship, may also become significant. (A range of possibilities may be found in A Christmas Carol, Marin, 1938, and Wild Strawberries, Bergman, 1957.) Also, the line between dream and memory may become obscured, as in Fragment of an Empire (Ermler, 1929), where an extended sequence represents the return of an amnesiac's memories/nightmares. In The Spider's Stratagem (Bertolucci, 1969) what appear to be flashbacks evolve as the film progresses into the unmarked fantasies of a character (cf. Fellini's 8-1/2, 1963). Nothing prevents a sequence from being underdetermined, ambiguous, multiple, etc. What unites dream sequences, indeed permits infinite variety, is the fact that they derive from certain basic procedures of our reading which are summed up by the six general elements of representation. It is the hypotheses and revisions of hypotheses used in our reading as measured against the structural possibilities that

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are important. Suppose a memory sequence contains a scene at which the character who remembers could not have been present. If one wishes to hold to a subjective hypothesis about the narration, then one must assume that the character 'knew' about the scene by hearing of it from someone, or else 'imagines' the scene as it must have occurred, etc. Alternately, one might break with the subjective hypothesis and think in terms of a new, non-subjective level of narration (e.g., the underlying omniscience in a text exerting its authority). The choices depend on a weighing of the evidence. In a given text, the choices may not, in fact, be important; that is, the differences may not be accorded meaning. We cannot hope to understand dream sequences by merely drawing up an inventory of the surface, or terminal, symbols in a text (which might be infinite). One of the advantages of giving up a taxonomic approach to the materials of film in favor of structural descriptions is that important similarities are revealed among sequences which are outwardly — formally, physically — quite different. As an illustration, consider the following five non-subjective representations (several of which appear in one scene of The Last Laugh): 1. a multiple, split image showing many people chattering to one another 2. a sequence of shots (a montage) each showing one person talking to another 3. a camera movement from person to person as they talk (or a zoom, rack focus, etc.) 4. a composition in depth where several persons are talking to one another 5. people walking toward the camera, chatting as they pass. Each of these representations is a transformation of a single narrative statement (determined by context), e.g., 'gossip spreads', 'people argue', etc. They are functionally equivalent despite formal differences. Note especially that there is no priority among the five — the montage, in particular, may be derived equally from the split image or the composition in depth (a fact insufficiently appreciated by Andre Bazin). There are indeed surface differences among the five representations19 but my contention is that narrative, as well as narration and point of view, are independent of medium and depend on transformational rules, not the formal properties of surface symbols. The exact placement of the undefined temporal markers in a mental process sequence is a problem of syntax. The markers may be presented simultaneously or consecutively. In addition, certain gaps may be permissible in a consecutive format. For example, in Carrie (de Palma, 1976) and Possessed (Bernhardt, 1947) undefined temporal markers appear only after we have witnessed a mental process scene. In Possessed there is a sudden dissolve and a scene is replayed in a different form. We realize retrospectively that the first version of the scene was subjective. The narration was cunning in its duplicity since the first version included such strong cues of present and continuous time as matches on action, sound overlaps

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between shots, and a series of POV shots. When the scene is reinterpreted, in light of its replaying, we assign the contradictions and traps, not to the discourse which seems innocent, but to a character who will imagine anything because she is possessed and is, we now believe, unable to separate reality from unreality. The first version of the scene in Possessed contains a confrontation between Carol (Geraldine Brooks) and her step-mother Louise (Joan Crawford). Carol accuses Louise of killing her mother in order to marry her father. As far as the viewer is concerned, this accusation may or may not be true — the text has not yet settled on the truth of the story. When the scene is repeated, it is made plain that the first version was told through the mind of Louise. At this point, the accusation by Carol acquires a second meaning. Since Carol did not 'actually' make the accusation, it now becomes only what Louise thinks that Carol thinks; that is, what Louise fears about herself. This second meaning comes from a shift in narration: The meanings are related not through, say, connotation but through a condition of narration. For the activity of narration to be significant in a text, there must be at least the possibility of a change in narration. A given level of narration has no meaning in itself but acquires meaning through opposition or difference with other levels within the work or in other works. This explains why the exclusive use of, say, first person narration in a novel or film (e.g., Montgomery's Lady in the Lake, 1946) eventually loses impact for many readers. The reader becomes accustomed to the narration as merely another way of telling the story which is conventionally told in the third person. The Τ of the narration merely becomes an annoying, empty place holder in an 'objective' narration. Ironically, the influence of the convention is so strong that an Ί ' only becomes 'personalized' when distinguished from another level of narration within that particular text. Signification for the viewer, however, is purchased at a price. The viewer must accept the illusion — which the text must labor to create — that the text may be in two different places at the same time; that is, represent two different narrators. If the text is granted this power, it need no longer be committed to an absolute truth, but may shift narration and hedge its bets by speaking truth here, lying there (though lying as little as possible)20, insisting on vagueness, and so on, in order to create a chain of hesitations — the suspense of the story. If the two meanings created across a shift in narration tend to converge, the text works toward a confirmation of empirical, observable reality where the truth of reality is guaranteed by an observer/character. If the meanings tend to diverge, then a schism is opened between the narrations. The question then arises which is the real — where will the text settle its truth? The truth of the film Possessed — did Louise murder Carol's mother to marry her father? — does not of necessity reside in one or the other of the two narrations. Truth may be in the 'objective' (what we see independent of character) or in the subjective (a 'hidden' reality) or in both or neither (another narration). What is important is that by shifting the

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narration, the text multiplies its sense and may suspend the truth among those possibilities. In general, any shift of narration produces a multiplication of sense. La Chienne (The Bitch, Renoir, 1931), for example, opens on a puppet theatre in which three puppets give contradictory interpretations of the story which is to follow. The first asserts that the story is a serious social drama; the second asserts it is a comedy; and the third claims it is neither comedy nor drama but a story with no moral, about 'people like us'. The latter is a substantial claim, more sweeping than either of the first two: a blatant declaration that the text is not discourse, but nature. The origin of the utterance — on which the verbal shifter 'us' depends — is never disclosed. Furthermore, the puppets demonstrate an omniscient power to frame visual images. They introduce the three main characters of the story, who appear as superimpositions, and tell us very specific things about the characters, even their thoughts (e.g., LuLu lies a great deal). We cannot doubt the words of the puppets for the text provides no basis, no larger frame of reference whereby we may place these words. The opening scene of La Chienne ends with a graphic match from the rectangle of the puppet theatre to the rectangle of a dumb waiter. The new shot is taken from an impossible position from within the dumb waiter. (The great majority of shots in the film are framed from possible locations in diegetic space.) In this way the text carefully marks its transition (a discontinuity) to a new level of narration. The shift in narration creates the autonomy of the puppets and at the same time suggests how the puppets are related to the rest of the text. By balancing identity and difference, the shift in narration functions to displace each and every meaning in subsequent narrations according to a reading of drama, comedy, or just plain reality. The fact that the meanings are related — a unity effect — allows the truth of the narrative (questions proposed, delayed, and answered) to move across the boundary of narrations. The fact that the meanings are different, however, allows the truth to be compartmentalized, dispersed in measured amounts. The multiplication of sense in this manner creates a plural fiction — many-sided, inexhaustible, replete. If all shifts in narration displace meaning, what is unique about a shift to subjective narration? While a text does grant a character the authority to tell the story, it makes no claims as to the reliability of that telling. By singling out a source for the story, the text is able to keep alive that chain of hesitations leading to the truth. Statements, beliefs and actions for which the text would rather not take responsibility may be confined to character. In Suspicion (Hitchcock, 1941), for example, the text could have shown us exactly what happened between Johnnie and Beaky but instead shows us, in a remarkable mental process sequence, what Lina believes happened. Thus the truth of the text remains suspended and the suspicion continues for both Lina and the viewer. In sum, mental process sequences are generated by a literal or metaphorical

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framing which links undefined temporal markers and a production of space to a character's mental state. The sequences are generated from a common structural description and are not defined by lists of material or formal features (which are indefinite in number). The sequences may appear in either simultaneous (dream balloon) or extended format. What is important is that a new level of narration appears which, in conjunction with the preceding narration, effectively splits both character and object. One function of this split, or difference, is to suspend the enigmas of the text.

5. The Problem of Color and Sound Consider three modalities of first person narration: Ί see', Ί hear', and Ί say'. Thus far I have discussed subjectivity primarily in terms of a production of space attributed to a character so that the Τ of Ί see' is a character and the 'see' is the space which is seen by that character. Accordingly, a POV shot is subjective because we see space from the character's point in space. Since we are witnessing what a particular person sees in a POV shot, it is an easy step to represent how that person sees an object, for instance, by throwing the object out-'of-focus to suggest drunkenness. This is the perception shot. As previously indicated, any number of formal devices besides focus can function in a perception structure. One such is color. In Summer Holiday (Mamoulian, 1948) a boy's drunkenness is tied to gradual changes in the color of the scene as well as changes in costume and setting. 21 In Bigger Than Life (Ray, 1956) the image assumes a pronounced red hue to represent a psychotic rage induced by an overdose of the drug cortisone; and in I Am Two (Ichikawa, 1962) we supposedly see what a newborn infant sees — abstract colors and patterns moving mysteriously. In Mamie (Hitchcock, 1964), flashes of red are tied to a memory that the heroine has repressed. The color itself, of course, may be produced in many ways: through the use of special film stock, camera filters, mise-en-scene, lighting, laboratory processing, etc. It is not the technological origin which is descisive, but rather the employment of color in a system of character narration. Sound, too, can function exactly as color in subjective structures. Thus we could distinguish an aural POV — where we hear from the character's point in space — and an aural perception — where we hear something only the character hears; that is, something which reveals hearing itself, e.g., a ringing in the ears or the distorted sound heard by Alicia as a drug takes effect in Notorious. In these cases there is a single origin of space which may reveal either subjective sight, hearing, or both. What happens if there are two origins of narration operating simultaneously?

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To return to color, the Ray and Ichikawa films used strict perception shots; that is, color effects were tied directly to a character's optical POV. This need not, however, always be true as the Hitchcock and Mamoulian examples suggest. Hitchcock uses the red flashes in both strict perception shots and superimposed over the face of the character. With respect to the narrative, the red carries the same meaning in both instances; but with respect to the narration, the red has two very different relations to the audience. We perceive and know it in different ways. In the perception shot, the red we see is attributed first to the objects seen by the heroine and then, we assume, to the heroine's sight; in the superimposition over her face, the red is attributed first to the heroine — to her sight — and then, we assume, to the objects she sees. Thus the red appearing over her face is not the red seen by the heroine herself because she is looking at objects, and cannot see her own face. Instead, we must apply the red of the superimposition to the fact of looking, rather than seeing the red directly in an object and applying it back along a sight line to a look toward that object. In short, the red follows two different paths to reach the heroine. In the perception shot, it rests on the logic of a sight line — the juxtaposition of object and glance — but in the facial close-up, it rests on a simple conjunction — red eyes. Although both techniques depend on a metaphor (the color red stands for a mental state), the superimposition is more metaphorical because it requires an additional metaphor (a red face stands for red vision). The Mamoulian example suggests that we may still further attenuate the connection between color and character while preserving a subjective interpretation. One might begin with strict perception shots showing a boy's perception of color changing as he becomes intoxicated, but then change to neutral angles which do not even include the boy (his eyes, his sight) or objects he sees (eyeline matches) while still allowing the color to change as the boy continues drinking. A gap has now been opened between the color — undeniably subjective — and the representation of space through, say, camera positions which are no longer strictly what the boy sees or of the boy's face while he sees. Since we have chosen camera space as a reference point in defining narration, 22 we must say that the origin of the color continues to be metaphorically attributed to character although the literal representation of space is now impersonal. A series of neutral spaces has been embedded within a subjective structure but is to be understood as a further expansion of character. This is the subjectivity called character projection. To put it another way: when confronted by an anomalous device (inexplicable color changes), one of the hypotheses we try out is a metaphorical application directed toward the nearest sentient agent, usually a character. We would not, for example, assume that it was a liquor glass that was becoming drunk though we might consider a narrator, author, etc. in the proper circumstances. If this hypothesis achieves a certain success, we say the sequence is subjective; otherwise it is non-subjective. In Vampire People (De Leon, 1966), for example, color filters are used non-diegetically in many scenes to accentuate such qualities as violence, the presence of vam-

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pires, and the exercise of supernatural power. Occasionally the film will flirt with a subjective interpretation: when a vampire's eyes open, all goes to red but when the eyes close, the scene becomes blue. Projection sequences demonstrate that the look of the viewer is not equivalent to the look of the camera. (The weaker claim that a viewer merely 'identifies' with the camera may also be too strong.) The viewer, so to speak, is in a different place from the camera. The viewer is actively constructing the space of a scene — joining fragments into a whole, recognizing implied spaces, etc. — as well as remembering past spaces and continually forming conjectures about new spaces. Hence the viewer has in mind a range of spaces — seen and unseen. A spectator sees what the camera sees but also, more importantly, sees what he or she knows and expects (and desires).23 Thus we may very well see space from a neutral angle while simultaneously holding an aspect of that space — say, color — apart from the image and attributing it to a character. A camera 'angle', after all, is only a single property of that complex phenomenon we call 'space' and there is no reason we need to be bound by it. We may go further with the idea of a viewer in two (or more) places and say that the so-called illusion of three-dimensional space created by the classical film is complete not when the camera has shown all four walls of a room — which, anyway, is usually prohibited by the 180 degree rule — but when the viewer is able to imagine him or herself in various places apart from the camera. What is called 'character' is actually the potential site for a new set of spaces which may or may not already have been projected by the viewer. In this sense 'character' allows narrative space to be imagined from new positions. Thus characters are not simply objects which may be moved about inside space, like so many fireflies in a jar, but are in a deep way implicated in the very creation and perception of space by a viewer. The syntagmatic functions of character in linking scenes and shots are well known — for instance, the match on action — but the paradigmatic functions — for instance, subjectivity— are seldom acknowledged. As a paradigmatic unit, the classical character has the capacity to generate for us the very spaces of which it is already composed. Subjectivity, then, allows a certain reduplication of mise-enscene and the already-seen. Sound, too, may be a projection of character. A famous example occurs in Hitchcock's Blackmail (1929). The heroine, unknown to others, has killed a man with a knife. During breakfast with her family she becomes more and more preoccupied with her own thoughts and guilt. The sounds of conversation fade down except for the word 'knife' which booms on the soundtrack when anyone uses the word. In Face to Face (Bergman, 1975) the sound of a clock becomes louder and louder then fades down to silence according to the auditory attention of the heroine. The Purple Plain (Parrish, 1955) opens with a World War II fighter pilot being awakened by a bombing attack on his airfield. He rushes to his plane but is grabbed by a mechanic who slaps him. Abruptly, the sounds of exploding bombs

Still 10:

The Best Years of Our Lives (shot 4 A) (page 135).

Still 11:

The Best Years of Our Lives (shot 4 B) (page 135).

»pr

Still 12:

The Best Years of Our Lives (shot 4 C) (page 135).

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end. 'You all right?' the mechanic asks. Thus the film announces that it will deal with the man's disturbed internal state. Although sound is the principal subjective device in the scene, other cues reinforce the meaning; for example, the opening shot is from an unusual angle — from overhead — and is followed by a dolly downwards toward the pilot. There is also a lateral tilt shot of his airplane. Again, this illustrates that projection sequences are framed from camera angles which appear neutral but in fact are tied to character. There is, of course, no prohibition against a character appearing within his or her own projection just as in many flashbacks the character visualizes him or herself from 'neutral' angles. The subsidiary devices in The Purple Plain effect a multiple coding which guarantees the perception of form as well as lending a completeness and inevitability to the sequence. We are fooled into believing that if only we had been more attentive (to the subsidiary devices), we would have discovered the subjective nature of the shot — its 'inevitable' and true meaning. The classic text, as Barthes says, seeks to lie as little as possible and only enough to insure its own survival — the survival of its enigmas until the 'end'. 2 4 The viewer must be encouraged to guess and, when wrong, must be made to blame himself. In summary, the subjective modality Ί hear' bears a close relation to the subjective Ί see'. There may exist auditory points of view and perceptions; or sounds which are projected, remembered, or imagined by a character. In this respect, sound and color are fully interchangeable elements in the various subjective structures and, indeed, may themselves be replaced by any number of other auditory and visual features of the film medium. However, when sound becomes dialogue, the situation changes. The act of speaking or writing — Ί say' or Ί write' — changes the relationship of viewer and character. N o longer is the Ί ' of the viewer posited as equivalent to the Τ of the character so that we see or hear exactly as the character sees or hears (even if metaphorically). When the character speaks, it is not as though we, too, are speaking. The viewer becomes a 'you' for the character's Ί ' . Speech is already a discourse framed by the character so we are, at least, twice removed — the camera frames the character who frames his words. Our methodological assumption has been that any linguistic discourse is already embedded in a spatial — pictorial — discourse of the camera. 25 It may be instructive to start with an instance of double framing — Ί say' — and chart some possibilities which increase or decrease the gap between viewer and character. The gap widens if a new narration appears; for example, a character's words may, in turn, be part of another narrator's story or the character may quote someone else. An interesting possibility is where the actor playing the character speaks as if quoting the character. In this way the actor becomes an additional narrator with the effect, as Brecht noted, of further removing us from the character. Moving in the other direction — to close the gap — one can imagine, first, character dialogue; then a character speaking only to himself; a character not speaking though we hear his 'thoughts'; and, finally, total absence of a character

Non-Character Flashback

Non-Character Time (e.g., montage)

Non-Character Flashforward

PAST (continuous or simultaneous)

UNDEFINED (other temporal relations)

FUTURE (continuous or simultaneous)

PRESENT (continuous or simultaneous)

[N] (reference or neutral perspective of vision)

Not From Point

Frame (With Respect to Character as Point of Origin)

Time (of Character Vision)

Condition Or No Condition

Mental Condition of Character

Deviant Reflection

Deviant Reflection

Deviant Reflection

REFLECTION (e.g., mirror shot; eyeline match)

From Point By Metaphor

No Condition

Deviant POV

Deviant POV

Deviant POV

POV (point-of-view shot)

From Point

No Condition From Point By Metaphor

PROJECTION (e.g., certain expressive camera movements and decor) PARTIALLY SUBJECTIVE FLASHBACK

From Point PERCEPTION (e.g., out-offocus POV shot: drunk, dizzy, or drugged) SUBJECTIVE (TRUE) FLASHBACK

SUBJECTIVE PARTIALLY (TRUE) MENTAL SUBJECTIVE PROCESS MENTAL PROCESS (e.g., dreadis, hopes, fears, desires, fdreboding, etc.)

Condition

Condition

Figure 1: Types of Subjectivity in Classical Film Narration Defined as the Interaction of Three Variables: Mental Condition, Frame, and Time.

98 Chapter Four

t* Β υ π Ul ar~ cΛ— (Ϊ w υ u S fr a, •o u 2 .5 c υ e -o c .. a..-5> a ο 2 i -s 5 & s a χ 1 u υ £

a

Subjectivity

99

o n t h e i m a g e track while w e h e a r only his t h o u g h t s . Even in t h e latter case, h o w ever, t h e w o r d s themselves a r e a n irreducible discourse f o r w h i c h there m u s t b e s o m e (perhaps effaced) n a r r a t o r or level of n a r r a t i o n s t a n d i n g b e t w e e n viewer a n d character. T h e m o s t w e can say is t h a t dialogue is a s e c o n d - o r d e r subjectivity. It m a y b e c o n v e r t e d i n t o a p r i m a r y subjectivity by e x p a n d i n g Ί say' i n t o spatial a n d audi-

Figure 2: The Relation of Four Types of Subjectivity and Two Types of Objectivity in Classical Film Narration Where Time is the Textual Present. The Relation is Shown as a Circle Which Results From Two Variables: The Mental Condition of a Character and the Camera's Framing of the Image (with respect to Character as the Point of Origin). Also Shown are Two Subtypes of Subjectivity — Dynamic Perception and the Cheated Point-of-View Shot — and Two Subtypes of Objectivity — Expressive Unmotivated Camera and Impassive Unmotivated Camera. Objective Internal Description

External Description

Expressive Unmotivated Camera

SemiSubjective Projection

Impassive Unmotivated Camera

No Condition (Normal Awareness; Mere Presence of Character)

Condition (Marked Psychologica Reference to an Internal State)

SemiSubjective Reflection

From Point by Metaphor From Point Cheated Point-of-View Shot

Dynamic Perception Perception

Point-of-View Shot

Subjective FRAMING: Not From Point = A Camera Framing Which is Not From the Character's Point in Space From Point by Metaphor = A Camera Framing Which, by a Metaphorical Transfer, is From the Character's Point in Space From Point = A Camera Framing Which is From the Character's Point in Space

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tory equivalents — Ί see' and Ί hear' — for example, an optical and auditory POV. This transformation, in fact, is fundamental to classical cinema. Indeed the classical system may be defined as the capacity26

— even if unexercised — to pro-

vide primary subjectivity — to wholly justify its characters spatially. The assumed equivalence of the transformation in classical cinema amounts to a subjugation of space by narrative, and the use of character to justify a mise-en-scene

of the visi-

ble. The classical transformation assumes that there is no necessary loss in moving from objective to subjective. The character is fully able to recapture the sense o f — and become master of — its space. In short, the classical film represents space as if telescoped within its characters.

NOTES 1. See ch. 3, sec. 4 and the discussion of vision in ch. 3, sec. 5. 2. The POV shot, as a narrative convention, may be inappropriate to a documentary film. See Dai Vaughan, "Arms and the Absent", Sight and Sound 48 (3) (Summer 1979), p. 186. 3. I have seen a superimposed POV only during a snowball fight in Abel Gance's Napoleon (1927) and in the pre-title sequence for the TV series The Prisoner. 4. The set of conventions about perceiving which refer to 'no (special) mental condition' of character — i.e., 'normal awareness' — are unmarked with respect to other conventions which are explicitly marked as referring to an abnormal perceptual state (e.g., focus in an out-of-focus POV shot). The distinction marked/unmarked is well-defined in linguistics and extends to all levels of analysis: syntax, lexicon, tenses, pronouns, etc. The distinction operates on paradigmatically related units. See Bent Jacobsen, Transformational-Generative Grammar: An Introductory Survey of its Genesis and Development (N.Y.: North-Holland, 1977), pp. 1 2 3 - 1 2 4 ; cf. Seymour Chatman, "The Structure of Narrative Transmission", in Style and Structure in Literature ed. by Roger Fowler (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell Univ., 1975), p. 238 n. 26. 5. Cf. Stephen Heath, "Narrative Space", Screen 17 (3) (Autumn 1976), p. 91. 6. In How It Feels To Be Run Over (Hepworth, 1900) a car drives straight toward the camera and when it reaches the camera we cut to a black frame decorated with stars, dashes, and exclamation marks which, presumably, represents the moment. Barry Salt, "Film Form, 1 9 0 0 - 0 6 " , Sight and Sound 47 (3) (Summer 1978), p. 152. For other early instances of POV shots, dreams and flashbacks, see Barry Salt, "The Early Development of Film Form", Film Form 1 (1) (Spring 1976), pp. 91 — 106. Early examples of subjective sound are mentioned in Lewis Jacobs, The Rise of the American Film (N.Y.: Teachers College Press, 1968), pp. 439, 442. 7. Stills from this sequence are reproduced in Bill Nichols, " T h e Birds: At the Window", Film Reader 4 (Evanston, 111.: Northwestern Univ., 1979), pp. 125, 135. 8. The reason that a zoom shot, camera movement, or editing in these examples weaken the link with character is that we are forced to adjust our hypothesis about the production of image space (the link with character may or may not be broken) in a way qualitatively different from the case where an object is brought nearer to us by the character walking toward the object or else reaching out and bringing it closer for inspection (here, the character explicitly controls space for us).

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9. Max Black, "Metaphor", Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society 55 (1954-1955) reprinted in Francis Coleman, ed., Contemporary Studies in Aesthetics (N.Y.: McGraw-Hill, 1968), pp. 2 1 6 - 2 3 2 ; Nelson Goodman, Languages of Art: An Approach to a Theory of Symbols (Indianapolis, Ind.: Hackett, 2nd ed., 1976), pp. 6 8 - 8 5 . 10. Nelson Goodman, Problems and Projects (N.Y.: Bobbs-Merrill, 1972), ch. 3 "Art", sec. 5 "Further Notes '(d) Reply to Matthew Lipman,'" pp. 1 3 8 - 1 3 9 . 11. There is an exception: Neither POV nor perception may ambiguously border on the reference narration since, by definition, reflection and projection are intermediate forms. More than two forms may border on one another where, for example, ambiguous cues leave uncertain whether or not a mental condition of character is being represented and whether the framing is from the character's point in space or merely from that point in a metaphorical sense. This situation results in all four subjectivities being equally possible. 12. The dialogue in the scene is also oblique: "What's your angle?" "What angle?" "[Are you trying to] frame me?" The situation is almost reversed in Rebel "Without a Cause (Ray, 1955). The revolving POV of a character occurs first in a scene with later shots framed at a lateral tilt. Unlike the Notorious example, these later shots are not taken from the position of the character. Nevertheless, one might argue for a metaphorical connection with the character based on the previous revolving POV and the volatile nature of the scene narratively — in which case the later shots are a (weak) projective subjectivity tied to, say, character anger. 13. See Barry Salt, "Film Form, 1 9 0 0 - 0 6 " , Sight and Sound 47 (3) (Summer 1978), pp. 1 5 1 - 1 5 2 . 14. Some writers claim that an image — a picture — can never escape the present tense; for discussion see appendix, sec. 5. 15. The eyeline match of shots 1 and 2 is a reflective subjectivity (ch. 6). The character of shot 1 is itself an effect of the text (like the vision and the continuous diegetic time of the character) and, consequently, we may ask what narration — what other set of the elements of representation — logically precedes, generates the diegetic world. At some point, we will reach an effaced narration, an underlying, textual omniscience (ch. 8, sec. 1). 16. Seech. 2. 17. More precisely, the temporal markers in this instance are to be placed in that larger class of textual markers which the viewer holds together under the heading of a proper name. Thus the temporal markers join a galaxy of other data accumulated by the reader (spaces, events, causes, effects, etc.) which constitute, at a higher level of the reading, the concept of 'character'. See the discussion in ch. 2 of Barthes' semic code. 18. When the dreamer is, seemingly, present at his dream the results are as follows: The framing of the dream is more direct (on the order of a simple glance), the character can be continually re-inscribed as the source of the dream, there is a straight-forward motivation for the camera to enter the dream space (the objectification of dream), the character's mental condition may be easily represented by his facial expressions and actions, and undefined temporal markers (discontinuities) may be minimized. The exact configuration of a dream sequence is thus not a matter of indifference but rather opens up various avenues for symbolization which may be denied in another configuration. 19. These surface differences used to be analyzed in terms of a 'stylistics' or a 'rhetoric' but a better approach centers on the relations of reference among symbols; see e.g., Nelson Goodman's discussion of exemplification and expression in Languages of Art: An Approach to a Theory of Symbols (Indianapolis, Ind.: Hackett Publishing, 2nd ed., 1976),

102

20. 21.

22. 23.

24. 25. 26.

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ch. 2. See also Goodman, "The Status of Style", Critical Inquiry 1 (4) (June 1975), pp. 799—811. The analysis of surface differences is important if one is asking questions about auteurs, genres, or distinctions between the arts, e.g., film and novel (specificity). My argument for the equivalence of these transformations is restricted to the classical cinema which aims to generate a unitary space. In other practices a master shot may not be equivalent to a sum of montage fragments; Noel Burch, Theory of Film Practice trans, by Helen Lane (N.Y.: Praeger Publishers, 1973), pp. 36—40 (Eisenstein's cubistic space). Roland Barthes, S/Z, trans, by Richard Miller (N.Y.: Hill and Wang, 1974), sec. 60. Rouben Mamoulian, "Color and Light in Films", Film Culture 21 (Summer 1960), p. 78. Incidentally, without being told more, can one guess whether the color gets brighter or darker as the boy becomes drunk? Probably not, since an argument can be made for either case depending on whether the drunkenness is to be portrayed as happy or tragic. And even if it is to be happy, a character might imagine that a bright, garish barroom is transformed into a subdued, intimate club with alluring women. Color does not have an intrinsic meaning but depends on a narrative system. In the Mamoulian film, color becomes brighter. It may then be labeled 'lively' by the viewer as opposed to 'sad' in accordance with an interpretation of the complex surrounding the character. See ch. 3, sec. 5 on vision. The orthodox belief is that "The camera has 'point of view' and the audience will see the story only as the camera sees it." Herbert Lightman, "The Subjective Camera", American Cinematograph er Ύ1 (2) (Feb. 1946), p. 46 (my emphasis), reprinted in Lewis Jacobs, The Movies as Medium (N.Y.: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1970), pp. 6 1 - 6 6 . See also appendix, sec. 3; cf. ch. 8, sec. 3. Roland Barthes, S/Z trans, by Richard Miller (N.Y.: Hill and Wang, 1974), sec. 60. The methodological assumption is that space will be taken as a reference point with which to measure the devices of film; see the discussion of vision in ch. 3, sec. 5. A capacity is a dispositional term involving the analysis of propositions in the subjunctive conditional tense. That analysis is difficult and largely unsolved but of major importance because scientific law, and hence theory, depend upon subjunctive conditionals. See Nelson Goodman, Fact, Fiction and Forecast (N.Y.: Bobbs-Merrill, 2nd ed., 1965), ch. 1 "The Problem of Counter-factual Conditionals", pp. 3 - 2 7 , and ch. 2 "The Passing of the Possible", pp. 3 1 - 5 8 . See also appendix, n. 136.

Still 35:

The Story of a Man Who Left His Will on Film (page 159).

Still 36:

The Story of a Man Who Left His Will on Film (page 159).

CHAPTER 5

The Point-of-view Shot

1. The Elements

of

ΡOV

An analysis of three films made in Hollywood in the 1930s showed that nearly 40 per cent1 of the cuts create what Noel Burch calls proximate spatial articulations; that is, the space revealed by shot A is adjacent to or near that of shot Β — perhaps within the same room — but at no point does it overlap or coincide with the space of shot B. 2 A number of techniques have been developed to link these proximate spaces into spatial, and often temporal, continuity.3 One such technique is the eyeline match; and a subset of the eyeline match is the point-of-view (POV) shot. The POV shot is a shot in which the camera assumes the position of a subject in order to show us what the subject sees. More precisely, the POV shot is composed of six elements usually distributed in two shots as follows: Shot A: Point/Glance 1. Point: 2. Glance:

establishment of a point in space. establishment of an object, ususally off-camera, by glance from the point.

Between Shots A and B: 3. Transition: temporal continuity or simultaneity. Shot B: Point/Object 4. From Point: the camera locates at the point, or very close to the point, in space defined by element one above. 5. Object: the object of element two above is revealed. Shots A and B: 6. Character: the space and time of elements one through five are justified by — referred to — the presence and normal awareness of a subject. The sixth element is a narrative construction and underlies every shot in a POV structure. The six elements are specific instances, respectively, of the six general units of classical representation: origin, vision, time, frame, object, and mind. At first glance, the specific elements of the POV shot appear trivial. However,

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let us examine them closer to see how a change in any one operates to subvert or de-stabilize the POV shot as a six-element structure. Element one ('point') is the establishment of a point in space. Its importance may be illustrated by the cases in which no point is established or more than one point is established. An example of the former would be the case where a glance is established by dialogue ("Hey, look at this!") but no point is established because the screen is black or the camera too far away (on the top of a building, say) or the character is off-screen. An example of the establishment of too many points would be a shot of two heads turning in opposite directions (Four Nights of a Dreamer, Bresson, 1971) or, as in the opening of Last Year at Marienbad (Resnais, 1962), the establishment of five simultaneous glances in different directions (still 1). The latter film is particularly disorientating for the viewer because it also includes conventional eyeline matches and POV shots. In this way, the viewer is placed in a position of profound uncertainty with respect to the unfolding of space. Element two ('glance') is the establishment of an off-camera object by glance. Whether or not a glance has occurred may be a matter of degree. Cues which may be present include the following: eye movement, head movement, body movement (e.g., walking to a door to answer a knock prior to a shot of the door swinging open in front of the camera), the beam of a flashlight carried by a character, a new — perhaps sudden — camera angle or camera distance, camera movement (e.g., a dolly-in), zoom, dialogue ("Hey, look at this!"), an intertitle, off-camera sound, music (a common device of horror films), the length of a shot (a character becomes fixated by an object), and perhaps even larger narrative structures (for instance, has everyone who has entered the room confronted the object? do we know that someone is hiding in a particular place, e.g., Dial Μ for Murder, Hitchcock, 1954?). In Psycho (Hitchcock, 1960) we see Sam from the chest down as he says to Marion, lying on a bed, "You never did eat your lunch, did you?". We then see a lunch tray on a table. We cannot ascribe this view to Sam because we were unable to see whether he was looking at Marion or the lunch tray. The shot of the tray is an ambiguous, unclaimed voice in the film. It is important to note that the concept of 'glance' implies the existence of a sentient observer in whose viewpoint we may participate. This does not mean, however, that the POV shot is limited to humans or even to living things. One lowbudget horror film (Cult of the Cobra, Lyon, 1955), utilizing elliptical-shaped distortion in the image, offers the POV of a killer snake as it winds toward a sleeping victim. Jaws (Spielberg, 1975) opens with an underwater, traveling POV of a shark4 and Benji (Camp, 1974) features repeated POV shots of a dog as well as other subjective structures including flashbacks by the dog. A distorted image is used to represent an alien's POV in It Came From Outer Space (Arnold, 1953). In Vampyr (Dreyer, 1932) there is an extended sequence from the optical POV of a dead man. Here, the glance is established by emphasizing the wide, staring eyes of

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the dead man; it is this vision which founds the representation and permits the metaphorical exchange of properties between the dead and the living. If the dead man's eyes were closed, the structure would become more complicated because the underlying POV (of a living person) fails — is deviant — when the person's eyes are closed (there is no glance). Other metaphorical POVs occur in Blood and Roses (Vadim, 1960) where we share the viewpoint of an invisible spirit with the aid of a narrator and stirring window curtains. In 2001: A Space Odyssey (Kubrick, 1968) the vision of a computer is represented by an extreme wide angle lens and in Westworld (Crichton, 1973) by a special optical printer effect which divides the film image into tiny squares. In The Steel Helmet (Fuller, 1950) we see the POV of a statue of Buddha. 5 Again, the representation of 'eyes' in statuary, portraits, etc. produces a 'look' — betrays a sentience — vital to the POV structure. Indeed would it even be possible to represent the view of, say, a rock? Such a camera angle would probably be reinterpreted in terms of some other, less remote sentience — such as an omniscient view, an author's eccentric framing, etc. The omission of elements one and two ('point/glance') within a larger structure may create a tension of ambiguity. In Yasujiro Ozu's Floating Weeds (1959) and Tokyo Story (1953) there occur POV shots where a man looks, at a flower in Floating Weeds and tombstones in Tokyo Story. However, later in the respective scenes, the POV structure is undermined, or evolves, when the point/object shot is repeated — the flower, the tombstones — without the point/glance shot — a man in each case. Thus the flower and the tombstones now seem almost to exist independently, in their own right. We then realize that our first view may not, in fact, have been a POV shot; that the men may not have been looking at the objects (only thinking of them, or if looking, not seeing; or whatever); that initially we were snared in the structure of the POV shot and the larger narrative structure (a reference to flowers in the dialogue; the sadness of death) in order to be set free at a later time. The narration at this later time has also evolved: it no longer has a specific origin (the men); rather, it has become larger, more general, more plural. Element three ('transition') is any device which implies temporal continuity or simultaneity. There is no requirement of temporal continuity within shots A (point/glance) and Β (point/object); all that is required is that the last fragment of shot A (elements one and two) be temporally joined to the first fragment of shot Β (elements four and five); that is, it is elements, not shots which must be continuous. Without temporal continuity, or at least simultaneity, the resultant structure will be deviant. For example, in a party scene, we cut to a close-up of a person (point/glance) then cut to what that person sees (point/object), but the second shot reveals an earlier time before the party has begun or a later time when the party is over — empty room, dirty glasses, etc. The structure is deviant. This is, in fact, the form of the traditional subjective flashback or flashforward: with additional marks signifying character memory this could be a flashback. As it stands,

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however, it is a deviant POV where a character seemingly glances into a corner of the room and sees a past or future space. A startling example of such a POV occurs in a Louis XVI style bedroom in the final scene of 2001: A Space Odyssey. In element four ('from point') the camera moves to that point, or nearly so, established by element one of the POV structure. This implies the spatial continuity of shots A and B. When the camera does not move to the point previously established, a deviant structure is generated, such as the cut to a new scene. In Early Summer (Ozu, 1951) we track down a hallway in front of two women who are creeping forward to catch a glimpse of the man one of them was supposed to marry in an arranged marriage. The tracking movement continues as we cut to the apparent viewpoint of the women. We soon realize, however, that we are in a different hallway, that the hallway is empty, that we are approaching an empty room. Here, Ozu utilizes an important secondary cue of spatial position — the so-called subjective traveling shot; that is, if a person is moving while looking at an object, then the point/object shot must also move. Ozu, however, uses the moving camera in this instance not in an effort to create a 'smooth' film style, but a style that acutally stresses the structures on which it is based. 6 The subjective tracking shot is a common device and may be found in such diverse films as Shoeshine (DeSica, 1946), Cleo From 5 to 7 (Varda, 1962), Napoleon (Gance, 1927), Pinocchio (the camera hops along as Jiminy Cricket, Disney, 1940), Hair (Foreman, 1979), and a great number of times in Cat and Mouse (Lelouch, 1975). Notice that it incorporates additional parameters — such as the angle and speed of the camera movement — which are part of the POV structure and thus may reinforce or undermine the structure as a whole. What, for instance, do we say of a subjective tracking shot which is moving 'too fast' for the character to keep up or where the character suddenly spurts out in front of the camera? 7 More frequently, the secondary cues exist to reinforce spatial orientation. The cues may involve elements of the mise-en-scene. In The General (Keaton, 1926), for instance, we see Buster Keaton under a table lean toward a hole in the tablecloth, and then we see a long shot of the room framed by a ragged oval — which, of course, is the hole in the tablecloth and confirms that we are indeed located at a point previously seen. In Vampyr we watch as a coffin lid is lowered over camera and various faces peer into the coffin through a small window. Other secondary cues relate to sound (the breathing of a character, say) or to the camera. Angle, for example, is often directly tied to the posture of a subject; a low angle for someone seated, a high angle for someone standing, and a very high angle for King Kong (King Kong, Guillermin, 1976) and a killer grizzly (Grizzly, Girdler, 1976). Low camera height may be tied to the POV of a child. Often the lateral tilt of a camera, whether the image is completely inverted or tilted to a lesser degree, is strongly marked as subjective. In Bambi (Walt Disney, 1942) Bambi twists his head to look at some opossums hanging from their tails upside down on a branch. The next

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animated drawing is rotated 180 degrees so that we see the animals from Bambi's inverted viewpoint, hanging 'straight up' and so apparently defying gravity. Upside down views are also the result of unusual character position in Pinocchio (Walt Disney, 1940), Buster Keaton's Seven Chances (1925), Harold Lloyd's A Sailor-Made Man (Newmeyer, 1921), Charley Varrick (Siegel, 1973 — upside down airplane) and The Tin Drum (Schlondorff, 1979 — baby's POV from the birth canal) as well as from looking through a periscope in The Three Musketeers (Lester, 1973) and a camera in The Record of a Tenement Gentleman (Ozu, 1947) 8 — though in the latter case it is not clear if anyone is looking through the camera! We see also a tumbling image as an airplane plunges out of control (King Kong, Cooper and Schoedsack, 1933), a car crashes (On Dangerous Ground, Ray, 1951), a character falls (Days of Youth, Ozu, 1929), leaps from a building (The Bird with the Crystal Plumage, Argento, 1970) 9 or hides in a spinning barrel (Dark Passage, Daves, 1947). Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (Mamoulian, 1932), the comedy short So You Want To Be a Detective (Bare, 1948), and especially Lady in the Lake (Montgomery, 1946) are virtual catalogues of contextual cues. Almost the entire Montgomery film is shot from the private eye of a detective. At various times we see the detective's arms, feet, his shadow, his image in mirrors, the smoke from his cigarette, as well as extreme close-ups of a telephone receiver, lips approaching for a kiss, and a slap in the face which shakes the camera. Characters also speak directly into the camera. It has even been suggested that there should have been an intermittent blacking out of the screen to indicate occasional blinking of the hero's eyes. 10 The possible secondary cues seem endless. The fifth element ('object') reveals the object suggested by element two of the POV structure. There is the possibility that the object, or part of the object, is actually seen in shot A. In that case element five functions to reveal the object either from a new angle or new distance or both. In Psycho we see Marion as well as a police car through the back window of her car; next we see the police car from Marion's point of view in the car mirror. These shots alternate through thirteen shots. A more common situation is an object picked up by a character followed by a closer view of what is seen. Consider, however, the possibility for disruption of the POV structure should the camera, instead of revealing the object, turn in another direction (from the original point or from a new point). We would then see an object which we believe a character to be looking at, but which, in fact, he is not. In An Autumn Afternoon (Ozu, 1962) Hirayama enters his friend Kawai's home and calls out, "Hello. Hello". We see him at the end of a hallway looking toward camera. There is now a cut to an empty hallway and we hear a woman off-camera call, "Come in!". Since we cannot see either Hirayama or the woman, the exact location of the hallway remains a mystery. The absence of Hirayama suggests it might be a POV shot taken from the opposite end of the hallway we saw in the preceding shot. We expect the

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woman to appear in this hallway to greet Hirayama, but from what direction, and will she come toward the camera? She enters at left middle ground but goes to the far end of the hallway. The shot has not been a POV shot, but one taken in a new hallway at right angles to the entrance hall. We then realize that Hirayama has been blocked from our view by a partially closed partition at the far end. A more radical disruption of a POV structure occurs in Equinox Flower (Ozu, 1958). An apparent point/object shot of a hospital window is undermined when one of two women looking up at it says, "Mother's room is around there," which suggests that they may or may not be able to see the window from their vantage point. This ambiguity raises a second question: did we as viewers see the mother's hospital room or was it just around a corner? Note particularly that the two questions are independent of one another; one question may be answered in the affirmative, the other in the negative. The ambiguity achieved here is almost total and is never resolved. In both of the examples from Equinox Flower and An Autumn Afternoon, space has been separated from character and narrative but not to the extent that the films become non-narrative; rather, character and narrative are simply refused as the preeminent ways for the viewer to organize, unify, and understand the production of space. 11 Finally, element six is the coherence inscribed within the structure ('character') which justifies the unity and meaning of all the elements. In chapter 4, we examined the out-of-focus POV shot (the perception structure) which represents the special perceptual circumstances of a subject — drunk, dizzy, drugged, etc. By analogy we may say that the non-distorted, or in-focus, POV shot represents no special perceptual circumstances; that is, normal awareness. A shot in Spellbound (Hitchcock, 1945) perfectly illustrates the close relation between the POV and perception shots as it alternates between the two structures: a letter goes in and out of focus according to the distance it is held from a character (whose eyesight is poor). A POV shot, therefore, requires the presence of a character but more than a 'body' is necessary — the character must be 'aware' and 'looking' in a normal way. What, for instance, is the status of a POV shot when the character is asleep, blindfolded, blind, or dead? Element six answers the question how the elements of the POV structure are to be unified and related to character (according to categories like memory, dream, perception, etc.). 12 Strictly speaking, it is not character (which is a rather complex notion), but a mere presence or awareness that is required.13 A stunning use of the presence and absence of character awareness in a POV structure occurs in Notorious (Hitchcock, 1946). Alicia (Ingrid Bergman) is a spy for the United States and has married Alexander Sebastian (Claude Rains) in order to penetrate an organization he heads. She wants to obtain a key to a locked door and on a pretext sends Sebastian to get the key from his mother who has been suspicious of her. A POV sequence begins with a pan to Alicia's glance (1) followed by a shot revealing her view down a hallway as Sebastian goes to his mother's

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room (2). We return to Alicia still watching (3) and again repeat the hallway shot from the set-up of 2 (4). There is then a repeat of Alicia watching from the set-up of 3 (5) and a repeat of the hallway shot from the same set-ups as 2 and 4 (6). Up to this moment there exists a six-shot POV structure containing three point/glance shots alternating with three point/object shots. We even hear a muffled conversation between Sebastian and his mother — from Alicia's aural POV in the hallway. Finally, in shot 6 we see Sebastian emerge from his mother's room and walk toward the camera. We expect him to stop and speak toward the camera, i.e., to Alicia. But no, he walks by the camera which pans with him (recall, incidentally, that the sequence began with a pan) to a door which he opens. There is now a cut to the interior of a room (7) where we see Sebastian enter in the background and, in the foreground, we are surprised to see, none other than Alicia! Somehow, after her last glance down the hallway (5) and while we were ostensibly seeing her POV (6) for the third time, she slipped away from us, stealthily 'leaving' her viewpoint behind. Her purpose in not waiting for Sebastian was to feign unconcern about the key — to pretend she had other important things to do and that the key was of no importance. Sebastian is indeed misled. In the process, however, the viewer has also become a victim of her scheme for we were deceived into believing she was in the hallway when in fact she had secretly departed, concealing her intentions even from us. Thus the sequence builds a firm POV structure — providing the viewer secure expectations — only to subvert the structure at the end by precipitously withdrawing a fundamental element — the character whose view it is. 14 Our expectations have been overturned, but we gain, through the action of space itself, a deeper understanding of Alicia's character and intentions — the state of her awareness.

2. The Framing of POV The elements of the POV structure require a transition device since the camera must physically shift between element one (point) and element four (from point). This shift is the physical correlate for a shift in narrative perception from, for instance, omniscient and voyeuristic to subjective and personal. The device may take the form of a simple cut to a new camera set-up, an optical printer effect (dissolves, fades, wipes, etc.), or camera movement, in which case we watch while the camera repositions. For example, the repositioning of the camera to assume a woman's POV in Le Plaisir (Ophuls, 1952) also reveals the woman's decision to kill herself by leaping from a window, and a camera movement in Dial Μ for Murder (Hitchcock, 1954) moves around and behind an unsuspecting victim to end as the murderer's POV. In certain situations where the camera begins close to the subject (point) a fast pan, rack focus, zoom, etc., may be sufficient to indicate a

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transition from element one (point) to element four (from point) even though the camera set-up has not, in actuality, changed. In fact, we may say that neither a change in camera set-up nor camera movement is necessary to a change in narration. What is important is not the camera as an absolute reference point but the relation among camera, character, object and a perceiver's hypothesis about this relation. A character, for example, may effect a POV structure by moving toward the camera and assuming its point in space.15 Whatever transition device is used, of course, must imply temporal continuity or simultaneity (element three). Since the initial angle of shot A (point/glance) may be any angle, we choose shot Β (point/object) as a reference, and take the line running from the subject's eyes to the object as a reference line. The POV structure is then classified according to the placement of shot Β with respect to this line. Figure 1 represents alternative sites for the location of shot B. It displays a range of possibilities for the framing (element four) of the POV structure. Set-up 1 is the classic POV shot — from the subject's eyes. Set-up 2 is a 'reverse angle' — from behind the subject, usually over one shoulder. In addition to being 'less subjective' than the POV shot, it is a more stable articulation since we view the direct spatial relation of subject and object. Set-up 2 ' is just to the side of the subject whom we do not see. The camera position is indicated by an indirect cue; for instance, in a conversation the person we see looks to one side of the camera at the subject whom we do not see. When the angular difference between camera and subject is small, set-up 2' is essentially the classic POV; as the difference increases — toward, say, 30 degrees — set-up 2' becomes less subjective and the address to the viewer less personal, more voyeuristic (set-up 2"). Set-up 3 is a deviant POV — discussed earlier in conjunction with examples from An Autumn Afternoon and Equinox Flower — where the camera reveals an object which we believe a subject to be looking at, but which, in fact, he is not. It, as well as set-up 10, is a false eyeline match since we do not see the space implied by the directed glance. Set-up 4 is the typical eyeline match, especially when it marks the return to a familiar (previous) angle. It shows what a character sees and when, but not from where the character looks. Set-up 5 is the mirror image of set-up 4. It is an important camera location because, for example, where the object is a person, by crossing the 180-degree line one can make it appear that two people are looking in opposite directions (as in Sylvia Scarlett, Cukor, 1935). Similarly, one can cross the line to make it appear that two people are not looking at each other when, in fact, they are. Set-up 6 represents the POV of the object and usually occurs when the object is a person. Set-up 7 is a reverse angle of the object. It usually occurs when the object is a person. In Seven Samurai (Kurosawa, 1954) it follows a point/glance shot as an alternative to set-ups 1 or 2. In Enter the Dragon (Clouse, 1973) set-up 7 guarantees a preceding POV and shows the object of a return glance from a second person. The full sequence is as follows: a woman glances, then we cut to a

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man about to attack her who is looking at something. There is then a rack focus back to what he is looking at: a shard of glass which the woman is holding in front of the camera. This proves that the first part of the shot completed a POV of the woman and that the second part completes a return glance from the man. Set-ups 8 and 9 are de-stabilizing shots since in their resemblance to set-up 1 — the classic POV — they imply a false space for the subject. And finally, set-up 10 —

discussed earlier in conjunction with Early Summer

— is also de-stabilizing

since it represents a jump into a new space or new scene. The move away from the strict subjectivity of set-up 1 is a move through a continuous spectrum as illustrated by set-ups 2 ' and 2". Is set-up 2 " still 'mostly subjective' because of its relative proximity to set-up 2 ' or have we reached a break point where 2 " must be related to set-ups 2 or 4 ? Differences in the framing of space — such as changes in angle from set-ups 1 through 4 — allow the viewer to become aware of things the character is not. This additional knowledge, in turn, must be justified by the viewer through postulating a non-character source of narration.

3. A Repertory of Simple Structures There are two major variants of the POV structure and a number of simple structures. The usual form of the POV is shot A (point/glance) followed by shot Β (point/object). This 'prospective' POV is the form we have discussed up to now. A major alternative form of the POV is the 'retrospective' or discovered POV where the order of the shots is reversed: shot A follows shot B. For example, two men are conversing in an office about a woman suspected of murder. There is a pause in the conversation (or is it the end of the scene?). We then see a high-angle, extreme long shot of the woman sitting on a park bench (shot B). Then we cut to one of the men looking out of the window of the office (shot A). A reverse angle confirms he is looking at the woman from the office window. The conversation now resumes with one man aware that the woman is nearby. The difference between the prospective and retrospective POV is on the order of 'the man sees the woman' as opposed to 'the woman is seen by the man'. The discovered POV is less common in Hollywood films than the prospective POV. Herbert Lightman, discussing a particular discovered POV, concedes that "certain elements of surprise and suspense were established. B u t , " he continues, for several seconds the audience was lost, so that a good deal of the dialogue went by unnoticed while the audience struggled to orient itself. Obviously, whatever originality was achieved by the use of the device was outweighed by the confusion that followed and by the loss of dramatic meaning within the sequence. 1 6

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Noel Burch, by contrast, celebrates discovered and quasi-POV shots and other structures precisely for their ability to disorient spectators, renew perception, and contest narrative primacy.17 We shall now examine a number of simple variants of the POV structure including structures which may be termed closed, delayed, open, continuing, cheated, multiple, embedded, or reciprocal structures. The closed POV takes the form: A, B, A. The point/glance shot is repeated. For example, in The General we see two point/object shots where we look out from under a table and later where we watch the General being loaded by Union troops. Each time we return to the original point/glance shot after the point/object shot — Keaton under the table, Keaton and girl in the woods. The closed POV has a high degree of narrative stability because the repetition of shot A (an overdetermination) serves to re-establish time, place, and what we've seen. The repetition also signals the end of a 'subjective' view. The audience is fully prepared for the camera to establish a new relation vis-ä-vis the characters. Further, time is momentarily suspended in the closed POV as in the traditional subjective flashback or during an intertitle; that is, we do not expect events to be happening to the characters while we are looking at an object or until we fully recognize the repetition (closure) of shot A. The closed POV would seem to be a common structure in traditional Hollywood cinema. In Vampyr, however, the closed POV is undermined. We see David Gray outside an Inn looking in a door toward camera; he glances up (shot A). We cut to a shot of the roof (shot B), then pan and tilt down to discover Gray walking along a wall back (?) toward the door and looking in the door again.18 Thus it is not clear what has been happening while we have been looking at the roof. This illustrates a structural principle of the film whereby the camera is unable to 'keep up' with the events (i.e., it is not omniscient) and consequently there is a profound tension between on-screen and off-screen space. The formal variants of the closed POV take the form: A', B, A" where A" is a minor variant of A', such as a new angle or new distance in which the subject is seen, at least momentarily, still frozen in his glance before the narrative action resumes. Either A' or A" or both may be reverse angles. Also common is the structure A, B, and then instead of cutting back to shot A or moving the camera back to A, we see the subject — after a decent interval — step in front of the camera, in effect, creating a reverse angle to remind us of our special viewpoint. There also exist permutations similar to the above modelled on Β, A, B. This discovered and closed POV structure is often used, for example, to emphasize an object or the sudden appearance of an object. A second simple structure is the delayed or suspended POV. It is a special sort of temporally deviant POV where shots A and Β are separated from one another for narrative reasons. It often occurs in detective, suspense, or horror films where a character clearly sees something (point/glance) yet the point/object shot is with-

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held from the audience for a number of shots (while another person is summoned to look at this extraordinary thing) or a number of scenes (when the character is killed by the object). It is also possible that the object is not yet present to be seen so that a character's glance becomes premature. In King Kong (Cooper and Schoedsack, 1933) there is a scene on shipboard, before reaching Skull Island, where the heroine (Fay Wray) rehearses a series of terrified reactions for the benefit of a movie camera. The cameraman shouts directions to her. Following a terrified glance, and in place of an object shot, the scene concludes with a bystander remarking, "What's he think she's really going to see?". The rehearsal is, of course, also for us: it suggests what we are destined to see later in the film — the monster — and what the heroine's (first!) reaction will be. 1 9 The inverse of the delayed POV is the case where a point/object shot is given but the point/glance shot is withheld; that is, a discovered and delayed POV. Although early in Jaws (Spielberg, 1975) we see the gliding, underwater viewpoint of a shark, we do not see the shark itself until much later. In a cemetery scene of The Omen (Donner, 1976), a series of bizarrely framed shots (from behind trees, rocks, etc.) along with unusual music portend the eventual appearance of those who watch from hiding. Throughout Wolfen (Wadleigh, 1981) special camera movements signal the presence of unseen creatures. The first third of Dark Passage (Daves, 1947) contains several extended sequences from the delayed POV of Vincent Parry whose face is kept hidden from the audience until plastic surgery has provided him with a 'new' face (that of Humphrey Bogart). Another example of a discovered and delayed POV occurs in The Quiller Memorandum (M. Anderson, 1966). We see a high-angle shot of the hero climbing into a car, then window curtains fall across the image. We now realize that someone was watching our hero, but who? Note the result if, after the window curtains fall across the image, we see the face of the person who is watching (the person steps in front of the camera). The shot began as an 'objective' view (the hero climbs into a car) but then became fully subjective by running through the elements of POV in reverse order and completing the structure by showing the person whose view we share. (An example may be found during a phone conversation in The L-Shaped Room, Forbes, 1963.) Furthermore, the shot could just as well continue and shift back into an objective view (for example, we hear the person walk away but continue to see the street). All of this could have occurred within a single, fixed camera set-up which illustrates the fact that the 'shot' is not a decisive term in the POV structure or, for that matter, in the system of narration. The elements of representation may be scattered in various ways in any number of shots, a single shot, or fragment of shot. What is crucial is that there exist a representation of the elements — a point, glance, transition, etc. Finally, it should be mentioned that just as the example from King Kong revealed that a glance may be premature so, too, may an object be premature; that is, we see something important which a character has overlooked or not yet dis-

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covered (one thinks of Hitchcock films). The premature glance is symptomatic of horror films while the premature object is symptomatic of suspense films. 20 The delayed POV, of course, is not limited to horror and suspense films. The final eight shots of An Autumn Afternoon (Ozu, 1962) utilize a premature object in a delayed POV structure. After the wedding of his daughter, which he has arranged, Hirayama returns home a bit drunk. His head lolls forward as he sits at a table (shot 1). We then see an empty downstairs corridor leading to the daughter's now vacant room (2) followed by the stairs leading to her room (3). Next, we see three shots of the interior of her darkened room (4, 5, 6). Finally, we return to the downstairs corridor and, surprisingly, see Hirayama standing in profile staring off left (7). While we were upstairs, Hirayama must have revived, gotten up, and walked to the corridor where he now looks at the stairs we saw in shot 3. Note that shot 3 was not subjective since Hirayama had not yet arrived in the corridor; neither is shot 7 subjective since we do not see what Hirayama is looking at, though it must be something like what was seen in shot 3. Shots 3 and 7 placed together would be subjective (a discovered POV) except that they are separated by a series of spaces in the daughter's room. Thus the POV is delayed and curiously attenuated; character never quite connects up to, or masters, the space. Hirayama faces the absence of a daughter while the viewer is left with a slight, but unbridgeable, gap in space. The delayed POV structure may be resolved in a number of ways. Other types of shots may be employed, such as reverse angles (earlier we discussed how these shots were related to the POV). Also larger narrative structures may interact and further delay the POV structure; for example, the POV may be resolved by a later shot but we may not be aware that it was resolved until still later when a narrator explains to us the significance of the shot. 21 Whether or not a flashback structure is employed, the missing shot — when it is recognized — will have retrospective significance because it completes an earlier POV structure; we now know, for example, that the killer is that person we have seen throughout the film. Related to the delayed POV is the open POV. In this structure, although a point/glance is firmly established, we never see the object. Examples include the Indian torture victims of Ulzana's Raid (Aldrich, 1972); cloud formations which are earnestly discussed in Ohayo (Ozu, 1959); a troop of marching soldiers in La Grande Illusion (Renoir, 1937); and, after we see a series of roofs with TV antennas, we do not see the roof which has no TV antenna in Fahrenheit 451 (Truffaut, 1966). The Renoir example shows that the open POV may be used to isolate certain non-visual aspects of the object which may be important in the narrative enterprise. Though we do not see the marching soldiers, we hear their fifes and the thud of their feet. These aspects of the event are emphasized in the dialogue. Another simple variant of the POV structure is the continuing POV where one character looks at several objects or one object a number of times. The objects are typically rendered by cutting from object to object or by camera movement — the

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subjective traveling shot. If the point/object structure continues long enough, it may be necessary to insert a re-establishing shot (i.e., point/glance). The re-establishing shot functions to remind us of our special viewpoint — although as Lady in the Lake demonstrates, one does not easily lose track of the viewpoint — as well as to change the narration momentarily and so introduce another level (hierarchy) of narrative codes.22 In the classic Hollywood conversation of alternating medium close-ups, the re-establishing shot is often a reverse angle. In Psycho simple two-shot POV structures are repeated in chains to create a continuing POV. There are sixteen POV sequences of six or more shots in the film, including at one point forty-two consecutive shots of Marion driving her car and what she sees from behind the wheel (although the sequence does not always maintain temporal continuity). The sustained viewpoint of the continuing POV 23 tends to implicate the viewer in the experience or fate of the character. In a famous analysis of the Bodega Bay scene from The Birds (Hitchcock, 1963) Raymond Bellour demonstrates the importance of the glance.24 If we segment the scene in a new way by linking the glance to other elements in order to form structures, we discover four simple POVs and five continuing POVs. 25 The final POV in the scene is particularly interesting. It shows Melanie (shot 81) looking at her blood (82) which she has wiped from her head after an attack by a seagull (78). This POV occurs after a series of shots which have already been marked as subjective — we share Melanie's view as her boat approaches a pier on which Mitch waits (shots 60-76). But now shots 80 and 83 — which continue to show the pier and Mitch as the boat approaches and which enclose Melanie's final POV (81—82) — cannot be subjective because Melanie's glance toward the pier and Mitch (which was the basis of the previous POV series, 60-76) has been interrupted and diverted by the attack of the seagull (78). Thus we see both what Melanie would have seen if there had been no attack (80, 83), as well as seeing what she does see, namely, evidence of the attack (81, 82). In a fundamental way, the attack by the seagull drives the narrative forward by disrupting the expected view of the pier and Mitch. The passage from equilibrium to disequilibrium (homogeneity to heterogeneity) — so vital to narrative 26 — is here stated in terms of the tension between two POV structures — what should have been seen (based on 60—76) and what was instead seen (81-82) — leaving shots 80 and 83 (Mitch on the pier) intermediate between the two structures as a kind of excess vision, the emblem of a narrative violence which will be reinvested in the narrative to ensure its continuation. This excess vision also represents Melanie's unfulfilled desire for Mitch. Her desire — signified through her look (e.g., shot 76) — is postponed by the seagull attack (instead of Mitch she sees blood, shot 82). Her desire, in fact, will continue to be deferred until the 'end' of the narrative, which is exactly the re-grouping (realignment) of desire as stated through the space of character vision. A similar example of excess vision may be found in Dark Passage. We see Irene Jansen (Lauren Bacall) from the POV of Vincent Parry (Humphrey Bogart) al-

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though he is not looking at her. 27 He is distracted by, and reading aloud, a newspaper which contains a letter written by Irene about Vincent. Thus we see what Vincent would have seen had he looked, and, in a more fundamental way, we see what he will come to see and to desire as the narrative progresses. The deviant POV here reveals two rather complicated times — a conditional perfect28 and a future time (cf. the earlier discussion of a premature glance and premature object). This illustrates the fact that with respect to the viewer the film image cannot simply be considered as always in the present tense. 29 A wide range of temporal references is possible through the movement of narration. The continuing POVs of The Birds illustrate another important trait of POV structures. A common variant allows the framing of the object (element four — 'from point') to be somewhat closer to the object than the character's actual position — though the angle typically is still from that position. This compromise gives the audience a better view of the object. 30 The 'cheated' or 'forged' POV is acceptable, of course, depending on the degree to which the camera is cheated toward the object, and it becomes more acceptable if these shots are, as in The Birds, firmly embedded within an extensive, continuing POV which uses other, indisputably subjective shots from the correct distance. That is, if other cues are sufficiently strong — such as camera angle and movement, repeated character glances, narrative context, etc. — then a certain play is permitted in camera distance and in the composition of the point/object shot. Various secondary cues, described earlier, may also be ignored or cheated. In King Kong (Cooper and Schoedsack, 1933) a POV shot through the underbrush showing natives dancing is followed by a series of much closer shots of the natives and from a variety of angles before we return to the original glance from the bushes. Here, the play within the POV structure may be altogether too free. This does not, however, negate the subjective overtones of the sequence (the natives being watched) so much as argue for a very weak POV structure or, more likely, a reflective subjectivity (see chapters 4 and 6). Another simple structure is the multiple or 'interlocking' POV. 31 It results when several characters see the same object, and takes the form, or some fragment of the form: A, (B), C, (B), D, Ε, (B) where Β is the object and the other shots are of persons. Note that when a POV is offered for two people who appear together in a single shot, the structure is 'less subjective' than if offered as the view of only one person. In Spellbound (Hitchcock, 1945) a multiple POV is compressed into an A, (B), C pattern. Characters A and C are in different rooms but the object shot, Β (of an arriving car), is taken from an ambiguous angle so that it serves both characters. Another way to think of the sequence is as a deviant, closed POV where the same view is enclosed by two characters — the heroine (Ingrid Bergman) and a would-be suitor (John Emery). Together they watch the arrival of the man (Gregory Peck) who eventually is to win the love of the heroine. The complete (i.e., the

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underlying) form of this sequence would be A, (B), A, C, (B'), C where B' is a different angle than Β corresponding to the different spatial location of C. An embedded POV results when a POV structure of one character is nested or contained within a larger POV structure of another character. For example, in Psycho we see Marion inside her car glance (shot A) at a policeman outside the car who then glances (shot B) at her car licence plate (shot C). Marion is still watching the policeman (repetition of shot A) as he looks up (repetition of shot B). One characteristic of this structure is that while we have seen something from Marion's viewpoint, we have also seen something that she cannot see: the licence plate. Note, too, that the first appearance of shot Β functions both as the point/object shot of A and the point/glance shot for C. The elements of the POV structure need not be distributed in a fixed pattern of two elements per shot. When the object of a glance is also a person, then it is possible to alternate POV structures — as in a conversation — centered about two or more points. This is the reciprocal POV. A character need not stare directly into the camera (for that involves another convention) but the eyes must be very near the line of the camera. Strictly speaking the reciprocal POV takes the form: (A, B), (closer B, A), (closer A, B). This represents three POV structures, each fully defined, from A to Β, Β to A, A to B. An example occurs at the end of La Femme Infidele (Chabrol, 1968). Of special interest is the final shot of that film which begins as a point/object shot of the wife from the husband's viewpoint. When the camera tracks back it may still be a point/object shot (the husband is walking away with the police while looking over his shoulder); but when the camera begins to zoom as well as track in a new direction, the nature of the shot changes. Indeed we watch while the shot slowly changes in narration. In the traditional Hollywood film the complete model of the reciprocal POV is often abridged so that the point/object shot functions also as the point/glance shot for the next series. Hence the above, complete model would be rendered in only four shots instead of six: (Α, [Β), (A], B). In Psycho such a series is created by alternating close-ups of Marion and a police officer through nineteen shots. The use of a mirror or other reflective surface in the mise-en-scene in conjunction with a POV structure may result in rather complex permutations. The mirror image, for example, alters direction (by 180 degrees) as well as space — the image appears to be in front of the camera when, in fact, it is behind the camera. In addition, the mirror represents two objects: itself and its reflected image. Further, when the reflection is that of the subject (not to mention another mirror), a form of reciprocal POV is generated (a fully reflexive POV). Thus a mirror may, depending on the circumstances, undermine one or more of five elements of the POV structure — all except the transition element. A sequence in Vertigo (Hitchcock, 1958) illustrates the complexity which may result when a mirror is utilized with a POV structure. 'Scottie' (James Stewart) is secretly following Madeleine (Kim Novak), who has disappeared into a room. He

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partially opens a door (point/glance) (shot 1) and we see her in a floral shop from his point in space (point/object) (shot 2). Madeleine casually moves about the shop and then begins walking toward the camera. Has she suddenly discovered Scottie spying on her? Will she discover him? Next there is a match on action (shot 3) as Madeleine turns away from the camera but the shot disorients us in the manner of a jump cut because we still see her from virtually the same frontal angle and her turning motion is in the 'wrong' direction. Gradually it becomes apparent that we are looking into a mirror which is mounted inside the room near the opening of the door through which we still see Scottie peering. Madeleine has not seen Scottie, but has walked closer to the door possibly in order to admire herself in the mirror. Although shot 3 completes a closed POV by returning to Scottie's initial glance, there is a sense in which the mirror image merely continues the glance of Scottie (cf. the scale of Madeleine in shot 3 with shot 2). Thus we now see in a single shot both Scottie and the object of his glance (although the image is reversed in the mirror); it is as if the elements of the POV structure were compacted into a single composition. Nonetheless, it cannot be a literal POV shot because the disorienting reversal of the image (in the mirror) demonstrates that the camera placement of shot 3 does not in fact coincide with Scottie's point in space. Thus shot 3 becomes a strange sort of eyeline match accomplished within a single composition, or better, an unusual form of the perception shot where the near repetition and disorienting reversal of the image become the mark of Scottie's heightened attention and growing obsession with Madeleine. Even without Scottie's glance, however, the mirror image would be subjective if Madeleine has walked closer to admire herself because it would represent a space generated by the look of Madeleine. (The next chapter will explore this type of subjectivity.) By exhibiting herself in the mirror, Madeleine makes herself into an

Figure 1 (overhead view): Alternate Sites for the Location of Shot Β (Point/Object) Following Shot A (Point/Glance).

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object for us and indeed cooperates in becoming the very kind of object required by Scottie's voyeuristic gaze. Unknown to Scottie and to the viewer, Madeleine is in fact aware that he is watching and, moreover, she is secretly luring him into a trap. In short, the mirror functions to hold one or both subjectivities, but in an uncertain way and at one remove from the characters. The effect is disquieting.

NOTES 1. This figure results from a shot-by-shot tabulation of all the transitions (cuts, dissolves, fades, wipes, etc.) of Ever In My Heart (Mayo, 1933) (37 percent), Four Daughters (Curtiz, 1938) (38.5 percent), and His Girl Friday (Hawks, 1939) (40.6 percent which includes 6.6 percent cross-cutting via the telephone). A cut was not deemed a proximate articulation if the same character, though against different backgrounds, was common to both shots. 2. Noel Burch, Theory of Film Practice trans, by Helen Lane (N.Y.: Praeger, 1973), ch. 1 "Spatial and Temporal Articulations," p. 9. 3. See e.g., Karel Reisz and Gavin Millar, The Technique of Film Editing (N.Y.: Hastings House, 2nd ed., 1968), sec. 3 "Principles of Editing", pp. 2 1 1 - 2 7 2 . 4. Stephen Heath, "Jaws, Ideology and Film Theory" in The Times Higher Education Supplement 231 (March 26, 1976), p. 11; reprinted in the following: Framework 2 (4) (Autumn 1976), p. 27; Film Reader 2 (Jan. 1977), p. 167; Cine-Tracts 1 (1) (Spring 1977). 5. Phil Hardy, Samuel Fuller (N.Y.: Praeger, 1970), pp. 1 0 0 - 1 0 1 . 6. Donald Richie's description of the shot is inaccurate in a number of respects. Cf. also his judgment of the shot ("simple sloppiness") with the aesthetic of Noel Burch, op. cit., pp. 6 , 1 6 ("It is only through systematic and thorough exploration of the structural possibilities inherent in the cinematic parameters . . . that film will be liberated from the old narrative forms and develop new 'open' forms ..."). Richie, Ozu (Los Angeles: Univ. of California, 1974), p. 112. 7. Both of these possibilities are exploited in Oshima's The Story of a Man Who Left His Will on Film; see ch. 7, sec. 4 and 3. 8. Kristin Thompson and David Bordwell, "Space and Narrative in the Films of Ozu", Screen 17 (2) (Summer 1976), pp. 6 9 - 7 0 . 9. In ch. 7, sec. 4 and 5, we will discuss an altogether different use of an inverted viewpoint as well as the POV of a character who leaps from a building in Oshima's The Story of a Man Who Left His Will on Film. 10. Lewis Herman, A Practical Manual of Screen Playwriting (N.Y.: New American Library, 1952), p. 250. Jean Epstein in 1921 suggested the possibility of interrupting subjective images with flashes of black to represent the blinking of eyelids; see Jean Mitry, Esthetique et Psychologie du Cinema, v. II (Paris: Editions Universitäres, 1965), p. 62. 11. Edward Branigan, "The Space of Equinox Flower," Screen 17 (2) (Summer 1976), esp. sec. 1. 12. See David Bordwell and Kristin Thompson's analysis of the subjective devices employed in the Albert Hall scene in The Man Who Knew Too Much (Hitchcock, 1934); Film Art: An Introduction (Reading, Mass.: Addison-Wesley, 1979), pp. 2 4 2 - 2 4 3 ; see also the general discussion of element six (mind) in ch. 3, sec. 4.

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13. There is a subtle but important distinction here between a character, and the presence or awareness of a character. We may want to say that "character" is a more complex effect of the text (cf. ch. 4, n. 17) and that much less is needed to found a POV shot; for instance, the presence of an animal can give rise to a POV shot. Further, the POV shot of an invisible spirit (Blood and Roses, Vadim, 1960) demonstrates that we need not see the character at all though we must at least understand, or accept ( = reading hypothesis), that there is some presence or awareness at work. The example of the invisible spirit suggests something of the problem of "effaced" narrators (ch. 8, sec. 1) where objects are presented without explicitly revealing the method of the seeing of those objects. (Cf. a discovered, open POV where objects are shown but never the point/glance.) Presence or awareness in its most general form is the element of representation, mind. This element is responsible for the feeling that artworks ultimately present us with a "disengaged memory of a volition" (see ch. 3, sec. 5 discussion of "mind"). 14. The reverse structure is also possible: An objective view may suddenly become subjective by a character moving in to take it over, with or without the immediate knowledge of the viewer. Less transgressive, but still jolting, is the case where the shot appears objective but is, actually, already the view of a character. Examples of both kinds from Fellini's 8 1/2 are discussed in ch. 7; the latter in sec. 1 and the former in sec. 5. The problems encountered in analyzing a sequence when one shot appears subjective but is, actually, already objective are discussed in ch. 3, sec. 3. 15. An example from Fellini's 8 1/2 is discussed in ch. 7, sec. 5. 16. Herbert Lightman, "The Subjective Camera", American Cinematograph er 27 (2) (Feb. 1946), p. 66, reprinted in Lewis Jacobs, ed., The Movies as Medium (N.Y.: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1970), p. 63. 17. Burch, pp. 15, 7 8 - 8 0 . 18. For an analysis of this sequence including stills see Mark Nash, "Vampyr and the Fantastic", Screen 17 (3) (Autumn 1976), pp. 41, 4 5 - 4 6 . 19. Thierry Kuntzel, lecture on King Kong (Univ. of Wisconsin, Madison, Spring, 1976). 20. Cf. the distinction drawn by Hitchcock between surprise and suspense, in Francois Truffaut, Hitchcock (N.Y.: Simon and Schuster, 1967), pp. 5 0 - 5 2 , 185. This book contains many suggestive comments by Hitchcock about character subjectivity. 21. The delayed POV illustrates the fact that in terms of the five narrative codes of Roland Barthes, the POV structure, in general, contains a built-in hermeneutic code. Depending on the precise form, the POV structure may ask the following: What object is someone looking at? Who is looking at the object? What is the spatial or other relation of person and object? What will be the reaction of the person to the object? etc. For a definition of the hermeneutic see ch. 2. 22. The "failure" of Lady in the Lake (Montgomery, 1946) has been attributed to the fact that in order to internalize a character's look, one has to know the character. Christian Metz, "Current Problems of Film Theory: C. Metz on J. Mitry's L'Estetique et Psychologie du Cinema, v. II", Screen 14 (1/2) (Spring 1973), p. 47. One cannot know a character from a purely personal narrational stance (I, or I see) because psychology is an external construct which depends upon the perspective of an ^personal narrational voice. Cf. Roland Barthes, "An Introduction to the Structural Analysis of Narrative," New Literary History 6 (2) (Winter 1975), p. 263, and in the same issue, J. M. Lotman, "Point of View in a Text," pp. 3 5 1 - 3 5 2 . Similarly, one does not understand a film as the personal view of the filmmaker (as a real-life person) because there is no context within which to locate the filmmaker. Even if the auteur appears in the film, we cannot recognize the "auteur" who placed him or her within the narration. There is always some filmic voice beyond which it is impossible to go and thus a film will always have an apersonal component. See ch. 3, sec. 2; and ch. 8, sec. 1.

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23. There may be limits to the continuing POV. See the discussion of Lady in the Lake (Montgomery, 1946) by Metz, pp. 4 7 - 4 8 . 24. Raymond Bellour, "Les Oiseaux: Analyse d'une Sequence", Cahiers du Cinema 216 (October, 1969), pp. 24—38 (includes stills); a translation is available through the British Film Institute Educational Advisory Service (London). 25. Roughly, in terms of shots and utilizing Bellour's shot breakdown, the POV sequences are as follows: the fisherman's POV (shots 1 1 - 1 2 ) , Mitch's POV (closed, 5 7 - 5 9 ) , Melanie's POV (closed, 3 4 - 3 6 ; 8 1 - 8 2 ) , and Melanie's continuing POV ( 1 5 - 2 4 ; closed, 2 5 - 3 1 ; closed, 37—43; 43—56; closed, 60—76). As one can readily see, Melanie's vision dominates the scene and only she has continuing POVs. 26. See, e.g., Stephen Heath, "Film and System: Terms of Analysis", Pt. I in Screen 16 (1) (Spring 1975), pp. 4 8 - 5 0 ; Tzvetan Todorov, "The Grammar of Narrative", The Poetics of Prose trans, by Richard Howard (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell Univ., 1977), pp. I l l , 118; "Narrative Transformations", Ibid., pp. 2 3 2 - 2 3 3 ; "The Principles of Narrative," Diacritics (Fall 1971), pp. 3 7 - 4 4 . 27. Actually this shot would be better described as a "cheated" POV, or perhaps as a weak reflective subjectivity or even as a non-subjective shot, because our view of Irene in medium close-up is too close to be from Vincent's position in the room. Later in the scene we see Irene in medium long shot from Vincent's POV. Since the early part of Dark Passage is heavily subjective, a viewer will be expecting POV sequences and be more liberal in judging what counts as a POV sequence. 28. Cf. ch. 4, sec. 4, esp. the examples from By the Law and Dark Passage. See also appendix, n. 136 on counterfactuals. 29. See the discussion of the myth of the present tense image in appendix, text accompanying n. 125. The deviant POV here is better understood as a new level of narration. In addition to the problem of time noted in the text, there has been a failure of vision (glance) and an absence of character awareness (cf. the earlier analysis of the hallway scene in Notorious). 30. When a character is reading a paper, a cheated POV, with the camera closer to the paper, is often used to make it easier for us to read it. An example of the general strategy to provide the audience with a better view, can be seen in the seating arrangement around a table where the characters are bunched together and a large space is deliberately left open for the camera to shoot through. This adjustment of the mise-en-scene prevents a character from blocking our view and allows us to see all of the faces. The cheated POV is related to a dynamic perception shot (see ch. 4, sec. 3). 31. David Bordwell has suggested the term "interlocking" POV and analyzes its use in Dreyer's La Passion de Jeanne d'Arc (1927); The Films of Carl-Theodor Dreyer (Los Angeles: Univ. of Calif., 1981), pp. 8 1 - 8 4 .

CHAPTER 6

Character Reflection and Projection

Cornel Wilde declares that in his film Beach Red (1967) he employed both flashbacks and 'flashes inward'. These latter related to the immediate present and showed the audience what a particular character was feeling at that instant. For example, the character "Mouse," huddled in terror behind a piece of wreckage on the beach, under murderous machinegun and mortar fire, identified with the cockroach on the troop-ship deck, which one of the other marines had stomped on. Accordingly, I intercut that shot with close-ups of "Mouse." 1 The general technique Wilde describes is actually quite common in classical films. Details of the scene or action are used to reveal character traits, to externalize aspects of character. In Barthes' terms, the connotations of various details are systematically marshaled in support of character: image space becomes charged with character semes.2 Formally, of course, the connotations may arise from the performances of actors, from the mise-en-scene, lighting, the soundtrack, aspects of editing and camerawork, etc. In general, the problem is that of 'expressive' compositions and camera movements, which Jean Mitry refers to as "subjectivising the objective".3 Ernest Lindgren locates the expressive in an imaginary observer standing in for, or in between, viewer and author: Where camera movement is not used simply to emphasize relationships in space, it very often carries with it a certain subjective impression. The movement of the camera draws attention to the imaginary observer whose movement it reproduces. The content of the shot is seen, not directly, but through the eyes, as it were, of someone who is reacting to that content in a certain way.4 The concept of an imaginary observer who reacts emotionally to a scene, and thus colors our view, raises the problem of expression in art and how it is to be explained. The interrelations of author, character, textual device (here, camera movement), and spectator are explained by orthodox theories by reference to some network of emotional responses (often a communication) or through a sharing of 'consciousness'. We have already discussed the failings of this approach (and of the sort of camera it entails) and so will note only that what we seek are

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not human psychological universale but the specification of a semantic system of the text which may refer to, but is not identical with, psychological conditions. The text is code, not psychology made manifest. Even so, we cannot avoid the problem of how this reference works and in what sorts of structures. A general solution to the problem of expression is beyond the scope of the present inquiry. 5 I will instead concentrate on a particular aspect of the problem — that which involves character narration. I will not consider a general expressiveness in film (e.g., German Expressionist decor, most notably in The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, Wiene, 1920), nor certain moments which some would call expressions of — comments by — the author, but rather that production of expressive detail given by the character himself in, so to speak, first person. When expressive details, dispersed in image space, are attributed to character in the sense of Ί feel (see, hear, know ...) about myself that . . . ' , then the narration is expressive and subjective. Two types of subjectivity are especially relevant — reflection and projection. Reflection and projection occur in (1) present time and depend on a (2) metaphorical framing which links the character to a production of space, as opposed to a framing which is literally from the character's point in space, such as the point-of-view shot. In addition, (3) reflection reveals only the presence or normal awareness of the character — examples are mirror shots and eyeline matches — whereas projection refers to a specific mental state of the character. (See figures 1 and 2 , chapter 4.). 6 More broadly, in reflection and projection, we witness a series of objects, external and present to the character, in continuous (or simultaneous) present time; at least the principal devices of the sequence must be diegetically motivated. The objects are linked to character by a narrative inference and their presentation is (supposedly) modulated by a particular kind of character attention — normal awareness, fear, guilt, desire, etc. The creation of a temporal present and the marking or not of a character's mental state should be familiar from previous chapters. Less familiar will be the notion of metaphorical camera framing. Before investigating specific examples, we must carefully analyze this sort of framing.

1. Metaphorical Framing The logic underlying the POV shot is that the camera literally takes the place of the character so that the framing of space is restricted to what the character sees. This logic can be stretched by allowing the camera to zoom-in or dolly-in on an object of attention even though the character does not move. The spatial connection to the character may be further attenuated by several quick cuts in to an ob-

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ject. 7 Nevertheless, these sequences often retain subjective overtones as the representation of a heightened attention of the character. We are led to the conclusion that the literal place of the camera as a profilmic object does not decide the hypotheses we make in reading. Editing, for example, need not disrupt a POV or perception structure. If, then, we are going to allow a certain play in camera framing, how much play? One way to measure deviation from the strict framing of the POV shot is to take account of the additional inferences which must be made by the viewer. In the above example concerning a POV shot followed by several cut-ins, we might assume that the changes in scale are meant to reveal details of the object without necessarily assuming that the character or camera has moved closer to the object to provide those details. Additionally, we might assume that narrative time is relatively instantaneous as opposed to a cumulative total of the times of each of the cut-ins; that is, at issue is the reaction time of character, not the objective duration of an event seen in successive, closer views. Certain cues in the sequence might reinforce these assumptions. For instance, if the cuts are brief and accompanied by special music ('suspending' time), if we, too, are surprised by the object (i.e., our response parallels that of the character), and if the angle of vision on the object remains constant (i.e., does not break with the character's glance), then the sequence may well remain within a circle of readings we designate as subjective. The net result of balancing the evidence and the inferences is that the perceiver believes that his or her relationship to the camera, character, and object is unchanged, i.e., remains subjective. The disruption of space by the quick cuts in to the object is ignored in favor of reunifying the space around character. Inferences, of course, may be relatively weak or strong and a greater or lesser number may be required to hold a particular reading. Thus a point may be reached where a new, more economical hypothesis replaces a previous set of inferences about the production of filmic space. A set of inferences, therefore, may substitute for a literal camera framing and free us from the optical vantage point of character while maintaining the subjectivity of space. We see that a space is subjective but do not (directly) see its subjectiveness. 8 The verb 'see' in this formulation, however, is being employed in two different senses — one of which is metaphorical. It would be more accurate to say that we understand (know, expect, see) that a space is subjective though we do not, literally, see its subjectiveness (from the place of the character). This opens a second way of explaining the framing of reflection and projection sequences — through the concept of metaphor. Stephen Heath argues that "the less narratively 'metonymical' and the more 'metaphorical' is what is looked a t . . . , the nearer such a shot will come to subjectivising the image." His example is from the beginning of High Sierra (Walsh, 1941) where Roy Earle, just released from prison, is walking through a park. Shots of him looking up are followed by shots of tree tops against the sky, result-

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ing in "a certain effect of subjectivisation in so far as the tree tops against the sky are outside the immediate scope of the movement of the narrative and, objectively useless ..., belong only for Roy's character". 9 Although Heath is speaking of POV shots, we may generalize and say that even where the framing is not strictly from the character's point in space, there can be a metaphorical transfer from what is looked at to the character who looks (to the looking). Furthermore, the transfer is facilitated in so far as the shot breaks away from the metonymic progression of narrative events — the main causal line — for such a break requires justification and, when justified by character perception, it becomes subjective. In the example from Beach Red, the intercutting of a character with a squashed cockroach effects a comparison through the juxtapositon of causually unrelated (though diegetic) events. What makes it subjective 10 is the fact that the juxtaposition is motivated by a character who sees (thinks, feels, understands, discovers ...) that he is, in some sense, like a squashed cockroach. What is crucial, here, is the close-up of the face and the eyes which operates a second metaphoric transfer. The progression is: 'He sees a beach' to 'He "sees" a cockroach' to Ί "see" a cockroach'. The first metaphor is narrative — the comparison of a new object (cockroach) to character — and the second is narrational — a transfer of the activity of seeing to the character. The narrative metaphor, of course, may refer to (comment on) the character without being subjective. For example, one might retain the insert of the cockroach but replace the close-up of the character with any of the following: a long shot from behind the character; an overhead view of all the marines on the beach; a map of the battlefield on which a cockroach is smashed; an anonymous voice-over which reports " H e was smashed like a cockroach", or, either diegetic or nondiegetic music to the tune of "La Cucaracha". In these examples, the comparison is effected by a 'third person' agency, not by character, and hence these examples involve wow-subjective narration. All metaphors, however, involve the transfer of semantic features and presuppositions (in this case, about seeing, about cockroaches, about murderous machinegun fire, etc.) among textual elements in much the same way that linguistic predicates impose semantic features on surrounding nouns. A theory of metaphor is a theory of how, and under what conditions, transference occurs. 11 The nature of the transference may be narrative and/or narrational. If we allow metaphorical transfers on the plane of narration, the result may be a subjective interpretation even though certain shots are from non-character, 'neutral' angles. In literature, a parallel case might be the telling of a story as if by a character, but told in the third person; 1 2 for example, the third person 'reflectors' in the fiction of Henry James. This formulation suggests yet another approach to the problem of explaining reflection and projection sequences — through analogy with the discursive style known as the 'free indirect'. The indirect is a way of reporting the speech or thought of a character without direct quotation. It is intimately connected to character without stating exactly the character's

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speech or thought. The indirect may be quite ambiguous, hovering among several possibilities. For example, the apparently impersonal statement, 'He was tired', may involve one or more of the following: (1) I am tired. (2) He said [or thought], "I am tired." (3) I [the narrator] know that he was tired [whether or not, perhaps, he was conscious of saying that to himself]. (4) Oh, he was tired. (5) It occurred to him that he was tired. (6) He said [or thought] that he was tired. (7) He was tired. (8) Oh, was he tired, he said [or thought]. (9) Oh, was he tired. (10) Oh, he was tired, [cf. 4] The first two sentences above are direct reports, the next two involve a narrator, and the last six are forms of the indirect.13 What is important to note is that 'He was tired' may refer (indirectly) to a character's words, thoughts, or be the result of a greater or lesser mediation by a narrator. The indirect style, with its absent or unobtrusive narrator, can be very close to the direct subjectivity of Ί am tired' (in a sense, even more direct). Similarly, reflection or projection segments are pictorially ambiguous: we may be seeing what a character actually sees, could see, thinks about, knows; or a narrator's knowledge about what a character actually sees, could see, etc. Here, then, we are not far from the direct subjectivity of a POV or perception shot which quotes character space. The intermediate status of reflection and projection — located between the strict subjectivity of a POV shot and a neutral reference narration — means that reflection and projection are often a matter of subtle discrimination and judgment. They may seem to be everywhere or nowhere in a film. Just as it is difficult to predict the metaphorical extension of a word so it is difficult to prescribe rules for the appearance of these transitional subjectivities. In all cases, however, a logical network of equivalences is created which acts to substitute, symbolically, the character for the origin of the framing. One may analyze the process of substitution in a variety of ways: as a series of connotations (realistic detail with subjective overtones); as a set of inferences made by the viewer (which are not confined to camera and camera position); as a metaphorical transfer; as an indirect, rhetorical style; and in other ways. 14 Built into these theories is a notion that reflection and projection are second level subjectivities: their elements function first as part of a present, diegetic, and impersonal space and, secondly, as part of character (consider the key concepts of connotation, inference, metaphor, and indirect which depend on definitions of denotation, premise or fact, literal, and direct). For this reason one might guess that such sequences are harder to detect and developed histori-

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cally later in films than, say, POV and perception shots which use literal framing or flashbacks and dream sequences which are clearly marked by a temporal shift. 15

2. Character Reflection When a character projects his or her body into space, and only the body, not a mental state, we will speak of character reflection. An obvious source for reflections is a mirrored surface placed in the mise-en-scene. Not all reflections, of course, are subjective but some are. Geoffrey Nowell-Smith, discussing the difference between Lacan's mirror stage in the development of the child and the process of viewing experienced by the cinema spectator, writes that: What is significant is the fact of the contradiction: the [film] screen is like a mirror, and yet one in which you don't see yourself. Hence the poignancy of the moment in All That Heaven Allows [Sirk, 1955] where Jane Wyman looks into the blank TV screen and sees her own face reflected back at her. But hence too the importance of mirror shots generally — the mirroring within the mirror by which identity (of characters and/or spectator) is variously doubled, split and recomposed. 16 There can be no question here of compiling an inventory of mirror shots or even of their major functions in film. The list would be enormous. It is important to remember that mirror shots need not be subjective. For example, a mirror may be placed so as to reveal off-screen space and action (especially entrances and exits). It may show us the 'hidden' side of an on-screen object or repeat exactly what we already see (e.g., a poster in Early Summer, Ozu, 1951) or be vacant (e.g., at the end of An Autumn Afternoon, Ozu, 1962). The mirror device becomes subjective when a character looks into it and sees himself. The reason is that the mirror image allows us to imagine ourselves at the other end of the sight line — to trace back through the mirror to the character who sees, reflects himself in space. We construct a sight line which coincides with the sight line of character. Indeed we cannot escape this sight line, for what is in the mirror testifies to it. Metaphorically, we are able to locate ourselves with the character as the origin of the mirrored image. Notice that the result is not yet an imaginary 'identification' with the character which is a much more complex process and which, besides, can occur at any time, with or without a mirror. 17 The problem we face is more limited: how can the space we see within the mirror be justified with respect to the production of other spaces we see? is it different? In literature, a simple 'mirror view' would be the sentence, 'What he sees in the mirror is a man of medium height' 18 which is closely related in terms of narration

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to Ί see in the mirror a man of medium height'. The word 'mirror' in these sentences is crucial to our reading. At a narrative level, it merely refers to an object, but at the level of narration it suggests the transformational equivalence of 'What he sees' and Ί see'; hence, it is an armature for converting the sentence from third into first person. In film, the character who stares into a mirror is representing himself to himself whether the purpose is to paint a self-portrait (i.e., to form another explicit representation as in La Chienne, The Bitch, Renoir, 1931), to give way to a fatal (feminine) narcissism (Rio Bravo, Hawks, 1959; 1 9 The Man from Laramie, Mann, 1955) or, more generally, to contemplate the enigma of identity — a moment of reflection and revelation (e.g., Guido in Fellini's 8 1/2,1963). The mirror image is a way of representing the character as divided (conscious/unconscious); it allows one aspect or quality of the character to be (spatially) separated out. In Taxi Driver (Scorsese, 1976) Robert DeNiro confronts his mirror image with the measured rage of a paranoid, by endlessly repeating the challenge, "You talkin' to me}". In The Boogey Man (Lommel, 1980) the mirror image reaches its logical extreme: although a man is dead, his reflection lingers in a mirror (and pieces of the mirror after it is broken) and, moreover, the reflection acquires terrible powers. There is an extraordinary instance in Hitchcock's Strangers on a Train (1951) where the reflection and revelation is of the character's own death. The sequence provides an insight into the construction of mirror imagery. As Bruno begins to strangle Guy's estranged wife, Miriam, her glasses fall (shot 1) (still 2). We see the glasses on the ground (shot 2) (still 3). We then cut to an extreme close-up of one lens of her glasses which reflects the struggle between them in the scale of a medium long shot (shot 3) (still 4). Finally she collapses on the ground. Bruno bends near the lens (producing a medium close-up) then slowly stands up (still 5). We cut to a shot of the glasses lying near Miriam's head (shot 4) (still 6). This sequence is a reflective subjectivity which involves several metaphorical transfers. Miriam's glasses are substituted for her vision and, knocked to the ground, become a displaced vision. If the camera had then located behind the glasses, shooting through a lens, the result would have been a displaced (deviant) POV shot (from where her head should have been). Instead the camera shows us the reflection off the face of a lens so that it is as if (i.e., another metaphorical transfer) we are looking into her eyes (glasses = eyes) and seeing what she is seeing. (Simultaneously she is looking into our eyes as we are substituted for Bruno.) This reflection or second sight of Miriam's — the looking back from the glasses — reveals her own death (to us and to herself). Her reflected body slips off frame (both off the lens and off-screen) and we are left with a weirdly disembodied gaze which (metaphorically) continues to stare at Bruno even after death. The spectator continues to watch the reflection in the glasses but the condition for that watching — the character — is now absent. We have witnessed a progressive dissociation of Miriam and have been placed in the position of Bruno. The effect, perhaps, is near

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that achieved in Psycho (Hitchcock, 1960) when Janet Leigh, the heroine, is murdered and the viewer is left with no primary identification other than the murderer and no anchor with which to orient space. The dissociation at work in these films and the way we are forced to watch is a clue to the nature of the murderers and to the profound ambivalence felt by the viewer of 'suspense' films. In Freudian terminology, Miriam's glasses are a condensation; that is, what she sees and the seeing of it (glasses = eyes) are fused into a composite object (the reflection 'in' the glasses). Note that in order for this condensation to be itself represented in the film it is necessary that new symbols be created (glasses, reflection). Once created, these new symbols may then be separately manipulated, like a dream, to create a new level of narration, a meta-commentary, given from an alienated position: the 'Miriam' on the ground views the 'Miriam' struggling with Bruno. In a reflective subjectivity that employs a mirror there is literally a frame within a frame which signals a new and distinct level of narration. The inner frame displays a series of spaces generated by, subordinate to, a character. It is as if a parenthesis were suddenly opened within the text, expanding with perceptual data from the character. When a character looks into a mirror, he sees himself as both subject and object. What happens if a character does not see himself, but simply another object; that is, the mirror acts only to deflect or relay his vision toward another object in the tnise-en-scene? Recall that our literary example — 'What he sees in the mirror is a man of medium height' — suggests that he sees himself ('he . . . is a man of medium height') but it may also be that he sees someone else ('he sees . . . a man'). In the latter case we do not know the height of the person who does the seeing; we know only that he sees someone else of medium height. This is enough to found a subjectivity, though it might be a weaker form of reflective subjectivity. It would be perverse to distinguish between the two cases on the basis that in the first the object he sees is himself (reflexive) whereas in the second he simply sees some other object, since in both cases there exists an object of vision: we, as spectators, see what the character sees, when he sees it, though not from his point in space (which would be a POV shot). In fact there is a set of transformations involving mirror imagery. The simplest is a character who looks into a mirror and sees himself. By, as it were, tilting the mirror, the character can see other objects, even those off-screen. Then the character may move off-screen, leaving only the mirror visible (that is, the character continues to look at the mirror but walks out of our view or else his glance is connected by the camera which moves, or cuts, to the mirror). The result is that we now see only the mirror, its frame, and a reflected off-screen object. There is, however, no specific need for the frame of the mirror. The mirror may, in other words, expand to fill the entire screen (for example, by a dolly-in or cut-in to the mirror) and may, in fact, be deleted so that we are carried directly to the object of character attention (by a new camera movement, or new set-up, i.e., a new angle

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through editing). Thus we have arrived at the eyeline match: character glance, then cut (or pan) to what he sees (or vice versa: object, then glance). Although the mirror device has been deleted in the course of these transformations, the narrative function remains unchanged. As in the mirrored form of reflective subjectivity, what is revealed by an eyeline match is a bare physicality — the surface of an object. There is no reference to the character's state of mind — as in a perception or projection sequence — but only to his attention. The structure as a whole depends only on the normal presence or awareness of a character whose attention — as in the POV shot — directs that of the viewer. We cannot — at this point in time — look elsewhere. We have not exhausted the set of transformations involving mirrors. The revealed object need nut be off-screen but may be shifted back on-screen; that is, the character glances and we dolly (or cut) closer to an object we already see. (This type of eyeline match, accomplished within a single take, may be termed a 'compositional eyeline structure'.) The character, too, may remain on-screen and the object which is seen may be a part of the character himself (i.e., the character admires himself). Finally, the character may admire himself by simply looking into a mirror. We have now completed a full circuit from a character's mirror reflection to an eyeline match and back to a character's mirror reflection. All these representations derive from the same underlying structure. They are related because we cannot privilege either the material or the form of material in a text. Thus a cut between glance and object may be replaced by (transformed into) any device which serves to concatenate the narrative elements in the proper way (with respect to character perception) and maintain the required continuous or simultaneous background of present time. Instead of a cut, then, the camera may move to the object (or zoom, or rack focus, etc.); the object move to the camera; both camera and object move; the character move to the object; a split frame or superimposition be devised (through optical printing); or a mirror may be placed in the mise-en-scbie (!). All these possibilities, and doubtless others, are, in a broad sense, both mirror shots and eyeline matches. The compositional eyeline structure where a character simply stares at an onscreen object is quite common in films and forcefully illustrates the fact that whenever a character glances — fastens upon an object — and we see the object of that glance, there exists an inevitable subjectivization of film space. Character eyelines are not objective, neutral facts of the world but are evidence of an activity of representing — an act of cutting out, framing, and giving significance to an object (including sounds).20 Subjectivity exists when this framing is attributed to character. The power of eyelines lies in their very obviousness: of course, a character will look here and then, of course, look there. In this way, the look, and the production of a text, are naturalized in a subjectivity. bubjectivization by eyeline may be endemic to a certain class of films but not all

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films. Ozu, for instance, systematically frustrates our use of character eyelines by leaving them mismatched, incomplete, or uncertain.21 Norman Friedman describes one type of objective narration in literature which is particularly relevant to Ozu's characters: "There is never . . . any direct indication of what they perceive (a character may look out of the window — an objective act —- but what he sees is his own business), what they think, or how they feel". 22 Especially resistant to eyeline subjectivity are the still lifes and spaces which art as transitions between scenes in the later films of Ozu. These spaces seem almost independent of character and narrative. We see them both before the arrival and after the departure of characters; sometimes characters never arrive. These moments are important because they change the way we read the dialogue scenes; that is, even when characters are present we become wary of the tendency to psychologize film space. A still more radical challenge to eyeline subjectivity may be found in Oshima's The Story of a Man Who Left His Will on Film — a work we will examine in detail in the next chapter.23 Thus, the mirror shot is a special instance of the eyeline match in which the character is revealed to himself, that is, a 'reflexive eyeline match' accomplished within the mise-en-scene through the device of a mirror. Alternatively, one might say that an eyeline match is a special sort of extended mirror shot where the character sees an object in adjoining space. In this terminology, then, a reflective subjectivity is made up of the many sorts of mirror shots or of the many sorts of eyeline matches — some rather surprising24 — which are possible through combinations of pictorial logic involving character vision. Moreover, some of these forms are not permitted in the classical text. 25 When the mirror image becomes the archetypal form of a reflective subjectivity, it is easy to see how reflection depends on a present time: What would a reflection be which showed how the character 'used to' look? Thus temporal schemes other than the present lead to deviant forms of reflective subjectivity. The normal form, however, may occur within, say, a flashback. Though occurring in the past, the reflection is not deviant because it is carefully framed by a larger narration (which carries a past tense). The reflection is, so to speak, being quoted through the device of character memory. It shows us a time present to the object reflected but within a larger context which is located prior to a selected reference point in time. When the eyeline match becomes the archetypal form of a reflective subjectivity, one sees how unsteady the boundary is between subject and object. In an eyeline structure, the character sees either himself (as object) or another object. But the line between what he perceives as 'himself' and another 'object' may be narratively quite complex.26 Consider a few examples. Suppose what the character sees is a new aspect of himself; for instance, he sees a selfish man. The new aspect may have a certain literalness as when Dr. Jekyll looks into a mirror and sees Mr. Hyde emerge (Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Mamoulian, 1932) or Dr. Frankenstein looks into a mirror and sees the monster's reflection instead of his own (Frankenstein,

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1910). 27 In addition, a character may see an object which suggests something of his character or see a new character who is meant to represent another side of himself, as in The Poseidon Adventure (Neame, 1972) where Gene Hackman says to Ernest Borgnine, "Maybe we're two of a kind and you don't like looking at yourself". What a character sees, then, in himself, other objects, or persons, may be a new quality. As these qualities come to the fore through explicit marking, the physicality of the reflective subjectivity begins to shift toward a representation of mental states which is typical of the perception and projection subjectivities. In Bigger Than Life (Ray, 1956), for example, James Mason stares into a bathroom mirror that has been shattered so that his image appears splintered into many pieces. The distortion of his image in the mirror is not far removed from the distortion of a perception structure, say, of an out-of-focus POV shot. (Indeed this shot prepares for other perception shots in the film.) Both the shattered mirror and the perception shot involve the reference to a mental condition of character — a state of the seeing. The difference between the two lies in the framing: in the reflective subjectivity, we see a character who can see himself seeing; in the perceptual subjectivity, which is fixed to the character's optical vantage point, we and the character can only see (though with distortion). A perfectly mixed case would be an out-of-focus POV shot where the character looks into a mirror. The important point is that the subjective structure of a broken mirror evolves toward the representation of a mental state. Notice that what makes the broken mirror subjective rather than merely 'expressive decor' is the fact of its connection to character; the character sees, produces the fragmehted image for the viewer. Thus a mirror image of a character is inevitably subjective in a way that, say, a framed photo hanging on a wall (perhaps behind broken glass) need not be (there is no character and no glance). It is not the reflection of the character which is subjective — for we may see reflections of which the character is unaware — but the look into the mirror which makes the mirror a (temporary) frame for narration. Expressive decor is about character but it need not also be from the character; the latter is the condition of its subjectivity. Expressive decor is public and inter-subjective rather than personal and intra-subjective. Again, the question is always, what serves as the rationalization for a production of space for the viewer? If character, it is subjective.

3. Character Projection Projection occurs in present time and utilizes metaphorical framing. It differs from reflection only in that a character's mental state is made explicit — beyond mere

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presence and normal awareness. Thus more than mirrors and eyelines will be required. White Heat (Walsh, 1949) is a gangster film. While Cody Jarrett (James Cagney) is in prison, his mother is running the gang. She has just told him that she will take care of one of his rivals, Big Ed, who covets the gang leadership as well as Cody's girl. Cody, however, fears that his mother will be hurt in a showdown with Big Ed. Cody has an obsessive devotion for his mother and suffers blinding headaches and psychotic rages which only she can quell by rubbing the back of his head. Cody, having just spoken with his mother and alarmed for her safety, is wheeling a cart through the prison's machine shop (shot 1). A stroke of music signals a return of the mother's words in voice-over, progressively becoming louder: I'll I'll I'll I'll

take take take take

care care care care

of of of of

Big Ed. Big Ed. him Cody. him Cody.

Cody glances around, looks faint, glances up; his head sways. We cut to a shot (2 A) of the ceiling of the prison factory showing neon lights and the roof. The shot may well be a POV shot from his optical vantage point. Again we hear, I'll take care of him Cody. Next, wavy lines move across the image (2B) followed by three shots of factory machinery: a drill bearing down on metal, firing out streamers of light and steam (3); another drill stabbing forward toward the camera amidst steam (4); and a spinning emery wheel emitting sparks in downward sheets (5). Finally, we see Cody (6) in medium close-up, moaning, eyes closed and head weaving, as he falls to the floor. These six shots comprise a projection sequence in which Cody's psychosis is externalized, played out through diegetic space. A number of devices place Cody at the center of the spaces we see. The mother's voice-over is represented as a product of his memory and its repetition (and increasing loudness) is symptomatic of a mental state (she did not repeat herself when talking to Cody). Cody glances about, looks woozy. An apparent POV shot becomes a perception structure when wavy lines (2B) cross the image, explicitly marking a distortion of sight. The image is also tilted laterally, which may refer back to the position of Cody's head (no longer upright at the end of shot 1) and/or be a second mark of distorted sight. (Lateral tilts are frequently subjective.)28 The nucleus of the projection sequence in White Heat, however, is the series of shots of machinery (3, 4, 5). These shots cannot be from Cody's point in space; in fact, in shot 6 we see that Cody's eyes are closed. Nevertheless, the shots are subjective. They are the product not of a glance but of a gaze inward. The framing is

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'metaphorically' located in character. As discussed earlier, there are several theories we might use to explain why the framing is read metaphorically. First, we might concentrate on the production of connotation. Thus the steam, flashing light, and sparks given off by the machinery (3, 4, 5) connote intense heat, a white heat. The violent action of the machinery (directed at the camera in 4), the rasping noise of drilling, and the powerful music relate to a 'pounding' rage — a disorder — within Cody. Through connotation, details of the environment are used to characterize Cody's mental state which we also know about in other ways. The connotations flow from external space across the bridge provided by the POV shot to Cody. Another explanation for the subjectivity of metaphorical framing concentrates on the inferences about time and space which are made by the viewer. Thus the three shots of machinery are an inventory of the types of machines in the factory. How can such a non-narrative list be justified within a narrative progression? Since the shots are brief, it does not seem that the drilling itself (the time of the drilling) is at issue; and the space of the factory has already been established. Instead what seems important is the fact that the machinery is preceded and followed by shots of Cody (1,6) and of space which is indisputably subjective (2 A, 2B). This bordering or framing effect suggests that the machinery is to be interpreted as a parenthesis suddenly opened within the text and subordinate to character. Camera position is then no longer a dominant cue for the reading, but rather has been demoted in importance. This illustrates that there are no absolute, formal features which can guarantee a reading; instead, features ebb and flow in importance according to narrative context and structure, that is, according to their place, at a specific moment, within an ordered set of inferences. Thus our inference, here, is that the space of the machinery is subordinate to character space. A third explanation for the subjectivity of the sequence focuses on the concept of metaphor. At this point, the machinery is, and continues to be, causally unrelated to the main action; like the tree tops we see in High Sierra (or for that matter, the ceiling we see in shot 2), the machinery is objectively useless and belongs only for Cody's character. We are invited to metaphorically transfer semantic features of the machinery to a perceiving activity (directed inwards) initiated by character. The transfer is of the same order as that effected by the wavy lines of shot 2 Β where the distortion of image space becomes the visible sign of a 'blinding' headache. A fourth explanation for the subjectivity of the sequence depends on an analogy with the literary style of the free indirect. In this style words are presented from within as a sample of preverbal activity prior to, or following, an explicit utterance. The style has a grammatical structure distinct from direct utterances. In White Heat the voice-over is not so much the mother speaking as Cody thinking of her words again and again; and the three shots of machines which we see are a realization of Cody's stream of consciousness, no longer in words, but in pictures.

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They have been excerpted from the space of the factory and arranged by a singular vision (Cody's unconscious) as objectifications of his inner turmoil and fear. The representation of Cody's mental state continues after shot 6 but in another way — through the gestures and conventions relating to an actor's body. James Cagney drags himself along the floor, grimacing, moaning, etc. This is an external report — an utterance, a quotation — of an inner state rather than a projection of that state into space and its realization as a set of pictures. On the same level with these acting conventions is Cody's subsequent dialogue (dialogue is only another form of the body). A prisoner asks what's wrong and Cody replies, "My head. My head." The prisoner asks, "Where's the pain?" Cody replies, "In my head," and points to his head. The dialogue is repetitious and functions, along with the other devices, to multiply determine the projection structure. In The Best Years of Our Lives (Wyler, 1946), Fred Derry (Dana Andrews), a former captain and decorated bombardier, returns home from World War II but is unable to adjust to the social realities of post-war America. Despondent and jobless, he is walking aimlessly through a graveyard of surplus parts and battered airplanes. He stops in front of a bomber and decides to climb inside (shot 1) (still 7). From the interior of the plane we see Derry move into a glass dome in the nose of the plane and assume the bombardier's seat (2) (still 8). From the ground outside we look up through the dirty glass of the dome as Derry peers out (3 A). He glances right (3B) (still 9). From outside, we see the outer engine on the left wing (4 A) (still 10), then pan left to the inboard engine (4B) (still 11), then pan left to the inboard engine on the right wing (4C) (still 12), then pan left to the outer engine on the right wing (4D) (still 13); each engine is held briefly; parts of the engines, including all the propellers, have been removed from the plane. Next we see an extreme long shot, head-on, of the plane (5 A) (still 14). There begins an extraordinary camera movement: a slow dolly forward and tilt up (5B) (still 15) until the camera is directly underneath the glass dome looking up and holding Derry (5C) (still 16). The effect has been as if each engine were started, in turn, and revved up (4A-D) and then the plane rolls toward camera, takes off, and slowly rises above the camera (5 A-C). Next, we see a medium close-up of Derry from inside the plane (6). He is staring expressionless, without blinking his eyes. He hunches forward but does not shift his gaze (still 17). Next, we see a medium long shot from behind Derry inside the plane (7 A) (still 18); we dolly forward to the back of his head (7B) (still 19); and hold a view of his head against the stained glass of the dome (we cannot see clearly through the glass) (7C). The following shot is a medium close-up of Derry from just outside and through the stained glass (8 A) (still 20). We hear a distant voice yell, "Hey Bud, what're you doing up there?" Then louder, "Hey you!" The camera shifts back slightly, the focus changes from the stained glass to a sharp view of Derry as he suddenly glances up (8B). The music on the soundtrack suddenly changes and decreases in volume. The next shot completes a POV structure (with

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8 Β) as we see from Derry's place in the turret a workman standing outside (9) (still 21). The man says, "What're you doing in that airplane?" We see a medium shot of Derry from within the plane (completing a closed POV) (10 A). He glances right (toward that first engine he looked at in 3B—4 A), takes a deep breath, and wipes his forehead with his arm (10B) (still 22). Derry then climbs out of the plane (still 23) and the set-ups of shot 2 and shot 1 (slightly reframed), which opened the sequence, are now repeated, bringing it to a close (11, 12). The subjectivity of this sequence extends from Derry's glance at the first engine (3B) through his closed POV (10 A), his memory of that glance (10B), and the wiping of his forehead as if to finally wake up from a daydream (10B). The daydream has beeen a projection — an attempt to settle his present anxieties by returning to the occupation he knew in the war — of flying in an airplane. The projective part of the subjectivity extends from the 'revving up' of the engines (4) and 'taking off' (5), through Derry's transfixed gaze (8 A), prior to hearing the shouts of the workman outside and 'waking up'. It would be possible, as with White Heat, to apply various methods — focusing on connotation, inference, metaphor, or the free indirect — to support a reading of character projection. But it is also possible to draw from this example some other features of projection. If one has not learned the rules, or is not attentive to the cues, this sequence appears to be nothing more than Fred Derry wandering about a picturesque location climbing into and then out of an airplane. This limited view, in fact, is just what an observer at the scene would see (e.g., the workman who shouts at Derry to get out of the plane). An invisible witness at the scene — even one who could assume the best angle on the action at all times — still would not see much more than the workman. This sort of ideal observer — posited by, for example, Andre Bazin 29 — might, it is true, look at the character, look at the plane's engines, look at the plane from a distance, and so forth, but these views would all be random and objective; at best, they might represent an ideal viewer's ideal of flying. What is missing is the fact that a particular arrangement of these objects reveals a particular look, not of some observer, but of the character himself. An ideal observer is not in a position to see this look which is carried by camera movement and extended by editing into a representation of Fred Derry, once again, flying. The spectator of the film, however, is in such a position because the spectator is not present at the scene and may assume different relationships with the camera. Thus no ideal observer can see the projection, just as in White Heat an observer at the scene would simply see Cody Jarrett fall to the floor amidst the machinery of the prison factory. A projection sequence is only for the spectator of the film. Projection, therefore, is not a communicative act (a transmission from Cody or Derry to an observer to us) but rather an expressive act where the text does not signify so much as become (excluding observers). This does not mean that expression escapes symbolic activity, merely that it is symbolic in a different way: it does not denote

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subjectivity but it is an instance or sample to which we are invited to apply the (metaphorical) label 'subjective' (e.g., a camera movement reveals the 'disturbed' mental state of Derry). 30 A linguistic analogy may be found in the fact that verbs of communication (e.g., observe, say, claim, shout, advise, promise, ask, read, sing, confess) may take indirect objects designating a recipient of the communication while verbs of consciousness (e.g., see, think, feel, realize, believe, wonder) have no indirect object. 31 Thus the addition of an indirect object would render the following sentence ungrammatical: 'Fred Derry felt [* to John] as if he were flying'. The sequence contains a number of familiar subjective structures — an eyeline match ( 3 - 4 ) , a POV structure ( 8 - 9 - 1 0 ) , and others 32 — which shade into the projective spaces. For instance, the eyeline match (3B—4A) continues with a pan to the three remaining engines of the plane (4B, 4 C , 4D). Do we assume that Derry looks at only the first engine, or some or all of the other engines? What is the status of the panning movement? Further, what is the status of the camera movement in the next shot (when the plane 'takes-off in 5)? Because of cues involving character vision and other cues, such as the music, 33 we are led to apply predicates dealing with mental states to the camera movements 34 themselves in order to justify the changing space. The changes become samples of subjectivity, or rather semi-subjectivity. The sequence is typical of character projection in that it perpetuates a double confusion 35 between (1) what Derry actually sees and what he might imagine seeing as well as between (2) what Derry might imagine seeing and what a narrator sees/creates for us. The viewer can never quite decide among these possibilities. Note that although we watch the plane 'taking-off from a location outside the plane (5), we cannot simply ascribe that view to a non-character source of narration since we could be seeing how Derry imagines he would look 'taking-off'. We acknowledge these uncertainties by judging the sequence to be partly subjective, partly objective. Both reflection and projection break the direct spatial link to character posited by the POV and perception structures. This new freedom allows the character to see himself or to experience the operation of consciousness (heightened selfawareness) from an external, alienated position. Reflection involves the physicality of things while projection involves mental states: in both an aspect of character becomes the organizing principle of present, diegetic time and space. The overall process approaches Freud's conception of the free flow of dream-work. More specifically, in Freud's theory, projection is a defense mechanism based on a throwing out of what one refuses to recognize in oneself or of what one refuses to be. What is abolished — repressed — internally, however, returns from without, that is, may be recognized in another person or thing. 36 This leads, in the work of Melanie Klein, to 'good' objects and 'bad' objects (or a split object whereby one aspect is good, another bad). 37 Projection, then, is embodied in bad objects — that which is despised and has been thrown out. The opposite process for Klein is in-

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trojection where the ego brings in toward itself a good, pleasurable object. The presence of these objects constitutes (rather than simply presupposes) the difference between ego and outside. Furthermore, introjection is closely linked to processes of identification. Projection, as I have defined it, encompasses both Freudian terms, projection and introjection; that is, the relation between character and object may run in either direction. Expressed in the language of the oral-instinctual impulses, projection strictly is the judgement, Ί wish to spit it out', and introjection is, Ί wish to eat it'. 3 8 Thus we might refine our analyses of White Heat and The Best Years of Our Lives by saying that Cody Jarrett seeks to expel while Fred Derry seeks to incorporate. 39 Both sequences, however, attempt to represent a mental energy by fastening upon diegetic objects in present time and associating them with a character. In the broadest sense, we might think of filmic reflection and projection as the displacement — the dislodging — of what is properly on the surface of the body (physical, visible), or else of what is properly a feature of the psychical apparatus (drives, affects, mental states), followed by its relocation to an external position. The index of this displacement and relocation is a camera framing which is no longer strictly first person, as in a POV shot, but is metaphorically first person; that is, partly subjective and partly non-subjective. In Mitry's words, it is a "subjectivising of the objective", 40 and its area is the very line between subject and object. It requires keen discrimination since the displacement may be misrecognized as simply part of the objective world or as a 'comment' by the director. (The particular examples I have chosen tend to be overcoded.) One might go further and suggest that even when attributed to character, there may be misrecognition by the viewer, for character is only an alibi, a fiction of the text. Subjectivity, in this wider sense, then, becomes a symptom of much larger processes operating between text and spectator. Our concern, however, has been limited to the symbolic and secondary conditions which govern these processes — with the movement of filmic spaces and their justification in character.

NOTES 1. Interview of Cornel Wilde by Stuart Kaminsky, Film Reader 2 (1977), p. 162; see also p. 164. 2. See ch. 2. 3. See appendix, sec. 4. 4. Ernest Lindgren, The Art of the Film (N.Y.: Collier Books, 1963), pp. 1 6 4 - 1 6 6 (my emphasis); p. 46. On the ideal observer see n. 29. 5. Semiotic analyses often ignore the traditional problems in aesthetics associated with ex-

Character Reflection and Projection

6.

7. 8. 9.

10.

11.

12. 13.

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pression although it is capable of semiotic treatment; see Nelson Goodman, Languages of Art: An Approach to a Theory of Symbols (Indianapolis, Ind.: Hackett Publishing, 2nd ed., 1976), ch. 2. Reflection and projection have previously been discussed in conjunction with examples from Shaft, Notorious, The Birds, Small Change, Summer Holiday, Blackmail, Face to Face, and The Purple Plain in ch. 4, sec. 3 and 5. In addition, I analyze an example of projection from Fellini's I Vitelloni (1953) in "The Spectator and Film Space — Two Theories", Screen 22 (1) (1981), pp. 7 2 - 7 7 . See the discussion of examples from Shaft, Notorious, and The Birds in ch. 4, sec. 3. Cf. Arthur Danto, "Moving Pictures", Quarterly Review of Film Studies 4 (1) (Winter 1979), p. 17. Stephen Heath, "Narrative Space", Screen 17 (3) (Autumn 1976), p. 94 n. 60. In typical fashion for a classic text, the tree tops are multiply determined (see ch. 2): after his release from prison and prior to the park scene, Roy declares that he wants to make sure that the grass is still green and that the trees are still growing. In the park there are two shots of tree tops — a pan and a tilt. The shots are roughly from the proper distance and approximate Roy's movement in walking toward and sitting on a park bench. Special music further marks the tree top shots. The example from Beach Red may be character projection, flashback, or mental process depending on how one interprets the temporal markers. The sequence approaches a true projection as the squashing of the cockroach is nearer in time to the character's (new) act of seeing or as the place where it has been squashed is nearer the character in diegetic space (so that the insect becomes actually or potentially present to the character's act of seeing). See Bent Jacobsen's discussion of 'transfer features' in Transformational-Generative Grammar: An Introductory Survey of Its Genesis and Development (N.Y.: North-Holland, 1977), pp. 1 5 5 - 1 5 7 . For some theories of metaphor see Mark Johnson, ed., Philosophical Perspectives on Metaphor (Mineapolis: Univ. Minnesota, 1981). On film metaphor see Linda Williams, Figures of Desire: A Theory and Analysis of Surrealist Film (Chicago: Univ. of Illinois, 1981); Williams, "Hiroshima and Marienbad: Metaphor and MetonomyScreen 17 (1) (Spring 1976), pp. 3 4 - 3 9 ; Williams, "The Prologue to Un Chien Andalou: A Surrealist Film Metaphor", Screen 17 (4) (Winter 1976/77), pp. 2 4 - 3 3 . The latter should be compared with Philipp Drummond, "Textual Space in 'Un Chien Andalou'", Screen 18 (3) (Autumn 1977), pp. 5 5 - 1 1 9 . See also articles in Camera Obscura 7 (Spring 1981). It is interesting that the notion of metaphor can be incorporated into a theory (discussed in the text) which centers on the inferences and hypotheses made by the reader. First, the series of inferences applied by the reader to a text is given the name "interpretation". Then, according to Jonathan Culler, "instead of thinking of metaphor, metonymy, synecdoche, etc. as ways of saying one thing and meaning another, we can take these figures as the names of possible interpretive moves one can make when confronted with a textual problem". Metaphor thus becomes an interpretive strategy available to the reader. See Culler, "Making Sense", 20th Century Studies 12, "The Limits of Comprehension" (Scottish Academic Press, Dec. 1974), pp. 29, 31, 36 n. 3. Norman Friedman, "Point of View in Fiction: The Development of a Critical Concept", PMLA 70 (5) (Dec. 1955), p. 1164. The examples are drawn from Ann Banfield, "Where Epistemology, Style, and Grammar Meet Literary History: The Development of Represented Speech and Thought", New Literary History 9 (3) (Spring 1978), p. 418 and Seymour Chatman, "The Structure of Narrative Transmission", in Style and Structure in Literature ed. by Roger

140

14.

15. 16. 17.

18. 19. 20.

21. 22. 23. 24.

Chapter Six Fowler (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University, 1975), pp. 2 3 0 - 2 3 1 , 254 n. 31. See also Banfield, Unspeakable Sentences: Narration and Representation in the Language of Fiction (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1982); Brian McHale, "Free Indirect Discourse: A Survey of Recent Accounts", PTL: A Journal of Descriptive Poetics and Theory of Literature 3 (2) (April 1978), pp. 2 4 9 - 2 8 7 ; Nick Browne, "Griffith's Family Discourse: Griffith and Freud", Quarterly Review of Film Studies 6 (1) (Winter 1981), pp. 67—80; Keith Cohen, "Novel and Cinema: Dynamics of Literary Exchange", Film Reader 2 (1977), pp. 4 2 - 5 1 ; ch. 8, sec. 1. The analogy with indirect discourse means that in a syntactic sense the notion of embedding a character's words within a larger statement is relaxed or abandoned; in a deeper sense, however, subjectivity remains dependent on an effaced narration; see the discussion of rationalism in ch. 8, sec. 1. Cf. Banfield, "Style and Grammar", pp. 424, 426 n. 20. The framing of reflection and projection sequences may perhaps be analyzed as a form of exemplification or as 'displaced first person discours (category 1 d)'. See, respectively, Goodman, ch. 2, and Mark Nash, "Vampyr and the Fantastic", Screen 17 (3) (Autumn 1976), pp. 2 9 - 6 7 . See also Nick Browne's analysis of a series of set-ups from John Ford's Stagecoach (1939); "The Spectator-in-the-Text: The Rhetoric of Stagecoach", Film Quarterly, 29 (2) (Winter 1975/76), esp. p. 31. Ann Banfield argues that a certain type of indirect rhetorical style is a late development in literary history. Banfield, "Style and Grammar", esp. pp. 4 4 0 - 4 5 0 . Geoffrey Nowell-Smith, "A Note on History/Discourse", Edinburgh '76 Magazine 1, p. 30. On the mirror stage see Jacques Lacan, "The Mirror Phase as Formative of the Function of the Ί ' " (1949), New Left Review 51 (Sept.-Oct. 1968), pp. 7 1 - 7 7 . The notion of mirroring also leads into more substantial, and dubious, claims about the general nature of representing; such as when an author speaks of a literary text as reflecting reality or of reality as 'mirrored in my mind'. Cf. examples given by Wayne Booth, The Rhetoric of Fiction (Chicago: University of Chicago, 1961), p. 214; see also p. 225 (readers, too, and the reading, may be 'reflected'). The example is adapted from Booth, p. 172. Nowell-Smith, p. 30 n. 10. On the analogy with eyeline matches, we can say that a reflective sound would be a character who listens — cocks his ear — coupled with what he hears, but not from the point where he hears it; that is, we may see a record player in close-up and hear its music louder than the character hears it. The other subjectivities may also be aural; aural memories, hallucinations, POVs, perceptions, and projections; see ch. 4, sec. 5. See Kristin Thompson and David Bordwell, "Space and Narrative in the Films of Ozu", Screen 17 (2) (Summer 1976), pp. 4 1 - 7 3 ; Edward Branigan, "The Space of Equinox Flower", ibid., pp. 7 4 - 1 0 5 . Additionally, Ozu frequently seeks to restrict our ability to infer mental states from action and dialogue. Friedman, p. 1178 (discussing the Dramatic Mode); see appendix, sec. 1, fig. 2. Other examples may be found in Nathalie Granger (Duras, 1972). See especially the comparison of a mirror shot from 8 1/2 with an eyeline match from an Oshima film where a character apparently sees himself; ch. 7, sec. 3. A shot of a character glance followed by an over the shoulder shot of the object (shot/reverse shot) is closely related to an eyeline match — glance, cut to object. Like the eyeline match, the shot/reverse shot may be compressed into a single composition; for example, through judicious camera and character movement or, more interestingly, through a large mirror which simultaneously gives us both character and reverse angle (India Song, Duras, 1975). See ch. 5, sec. 2; cf. set-ups 2 and 4 in fig. 1. The example from India Song is doubly subjective because of the everpresent threat that a character

Character

25.

26. 27.

28. 29.

30. 31. 32.

33.

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will also look into that mirror, seeing himself, or making a new eyeline with an object we already see ('objectively') in the foreground; at other times, our vision is confined to the mirror and to the sight lines which intersect with it and through it. Mirror shots and eyeline matches may become quite complex. For example, a character, mostly off-screen, holds up a picture of himself alongside a mirror reflection of himself (The Best Years of Our Lives). In Broken Blossoms (Griffith, 1919) Lillian Gish, with her back to us, stares at a doll through a store window (a compositional eyeline); but we also see her reaction, juxtaposed to the doll, reflected in the glass. I owe this example to Russell Merritt. The Sugarland Express (Spielberg, 1974), Written on the Wind (Sirk, 1954), and especially Effi Briest (Fassbinder, 1974) contain many subjective and nonsubjective reflections. Furthermore, when the object of an eyeline is another character who looks back, reciprocal sight lines become knotted together. For example, a 'mirror' which provides inconsistent views of the character in Last Year at Marienbad (Resnais, 1961) or an eyeline match where a character apparently sees himself; see, respectively, David Bordwell and Kristin Thompson, Film Art: An Introduction (Reading, Mass.: Addison-Wesley, 1979), p. 253; and ch. 7, sec. 3. Cf. the 'total' POV shot which is also not permitted in the classical system; ch. 4, sec. 1. See ch. 8, sec. 4 on the general splitting of a character. Anthony Slide describes a rather complex use of the mirror device in the Edison Company's 1910 version of Frankenstein·, Early American Cinema (N.Y.: A. S. Barnes and Co., 1970), pp. 1 4 - 1 7 . See ch. 3, sec. 3 and the analysis of a sequence in Notorious, ch. 4, sec. 3. On the notion of an invisible witness see the appendix, sec. 2; text accompanying n. 51, appendix, sec. 3; and text accompanying n. 20, ch. 7. See also n. 102, appendix, sec. 4, and n. 4 above. For the difference between denotation and sample, see Goodman, ch. 2. See Banfield, "Narrative Style", pp. 8, 26—28; "Style and Grammar", pp. 418, 431. The sequence of shots — 6, 7, 8 A — is particularly interesting. One might think of its subjectivity in at least two ways: as a version of shot/reverse shot/shot where Derry sees nothing (but himself) or as a version of a mirror shot where he looks (6, 7) and sees himself (8 A) (it is not a true reflection but more like an eyeline match). The effect of his face behind the stained glass (8) is similar to the distortion that James Mason sees when he looks into a broken mirror in Bigger Than Life; see ch. 6, sec. 2. Vision has become difficult and blurry as in the perception shot, or as in the paradox, 'through a glass darkly'; on the latter, cf. an example from 8 1/2 in ch. 7, sec. 1. There are a number of secondary subjectivities in the sequence which cue and overdetermine our reading: the memory (10B) of the glance at the plane engine, wiping his forehead (10 B). Later in the scene he wipes his face with a handkerchief. The workman says to him, "Reviving old memories, huh?" Derry replies, "Yeah, or maybe getting some of 'em out of my system." Recall Cody's words and gestures about the pain in his head (White Heat) following a projection sequence. Note also that shot 7 A denies (or delays) the eyeline suggested by Derry's stare in 6. The camera then dollies-in on the back of his head (7B, 7C) which further suggests that Derry's gaze is not directed outward (he is looking at 'nothing' — there is nothing to see) but inward. There are three consecutive medium close-ups of Derry (6, 7C, 8 A) with no apparent action totaling 36 seconds (6 = 13 sees.; 7 = 14 sees.; 8 A = 9 sees.). These are the closest shots in the entire scene. Our view of each engine (4 Α - D ) 'revving up' and of all four engines together (5 A) is marked by a separate blast of music. As the plane is 'taking off, the music speeds up. Sounds of an airplane taking off are mixed into the background with high pitch, roaring music. Strictly speaking, the sound of engines is non-diegetic but so closely related to

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40.

Chapter Six the music and to diegetic space that it does not fundamentally alter the nature of the sequence as a projection. The dolly-in to the back of Derry's head (7B) is also subjective. Derry's movement toward the camera in 6 prepares for the camera's movement to him in 7. The camera shift in 8 marks the transition from projection to another narration. Cf. Gerard Genette, Narrative Discourse: An Essay in Method trans, by Jane Lewin (Ithaca: Cornell Univ., 1980), p. 172. J. LaPlanche and J.-B. Pontalis, The Language of Psycho-Analysis trans, by Donald Nicholson-Smith (N.Y.: W. W. Norton, 1973), "Projection", p. 354. See LaPlanche on "'Good' Object/'Bad' Object", "Incorporation", and "Identification". LaPlanche, "Introjection", p. 230. More exactly, since characters are fictional, we should say that one set of symbols, held together under a proper name, is conjoined to another set of symbols by the relation projection in one text and introjection in another. There is evidence in the film to suggest that Derry seeks to project, not incorporate. (He has nightmares of the war and his later words suggest projection; see n. 32.) Most likely, the sequence is both projection and introjection as the airplane becomes, for Derry, a 'split object', see n. 37. See appendix, sec. 4.

CHAPTER 7

The Modern Text: Subjectivity under Siege from Fellini's 8 1/2 to Oshima's The Story of a Man Who Left His Will on Film

The two films — one directed by Federico Fellini and one by Nagisa Oshima — bear certain similarities. Both portray the making of a film within a film as well as the conflict between the maker of this inner film and a system of production — a studio and a Marxist collective respectively. Moreover, both contain unreal or fantastic scenes which may be associated with a character and so interpreted as 'subjective' or imaginary. However, these similarities mask a more fundamental divergence. Fellini's 8 1/2 (1963), despite a startling, even virtuoso mixture of fantasy and reality, remains committed to the assumptions of ti litional subjective narration. Oshima's The Story of a Matt Who Left His Will on Film (1970) 1 , by contrast, challenges these assumptions and poses the concept of the subject in radically new terms: first, by subverting the traditional notion of 'character' — the origin of an imaginary scene — and second, by changing the role of the viewer who must confront new conditions of meaning. Neither 8 1/2 nor The Story of a Matt Who Left His Will on Film is easy to summarize, partly because the action of each film resists a breakdown into 'scenes' or even events in the neo-Aristotelian sense of a unity of time, place, and action. However, the reason for this resistance is quite different for each film, as the following attempt at synopses of the narratives suggests. 8 1/2 is the story of Guido Anselmi, a film director whose production is stalled due to self-doubt and a lack of inspiration. One immense, extravagant set has already been built (a spacecraft launching site) and from every direction there is pressure to get the film underway, since money is at stake. We glimpse portions of this film as well as tentative scenes from a second, quite different film, which Guido envisions. The Fellini film traces the tangled skein of Guido's personal relationships, past and present, with his family, friends, and co-workers, in an attempt to discover the source of his creative impotence. We meet his mistress, his wife, her best friend; his mother, father, and grandmother (all dead); his screenwriter, producer, production assistant, star actress; aspiring actresses, agents, publicity men, and others. There is also an examination of his relation to the Ro-

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man Catholic Church. This myriad of relationships is rendered in a loose series of dreams, flashbacks, and hallucinations while Guido is — appropriately enough — recovering his health at a spa. What creates confusion for the viewer is the fact that the various time frames — present, past, and hallucinatory — are not clearly distinguished from one another in the usual ways, such as through the use of dissolves. Nevertheless I will argue that Fellini's film finds its center in a single character or, more exactly, the consciousness of a character. The Story of a Man Who Left His Will on Film is also marked by inconsistent actions and indeterminate space and time. Broadly speaking, the film concerns Motoki and Yasuko, two members of a Marxist filmmaking cooperative. It opens with Motoki and the viewer apparently witnessing the suicide of Endo, another member of the cooperative, who leaps off a building. The police confiscate Endo's camera and film. Next, however, we see, and Motoki sees, Endo alive when Endo says that he tripped and fell, spraining an ankle. (Later Motoki asks, "How's Endo's ankle?".) Yasuko relates that the cooperative had been filming a political demonstration when, in a melee, Endo tripped and the police confiscated his film. The cooperative now plans an elaborate campaign of handbills and rallies to recover the demonstration film. At the same time, however, Motoki recovers the film he claims was shot by the dead Endo ("The cops gave it back after concluding it was suicide."). We then see this film, along with Motoki and Yasuko, both of whom at various times refer to the film as Endo's "last will and testament". We hear the comments of other members of the cooperative but apparently they are not watching the same film! (When Motoki says, "We already got it back. We just saw it," the reply is, "That was Takagi's film.".) The testament film which we see does not concern a political demonstration at all, but rather is a series of outdoor still lifes in the streets of Tokyo (stills 28—31). Thus a number of questions arise: Who, if anyone, committed suicide by jumping off a building? What is the status of the testament film? What does it mean? Or as Motoki asks, "What could he have been trying to say?". The relationship between Motoki and Yasuko is a complex and contradictory one. According to Motoki, Yasuko and Endo were lovers. Motoki rapes Yasuko in a field. Later in the film Yasuko seduces Motoki in the same field and is instrumental in convincing him that the testament film is real and that the Endo who shot the film really did exist. At times Yasuko acts as if she and Endo were indeed lovers, but not always; for example, in one scene she says, "Yes, he existed," then "There is no such person," and then, " I can't tell you how much I hate him.". Motoki and Yasuko finally set out together to find the actual locations in Tokyo where the testament film was made on the theory that, as Motoki says, "If we went there maybe we'd understand.". They discover some of the locations. In the process Motoki pursues, and Yasuko is mugged by, a phantom of some sort whom we see only as a shadow, a figure in the distance. Both believe the phantom is the dead filmmaker. Motoki discovers that one of the shots in the testament film

Still 13:

The Best Years of Our Lives (shot 4 D) (page 135).

Still 16:

The Best Years of Our Lives (shot 5 C) (page 1.35).

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was made from the balcony of his home. He then undertakes to refilm the testament film but is obstructed by Yasuko. In the end he commits suicide by leaping off a building. However, we apparently also see him alive as a witness to his own suicide — which returns us to the beginning of the film. But not quite. I will argue that Oshima's film cannot be unified as the subjective vision of Motoki (his premonition of death) or even as a joint vision of Motoki and Yasuko. The contradictions in narrative space 2 — as I hope the summary above suggests — are permanent and irreconcilable with respect to character as an absolute reference point. Nor is the film working on a version of impersonal tragedy (character as 'fate'). Instead the Oshima film presents two distinct ideologies, side by side, which articulate, in some sense, two different forms of the same character, existing side by side and in contradiction. By ideology 3 1 mean a possible relation between individual consciousness and its social ground. For present purposes I will take ideology to be a largely coherent and logical system of images, ideas, values, feelings, and actions by which and through which persons experience their societies at various times; for instance, a 'philosophy' or theology, although an ideology need not be formalized in this way. An ideology is not an image or an idea but a system of representation through which the individual encounters the material conditions of existence. Schematically, there are three terms: consciousness; system of representation (or text); social ground. Thus the individual cannot exist 'outside' of an ideology but must always encounter reality in social — and therefore coded and ideological — terms. The present analysis, however, is concerned with the work of ideology at the level of (represented) images and ideas. When we consider film as a text, the middle term above (system of representation or text) may be subdivided into: character; represented ideology; event. The Oshima text, then, by simultaneously inscribing two different represented ideologies between its characters and their world generates, for the viewer, impossible characters and impossible events. Again, it is not a question of character schizophrenia (as in Bernhardt's Possessed, 1947; or Lewis' So Dark the Night, 1946, where a detective discovers himself as the murderer), introversion (as iri Schlesingers Billy Liar, 1963), or amnesia (as in Dmytryk's Mirage, 1965), for that returns the narrative to the realm of personality — a privileged source of narration which establishes a dominating dichotomy of inner versus outer 4 and allows the text to settle its contradictions, however duplicitously, in character. 5 Alain Robbe-Grillet, in his novel Les Gotnmes (The Erasers, 1953), provides an example of an impossible character. Les Gommes is the story of a detective who in solving a crime discovers himself to be the author of that crime (when he murders the supposed victim). Here, too, the plot is strangely circular as well as contradictory at every moment (how can a detective track himself?) and so is somehow not amenable to summary 6 — events never quite 'make a scene' 7 just as the data never quite coalesce into a 'plausible' character. In The Story of a Man Who ... most of

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all, contradictory presentations of a character (how can a man witness his own suicide?) are not confronted on the grounds of psychology or character, but on the ground of ideology — that practice which orders the significance of the world and places the individual as significant in the world.8

1. Origin: The Problem of Authorship 81/2, after some hesitation, moves quickly and decisively to fix its origin. The film opens with Guido (Marcello Mastroianni) in his car caught in a traffic jam. Soon, however, incredible things begin to happen. We see a bus crowded with apparently lifeless people, their heads hidden but their arms hanging in rows from the windows. Guido wipes his windshield from the inside although it is perfectly clear, suggesting a paradox involving vision of the sort 'through a glass darkly'. Mysterious, suffocating fumes fill Guido's car. He escapes by climbing out of a window and then begins to fly above the traffic and into the clouds. The scene culminates with a deranged man on the ground who is holding a rope tied to the flying Guido. Twice we see Guido's point-of-view down the rope to the ground (still 24). He unties the rope and plunges earthward. What are we to make of these impossible events? A screaming sound which is that of the falling Guido (apparently no longer able to fly) is continued by the awakening scream of a second Guido in bed. How can there be two different Guidos — the existence of the first and most fantastic one, moreover, 'guaranteed' by a point-of-view (POV) shot? The answer: it has been a dream. A doctor and a nurse enter the room. It has been the dream of a sick man. "How are you feeling?" the doctor asks. The viewer, of course, is now in an excellent position to answer that question. Guido becomes fixed as the center of space so that spatial contradictions will be resolved only in him. He is fixed not merely by the fact that he is the center of attention (of the doctor and nurse) but by the fact that he becomes the (nominal) producer of space for the viewer. The first shot is taken from just behind his head and ends with a dolly forward, literally assuming the position of his head. The first shot also pans left, then back right exactly following Guido's attention. Even more importantly, when the camera returns to the right, both Guido and the viewer are surprised by a second doctor at his bedside who must have entered and crossed the long bedroom while the camera was panning in the other direction. This forcefully illustrates that the time of the text has become, precisely, the time of Guido's vision. The second shot in the scene is a diabolic trap. The nurse is in the distance looking toward both the camera and a man in the foreground who is holding up a newspaper (still 25). She addresses Guido, who we assume is the man reading the newspaper. The man drops the newspaper and it is not Guido at all, but one of the

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doctors, who then stares toward camera (still 26). We then realize that the nurse was speaking to the camera all along, not to the man with the newspaper. These two stares toward camera jolt the viewer from a supposed position outside of the action suddenly back to Guido, that is to say, our vision is precipitously narrowed and fixed to a point; our sight line, from which there is no escape, is that of Guido. Of the thirteen shots in the bedroom scene, all but the last are taken from camera positions very near Guido. Camera movement, too, emphasizes Guido: when the doctor holds up a picture to Guido, the camera tracks around and forward so that it is held up directly into camera. The last shot of the scene is the establishing shot — an extreme long shot from the far end of the room away from all characters (Guido's scriptwriter is now also in the room). But even here the camera will slowly track back as Guido walks toward camera — holding him, and no one else, centered in space, reminding us that even in extreme long shot, Guido is the center of our space. The Story of a Man Who ..., like 8 1/2, opens with an apparently impossible scene utilizing as its core a point-of-view construction. But 8 1/2, in order to resolve the impossible scene, will continually struggle to contain the flying Guido we first see (broadly, the unreal) inside another Guido (the real) whom we see in the second scene. By contrast, The Story of a Man Who ... will strive to break apart the Motoki we first see into two Motokis, who cannot be united, in order to understand the impossibility of the opening scene. To put it another way: The conditions of the impossible for Fellini are psychological (dream work), but for Oshima they are, as I will seek to demonstrate, rooted in the social construction of the individual. The Story of a Man Who ... opens as the POV of someone looking through the viewfinder of a hand-held camera. The image leaps about as the unseen cameraman is challenged by Motoki, who soon runs into view and then charges at the camera in an attempt to take possession of it (still 27). He argues that the camera should have been returned earlier in the morning because the cooperative has something important to film. At one point the exposure of the image fluctuates and goes entirely white as Motoki yells, "Don't touch that! You don't even know how to use it!" The cameraman begins to run away and the image moves wildly about. Fingers cover the lens and the image goes black. The next shots are nonPOV shots of Motoki as he gives chase and, then finally, he and the viewer apparently see a person jump off a building. As indicated in the earlier synopsis of the narrative, questions are soon raised as to the identity of the cameraman and the actuality of the suicide. These are questions of special immediacy since the viewer already has an investment in the space of narration due to the incomplete POV shot. The opening shot seemingly guarantees the existence — the presence — of a cameraman. Who is the person who controlled the exposure of the image and hence controlled the very existence of the image for the viewer? What is the relation between image and image-maker?

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One way this relation may be posed is through the notion of an author — the Artist, the creative wellspring — of a text. The text, in reciprocal fashion, is posed as the output and outpouring of a unique consciousness. It is in these terms that Motoki undertakes the search for the author of the testament film. The search begins with the opening shot of the film in which Motoki chases the filmmaker, of whom all we see is the filrt-maker's POV. (Note that the concept of point of view as usually given in criticism already implies possession; that is, it is a special view belonging to a person.) The filmmaker, however, turns out to be not exactly dead (Endo is alive), nor is he exactly alive (Endo knows nothing of the testament film). Perhaps, then, the filmmaker is a phantom, somehow between life and death. Early in the search Motoki chases a phantom (whom we do not see) through alleys and streets but he apparently escapes by stepping into a taxi. Later Motoki and Yasuko both pursue the phantom filmmaker without success. Failing in his attempt to confront and interrogate the author, Motoki seeks to understand the author's motives, beliefs, and intentions. "But what was he thinking when he shot this?" "What could he have been trying to say?" Since Motoki believes Yasuko was the filmmaker's (Endo's) lover, he confronts her for some hint of the filmmaker's intention. "When he decided to shoot this film and commit suicide, didn't he say anything?" "Try to remember why he filmed this place." However, Motoki's search for the filmmaker's intention proves as unsuccessful as the search for the filmmaker himself. In the course of the film several possible authors are suggested: the Endo we see dead on the sidewalk in the opening scene, the Endo who is a living member of the cooperative, and Tagaki whose film the cooperative sees as we see the alleged testament film. It is even suggested that there is no author. When Motoki discovers two or three feet of new footage by the phantom filmmaker while splicing and editing another film, he is told that the footage is only 'waste film' taken while reloading the camera. Motoki is unconvinced. Why shoot so much reloading the camera? Still another possibility is opened up when Motoki finds that the first shot of the testament film (still 28) was taken from his home. The fact that the shot is the first shot in the testament film only serves to strengthen Motoki's conviction because for him an opening shot is the origin of a film. The logic continues, the view out the window of his home belongs to the one who lives in the home and hence the film must originate in Motoki. The scene concludes with the testament shot given as a POV shot of Motoki staring out from the balcony of his home. (Motoki does not consider here, as we shall see, the possibility of a wider perspective of authorship, such as a film not by a family member but a film produced through an ideology, revealing the function of family life in society.) Could it be then that Motoki himself is already the filmmaker and that his problem is to understand the film he has already made? Motoki sees only one remaining alternative: to reshoot the testament film himself — in the same locations and in exactly the same way — and thereby under-

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stand the film by becoming the filmmaker. This must lead him inexorably to the conclusion of the earlier testament film — suicide. But there is more to the suicide than the formal ending of a film and film author. Motoki's suicide is tied to the failure of a certain conception of authorship and the failure of those films resulting from that conception of authorship. Making a film is not a neutral act but is a commitment which ties one to an ideology which survives in the film. Consider the following criticism by Yasuko when Motoki announces that he plans to reshoot the testament film:' YASUKO: MOTOKI: YASUKO: MOTOKI: YASUKO: MOTOKI: YASUKO: MOTOKI:

What are you going to shoot? You know as well as I do. Say it. Can't you say it? The same landscapes he shot. The same way he did? Yes. Why? Is that the way to beat him? Can you kill him that way? If I take the same landscapes the same way he did, he'll disappear. That way I'll be him. YASUKO: Really? If you become him, he'll survive in you.

Films, too, are caught in history (time) and certain types of films can no longer be made. I will say more about these sorts of films later; for now it is enough to emphasize that the notion of an author blocks filmmaking practices based on other relations between film apparatus and film — machine and text. It would be wrong to suppose that The Story of a Man Who . . . is simply about a dated conception of authorship; more exactly, it explores a nexus of ideas — an ideology — of which authorship is only a part, a point of departure. The belief that a text belongs to an Author, for example, raises the general problem of ownership. When Motoki explains to the cooperative that it is necessary to recover "my camera" from the police, he is criticized for clinging to "the idea of personal property". Later when Motoki asks to borrow the camera and will not explain what he plans to film, his project is criticized for being "too personal". When he is splicing film he is accused of handling it as if he were "making love to it"; that is, of treating the film apparatus as a fetish object with intrinsic, almost magical properties outside of culture and history. The fetishistic attitude is revealed also when Motoki speaks of a documentary film he liked in terms of its "fantastic" camerawork 9 which made history "seem gentle, personal". The notion of a unique author thus slides into problems of ownership and appropriation which obscure the awareness of social forces. This is perhaps best summed up when the cooperative laments the fact that, in order to gain wide support in the battle to recover their film from the police, they must appeal to the idea of "freedom of expression". For these Marxists what is behind the principle of "freedom of expression" is the false notion that individuals are autonomous and equal, the authors of free

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thoughts, and not subjects in ideology (and unequal). Their position is that capitalism creates inequality through class division and then refuses to acknowledge it. The film also crucially concerns the role of woman and a certain view of this role is tied to the issue of personal authorship. Within this view man is portrayed as the author of woman who exists to become the personal property of man. If Motoki is in some sense already the author of the testament film, he is also already the lover of Yasuko. To understand how the film links the issue of authorship with a view of the woman, we must examine the complex relationship between Motoki and Yasuko; indeed, one scene ends with them simultaneously making love and strangling each other. The interaction or tension between these two characters serves to drive the narrative forward. I have taken seven points in the narrative as examples of this interaction in terms of the question whether or not, at a particular time, each believes Endo to be the author of the testament film. 1. Motoki: yes, literally (he committed suicide) Yasuko: no, literally (he filmed a demonstration) 2. both: yes they see the testament film and Yasuko has it in her possession 3. Motoki: no unsuccessful and frustrated in his chase of the phantom, he returns the film to Yasuko Yasuko: yes ridicules Motoki for not believing; experiences the pleasure of the testament film projected on her body as a substitute for the absent author/lover; later taunts Motoki again for not believing 4. Motoki: yes he takes the testament film from Yasuko Yasuko: yes she gives the testament film to Motoki; but says she now despises the filmmaker 5. Motoki: yes now convinced by discovering his home was used in the testament film Yasuko: yes now convinced by being mugged by the phantom 6. Motoki: yes he will become Endo by reshooting the film Yasuko: yes but it is a bad practice to become the dead filmmaker 7. Motoki: yes becomes the filmmaker and commits suicide Yasuko: no she does not see Endo in the landscapes and avoids suicide. The opposition of Motoki and Yasuko coupled with the different shadings of that opposition illustrated above serves to drive the narrative forward. It is significant that the one combination which never occurs in the narrative is that in which simultaneously neither Motoki nor Yasuko believes in the testament film. If that were to occur, the narrative would end. How, then, is the search for the author of the testament film linked to the role of

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woman? Yasuko is raped by Motoki early in the narrative, yet she comes to believe in the testament film and its author as her lover. She forces Motoki, too, into believing in the testament film. She seduces Motoki in the same field where he raped her (both scenes open with the identical camera movement), thus acknowledging her acceptance/complicity as an object of desire/property. ("Make me your girl," Yasuko says.) She embarks with Motoki on a search for the author/lover but suffers greatly in the landscapes of the testament film (mugged twice by a phantom; raped by four strangers). At the end she rejects belief in such an author/lover and avoids being in his film — subject to his film — thereby escaping suicide. She can no longer be the spectator/lover for whom the testament film is made. By way of summary we might say that the film challenges the concept of an origin, whether stated in terms of the author as an originating moment of discourse10 or in related ways involving ownership, property, privacy, fixation, or the possession of women. In some sense The Story of a Man Who Left His Will on Film is about the very impossibility of its title: What does it mean to say that a man creates a film and leaves his will or intention stamped on it as a monument? In what way can such a film no longer be made? Let us shift from the former question and move to the latter.11

2. Vision: The Status of the Image Motoki chases not only the phantom filmmaker in the opening scene but also, after the police have seized the dead filmmaker's camera, he chases the police car carrying away the camera. Motoki chases first the author, then the film itself. The film considered separately as an artifact raises the problem of the image: What is the relation of image space to truth? Is it something more than a recording? How can a spectator argue with an image? Both the Fellini and Oshima films question, to a degree, the images they present. The opening of 8 1/2 soon leads to impossible space (a man flies) which is subsequently contained as a dream (a man wakes). But not all the subjective space of 8 1/2 bears such a simple relation to non-subjective space. It is often unclear whether or not a change in vision occurs, what sort of subjective vision ensues, when the vision begins and ends, and how its content interrelates with other narrations. For example, the second scene of 81/2 ends with Guido walking from his bedroom into the bathroom. The light in the bathroom begins inexplicably to flash and becomes extremely bright; a loud and stirring rendition of Wagner's Ride of the Valkyries begins with no apparent source; and Guido looks into a mirror. We next see an overexposed shot (matching the light in the bathroom) of people strolling about a garden. The music carries over and the camera glides around

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the faces, some of whom acknowledge the camera as if it were a person. Is Guido's glance into the mirror something more, say a gaze into himself? What sort of subjective vision this may be is complicated by the fact that when Guido appears in the scene he clearly has a wish-fulfillment fantasy within the vision (a beautiful woman is substituted for a shrill nurse) — which later in the scene turns out to be part of his, as yet unrealized, film — and, further, we never return to the start of the vision (the bathroom). The fact that the subjective sequences are unmarked or marked in novel, oblique, ambiguous, or retrospective ways (here one also thinks of the films of Bunuel and Bergman) raises in the viewer a profound hesitancy or uncertainty about the image. For instance, delaying the establishing shot until the very end of the second scene (the bedroom) in some measure continues the disorientating space of the opening dream sequence. In other scenes the establishing shot is simply omitted, adding to the confusion of space. Frequently, impossible or contradictory elements seem inextricably bound to the mise-en-scene. For example, later in the garden scene mentioned above, Guido meets and talks with his scriptwriter about present problems and we seem finally to be anchored in the present (1962) and yet the people milling about in the background are dressed in clothes unmistakably marked as of the 1930's. 12 The general result is that 'reality' is, in part, unknowable — not completely specified — except as a blend of subjective and non-subjective narrations. The play between the narrations opens a certain plurality of meaning in the film. For example, in the scene in which the screen tests for Guido's movie are screened for him, his wife, and various co-workers, we see actresses playing the roles of Guido's wife and other women from his life; we hear dialogue and variations on dialogue which we have already heard in other contexts; and comments from the audience as well as from Guido interact with the screen test film and Guido's voice on that film. It is important, however, not to overstate the plurality achieved in 8 1/2. The viewer never stops trying to make sense, and the text never stops making sense with respect to a 'reality'. We know, for instance, that Guido is having trouble with his wife, that he has a mistress, that he is attempting to make a film, and so forth. The origin of the unreal is always located in Guido and referenced to a privileged, non-subjective level of narration which is, exactly, reality for the text even though we may not always see this reality or be certain when we do see it. 13 The fact that such a level exists is what allows us to understand one character's reaction upon viewing the screen tests for Guido's movie: "It's all from real life!". The Story of a Man Who ..., like 8 1/2, raises certain questions about its images; specifically, the images in the testament film. That inner film contains seven shots of still lifes: rooftops and foliage stirring in the breeze, a side street crowded with pedestrians, car wheels passing on a thoroughfare, a letter box near an underpass (stills 28—31), railroad tracks near a small shop (overexposed), and televi-

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sion antennas on rooftops. The final shot of the testament film is an attempt to film a busy street, but it is interrupted by Motoki demanding the return of the camera (still 27). The final shot when we see it in the testament film is an exact repetition of the opening shot of The Story of a Matt Who ... Questions about the images of the testament film begin immediately. When Motoki challenges the cameraman he demands to know, "What are you filming? There's nobody here.". Later when the testament film is screened it seems unintelligible. "Hard as you look, though, there doesn't seem to be anything there," says Yasuko. It is suggested that maybe the point of the testament film is to link meaningless shots and create meaning by paradox. But still, no one can suggest a meaning. In this connection it is worth recalling a statement by Guido's scriptwriter in 8 1/2 concerning Guido's proposed movie: "The film is merely a series of completely senseless episodes. Oh, their ambiguous realism is, perhaps, quite amusing . . . (pause) . . . but what is the writer's real intention?". Guido's producer better understands Guido's film (and Fellini's film) when he remarks, "I understand what you want the film to say. You want to show the confusion that man has inside himself.". Meaning exists only with respect to an interest and for both Guido's writer and producer that interest is the intention of the author and, ultimately, the inner life of the author. Motoki, too, can be said to pursue the author in these terms. The Oshima film, however, criticizes such a formulation of interest and proposes that meaning exists only with respect to a social interest. What is crucial for Oshima is the politics of the image. David Bordwell has argued that Bertolt Brecht's concept of a "social gest" illuminates the working of The Story of a Man Who ,.. 1 4 . Brecht distinguishes the socially significant gest from an illustrative or expressive gest: The attitude of chasing away a fly is not yet a social gest, though the attitude of chasing away a dog may be one, for instance if it comes to represent a badly dressed man's continual battle against watchdogs. One's efforts to keep one's balance on a slippery surface result in a social gest as soon as falling down would mean "losing face"; in other words, losing one's market value. The gest of working is definitely a social gest, because all human activity directed towards the mastery of nature is a social undertaking, an undertaking between men. On the other hand a gest of pain, as long as it is kept so abstract and generalized that it does not rise above a purely animal category, is not yet a social one. But this is precisely the common tendency of art: to remove the social element in any gest. . . . The man then becomes just Man; his gest is stripped of any social individuality; it is an empty one, not representing any undertaking or operation among men by this particular man . . . [T]he social gest is the gest relevant to society, the gest that allows conclusions to be drawn about the social circumstances.15 Although the apparently meaningless still lifes of the testament film are strikingly

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similar to many transitions in the films of Yasujiro Ozu, two critics have valorized them as avant-garde.16 I believe on the contrary that the testament film is ultimately censured because it blocks a social gest and elides ideological context. When we return to the landscapes of the testament film to watch Motoki refilm them we see considerably more than was evident in the testament film; we are shown what is absent in the testament. Motoki first attempts to refilm the letter box near an underpass (still 31) but Yasuko appears, stands in front of the box, and refuses Motoki's demands to get out of the picture. She continues her stubborn refusal to move even when a mailman arrives to gather letters from the box. A policeman is called and the three of them grapple in front of the mailbox. Motoki does not film the struggle in front of the mailbox. Motoki next attempts to reshoot the railroad tracks near a small shop. Again Yasuko obstructs the shooting by standing at the shop talking endlessly on the telephone. She refuses Motoki's entreaties to move out of the way. Her talk is apparently meaningless. But perhaps it reveals something more. "Fine. Yes fine. Yes fine. Yes. Fine. Say it again. Yes fine. Yes. Sure fine. It's all right with me. Yes fine. What? Yes it's fine with me." Yasuko mimics Motoki's project with that sort of rhetoric which elides social context — which asserts 'I'm OK — You're OK' or that this is 'the best of all possible worlds'. A well-dressed man, perhaps a young executive, approaches Yasuko, tells her the phone line is dead. She ignores him and continues talking, "Yes, of course. Yes, fine,". The man repeats that the line is dead and in a rage he strikes Yasuko. We see blood run from her mouth. Again this violence and the class relations implicated in the violence are not filmed by Motoki. Finally, Motoki attempts to refilm car wheels passing on a thoroughfare (still 30). The very framing of the proposed shot suggests some of the difficulties of the testament film. While showing part of a car produces perhaps an interesting study of motion, direction, and graphics, it obscures consideration of the whole car, what it means to travel the urban landscape (to work), and the people who travel (trapped) in cars. Similarly, when we see a postal box, we do not see a postal system; when we see rooftops in the testament film we do not see homes and families. Yasuko again obstructs the shot and refuses to leave even when Motoki throws paint at her. She attempts further obstruction of the filming by walking into the street disrupting traffic. There is almost an accident. A passenger from one car strikes her and then four men kidnap and rape her in the car. None of this, apparently, is filmed by Motoki. In fact when Yasuko is kidnapped he chooses to leave the camera by running to a store and handing it to someone. "Keep this for me, will you?" The final blindness of the testament film. After the rape, Yasuko and Motoki confront one another on a hill and she is able to say, "I won. I won. I beat you, and I beat him.... Because I didn't see any-

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thing. I didn't see his landscape.". The landscape lived by Yasuko was not the empty one of Motoki and the author of the testament film but one charged with social content. Motoki apparently agrees but he is still wrong: "There is no such thing as his landscape. All landscapes are the same. He's in every landscape and he's missing from every landscape, too." Motoki abolishes a personal author but substitutes a transcendental one. In summary, one can say that the problem of the image — its excess — is formulated in the Oshima film not in terms of verifying the existence of real space — an actual location — or having the right intention, but in terms of the social relations the image reveals and the social purpose it serves. Right intentions are not enough, for that merely returns to the idea of origin and author. (One member of the collective derides those who "believe that proletarian consciousness can produce proletarian films".) What is at stake in the image is not its relation to an author's vision or even to a look at all, but to a specific social system. To paraphrase Brecht by substituting 'images' for remarks he made concerning the 'representation of sentences', what is crucial are such questions as the following: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6.

Who is the image of use to? Who does it claim to be of use to? What does it call for? What practical action corresponds to it? What sort of images result from it? What sort of images support it? In what situation is it shown? By whom?17

The utility of the image is measured by the interests it serves, and the thrust of The Story of a Man Who . . . is to reveal these interests with respect to the testament film. Motoki is and becomes the spectator created by the testament film. As Motoki comes to understand the testament film, he is forced to live it through as the subject of its ideology. Yasuko alone refuses the role prescribed for her by the testament film.

3. Time: The Relation of Narration and Narrative 8 1/2 displays a multiplicity of time frames; dreams, flashbacks, hallucinations, dialogues with the dead, and so forth. What is already implicit in giving these names to time is the assertion that the film reinvests, so far as possible, its time of narration in the time of the narrative — in a character in the narrative. For example, we see a medium close-up of Guido. The fact that his scriptwriter is speaking to him from off-camera already emphasizes Guide's perception (hearing, think-

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ing). The next three shots depict the arrival of two men who put a rope around the scriptwriter's neck and hang him. The next shot is a repetition of the medium close-up of Guido from the same camera set-up and returns us to a previous gesture by Guido which we now interpret as interrupted by a fantasy. The play of the narration is justified or 'motivated' as the insertion of character time. The repetition of a camera set-up functions as the key index of the inserted time. The narration is ironic since the scriptwriter, who had been warning Guido about 'illusions', promptly becomes a victim of illusion. Familiar markers like dissolves are not employed, and this promotoes a certain ambiguity about time as it did for vision. When Guido muses, "What am I going to say to the Cardinal tomorrow?" and that is followed by a visit to the Cardinal, the viewer hesitates: Is this a dream or is it 'tomorrow'? Again it functions as irony since lying on the bed with Guido is his mistress of whom the Cardinal, no doubt, would disapprove. In contrast the time of narration of the Oshima film is not reinvested in narrative as either internal (character) time nor external (eternal) time, but rather can be understood only in terms of a represented, social moment, an ideological clash. Let us consider a few examples. The apparent suicide of Endo occurs during the day while the political demonstration at which Endo is supposed to have tripped and sprained his ankle occurs at night. The discrepancy between these two times is essential to the text because it means that time is irreconcilable. It is not possible to postulate an underlying, consistent time base (a real time, a coherence) where at a specific point either Endo committed suicide or he tripped and fell. In such a time scheme it would be the problem of the text to answer the ambiguity, perhaps, in an ironic way (e.g., a hallucination by Motoki, a staged suicide, the appearance of someone's identical twin, etc.). But in the text, time itself becomes a problem which then prohibits those figures of rhetoric, such as ambiguity and irony, which depend on the existence of clearly defined alternatives (ambiguity reveals the alternatives by a hesitation to choose and irony by a simple reversal of the expected). Time becomes further complicated when we recall that Motoki chased the police car after the suicide and he is also supposed to have chased the police after Endo tripped and lost the camera at the demonstration. Motoki cannot exist in contradictory time (where Endo commits suicide one day and sprains his ankle that same night) unless we also dispense with the assumption that character must be unified and autonomous in space and time — the ultimate subject of ambiguity and irony. When Motoki chases the phantom filmmaker there is a shot in which he stops and looks, followed by a shot of Motoki again running after the phantom. Ordinarily these shots would be read as successive time, but suppose they were read as simultaneous time, that is, as an eyeline match where Motoki sees himself? This is formally equivalent to the traditional mirror shot (cf. Guido who sees himself in a mirror) which at a superficial level proposes a split subject (Guido looks in the mirror as if to ask "who is this person?"). There is, however, an important epis-

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temological break between the mirror shot of 8 1/2 and the eyeline match where Motoki sees himself. The latter denies the coherence and autonomy of the body around which the traditional character is constructed; accordingly, the Oshima articulation is deemed 'impossible', imaginary·, or absurd from the perspective of a traditional aesthetics. The problem with time forces a reevaluation of other articulations. For example, there is a classic POV shot where Motoki chases the phantom, stops, looks down a street near a waterway. We then cut to a view of that street from Motoki's point in space; after a moment Motoki steps in front of the camera and resumes the chase. Ordinarily the POV structure demands continuous time, but what if the time is simultaneous (or even reverse time) where Motoki is seen to chase only himself, a second Motoki? The contradiction in time is made explicit at the end of the film when we see Motoki with the camera and then see his POV through the camera. He begins to run and since the camera is hand-held we see the image move wildly about. But an extraordinary event occurs. Through the camera we see Motoki run out — impossibly — in front of the camera and run away.18 Thus the film moves to split a character apart in contradictory ways and to refind the relation camera-cameraman elsewhere in terms of ideology. (What is an author? What is an image? etc.) Yasuko, too, I believe is split apart — defined at once in a Marxist collective and as an object of property in a bourgeois system. Even the flashback attributed to her ("Let me go over everything that happened today.") in which she patiently explains to Motoki that Endo is alive and which she continuously narrates, is not free of contradiction. It begins with Yasuko leaning against a solid wooden fence, but ends with her in an entirely new locale, leaning against a wire mesh fence. She asks Motoki, "Do you remember now?", though soon she herself will not remember. (Later she will argue to the members of the cooperative that Endo is dead.) The conclusion would seem to be that in this film, as opposed to 8 1/2, time reveals not the psychology of a character — mad, foolish, witty, poetic, confused — but the inadequacy of the concept of character.19

4. Frame: The Relation of Spectator and Spectacle In traditional representation, the frame is that perceptual limit or boundary which divides what is represented from what is not represented with respect to (from) an origin. To frame is to bracket an array using the element 'mind' as the principle of inclusion/ex elusion. One of the spectator's tasks in comprehending a film is to discover the relationship between inclusion and exclusion, i.e., the (abstract) principle by which some objects are present on the screen and others are absent. The

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spectator is not a mere receiver of stimuli (tabulating what is seen) but must be able to actively test hypotheses and predict new, possible (unseen) spaces. In order to form conjectures about the framing of space, the spectator must analyze a pattern of successive camera placements through time and establish how such a locus of point-spaces describes, or rather circumscribes, a narrative scene for a particular viewing by a spectator. One such pattern often found in traditional films traces out space for a so-called perfect or ideal spectator. The perfect view, as described by one writer, means that a director does not attempt to show it [the scene] through the eyes of one of the characters on the screen: that would mean keeping the camera still, showing all the time only the close shot of the opposite actor. Nor does he try to show it through the eyes of an impartial observer physically present at the scene: that would mean that he could only cut to shots which were all taken from a fixed camera position. Instead, the director's aim is to give an ideal picture of the scene, in each case placing his camera in such a position that it records most effectively the particular piece of action or detail which is dramatically significant. He becomes, as it were, a ubiquitous observer, giving the audience at each moment of the action the best possible viewpont.20 However, the observer constructed by The Story of a Man Who . . . is an imperfect one. Oshima uses a 360-degree model of space to generate camera set-ups which skew eyelines and confuse screen direction and movement. It is unlike the 360-degree space of either Carl Dreyer or Yasujiro Ozu; the former, in Day of Wrath (1943), breaks Hollywood's 180-degree space at decisive moments in the dialogue while the latter settles his spatial deviation into a supra-narrative symmetry.21 Oshima's space is unpredictable. There are also a great number of high and low angles on characters which make a viewer lose contact with the surrounding horizontal space in which the characters move and hence further obscure action and temporal relations. There are also many shots from camera positions which are impossible for the perfect spectator to occupy. We see a shot from the position of a wall, a high-angle crane shot in the middle of a wide highway, and a shot of a character looking out from atop a tall building, but from a position on the other side of the railing — suspended over empty space! Fellini, too, employs an occasional impossible shot (e. g., Guido's POV flying on the end of a rope — still 24) but, unlike him, Oshima uses such shots systematically and does not motivate them as part of a special reality separable from actuality. Impossible spectator positions are also related to impossible POV shots. When Motoki chases the police car through the streets and into a tunnel, we soon realize that the shots from his view are moving much too fast and it should be impossible for him to keep up with the car. When Yasuko is raped in the car there are a series of POV shots, interspersed with shots of the interior of the car, which become

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more and more impossible (stills 32—35). First we see a classic POV shot from Yasuko's position out a window of the car. A short time later there is a shot skimming along near the surface of the highway as if the viewer were tied to the front bumper of the moving car (we do not, however, see any part of the car). Somewhat later, we see approximately what Yasuko sees out a window but the camera is outside the car angled upwards past a side view mirror showing street lamps and buildings moving by. Finally the scene ends with a repeat of the camera set-up from the front of the car bumper but now the camera is inverted so that the highway and the sky exchange places. At this point, there can be no possible spectator. The scene of the rape in the car is particularly important because its framing is the very antithesis of the testament film. Instead of expansive landscapes, there is the cramped interior of a car; instead of a unified space, there is a chaotic space composed of fragments of six bodies turned and turning in different directions. What is held constant and helps to order the spatial fragments is the gaze of a spectator who is out of place and to whose face we continually return. That spectator is Motoki, who is wedged on the floor in the front of the car and who stares between the front seats (still 36) as Yasuko is repeatedly raped in the back seat. Motoki, the filmmaker of a testament, shorn of his camera, is reduced to spectatorship. Just as he failed to see when reshooting the mailbox or the railroad tracks, he still does not see; or rather, he sees but as the voyeur, uncommitted and passive. Motoki is perfectly placed for the best possible view — bound to witness what, for him, can only be a spectacle. In these terms, I believe, Oshima criticizes a filmmaking practice which, cut off from social practice, can only be a form of voyeurism both for the author who looks and the spectator who watches.

5. Mind: Toward a Redefinition of Character Christian Metz has argued that 8 1/2 contains not one but three endings.22 Guido, realizing he is incapable of making a coherent film about his life — which for him remains only confused, episodic, and disjointed — crawls under a table in the chaos of a press conference about his film and shoots himself. In a second ending Guido returns to life and sees all the people of his life, past and present, parading in front of him. He recognizes that disorder is part of his very being. He confesses, "All the confusion of my life . . . (pause)... has been a reflection of myself! Myself as I am, not as I'd like to be. But that no longer frightens me!" "I accept you all," he says, and to his wife, "Accept me as I am. Only then will we discover each other.". Guido himself joins the parade of people from his life. They

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all join hands and march in a circle. Guido takes up a megaphone to shout instructions, to direct his memories. He has come to order. As Metz notes, this second ending heralds not only the existence of 8 1/2 itself, but also the principle of its creation: It will be a film woven from the life of its author and possessing the disorder of his life.23 In a third ending, Guido as a small child appears playing a flute and directing a procession of four clowns. Metz once again: No longer is Guido at the center of the magic circle; now it is only the small child dressed in white, and blowing his pipe, the ultimate, and first, inspirer of the whole fantasy — Guido as a child has become the symbol of Fellini as a child, since, in any case, the place of the director, which is now empty, can only be occupied by a character external to the action of the film: by Fellini himself.24 I would add a fourth ending. There is a shift to nighttime. The child Guido leads his small procession into an empty arena marked by a circle of footlights. In a high-angle crane shot we watch the clowns march off, leaving the child maestro alone and solitary. But then the child, too, walks off, leaving in center stage, the stage itself. And so Man gives way to the ultimate victor: the arena, the stage — the idea of theatre — which is eternal and unchanging, the site of Man's transformation even in his absence. What lives as a celebration of human nature is the idea of spectacle and Art. 25 Let us examine more carefully this series of endings to the film in an attempt to specify more closely the logic both of the text 8 1/2 and the order of discourse of which it is a part — the classical discourse. Toward this objective we will employ a semantic square26 which relates four terms such that the pair on each diagonal are contradictories; the pair at the top and bottom contraries; and the pair at the sides converses (see figure 1). We will discover an overall symmetry to the logical system of 8 1/2. The disorder and confusion which Guido feels is part of himself and life is opposed as a contradictory to the order and stability which is death and impotence (sexual, artistic ...). 2 7 On the other diagonal, fiction and the fantasy life (deception, magic) is opposed to the innocence, truth, and simplicity of the child and childhood. Contradictories are defined so that there is no possible mediation between them. Contraries, on the other hand, such as disorder and fiction (text), have some possible mediation between or beyond them. Converses involve a relation of inference where, for example, a measure of disorder (spontaneity) implies innocence (which is epitomized, for example, in the cultural myth that children are uninhibited and innocent) and text (form, coherence) implies a degree of order (calculation). These terms, and especially those associated with them, are not given a priori as

Still 17:

The Best Years of Our Lives (shot 6) (page 135).

Still 18:

The Best Years of Our Lives (shot 7 A) (page 135).

A

Still 19:

The Best Years of Our Lives (shot 7 B ) (page 135).

Still 2 0 :

The Best Years of Our Lives (shot 8 A) (page 135).

Still 2 4 :

81/2 (pages 1 4 6 , 1 5 8 ) .

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contradictories, contraries, or converses but are placed in a set of relations by the semantic system, or argument, of a text. The narration of 8 1/2, then, operates to place these terms, or clusters, in the configuration of a logical square. In the simplest narrative, there is only one opposition (e. g., good versus evil) which would be resolved merely through the defeat of one of the adversaries. (If there is no opposition at all, then the text is not narrative but descriptive.) 8 1/2, however, is more complex in that it explores the density and relationships of four semantic clusters and, further, argues for a resolution 'beyond' the logical system on a 'higher' plane of reality. Hence, the importance of magic and of the Magician, Maurice, who aids Guido in the final scene. The system is built in order to be suddenly broken and thereby disclose a more comprehensive 'truth'. In this context, an observation by Oscar Wilde acquires added meaning: " A Truth in art is that whose contradictory is also true". 28 The conclusion of 8 1/2 is an inventory of the four possible resolutions of the opposing terms. The great circle dance which we witness and the circle of footlights are, precisely, the figures for a new unity, a resolution of opposing terms. First, we see a combination of the two lower-level terms in a kind of negative synthesis or transcendence (-S + -S) when Guido commits suicide. (It is significant that at the moment of death his childhood is also evoked through an apparition of his mother.) It is a negative transcendence because, against the logic of subcontraries, we see that neither term exists; that is, suicide is neither innocent nor is it a proper death (in accordance with, for example, Catholic belief). In the second ending (S + -S), Guido resolves the confusion and sense of sin he feels with the (perceived) idyllic innocence of his childhood. He decides to accept the contradictions within himself and asks others also to accept him as he is. In the next ending (S + -S), Guido becomes an author, a filmmaker capable of directing his fantasies and bringing them to order. By rediscovering himself— his fantasies, his past — Guido has refound the ability to act in the world. The fourth and final ending is a positive synthesis of the two upper terms (S + S) and amounts to a transcendence of the initial opposition of disorder and fiction; that is, the confusion of reality is reconciled with the private meaning of Guido's fantasies. It is a positive transcendence because, against the logic of contraries, we see that both terms coexist; that is, art is unreal, a fiction, and yet, in some fundamental sense, also real. In effect, the first two scenes of the film (Guido's fantasy followed by the entrance of his doctors) promise such a reconciliation between reality and imagination with the added complexity that Guido is also an author. Thus the film becomes, crucially, a working out of the precise status of author with respect to reality, imagination, text, subject (consciousness), and the other terms. The final transcendence, as I have argued, presents Art as the ultimate mediation between reality and fantasy. It is offered as that term which is not limited by time, history, or social condition. Through Art the text asserts its immortality. Art is also offered as that semantic entity which completes the series of im-

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possible endings arranged by the logical system of 8 1/2. It is not surprising that critics interpret these logically transgressive moments of the ending in mystical ways, for example, as a sudden freedom, an 'epiphany' — e.g., "The boy inside the man [Guido] has been freed and restored, not by design, deliberation, or development, but by an act of grace." 29 When a logical system is broken without explanation, the reason seems to lie with the ineffable. In summary, we can say that although 8 1/2 may appear to be a diffuse, even chaotic work, the symmetry of its underlying thematic complex — shown as a semantic square — is more typical of the economy and closure achieved by the classical text. Furthermore, 8 1/2 reenacts the presuppositions and logic of classical discourse in its placement of author, text, art, and reality. At the end of The Story of a Man Who Left His Will on Film, Motoki jumps from the top of the building and we see a POV shot as he and the camera fall to the ground. The camera, on the verge of being freed of the filmmaker, records his death. We see Motoki dead on the sidewalk. But we have learned not to trust the apparent coherence of the POV shot. If the film were to end here, the previous narration would fall like the suicide neatly into place (so Motoki was the author, his first death was imagined ...) and we would be left with a pessimistic version of the end of 8 1/2 when Guido commits suicide. Instead we see someone — wearing Motoki's tennis shoes — run in and grab the camera lying next to Motoki's body just as Motoki had grabbed the camera lying next to a body at the beginning of the film. There is a strong sense in which Motoki has again taken the camera and the cycle of the film will begin again. But it cannot be a cycle for a cycle is only another form of stability — that which changes by circling onto itself. Moreover, a cycle suggests the biological time of 81/2 where an innocent and sensitive child grows to a man and an artist. Motoki does not come to order in that way. I have argued that the Oshima film throughout posits contradictions which cannot be reconciled: contradictions in the image, in time, in impossible framings, and in character. This last, most of all, for both Motoki and Yasuko seem split in two with a continual interchange among fragments of Motoki and fragments of Yasuko (i.e., at a given moment, one part of Motoki opposing one part of Yasuko). The relation of Motoki to the testament film is never decided for there is a constant dialectic which never quite holds him either as a Marxist or as an artist of the transcendant. At the end we don't see Motoki's face as he grabs the camera because there remains the possibility of change; the story will not simply be repeated, but rather next time Motoki may try an entirely different route to avoid making and becoming part of the testament film. Above all, Motoki is not rendered in terms of an irreducible essence that surpasses culture and history, something 'human' which orders experience. Motoki exists only in terms of energy and change, divided under ideological pressure. The narrative of The Story of a Man Who . . . is non-linear since time is measured only in terms of permutation, such as the permutation of character, and not

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consistency (the 'evolving' or developing character). By contrast, linear narrative or a consistent character depends on a logic of reducing the set of future possibilities by what has already been realized in the past and thus a 'climax' or a 'revelation' of character — those archetypal figures of the linear narrative — quite rightly assumes the shape of a pyramid where every element in the signifying space redoubles and builds consistently in one direction until there remains but one (inevitable) possibility. Thus what is inevitable in such a narrative is only the certainty of a climax or revelation. There is a remarkable shot in 8 1/2 which sums up its activity of narration. The camera, panning right, follows Guido in extreme long shot in a hotel lobby and stops when he stops. A woman in the near foreground beckons and he looks toward the woman (her arm rests on a chair at right — still 37) as the camera pans right to frame her (an eyeline match). The woman follows him with her eyes as he approaches from off-camera (still 38); finally, Guido's arm stretches out to her in the extreme foreground from the exact position of the camera (converting the space into a near POV shot — still 39). The narration of 8 1/2 has in a single set-up held, then lost, but finally returned and fixed Guido as the coherence of its 4 Art

Disorder (life,

Fiction (fantasy, deception, the unreal, text)

Contraries

2 Guido as Subject

Innocence (birth, child)

3 Guido as Author

-5

Subcontraries

-S

,°rder (death, stab,llt

y)

1 Suicide Figure 1: A Semantic Square Illustrating One Thematic System of 8 1/2 and its Four Conclusions

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space. The fixing of levels of narration in the form of alternatives is a precondition for the breeding of certain rhetorical figures — ambiguity, irony, tragedy — and their resolution in the unique, timeless, and universal. The Story of a Man Who . . . offers no stable alternatives in this way, and hence no decision, resolution, hesitation, climax, reversal, and so forth, among the alternatives is possible. The film posits instead a fundamental indeterminancy. It is fitting that at the end of the film we are returned to its beginning, returned to a shot which has almost slipped from memory: the opening titles play over the outline of a person's shoulders and head in medium close-up (still 40). What startles us is that, because of the sharp contrast in lighting, we cannot determine whether the person directly faces the camera or is turned directly away; whether the person is male or female; whether the shot is a photograph or a film of a motionless person. In 8 1/2 the question to be answered by the text would be "who is this person?". In The Story of a Man Who Left His Will on Film the question is "what is this person to be?" and it cannot be answered on the ground of Human Nature, but only in terms of the unremitting contradiction of the subject formed in ideology. The text does not hesitate, it contradicts.

NOTES 1. Tokyo Senso Sengo Hiwa (Eiga de Isho ο Nokoshite Shinda Otoko no Monogatari), Secret History Post-War of the War of Tokyo (The Story of a Man Who LeftHis Will on Film), released in the USA under the title He Died After the War. In this chapter the title is abbreviated to The Story of a Man Who ... 2. See Stephen Heath, "Narrative Space", Screen 17 (3) (Autumn 1976), pp. 6 8 - 1 1 2 . 3. See Fredric Jameson, "Ideology and Symbolic Action", Critical Inquiry 5 (2) (Winter 1978), pp. 4 1 7 - 4 2 2 ; Louis Althusser, "Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses" in Lenin and Philosophy and Other Essays trans, by Ben Brewster (London: New Left Books, 1971), pp. 1 2 7 - 1 8 6 ; Raymond Williams, Marxism and Literature (London: Oxford Univ., 1977), chap. 4 ; the debate between Cahiers du Cinema and Cinethique in Screen 12 (1) (Spring 1971); 12 (2) (Summer 1971); and 13 (1) (Spring 1972), all reprinted in Screen Reader 1 (1977); Terry Eagleton, Marxism and Literary Criticism (Los Angeles: Univ. of California, 1976), pp. viii, 1 6 - 1 9 ; Philip Rosen, "'Screen' and the Marxist Project in Film Criticism", Quarterly Review of Film Studies 2 (3) (August 1977), pp. 2 7 3 - 2 8 7 ; the special section of film and ideology in Jump Cut 17 (1978), pp. 14—27; and Edward Branigan, "Foreground and Background: A Reply to Paul Willemen", Screen 19 (2) (Summer 1978), pp. 1 3 5 - 1 3 9 . 4. Cf. Roland Barthes, "Lesson in Writing" in Image-Music-Text trans, by Stephen Heath (N.Y.: Hill and Wang, 1977), esp. pp. 1 7 2 - 1 7 4 . 5. Kristin Thompson, "The Duplicitous Text: An Analysis of 'Stage Fright'", Film Reader 2 (1977), pp. 5 2 - 6 4 ; cf. Kristin Thompson, "Closure Within a Dream: Point-of-View in 'Laura'", Film Reader 3 (1978), pp. 9 0 - 1 0 5 .

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6. Stephen Heath, The Nouveau Roman: A Study in the Practice of Writing (Philadelphia: Temple Univ., 1972), p. 30, and also chapter 3 on "Alain Robbe-Grillet". 7. Cf. the discussion of the work of Jean-Marie Straub and Daniele Huillet in Heath, "Narrative Space", p. 101. 8. The analysis that follows is one of narration, rather than of its object. An analysis of the latter would have to place historically the various factions of the radical student left in Japan (see Gavan McCormack, "The Student Left in Japan," New Left Review 65 (Jan.-Feb. 1971), pp. 3 7 - 5 3 ) , the significance of Okinawa Day, April 28, 1970 (during which the film takes place), the fact that Oshima is named in the film along with other supposed 'intellectuals', and perhaps the Japanese custom of ancestor worship with its spirits of the dead (prominent in, for example, Mizoguchi's Ugetsu Monogatari, 1953). See also David Bordwell, "The Art Cinema as a Mode of Film Practice", Film Criticism 4 (1) (Fall 1979), pp. 5 6 - 6 4 . 9. Cf. Christopher Williams, "Ideas About Film Technology and the History of the Cinema, with Reference to Comolli's Texts on Technology (Cahiers du Cinema)", including a translation of Comolli's work, available through the British Film Institute Educational Advisory Service (London), pp. 1, 6; Comolli, p. 4.1; Christian Metz, "The Imaginary Signifier", Screen 16 (2) (Summer 1975), pp. 7 1 - 7 3 . 10. Cf. Heath, The Nouveau Roman, p. 24. See Heath, "Orders of Discourse", Atlantis 4 (Sept. 1972), p. 67 and Michel Foucault, "What is an Author?" Partisan Review 42 (4) (1975), pp. 6 0 3 - 6 1 4 , reprinted Screen 20 (1) (Spring 1979), pp. 1 3 - 2 9 ; Roland Barthes, "The Death of the Author" in Image/Music/Text trans, by Stephen Heath (N.Y.: Hill and Wang, 1977), pp. 1 4 2 - 1 4 8 . See ch. 1, sec. 3 and ch. 3, sec. 1. 11. This interpretation remains valid despite the fart that the word in the title translated as 'will' — isho — means 'posthumous writing' and therefore does not quite have the intentional force of the English term. 12. Deena Boyer, The Two Hundred Days of 8 111 (Ν. Y.: MacMillan, 1964), pp. 53, 57-59. 13. I define the real in film not with respect to everyday space, but as one level of non-subjective narration, specified by the film, which orders all the other levels. To speak of an entire film as 'realistic', however, is a separate issue involving the relation of the film to other films and to the other (dominant) systems of representation in a culture. Realism in that sense is the probable, the familiar, given by the culture; see Goodman, pp. 3 4 - 3 9 . 14. In a seminar in film theory, "Film as Representational System", at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, Fall 1976. 15. Bertolt Brecht, " O n Gestic Music", in Brecht on Theatre, ed. by John Willett (Ν. Y.: Hill and Wang, 1964), pp. 1 0 4 - 1 0 5 ; " O n the Use of Music in an Epic Theatre", Ibid., p. 86. Note that for Brecht 'aesthetics' is precisely that study which divorces signifying practices from historical context; see, "Shouldn't We Abolish Aesthetics?", Ibid., pp. 2 0 - 2 2 . 16. Maureen Turim and John Mowitt, "Thirty Seconds Over . . . Oshima's The War of Tokyo or The Young Man Who Left His Will On Film", Wide Angle 1 (4) (1977), pp. 3 4 - 4 3 . 17. Brecht, p. 106. 18. See also the discussion of this sequence by David Bordwell, "Camera Movement and Cinematic Space", Cine-Tracts 1 (2) (Summer 1977), pp. 24—25. 19. See the issue of New Literary History 5 (2) (Winter 1974) devoted to "Changing Views of Character." 20. Karel and Reisz and Gavin Millar, The Technique of Film Editing (N.Y.: Hastings, 2nd ed., 1968), p. 215 (Reisz and Millar's emphasis).

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21. Kristin Thompson and David Bordwell, "Space and Narrative in the Films of Ozu", Screen 17 (2) (Summer 1976), pp. 4 1 - 7 3 ; Edward Branigan, "The Space of Equinox Flower", Ibid., pp. 7 4 - 1 0 5 . 22. Christian Metz, Film Language (Ν. Y.: Oxford Univ., 1974), ch. 9 "Mirror Construction in Fellini's 8 1/2", pp. 2 3 3 - 2 3 4 . 23. Ibid., p. 233. 24. Ibid., p. 234 (Metz' emphasis). 25. Fellini's The Clowns (1970), like 8 1/2, is a film about the making of a film which contains autobiographical elements (Fellini as child) and discontinuous temporal schemes. In particular its ending replays the ideology of the empty though omnipotent stage. The following passage by A. J. Prats not only describes the end of The Clowns but is an example of that ideology at work. United by the spotlight and completing their musical piece, the two clowns walk out of the ring. They fade out and then the spotlight also fades out. But the ring remains — empty, as empty as the instance [s
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105. See generally, William O. Hendricks, "The Structural Study of Narration: Sample Analyses", Poetics 3 (1972), pp. 109-110 and Wayne Guymon, "An Exercise in Semantic Analysis", Journal of Literary Semantics 4, (1975), pp. 85—86. The above analyses are adaptations of the 'square of opposition' used in traditional logic to classify categorical propositions. None of these sources, however, gives an adequate account of the square of opposition, for which see a textbook on logic, e.g., Morris Cohen and Ernest Nagel, An Introduction to Logic and Scientific Method (Ν. Y.: Harcourt, Brace and World, 1934), pp. 5 2 - 6 8 ; Howard Kahane, Logic and Philosophy (Belmont, Calif.: Wadsworth, 2nd ed., 1973), pp. 188-192. 27. For a more detailed account of the theme of death in 8 1/2 and how it is extended to the church and marriage, see Albert Benderson, Critical Approaches to Federico Fellini's "8 1/2" (N.Y.: Arno, 1974), pp. 50-67. Perhaps the most famous image of order in the film is Guido wielding a bullwhip over his harem during a fantasy sequence. 28. Oscar Wilde, "The Truth of Masks: A Note on Illusion", Intentions (1891) in Richard Ellmann, ed., The Artist as Critic: Critical Writings of Oscar Wilde (N.Y.: Random House, 1968), p. 432. 29. Ted Perry, Filmguide to 8 1/2 (Bloomington, Ind.: Indiana Univ., 1975), p. 66; and see Benderson, p. 132. According to George Linden, Reflections on the Screen (Belmont, Calif.: Wadsworth, 1970), pp. 259-262, 8 1/2 contains five levels of reality: realism, authorial comment, fantasy, memory, and mystic vision.

CHAPTER 8

Metatheory

1. Empiricist Versus Rationalist Theories of Point of View and the Process of Embedding In chapter 3 I discussed the "impact of the error and hypothesis ways of reading on our conception of the camera and the diegesis. I now wish to suggest that these ways of reading are special instances of a more fundamental division in methodology. The error and hypothesis ways of reading lead finally to empirical or rationalist theories of narration. A convenient test is whether a theory eventually posits a narrator where one does not explicitly appear. If so, such a narrator is termed 'effaced'1 and leads to rationalist assumptions. (Alternatively, the rationalist position may be stated in terms of an 'effaced reader', where a text constructs an abstract, invisible reader(s) of some sort.) By contrast, an empirical theory of narration will hold to the surface of a work, asserting that if one doesn't observe it, then there is no need to hypothesize its existence. The difference between rationalism and empiricism here is that the former posits certain unobservable, abstract entities (which in some versions of rationalism are innate, 'mental' structures e.g., 'ideas') while the latter holds that human knowledge and behavior derive solely from experience (stimuli) — that mental concepts are built up (through association, conditioning, ostension, habit formation) from simple, verifiable percepts.2 Empiricist psychology and philosophy explain learning from other mechanisms such as induction, generalization, analogy, substitution, segmentation, and classification. The difference between modern versions of rationalism and empiricism cannot be based simply on the issue of innate structure for both propose such structures. When applied to the problem of narration, the empirical position holds that there are instances of discourse which either have no narrator at all or, in special circumstances,3 may have a narrator but no addressee/hearer. In the case of film narration, an extreme position is stated by Julio Moreno. He believes that first person visual narration is a "myth" since in cinema it is not possible to speak, in the strict sense, of a narrator. The film does not narrate, but rather it places the spectator directly without intermediaries, in the presence of the facts narrated.4

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One can see that an empirical view easily slides toward a phenomenology where a word or image simply 'is'. (And we can experience this bare perceptual datum by a 'bracketing' and a 'reduction' of stimuli.) How does one interpret this objectivity? As a profilmic reality and/or a postfilmic attention of a real spectator? In a strict empirical view the world may appear directly, without mediation, and thus linguistic shifters are not needed in any physical or psychological description of the world.5 What is slighted in the empirical account is what the rationalists call textual production and ideological context. Point of view in an empirical theory may easily be interpreted as an attitude of a human person6 and not as an abstract textual process involving, say, the presence of shifters, logical embedding, and the social use7 that a text represents. Further, an empirical account of authorship either denies that there is an author (text = world) or else is strictly causal and behavioristic; that is, the text is determined by the biography, expressive intention, etc., of the author and/or by the causal links to a viewer (on the latter see, for example, the theory of Rudolf Arnheim). The price for avoiding the communication model, typical of rationalist theories, is an expression model or a model of the text as pure objectivity: a window on the soul and/or a window on the world. In each case the reader is left in a passive, secondary role as the simple receiver of stimuli. What are the characteristics of a rationalist position? The following passage from Nick Browne reveals a rationalist approach to narration: In this sequence [a series of shots from John Ford's Stagecoach, 1939] the author has effaced himself, as in other instances of indirect discourse, for the sake of the characters and the action. Certainly he is nowhere visible in the same manner as the characters. Rather he is visible only through the materialization of the scene and in certain masked traces of his action. The indirect presence to his audience that the narrator enacts, the particular form of self-effacement, could be described as the masked displacement of his narrative authority as the producer of imagery from himself to the agency of his characters. That is, the film makes it appear as though it were the depicted characters to whom the authority for the presentation of shots can be referred — most evidently in the case of a depiction of a glance, but also, in more complex fashion, in the reading of shots as depictions of a "state of mind." The explanation of the presence of the imagery is referred by the film not to the originating authority who stands invisible, behind the action, but to his masks within the depicted space.8 Note particularly, in relation to the effaced narrator hypothesis, Browne's use of such words as "effaced", "self-effacement", "nowhere visible", "invisible", "masked", "traces", "indirect presence", "behind the action", "displacement", "masks"; and the phrase, "as though it were". In literary studies, the problem of the effaced narrator — a 'transparency' — is posed most acutely with instances of scenic narration (e.g., Ernest Hemingway), internal monologues (James Joyce, William Faulkner), and the recording or re-

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fleeting consciousness of a character (Henry James). For rationalists like Scholes and Kellogg the absence of a narrator is only a surface phenomenon. " T h e result of the disappearance of the narrator is not the refining away of the artist but a continual reminder of his presence — as if God were omnipresent and invisible, yet one could continually hear Him breathing." This statement reveals a common tendency of rationalism to veer toward the metaphysical for an interpretation of that thing or entity which is constitutive but unseen. Moreover, in the Western tradition, a creative power is often vested in the Author or Artist who functions not unlike an absent god. 1 0 Hence, for structuralists and materialists whose theories are rationalistic, the definition of 'author' becomes a delicate matter. 1 1 Even if the concept of author can be explained as a construction of Humanist discourse, a certain 'mentalism' hovers over rationalist theories. In spite of this, Chomsky believes that a rationalist is not committed to the ultimate irreducibility of mind and body. H e contends that in the development of modern science " t h e concept 'physical' has been extended step by step to cover anything we understand," so that "when we ultimately begin to understand the properties of mind, we shall simply . . . extend the notion 'physical' to cover these properties as well". 1 2 Recent literary criticism attempts to avoid mentalism by arguing that 'absence' does not imply that somewhere

there is 'presence' (origin, author, God); in-

stead, there is only the perpetual play of differences inaugurated by representation. 1 3 Though there may not be an author in the ordinary sense, a rationalist must believe in an 'implied' author, 1 4 an 'undramatised' narrator, 1 5 an 'image' of the narrator, or an absent entity or structure of some kind. A rationalist theory will also construct an abstract entity on the side of reading, such as an effaced reader, ideal reader, an 'image' of the reader, a 'competence', etc. If a rationalist critic accepts the distinction telling/showing, then pure showing must be an illusion. In the appendix, section 1 , 1 argue that if showing is conceived of as an illusion, then the distinction as a whole fails because the terms are on different levels of generality. Telling and showing are, if anything, part of an empirical theory of narration. To continue trying to incorporate these terms in a rationalist theory is a doomed enterprise and, worse, leads to great confusion. I have already mentioned certain issues that a rationalist theory must confront — the problem of metaphysics (where is the absent structure?), authorship, and mentalism or idealism. Rationalists are frequently accused of positing a 'ghost in the machine' because many of the entities they propose are unobservable. Even the concept of 'meaning' has been strongly challenged by, among others, Nelson Goodman and Willard Quine. They argue that the 'meaning' of a word has a ghostly quality which marks just what we know least about words; that is, it marks the failure of linguistic theory. Meaning, for them, seems to be a vague, absent quality with no clear definition and thus perfect for hiding the inadequacies of a theory. If whatever is absent in representation is deemed innate to the human species, a whole new set of issues arises.

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A rationalist theory is also vulnerable to a communication theory of representation; in fact, a communication theory can be used to require a narrator where one does not explicitly appear and in this way justify effaced narrators. 16 The word 'narrator' then may lead to new difficulties: the notion of a real person as the source of narration, and the reduction of texts to psychology. 17 Psychoanalytic theory is a conspicuous example of rationalism. Simplifying slightly, in this theory what is effaced in narration are the structures of the unconscious (the hidden, the missing, the repressed, the 'other scene'). The charge that psychoanalysis can be neither verified nor falsified is also levelled at other rationalist theories, though usually to a lesser degree. Finally, there is evidence that the effaced narrator hypothesis is 'too powerful' for the data. 18 Writers we have been concerned with who develop rationalist theories include the following: Roland Barthes, Wayne Booth, Nick Browne, Seymour Chatman, Noam Chomsky, Norman Friedman, Gerard Genette, Stephen Heath, Bruce Kawin, Christian Metz, Mark Nash, Geoffrey Nowell-Smith, Scholes and Kellogg, Tzvetan Todorov, and Paul Willemen. 19 By contrast, the following writers work with empirical theories: Ann Banfield, Emile Benveniste, Nelson Goodman, Julio Moreno, Bertrand Russell, and Ludwig Wittgenstein.20 Note that Benveniste is listed as an empiricist in matters of narration while Barthes, Nash, and Todorov appear as rationalists. This explains how the latter, though claiming to follow Benveniste,21 neatly temper his distinction between two styles, discours and histoire. In discours the relation speaker-addressee/hearer is present (represented through, say, first and second person pronouns) but in histoire it is absent. The two styles, as conceived by Benveniste, are exclusive of one another. Todorov, however, interprets them to co-exist as aspects of a single phenomenon (which he terms inonciation).22 In this way he can say that the narrator of discours is still present in histoire though now effaced. The concept of an effaced narrator has been one of the fundamental assumptions underlying my theory of narration. One way I have used the assumption is to describe narration as a set of frames within larger frames leading to a frame which cannot itself be framed within the boundary of the text — an unavoidable and implicit omniscience which we may now call 'effaced'. There is, however, a second major aspect of narration in the above description: frames within frames or, what we might call embedding. Before we examine this process, it is well to keep in mind that there are other activities of narration not related to the manipulation of point of view, for example, the logic of conjunction and distribution of elements to form a sequence of actions — to depart, to travel, to arrive, to stay. 23 These activities and their relation to point of view will be discussed in more detail in the next two sections. The operation I wish to examine now, however, is 'framing' in the limited, specific sense of embedding one representation within another representation. To-

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dorov flatly asserts that "embedding is an articulation of the most essential property of all narrative". 2 4 I take the following words to be closely related and to reflect a process of embedding where one part of the language contains or restricts another part: nesting hierarchy levels, classes subordination (dependence) containment. In these terms point of view is not a center of consciousness but a linguistic and logical relation whereby one set of statements encloses another set of statements thus limiting their epistemological status. Through this process of embedding, a higher level 'points to' a lower level. Other words which frequently signal the presence of such levels include distance, perspective, about, aboutness, of. Point of view becomes the study of these levels and limitations and so is neither a 'person' nor even a reference to a person. Note in particular that an object cannot be defined separately, for an object depends on the next higher level — an object with respect to what? what act of seeing? 25 that is, what origin, vision, time, frame, and mind give the object? These elements may, in turn, become the 'object' of a still higher level of representation (i.e., another origin, vision, time, etc.). There is no definite last frame, only the boundary of the artwork 2 6 which, in the interests of meaning, artificially halts the play of signifiers. At this boundary the representation is based on an absent origin, absent vision, absent time, etc.; that is, on an unidentified act of seeing of the object. There is always a frame which cannot disclose its own framing: in every text there exists an overriding (= underlying) omniscience. Although Tout va bien (Godard, 1972) opens with the complex gesture of showing checks being signed for the production costs of Tout va bien, there is still a level at which the signing of the checks itself is a scene, and the representing or framing of that scene is not shown. The question, therefore, is not whether, but how representation will be severed from its context of production. Logically, any given frame depends on the presence of all of the larger frames including the level of omniscience. Since it is impossible to specify all of the frames, there will always be a measure of uncertainty about the object. Notice the strange affinity here between 'omniscience' and 'uncertainty'. The connection can best be illustrated by adopting, for a moment, a mystical interpretation of texts. In this interpretation, that which escapes the text — what we cannot know for certain — must instead be taken on faith, i. e., faith in some higher, undisclosed authority. In this way uncertainty is converted into omniscience. Since the latter term is well-established in literary study, I will continue to use it, rather than the more accurate notion of textual uncertainty. I reject, however, a mystical interpretation of that which is absent in a text.

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The largest frame within the text (the overriding omniscience) may be given various names, such as Booth's 'implied author' or Todorov's 'image of the narrator'. 2 7 Note that even the juxtaposition of two points of view does not lessen the importance of embedding because there still must exist a higher level to account for the fact of the juxtaposition. The higher level thus provides a differential position from which to measure the narrations. One can easily find metaphors for the rationalist conception of narration, e.g., Chinese boxes or the levels of quantum mechanics, where a particle must be at one or another energy level but not in between levels. It is embedding which accounts for the infinity of language. The consequence for literary study, as Todorov demonstrates, is that each of the enclosed narratives has "something excessive, a supplement which remains outside the closed form produced by the development of the plot". 2 8 What remains excessive at any point, n, is that higher level of narration, η + 1, on which η depends. Recent work, for example, has addressed the stratification of levels peculiar to the realist text. 29 The disparity (discontinuity, excessiveness) between levels (= point of view) can be turned to various uses within the text 30 and, of course, has been traditionally analyzed by hypothesizing various kinds of narrators framing the story in assorted ways. These analyses remain valid to the extent that they point to the stratification of a text. One can be more precise about these levels by examining concrete marks in the text rather than speaking vaguely of mythical narrators. In literature, for instance, direct quotation often uses a comma and quotation marks to set off the clause of reported speech or thought. In general, the presence of a framing operation, and hence the presence of a hierarchy, in literary discourse may be indicated by such devices as dash lines, parentheses, italics, or footnotes. For example, the difference between direct speech — Ί have to go,' she said — and indirect speech — S h e said that she had to go — involves a change in tense ('have' becomes 'had') and in person ( T becomes 'she'). 31 A change in person, in fact, is often associated with a framing operation. If we consider only first, second, and third person singular, we can divide them in three different ways; each way produces a dichotomy capable of marking the difference between levels of narration. Each way emphasizes one aspect of narration and may be extended into a more detailed theory. 32 The three divisions are as follows: (1) (2) (3)

I versus you, he (i.e., self vs. other which is central to psychoanalytic theory) I, you versus he (i. e., discours vs. histoire) (Emile Benveniste) I, he versus you (i.e., signs of the narrator vs. signs of the reader) (Roland Barthes).

If we downgrade the importance of third person we are left with: (4)

I versus you (i.e., sender vs. receiver) (a communication theory). 33

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As is generally acknowledged, however, personal pronouns and the other marks we have mentioned cannot by themselves define the structures of narration. 34 Literary works and dreams, for example, share the ability to conceal first person narration in the 'alienated' form of second or third person just as someone may speak about himself in the third person; that is, the person of narration is not necessarily the grammatical person. Narration, like meaning, depends on difference; and difference is structural, not material. An adequate description of literary narration depends on more than the physical occurrence of pronouns or a simple substitution test. 35 We must think about structural descriptions and the complex grammar which underlies them. Ann Banfield has made a start in this direction by describing the literary styles of direct, indirect, and free indirect quotation. 36 It has long been recognized that personal pronouns belong to a small and special class of words whose meaning is not absolute but depends on the act of uttering them, specifically, the time, place, and person of the uttering, so that the repetition of a word from this class may well involve two different referents. The class has received various names from linguists and philosophers: shifters (Jespersen, Jakobson), egocentric particulars (Russell), indicator-words (Goodman), tokenreflexive words (Reichenbach), token indexical elements (Katz), deictics (Eco). 37 Three of the elements of pictorial representation which I have defined seem to possess the attributes of shifters: origin (who), time (when), and frame (where). It is worth emphasizing that shifters depend on levels of narration for their meaning and thus their presence points to an act of enunciation which, in turn, embeds an object-statement. Thus embedding and shifters are related operations which are textually specific and hold the promise of a concrete analysis of point of view.

2. Recent Approaches to Narration Narration has been analyzed in the following ways: as a simple unrolling, a logical progression, a violation, a set of oppositions, a set of alternatives, a control on connotation, a logic of reading, a reconstruction of unconscious mechanisms, and as a literal telling.38 A simple unrolling hardly provides a theory of narration; within such a theory, however, it is possible to conceive of narrative as a set of functions or roles and not as a direct mapping of the world or of experience. Narration, however, consists of little more than these functions spilled out as if to make an alphabet soup. The most notable exponent of this approach is Vladimir Propp. Narration conceived of as a logical progression strengthens the forward vector implicit in a simple unrolling. The emphasis is on logical progressions and evolutions; repetition and variation. Ideally, narration becomes a table of permutations to be worked through. When only some of the permutations are selected and a

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logic of progression dominates, the sign of completion is particularly strong: closure or climax. This approach may be found in the work of Noel Burch and Roland Barthes. 39 Narration may be thought of as a certain progression from an initial to a final state. The intermediate states are characterized by disequilibrium — a continual violation or upsetting of an initial homogeneity — and the narrative does not end until a resting state has been reestablished. This approach may be seen in the work of Stephen Heath. 40 Narration as a set of oppositions introduces a dynamic quality into the text. There are now explicit counter-pressures and tensions out of which the narrative develops. The oppositions may be stated in terms of a series of binary oppositions, a dialectic, or in more complicated ways, such as a semantic square (for the latter see chapter 7). Among the writers utilizing this approach are Burch, Claude LeviStrauss, and A. J. Greimas. Narration may also be analyzed as a set of alternatives which are available to the story at any given moment. A tree diagram can be used to display the new, although limited, set of possible choices (branches) at each node or decision point. Narration is seen as a process of growth with a labyrinthine, open quality and not necessarily as a closed and final form. Aspects of this approach may be found in the work of Barthes and Claude Bremond. 41 Another approach to narration involves measuring the control, or lack of control, of a certain resonance in the text. Barthes, in particular, has struggled with the hidden side of meaning — overtones and undertones. His early formulations dealt primarily with a subsequent meaning (myth, connotation, a 'third' meaning); more recently, he turned to a process occurring prior to meaning (the play of signifiers, the grain of the voice).42 Texts are divided into classical/modern (Barthes' readerly/writerly) according to the relative repression/freedom of textual resonance. This approach recognizes that texts contain an energy subversive of the narrative which may independently produce pleasure or distress for a reader. The general method I have followed may be loosely termed a 'logic of reading'. I have attempted to avoid drawing a hard line between classical and modern. My emphasis is instead on textual processes and features and my aim is to establish a general competence — the terms of a reading — which underlie a great number of texts, though not all texts. A more exact determination of the competence underlying, say, the modern text and the question of whether there exists a universal competence are projects for the future. I have stated a reader's competence in terms of six elements of representation which create a hierarchial arrangement of the embedded and the embedding; in particular, these elements generate the set of character subjectivities. It is evident to me that readers attempt to apply this competence to modern works and that modern works both incorporate and, simultaneously, attack and reject parts of this competence (to the confusion of many readers).

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A psychoanalysis of texts describes narration by analogy with the mechanisms of a reader's unconscious (where the author, too, is a reader). If the text is a dream, for example, then the operative mechanisms would be condensation, displacement, secondary revision, representability, and so forth (see chapter 1). Lastly, narration may be conceived of as literally a 'telling' by someone to someone else (communication) or to himself (self-communication or expression). This entails a psychological exploration of attitude, states of feeling, responses by persons, and speculations on the psyche. Meaning in this approach is often conceived of as a mental image connected in such a way with words or pictures that the latter serve as exterior, sensible signs of a hidden consciousness. Aspects of this approach may be found in a great range of writers from Hugo Münsterberg, Andre Bazin, Jean Mitry, Karel Reisz, Gavin Millar, and Ernest Lindgren to Dudley Andrew, Nick Browne, and Bruce Kawin. Whether there should be a distinction between classical and modern texts, and if so, what that distinction amounts to on a psychoanalytical plane is a matter of great debate and some embarrassment. The problem is even more acute when narration is conceived of as a telling: What mental images correspond to abstract paintings? What is a 'modern' consciousness? Throughout the present study I have resolutely opposed any approach to narration based on a telling. It will be noticed that in many of the above theories of narration, a logic of some type plays a key role. That logic is meant to describe the underlying structure of a work, expose regularities, and hence explain why a story is presented and understood in a particular manner. For Christian Metz such a logic belongs to a secondary process while psychoanalysis explores a primary process of texts. 43 This reminds us once again that some of the above approaches are not exclusive but operate mutually across a broad logic of textual production.

3. Summary of My Theory of

Narration

Narration is the activity of giving a narrative: It is the telling (enonciation) rather than what is told (enonce). N o t all properties of narration directly raise the issue of point of view. Many analyses, as we just saw, tend to concentrate on the plane of telling apart from what is told. However, when attention shifts to the relationship of telling and told, then point of view becomes a central issue. That relationship or difference between telling and told may be thought of as a distance which need not be fixed but may be manipulated throughout the text. Subjectivity, then, is a particular distance between narration and narrative. Any narration/narrative pair (or level) may, of course, become an object (a narrative, an enonce) for some higher level narration. We say that the higher narration frames the lower. When this happens there is a second point of view to be analysed, namely, the relation-

Still 25:

81/2 (shot 1 A) (page 146).

Still 26:

81/2 (shot 1 B) (page 147).

Still 28:

The Story of a Man Who Left His Will on Film (shot 1) (pages 1 4 4 , 1 4 8 , 1 5 2 ) .

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ship between the higher narration and the first narration/narrative pair. In general, point of view describes the correlation between two narrations. It is often convenient, though, to reduce the concept of point of view from a relational term to a substantive so that it describes the situation of one particular narration. Thus the following expressions are equivalent: character narration, character point of view, subjectivity. Turning now to the case of cinema and pictorial representation, we have defined narration in the visual arts as a positioning of the viewer with respect to a production of space, and subjectivity as a production of space attributed to a character. There is a strange, almost circular44 relation here because a character in the story appears to be telling the story; that is, narration and narrative are bound together in character subjectivity so that each appears to guarantee the other's existence — and truth. Put another way, the text uses a series of spaces to represent character in order to re-represent through character those same spaces. Subjectivity becomes a paradigmatic function of character where the character represents a set of potential spaces; that is, the character has the capacity to generate for the viewer the very spaces of which it is already composed. Subjectivity, then, in the classical text, becomes a certain reduplication of mise-en-scene confirming (modifying) the viewer's hypotheses about scenic space.45 For a large number of texts — which I call 'classical' — this production of space can be defined in terms of six elements of representation: origin, vision, time, frame, object, and mind. These elements constitute a level of narration in its most general form. (Strictly speaking, only five of the elements constitute narration; the sixth — object — is ultimately the narrative or enonce.) Subjectivity, then, exists in its most general form when these six elements are referred to character. At that point, character provides the unity of the representation, and the telling or representing is called subjective narration. In a specific instance of subjectivity, say the POV shot, 'origin' becomes a point in space (a point associated with character), 'vision' becomes a glance from that point, and so forth. The elements are not neutral but bear ideological weight. Taken together, the elements define narration. A change in the elements — for example, the introduction of a different temporal scheme — is interpreted as the appearance of a new narration which, due to a meta-theoretical choice (a rationalist position), is better described as a new level of narration. Narration is thus a series of levels each, in turn, embedded or framed by a higher level. In this sense we are justified in saying that a higher level of narration carries more 'authority' or 'power' (because of its generality) than a lower level of narration. The levels are eventually cut off by the boundary of the artwork resulting in an overriding omniscience in the text — an effaced narrator, a frame which cannot disclose its own act of framing. In introducing new levels, the elements of representation behave very much like lingusitc shifters. The general question I wish to answer about narration is what work has trans-

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formed matter into meaning? It is misleading to ask 'who' accomplishes the work. Although it is often convenient in describing narration to postulate a 'narrator', there is a danger of slipping into various psychological or realist interpretations of a text. Furthermore, the term 'narrator' is at best only a partial description. The analysis of linguistic shifters shows that literary narration comprises not just 'person' but also 'time' and 'place' indices; and pictorial narration, I argue, comprises at least five elements. To name a narrator or character, then, as the producer of meaning is only shorthand for naming a textual process; or, more exactly, for naming the reader who calculates the underlying structure of a particular text ( = meaning) by applying abstract rules. Note that the application is unconscious and involves rules shared by a community, not personal rules. So again, it seems illusory to ask 'who' generates meaning. There is, in fact, no privileged "starting point" or center for the fabrication of meaning, but only an intricate system which always seems to break the boundaries of such familiar concepts as an author, character, reader, text, rule, abstraction, unconscious, community, and convention. I believe that it is especially misleading to impute a transcendent (or other) consciousness to the artifact. A given narration is a systematic restriction of meaning — the 'object' which appears within a level always depends upon the conditions of the seeing of that object, namely upon an origin, vision, time, frame, and mind. A level is a limitation on the very existence of meaning. Thus point of view as a system of the text functions to control (expand, restrict, change) the viewer's access, not to a real object (through a 'camera'), nor to psychological states and attitudes, but to signification. Points of view are epistemological boundaries inscribed within the text. By rationalizing its method for knowing the world — a 'point of view' — the text confronts a spectator in the most profound and subtle way with a representation of what that world is or might be. Once we give up the idea that an object is simply part of the world or that narration is the statement of an author and recognize the crucial intervention of symbolic activity (what we know are symbols not the world) then a subjective point of view ceases to be a one-place predicate (where characters are real persons) and instead becomes a complex, symbolic relation of at least four terms: camera, character, object, and perceiver. 46 This formulation provides another way to measure the work accomplished by point of view in cinema. What is at stake in point of view is the recognition of an epistemological boundary inscribed within the text. For the classical text, at least, such a boundary derives from the six elements of representation. Subjectivity is a set of particular formation rules relating a structural description (e.g., vision) to a surface or terminal symbol (e.g., the turn of a character's head — an instance of 'glance'). The rules are acquired by a reader through exposure to a relatively small number of films and used to decode a potentially unlimited number of films including films not yet made; that is, the rules are generative. These rules which limit admissible

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hypotheses determine the limits of our comprehension.47 Hence the various types of subjectivity reveal some of the deep presuppositions of classical discourse. As such they map not just a viewer's pictorial competence but are categories of thought which mark the very limits of what can be thought about character in that representational system. I have repeatedly stated that the author and reader are on equal planes with respect to a text. Psychoanalytic criticism makes this assertion by saying that the author is only another reader or that self and other are the primary structuring poles of a text and are on the exact same plane. Sometimes a metaphor from economics is used: The author and reader are equal 'producers' of the text — one is not a genius, the other a passive consumer.48 We can now see that a description of competence is absolutely neutral as between author and reader.49 Competence applies to both formation and understanding; that is, in linguistics, both to the ability to generate sentences and the ability to understand sentences. In film, though, it appears that formation and understanding are not quite on the same plane because very few spectators watch films and then pick up cameras to make their own films. I suggest, however, that viewers are a great deal more active in generating space than is normally recognized. Consider the spaces of dreams and of daydreams that a viewer is able to produce. More generally, I believe that understanding a scene entails the ability not just to recall the spaces of that scene but to project new spaces from new angles thus 'filling-in' gaps in the presentation of the scene.50 That is, a viewer, given a sequence of spatial fragments, is able to imagine a complete space — one that has perhaps never been explicitly shown. This hypothetical space is analogous to the 'deep structure' of transformational generative grammar and it reflects the 'meaning' of the scene. It is generated by the application of abstract rules, not by a simple registration of surface stimuli. (Most viewers can accurately interpret a scene even though they cannot recall its formal specificity in terms of shots, angles, camera movement, etc.) A viewer can demonstrate his or her mastery over space by imagining being in the scene and moving about to assume new angles. Or the viewer might demonstrate mastery by drawing the scene from new angles (e. g., an overhead view) and describing where characters and objects must be located in order to be consistent with previous spaces. (Cf. the technical term 'master shot'.) These diagrams should be understood not in relation to real space or to a profilmic camera but as themselves fictional, as a record of the hypotheses and predictions made by a viewer about the underlying connections and structure of the scene. What is termed the 'classical' text is simply one way of systematizing these predictions. In summary, the viewer actively constructs the space of a film. Just as we can form sentences without speaking them, so we can form, speculate about, and manipulate spaces without picking up a camera to film them. The use of what I have termed reading 'hypotheses' covers the viewer's ability both to understand and to form space. A modernist work, then, produces disorientation in many spectators

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because they are unable to enter the film's space or employ the usual reading hypotheses. For most of this book, I have ignored the reading act and concentrated on the narrator. If the theory of narration thus developed is taken as describing a competence, which is neutral as between narrator and reader, then really we have never left the reading act. Narrating and reading are not separate practices but are aspects of the same process seen under different conditions. It should be emphasized that the competence I describe does not explain in an exhaustive way the understanding of a viewer (nor formation by an author). It is aimed only at certain structures internal to the text, not to the total meaning which is generated. It does not explain, for example, how a viewer knows what a fireplace is or what an American flag signifies. This should not be shocking; after all, we say that knowing a grammar or syntax is necessary for understanding a sentence, but never sufficient. Clearly, a major problem involves stating the referential link between text and world as well as how a viewer acquires a lexicon. The problem is not obviated by saying that the world is merely another set of texts and discourses, although that perhaps is an important first step.

4. Some Functions of

Narration

Given that narration is, as argued, not a single phenomenon but a series of levels each with a nominal subject — a distinct act of enonciation — why should there be different levels of narration? Why a series of distinct points of view all providing some access to meaning? In other words, what are the conditions for the existence of a level and what is the function of levels in the operation of a textual system? The conditions on the existence of a level are, of course, the six elements of representation. I have addressed the question of function in terms of the 'ideology' 51 of classical narration; here I would like to approach it from a slightly different angle: what does a series of levels allow one to accomplish logically in a text? When the levels of narration are seen as epistemological boundaries within the text — associated in the reading with such labels as character, narrator, effaced narrator, author — these boundaries may be used to conceal and measure out knowledge pertaining to the enigmas of the text. The classical text progresses from an initial to a final state because of an uneven distribution of knowledge from level to level. It must, as Barthes shows, keep its enigmas alive until the end but in so doing attempt to 'lie as little as possible'.52 Barthes hermeneutic code 53 well describes the handling of enigmas in literature. A careful structuring of film narration may serve this same function of delaying enigmas through careful omission, gentle lying, and unobtrusive contradictions (see the analysis of a scene from Possessed in chapter 4). Moreover, the strength of the hermeneutic code in classical

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fiction has as a corollary the virtual prohibition of flashforwards. A subjective flashforward destroys the notion of character, unless it is motivated as a sort of prophetic 'dream', while a non-subjective flashforward amounts to a premature disclosure destroying the plot. 5 4 Subjective narration of course depends on that boundary we name 'character'. Character is an arbitrary construction of the text to serve larger functions. In this study I have mostly emphasized the recursive nature of narrative — framing and reframing into levels where a story may be replaced by a new character or narrator telling another (related) story. However, it is a very interesting fact that all six of the elements of representation — not just 'object', or story — are recursive. For example, a character may be replaced by another (related) character telling a new story. A familiar example is the subjective flashback. Here, a character is replaced by another version of himself who relates a (past) event. To insist that it is the 'same' character in each instance is to ignore the dynamic of the telling of the past event. Think of the following sentence: Ί remember when I saw the film'. The repetition of the same word — the shifter Τ — conceals the fact that there are really two slightly different (though related) T s ' (origins). Think also of the sentence suggested by Freud, Ί am not the person I was yesterday'. The two 'I's' are not quite the same. A discursive formation has allowed the subject to be split apart. Hence, it is quite natural in a film flashback to see the person who remembers appear within his own memory just as an Τ was easily repeated in the above sentences. These two persons, however, though related, do not serve the same function. Flashbacks are not the only familiar examples of characters being fragmented. There are also mirror shots, dream sequences, 55 'psychotic' characters, and characters achieving a (so-called) unusual state of consciousness. Vivid examples of the latter are Dr. Jekyll/Mr. Hyde (a more recent version is the Incredible Hulk) or the character who 'meets himself' (e.g., in Edgar Allan Poe's "William Wilson" and Henry James' "The Jolly Corner"). In a more general way, there may be characters in a story who are meant to reveal 'different sides' of a central character. The conclusion is that 'character' is not an absolute and stable entity — much less a real person or even the necessary site of a point of view — but a construction of textual markers. Further, a character's existence may be modified or revoked at any time. This was the lesson of Chapter 7. At stake in the films 8 1/2 and The Story of a Man Who Left His Will on Film are two radically different conceptions of character construction. Guido in 8 1/2 is broken down and re-unified according to psychology (thus re-inscribing the autonomous, bourgeois individual) while Motoki is split apart by competing social ideologies. The two roles Motoki assumes are not re-unified but remain contradictory. The roles are different because each functions to reproduce a different set of social institutions. I would like to suggest that there exists a 'personality effect' which gives rise to characters parallel to the so-called 'reality effect' created by the classical text. Ac-

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cording to Barthes, the reality effect in literature derives from the recitation of insignificant facts apparently unrelated to the narrative and/or an overprecision of description.56 (A good example of the latter in film is the three opening titles of Hitchcock's Psycho, 1960: "Phoenix, Arizona"; "Friday, December Eleventh"; "Two Forty-Three P.M.") Subjective film narration contributes to a personality effect by starting with apparently trifling facts (a hallway, a coffee table) and joining them into a larger scale, rhetorical structure, e. g., the POV shot, so as to end with an overprecise space where a character has suddenly and decisively assumed the center — the unity — of the perspectival system presented to the viewer. A change in space becomes a change in character. The character is both composed of and guarantees fragments of space/time. What is figured, so to speak, is the human figure. What has happened is that 'character' has become a label which we apply to that logic which orders the space of our vision. That same label is also named in the reading as a personality or sentience. There is, of course, no requirement that a film be multi-leveled, manipulate point of view, or generate character personality. All that is required is a single point of view since an enonce demands at least one relationship with an explicit or implicit enonciation. The films of Ozu and Bresson, for example, are often remarkably disciplined and consistent in point of view. But in those films which have multiple narrations each higher level makes the discourse mote precise in that it answers an ambiguity of the lower, embedded narration — an ambiguity of seeing — whose vision? what time? etc. The new level, however, reinstitutes an ambiguity of vision (what Todorov calls an 'excess')57 which can never be fully resolved. For any object level x, there are a number of meta-levels which give χ or, put another way, an object χ may be revealed from many points of view. When a point of view is explicitly represented then it, in turn, becomes an object which can comply with many other possible points of view. The boundary of the artwork means that at some level there must remain an ambiguity of point of view (there are no further representations) and consequently the object can never be fully determined. As a representation, an artwork will remain incomplete and open — its object always absent. The reason for multiple levels may also be sought in the logical distinction between metalanguage and object language. In order to avoid paradox, a sentence can neither refer to itself nor to the truth or falsity of other sentences on the same (or higher) level.58 Self-reference and truth conditions are exclusively a function of a relationship with a lower level — from a meta-level to an object level. Nonpsychological narration is thus indispensable to the psychological narrative for it establishes the truths of character. Also, in the concrete instance of managing enigmas, we can say that higher levels of narration attempt to settle previous lies and contradictions associated with the delay of enigmas. The end of the classic text, in particular, functions to reassert a final authority and truth. The extreme long shot which closes many classical films59 may be thought of as the spatial cor-

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relate of the attempt to show or encompass all the narrations — all possible views and points of view — with no remainder and hence, seemingly, beyond narration to the world, to reality itself. The fundamental problem, then, is that there is no way to determine from anything internal to a level of narration whether we see anything at all or are only seeming to be seeing. This is true for any level of narration; for what is presented may at any time be revealed to be only a dream. Any narration, no matter how 'objective', may suddenly be framed by another narration, say, of a character who dreams or is mad, in which case there is raised the threat that we were initially misled, or we saw nonsense, or saw nothing at all. 'Objective' is strictly a relative concept. Even if there were an internal mark that had been trustworthy (?) in the past, it might still be forged in the present instance and so deceive us. What is at stake here is not just the truth of the text (how the truth is delayed until the 'end') but also truth in the broader sense of the connection of language to the world. Bazin hoped to halt this recursive process of frame supplanting frame by positing an ontological realism, both in the photographic image and in its viewing, and thereby to reach the world directly. Both phenomenology and realism are direct theories of experience in which there is no important mediation between viewer (viewing) and world. Hence the assertion, when these theories are applied to film, that film is a 'window' on the world. I believe there is, however, at the heart of representation an absence — the absence of the object referred to which can never be recalled in its entirety. Representation is, as Umberto Eco suggests, "everything which can be used in order to lie". 60 The resultant split of signified and referent is the basis of an indirect theory of experience where a viewing encounters not the world but a system of codes and an ideology which bear a more complicated relation to the world (through abstract rules and a social system). This latter sort of theory is the one which I have adopted. Point of view, then, according to an indirect theory of experience, is a device internal to the text through which the text attempts to create an external reference to a level of narration and so manage (affirm, qualify, restrict, deny) the truth of the text in both of the above senses of truth. A portion of the text becomes an object for itself and thus the text achieves a certain distance from itself. This distance is logically incorporated into its own structure so that any answers to the questions posed by the text must henceforward take into account (i. e., use) this internalized distance; that is, the labels assigned to characters, events, etc. by one level may be systematically re-assigned by a higher level.61 This potential of texts to label and re-label is what lies behind the various traditional formulations of 'aesthetic distance'. Again, distance is necessary because no internal criterion of a level of narration can guarantee its status. Multiplying points of view, however, must ultimately fail to achieve a guarantee of truth because, ironically, with more levels come more gaps between levels.62 The gap between enonaation and enonce can never be fully bridged. Moreover,

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there is always one level of narration which itself cannot be framed and remains internal to the text, bounded by the text itself. Thus a text inevitably structures 'absences' or, as some would prefer to say, there is a 'mystery' about a text. This is not to say that how the levels of narration are arrayed is a matter of indifference. A particular structuration of point of view may be aimed at effacing one level so that that level appears transparent to the world: A grand summation of all the points of view — a point of over-view. Other structurations may be aimed toward a more exact account of the problem of knowledge

for a textual, symbolic system.

These latter texts, distanced from themselves, attempt to understand the absence of object and, at the same time, the plenitude and power of language which consists precisely in that absence and distance.

NOTES 1. On effaced narrators see Ann Banfield, "Narrative Style and the Grammar of Direct and Indirect Speech", Foundations of Language 10 (1973), esp. pp. 1, 34—38. A recent argument uses linguistic evidence in an attempt to show that all assertions result from a deleted performative clause (i. e., a narration) of the type "I declare (claim, propose, vow, pledge, write, say ...) to you that . . . " where the " I " is not explicitly identified. John Ross, "On Declarative Sentences" in Readings in English Transformational Grammar ed. by Roderick Jacobs and Peter Rosenbaum (Waltham, Mass.: Ginn, 1970), pp. 222—272. In film, the uderlying performative of impersonal narration would involve vision and be on the order of "I see (show to you) t h a t . . . " . 2. On the linguistic, philosophical, and political implications of the doctrines of rationalism and empiricism see Noam Chomsky, Reflections on Language (Ν. Y.: Pantheon, 1975), pp. 6 - 1 3 , 5 2 - 5 3 , 1 2 6 - 1 3 4 , 1 4 6 - 1 4 7 , 2 0 0 - 2 0 1 ; Problems of Knowledge and Freedom (Ν. Y.: Pantheon, 1971), ch. 1 "On Interpreting the World"; The Logical Structure of Linguistic Theory (Ν. Y.: Plenum, 1975), pp. 1 2 - 1 3 . See also John Lyons, Noam Chomsky (Ν. Y.: Penguin, 2nd ed. 1977), pp. 2 4 - 2 6 and ch. 10 "The Philosophy of Language and Mind", pp. 1 2 3 - 1 3 6 ; Justin Leiber, Noam Chomsky: A Philosophic Overview (N.Y.: St. Martin's Press, 1975), pp. 1 3 5 - 1 7 8 ; Arthur Danto, What Philosophy Is (Ν. Y.: Harper and Row, 1968), sec. 11, 19, 22, 23. For a non-technical introduction to the issues, see Chomsky, "Language and the Mind", Psychology Today 1 (9) (Feb. 1968), pp. 4 8 - 5 1 , 6 6 - 6 8 . The best introduction to Chomsky's work is to begin with Syntactic Structures (The Hague: Mouton, 1957) followed by either the Lyons or Leiber books. 3. See Ann Banfield, "Where Epistemology, Style, and Grammar Meet Literary History: The Development of Represented Speech and Thought", New Literary History 9 (3) (Spring 1978), pp. 4 4 6 - 4 4 8 . 4. Julio Moreno, "Subjective Cinema: And the Problem of Film in the First Person", The Quarterly of Film, Radio and Television 7 (1952-53), pp. 354,358, (Moreno's italics). For Scholes and Kellogg, on the contrary, a film is narrational because the story is given "always through the medium of a controlled point of view, the eye of the camera." Scholes and Kellogg, p. 280.

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5. Bertrand Russell, An Inquiry Into Meaning and Truth (London: George Allen and Unwin, 1940), pp. 1 0 8 - 1 0 9 , 113, 115, 1 2 6 - 1 3 0 . 6. Banfield, "Narrative Style", p. 30 n. 22; see generally, the appendix. 7. See the comments of Bertolt Brecht in ch. 7, sec. 2. 8. Nick Browne, "The Spectator-in-the-Text: The Rhetoric of Stagecoach", Film Quarterly 29 (2) (Winter 1 9 7 5 - 7 6 ) , pp. 35; 27, 37. 9. Robert Scholes and Robert Kellogg, The Nature of Narrative (Ν. Y.: Oxford Univ., 1966), p. 270. Alternately, a rationalist might explain internal monologues and a reflecting consciousness by breaking apart the category of character so that a character could also be a narrator. This explanation, however, still fails to account for scenic narration and for the presence of thoughts known only by a character (and perhaps known only imperfectly or not at all). The notion of character also becomes more complex: how may a character be 'positioned' to become a narrator? how does a character acquire that power? 10. Edward Said, "Molestation and Authority in Narrative Fiction" in Aspects of Narrative ed. by J. Hillis Miller (Ν. Y.: Columbia Univ., 1971), pp. 4 8 - 4 9 , 68. Scholes and Kellogg observe that the word 'omniscience' as applied to narration "is not a descriptive term so much as a definition based on the presumed analogy between the novelist as creator and the Creator of the cosmos, an omniscient God." (p. 272). 11. See the text and accompanying notes of ch. 1, sec. 3; ch. 3, sec. 1; and ch. 7, sec. 1. 12. Quoted by Lyons, p. 136. See also Chomsky, Rules and Representations (Ν. Y.: Columbia Univ., 1980), pp. 5 - 6 , and Bent Jacobsen, Transformational-Generative Grammar: An Introductory Survey of its Genesis and Development (Ν. Y.: North-Holland, 1977), pp. 2 3 - 2 5 . 13. See Jonathan Culler, Structuralist Poetics (Ithaca, Ν. Y.: Cornell Univ., 1975), ch. 10 "'Beyond' Structuralism: Tel Quel"; Jacques Derrida, "Structure, Sign, and Play in the Discourse of the Human Sciences", in The Structuralist Controversy ed. by Richard Macksey and Eugenio Donato (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Univ., 1972), pp. 247—265. 14. Seymour Chatman, "The Structure of Narrative Transmission", in Style and Structure in Literature ed. by Roger Fowler (Ithaca, Ν.Y.: Cornell Univ., 1975), p p . 2 1 5 , 217, 218 n. 7. 15. Wayne Booth, "Distance and Point-of-View: An Essay in Classification", Essays In Criticism 11 (1) (Jan. 1961), p. 65. 16. Roland Barthes and Tzvetan Todorov commit themselves to a communication theory in order to justify effaced narrators; Barthes, "An Introduction to the Structural Analysis of Narrative", New Literary History 6 (2) (Winter 1975), p. 260, quoted in ch. 2, n. 3, and see ch. 3, sec. 1; Todorov, "Categories of the Literary Narrative", pp. 20, 3 3 - 3 4 . 17. See ch. 3, sec. 2 and the appendix. 18. In terms of formal grammar, the effaced narrator would seem to be the result of a deletion rule of the form 0 —> 0 (cf. η. 1). A rule of this kind converts a phrase structure grammar of type 2 or 3 into a type 0 unrestricted rewriting system which is generally thought to be too powerful to describe natural languages — that is, it generates nonhuman languages as well as all actual and potential human languages. This is one reason why Ann Banfield argues against the effaced narrator hypothesis. In the context of literary criticism, Jonathan Culler has remarked that by postulating a narrator of a certain sort a critic can always trivialize a literary work, for example, by postulating a psychotic narrator for a nouveau roman novel. Susceptible to particular abuse, I might add, is the category of 'ironic' narrator. The situation is analogous to the linguistic fact that a syntactically or semantically anomalous string may become wellformed if made subordinate to a 'world-creating' verb, e. g., "I dreamt that — " or "I tried to think what Stanley meant by saying that — . " Cf. Jacobsen, p. 141.1 believe that the answer, how-

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20. 21. 22.

23. 24.

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ever, is not to abandon effaced narrators but to place suitable restrictions upon their construction and use. Lyons, Appendix I "Formal Languages and Formal Grammars", pp. 162, 166; Banfield, "Narrative Style", pp. 1 - 3 , 3 4 - 3 8 ; Culler, pp. 2 0 0 - 2 0 2 . Even if one rejects the effaced narrator hypothesis, there are special cases where a narrator must be presumed. For example, in the sentences, "An interesting article appeared in the latest issue" and "The poor, unfortunate girl was drenched", the evaluative words 'interesting' and 'poor' indicate the presence of an unidentified narrator. See Banfield, "Narrative Style", pp. 2 1 - 2 4 ; Roderick Jacobs and Peter Rosenbaum, Transformations, Style and Meaning (Waltham, Mass.: Xerox College Publishing, 1971), pp. 5 5 - 5 6 . In film, one must admit that, at least, some neutral shots, ostensibly from no one's point of view, contain an evaluative element and hence are part of an implicit narration. Booth, "Distance", pp. 6 4 - 6 6 , 74; The Rhetoric of Fiction (Chicago: Univ. of Chicago, 1961), pp. 20, 5 9 - 6 0 , 1 0 5 - 1 0 6 , 116, 161; Norman Friedman, "Point of View in Fiction: The Development of a Critical Concept", PMLA 70 (5) (Dec. 1955), pp. 1170, 1179; Gerard Genette, Narrative Discourse: An Essay in Method trans, by Jane Lewin (Ithaca: Cornell Univ., 1980) pp. 1 6 2 - 1 7 5 , 1 8 4 - 1 8 5 , 2 4 3 - 2 4 5 . Stephen Heath, "Narrative Space", Screen 17 (3) (Autumn 1976), esp. pp. 9 0 - 1 0 0 ; Bruce Kawin, Mindscreen: Bergman, Godard, and First-Person Film (Princeton, N. J.: Princeton Univ., 1978), pp. 171, 1 9 2 - 1 9 3 ; Christian Metz, Film Language: A Semiotics of the Cinema trans, by Michael Taylor (Ν. Y.: Oxford Univ., 1974), pp. 2 0 - 2 1 ; for relevant quotes by Nash, Nowell-Smith, and Willemen, see ch. 1, sec. 3 and 4; citations which support the claim that the other writers named in the text develop a rationalist theory of narration can be found in the immediately preceeding or following footnotes. Meir Sternberg develops a rationalist theory of narration in Expositional Modes and Temporal Ordering in Fiction (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Univ., 1978), esp. ch. 8, 9, and pp. 2 5 4 - 2 5 6 . Note that for a critic to speak of 'third person reflectors' in the fiction of Henry James or of characters who speak 'more' than they know in Greek tragedy is already a way of asserting the existence of a larger, implicit narrational context which frames the characters. See Banfield, "Narrative Style", pp. 1 - 3 , 3 4 - 3 8 . See ch. 1, sec. 4; Banfield, "Narrative Style", p. 1; Culler, pp. 1 9 7 - 2 0 0 . Culler endorses the rationalist position. Todorov, "Categories of the Literary Narrative", pp. 20, 3 1 - 3 2 ; "Language and Literature" in The Structuralist Controversy, pp. 1 3 0 - 1 3 3 ; "Language and Literature" in Tzvetan Todorov, The Poetics of Prose trans, by Richard Howard (Ithaca, Ν. Y.: Cornell Univ., 1977), pp. 2 5 - 2 8 . Roland Barthes, S/Z trans, by Richard Miller (Ν. Y.: Hill and Wang, 1974), sec. 46. The reason that logic is on the side of narration is discussed in the text accompanying n. 43. Todorov, "Narrative-Men", in The Poetics of Prose, p. 72. This is Todorov's principle essay on embedding; other essays which discuss embedding include "Language and Literature", p. 21; "Primitive Narrative", pp. 6 1 - 6 2 ; "An Introduction to Verisimilitude", pp. 8 7 - 8 8 ; "The Quest of Narrative", pp. 1 3 6 - 1 3 7 ; "The Secret of Narrative", pp. 154, 164. Roderick Jacobs and Peter Rosenbaum, Transformations, Style, and Meaning (Waltham, Mass.: Xerox College Publishing, 1971), ch. 5 "Sentence Embedding, Transformations, and Style" and especially the epigraph of that chapter dealing with an anecdote about William James, p. 33. The choice of embedding over other models of perception (e.g., the linear model favored by empiricist theories) has important implications for a theory of mind. See Ulric Neisser, Cognition and Reality: Principles and Implications of Cognitive Psychology (San Francisco: W. H. Freeman, 1976), ch. 6, "Cognitive Maps", pp. 108 — 127. A

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25.

26. 27.

28. 29.

30. 31.

32. 33.

34.

35.

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linear and empiricist way of reading texts which searches for "error" is examined in ch. 3, sec. 3. The concepts of form and content behave much like the concepts subject and object. Form and content are not absolute terms but are relative to one another and only hold within a specific context; that is, content depends on a given form, but in a larger context that content will become itself a 'form' for a still greater content. To speak simply of the 'content' of 'form' of a work is vacuous. To say that content is form, like its converse, solves nothing. See ch. 3, sec. 2. Wayne Booth, "Distance and Point-of-View: An Essay in Classification", Essays in Criticism 11 (1) (Jan. 1961), pp. 64—65; Tzvetan Todorov, "Categories of the Literary Narrative", Film Reader 2 (1977), pp. 3 3 - 3 4 . Todorov, "Narrative-Men", p. 76. Barthes identifies 'excess' with the 'narrator'; S/Z, sec. 14. Cf. Heath's concept of excess in "Narrative Space." See, e.g., Metz, "The Imaginary Signifier", pp. 7 0 - 7 1 ; Coward and Ellis, pp. 4 9 - 5 1 ; Christine Gledhill, "Whose Choice? — Teaching Films about Abortion", Screen Education 24 (Autumn 1977), pp. 36—37 η. 1; Gill Davies, "Teaching About Narrative", Screen Education 29 (Winter 1978/79), pp. 5 6 - 7 6 . A strong and important statement on the hierarchy of levels of narration in the realist text can be found in Colin MacCabe, "Realism and the Cinema: Notes on some Brechtian Theses", Screen 15 (2) (Summer 1974), pp. 7—27. MacCabe modifies his position in "Theory and Film: Principles of Realism and Pleasure", Screen 17 (3) (Autumn 1976), pp. 7 - 2 7 and "The Discursive and the Ideological in Film: Notes on the Conditions of Political Intervention", Screen n. (4) (Winter 1978/79), pp. 2 9 - 4 3 . Two recent, theoretical films address the problem of levels of narration. In Malcolm Le Grice's Emily — Third Party Speculation (1979) a single scene is presented in 10 (or more) different ways — some of which radically alter how we conceive of that scene. Indeed, the film demonstrates that a scene cannot be separated from the showing of the scene. Again, in Noel Burch's Correction Please, Or How We Got Into The Cinema (1979) a single scene is presented in different ways. The changes in the scene are tied to a historical argument about the development and increasing complexity of the techniques of film narration. Todorov, "Narrative-Men", pp. 7 7 - 7 9 . Chatman, pp. 229—231. Note that this sentence in my text contains all four of the devices, mentioned in the previous sentence, that may under proper circumstances construct a hierarchy of levels. The first two ways are mentioned in ch. 1, sec. 3 and 4 and the third way in ch. 3, sec. 1. Ann Banfield argues that "I" and "you" are not parallel categories with respect to all linguistically significant characteristics and that as a consequence there will be utterances which lie beyond the scope of a communication model. Banfield, "Narrative Style", p. 20 n. 14; "Where Epistemology, Style, and Grammar Meet Literary History: The Development of Represented Speech and Thought", New Literary History 9 (3) (Spring 1978), pp. 423, 450. We may further speculate that by suppressing second person — which yields I vs. he — the discourse achieves the status of diary. By suppressing first person — leaving you vs. he — the discourse becomes argumentative, didactic. Chatman, pp. 2 3 5 - 2 3 7 ; Culler, pp. 192-202; Banfield, "Narrative Style", p. 32; Genette, pp. 193-194, 198-199, 243-245. As an analogy, recall that in ch. 6 reflective and projective structures, though generated by impersonal camera framings, behaved as first person narration. Barthes proposes a substitution test in "An Introduction to the Structural Analysis of Narrative", p. 262.

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36. Banfield, "Narrative Style" and "Style and Grammar", "The Formal Coherence of Represented Speech and Thought", PTL: A Journal of Descriptive Poetics and Theory of Literature 3 (2) (April 1978), pp. 2 8 9 - 3 1 4 . See also the work of Emile Benveniste; and Lubomir Dolezel, "The Typology of the Narrator: Point of View in Fiction", To Honor Roman Jakobson 1 (The Hague: Mouton, 1967), pp. 5 4 1 - 5 5 2 . 37. Otto Jespersen, Language: Its Nature, Development and Origin (London: George Allen and Unwin, 1922), ch. 6, sec. 7; Roman Jakobson, "Shifters, Verbal Categories, and the Russian Verb" in Selected Writings vol. 2 (The Hague: Mouton, 1971), pp. 1 3 0 - 1 4 7 ; Bertrand Russell, An Inquiry Into Meaning and Truth (London: George Allen and Unwin, 1940), ch. 7; Nelson Goodman, "Talk of Time", Problems and Projects (Ν. Y.: Bobbs-Merrill, 1972), pp. 207—220; Hans Reichenbach, Elements of Symbolic Logic (Ν. Y.: MacMillan, 1947), sec. 50; Jerrold Katz, Semantic Theory (Ν. Y.: Harper and Row, 1972), pp. 123, 1 2 6 - 1 2 8 ; Umberto Eco, A Theory of Semiotics (Bloomington, Ind.: Indiana Univ., 1976), sec. 2.11.5, pp. 1 1 5 - 1 2 1 . See also ch. 1, sec. 4; P. F. Strawson, "Particular and General", Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society 54 (1953—54), pp. 2 3 3 - 2 6 0 ; and Roland Barthes, Roland Barthes trans, by Richard Howard (Ν. Y.: Hill and Wang, 1977), "The Shifter as Utopia", pp. 1 6 5 - 1 6 6 . Once we recognize the complex logical status of a shifter like " I , " it is easier to understand Barthes' assertion that the " I " in a narrative is not the " I " of a writer nor the " I " of that writer when not performing literary acts. See text accompanying n. 10, ch. 3. 38. Rosalind Coward and John Ellis mention three of these approaches, Language and Materialism: Developments in Semiology and the Theory of the Subject (Boston: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1977), pp. 40—41, and Barthes applies several of them to a single text in "The Struggle with the Angel" in Image-Music-Text trans, by Stephen Heath (N.Y.: Hill and Wang, 1977), pp. 1 2 5 - 1 4 1 . 39. See, for example, Barthes, S/Z sec. 14,15, 2 2 , 4 6 , 77; cf. my definition of "linear narrative" given in ch. 7, sec. 5. 40. Stephen Heath, "Film and System: Terms of Analysis", P. I,Screen 16 (1) (Spring 1975), pp. 48—50; "The Question Oshima" in Ophuls ed. by Paul Willemen (London: British Film Institute, 1978), pp. 8 0 - 8 3 . 41. See, for example, Barthes, S/Z sec. 37, 56; Claude Bremond, "The Logic of Narrative Possibilities", New Literary History 11 (3) (Spring 1980), pp. 3 8 7 - 4 1 1 . 42. See, for example, Barthes, Mythologies trans, by Annette Lavers (Ν. Y.: Hill and Wang, 1972); S/Z sec. 3 and 4; "Rhetoric of the Image", "The Third Meaning", and "The Grain of the Voice" in Image-Music-Text; The Pleasure of the Text trans, by Richard Miller (N.Y.: Hill and Wang, 1975), "Voice", pp. 66-67.What Barthes refers to as the 'grain' of the voice may be analyzed as 'exemplificatory representation'; Nelson Goodman, Languages of Art: An Approach to a Theory of Symbols (Indianapolis, Ind.: Hackett, 2nd ed., 1976), ch. 2. 43. Christian Metz, "The Imaginary Signifier", Screen 16 (2) (Summer 1975), p. 28. 44. Technically, we should say that some of the rules which generate a story are recursive, i. e., may be applied more than once: a story may be replaced by a new character or narrator telling another (related) story. The rule may be repeated because the structural entity "story" appears on both sides of a rewriting rule, e. g., S —> C + S. 45. See ch. 4, sec. 5. 46. See ch. 3, sec. 3 and 5, and ch. 5, sec. 2. Remember that I have defined 'camera' as a construct of the reader — a reading hypothesis about space. 47. Cf. Noam Chomsky, Problems of Knowledge and Freedom (Ν. Y.: Pantheon, 1971), ch. 1 "On Interpreting the World", p. 49. 48. See ch. 1, sec. 3; ch. 3, sec. 1 and 2. 49. Cf. Chomsky, The Logical Structure of Linguistic Theory, p. 7. For criticism of the no-

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52. 53. 54.

55. 56. 57. 58. 59. 60. 61. 62.

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tion of competence and the attempt to apply Chomsky's work to film, see Tony Stevens, "Renovating Eng Lit", Screen Education 29 (Winter 1978/79), pp. 7 7 - 8 6 . See ch. 4, sec. 5; ch. 7, sec. 4. I have discussed ideology, for example, in relation to the following: the six elements of representation (ch. 1, sec. 5; ch. 3, sec. 4 and 5; appendix, sec. 3); vision as truth (ch. 4, sec. 2; appendix, sec. 3); the invisibility of camera and consequent reality of character (which is designed to resolve a contradiction in the POV shot; ch. 4, sec. 1); the subjugation of space by character and narrative (ch. 4, sec. 5; ch. 5); the character as temporally unified (which prohibits subjective flashforwards, ch. 4, sec. 2); the belief in a transcendent consciousness (e. g., the theory of Bruce Kawin, appendix, sec. 5); and, the subjectivities of the classical versus modern text (ch. 7). Barthes, S/Z sec. 60, 64; some examples are given by lexias 218, 324, 354. See text accompanying n. 20, ch. 2; and n. 21, ch. 5 which discusses the built-in hermeneutic quality of the POV shot. On the status of subjective flashforwards in the classical text see ch. 4, sec. 2; on the relation of non-subjective flashforwards to plot see Todorov, "Primitive Narrative", The Poetics of Prose, pp. 6 3 - 6 5 . See ch. 1, sec. 1 and ch. 4, sec. 4 and 5, for more discussion of the splitting of elements of representation. Barthes, S/Z sec. 13,22, 44, 77; Lexias 55, 107, 134, 436, 545; "The Realistic Effect", trans, by Gerald Mead in Film Reader 3 (Evanston, 111.: Northwestern Univ., 1978), pp. 1 3 1 - 1 3 5 . See n. 28. Cf. Howard Kahane, Logic and Philosophy (Belmont, Calif., Wadsworth, 2nd ed. 1973), pp. 3 1 3 - 3 1 5 . See discussion in ch. 3, sec. 5. Eco, A Theory of Semiotics, "Introduction: Toward a Logic of Culture", p. 7. See ch. 2. Cf. Todorov, "Narrative Transformations", The Poetics of Prose, p. 223. Cf. Wolfgang Iser, "Indeterminacy and the Reader's Response in Prose Fiction", in Aspects of Narrative, pp. 1 0 - 1 1 , 28, 35.

APPENDIX

Orthodox Theories of Narration

1. Orthodox Literary Theories of Point of View and a Fatal Distinction: Telling versus Showing The categories of Wayne Booth and Norman Friedman illustrate a traditional approach to literary point of view. A glance at Booth's major categories — summarized in figure 1 1 — reveals a rather haphazard collection of traits which, seemingly, can only be unified at the level of the human psyche. Point of view, here, depends on the traits ascribed to some person. The method resembles a popular form of psychology where we are encouraged to speculate on the motives and attitudes of those around us. As such the method is susceptible to many of the criticisms directed at Jean Mitry's scheme for filmic narration (see Appendix, section 4). Consider, for example, the 'kinds' of distance Booth finds (category 8, figure 1): deep personal concern, mildly amused, merely curious, bland, ironic, and disapproving. One might ask how these are measured, verified, and where they may be found. Furthermore, the quality of 'distance', Booth says, may be measured along any of the following scales: moral, intellectual, emotional, aesthetic, physical, spatial, temporal, social class, and conventions of speech and dress. There seems to be no end in sight to the types of distance. Why were these types selected? Are some more relevant than others? How are they related? Norman Friedman attempts to bring some order to the psychological traits of authors, narrators, and characters by arranging narration along a spectrum from pure 'telling' to pure 'showing'. The famous dichotomy telling/showing has been argued and variously defined2 since Plato's The Republic. Roughly, it designates, for the narrator, two different ways of representing a story and, for the reader, two different ways of understanding what is presented. In 'telling', the author is explicitly present, for example, in summarizing dialogue (He told me that he was angry.). In 'showing', the author is concealed behind the words of another. The author, it is said, assumes or 'imitates' someone else's identity, for example, by directly quoting dialogue (He said, Ί am angry'.). Thus drama — which is almost wholly dialogue — approaches pure showing (as does pantomime) since there appears to be no author — events, seemingly, just happen, characters simply speak.

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Dialogue, however, turns out to be neither necessary nor sufficient for showing; 3 indeed, dialogue may be part of telling. Hence the distinction between telling and showing rapidly becomes more complicated as other tests are applied to check for the author's presence. We will not explore the adequacy of these tests nor the resultant intricacies of the distinction telling/showing. Instead I wish to concentrate on the general theory of narration which is entailed by the distinction. The following table contrasts many of the common terms used to draw the distinction. The presence of these paired terms is often a signal that a critic presupposes that narration proceeds as either telling or showing. Table 1: Telling and Showing TELLING the story is told (by an author) diegesis narration indirect (mediated) summary panorama exposition (describe) statement idea language succession

SHOWING the story tells itself mimesis imitation direct (immediate) scene drama presentation (depict, exhibit) inference image picture simultaneity

The last four of the above contrasts are rare and particularly venturesome. What is the purpose of the distinction and what concept of authorship does it entail? Basically, it is founded on the perceived presence/absence of an author in a text. But what is 'absence'? One interpretation of absence is that there is no author, that a passage simply exists as observed. Thus there may be parts of a text which have no author even if there are other parts which do have an author. This view leads to a strict empirical theory of narration. The more usual interpretation of absence in literary study is that there is an author but that, when not readily observable, he must be inferred from other data. Even though an author may nowhere reveal himself explicitly, the temptation is to say that an author is present 'underneath' the text as evidenced by the selection and arrangement of material, ellipses in the story, the use of chapter numbers and titles, etc. Exploring this interpretation of authorship further, we can say that if there is an author underneath it all, then the entire text is really a 'telling' and those parts which are 'showing' are merely temporary and local surface effects

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(where the author conceals himself). On this interpretation the categories of telling and showing seem not to be on the same level of generality; that is, there is always a deep telling and, at times, on the surface, a showing. This raises the problem of what exactly the terms distinguish. One cannot escape the problem by merely hypothesizing a surface telling complementary to surface showing (thus placing the terms on the same level again) because this surface telling would amount only to another sort of showing where the author now imitates (shows) himself! (Indeed it doesn't seem possible for the author ever to be himself (autobiography) for that would be not perfect telling, but in a strange twist, perfect imitation.) When critics speak of telling, however, they seldom mean autobiography but something less candid. But if the telling is less than perfect, then the author is not really himself but is imitating someone (which is implied by the notion of a 'fiction'). Who is it, then, if not the author who speaks? The answer frequently given is that it is a persona of the author — a role or mask. For Booth, it is the 'implied' author — a deeper level of telling. But now we have returned to the same problem: telling and showing become descriptions of different things on different planes. At another extreme, we might ask, what would be perfect imitation? If it were a perfect imitation and truly could not be distinguished from that which was imitated (a perfect forgery) then there is no imitation at all — it can never be recognized — but is merely a second instance of the thing, fully original in its own right, that is, an author is not concealed, but actually present in a perfect imitation. (We say, for instance, that we have two dimes in our pocket, not one dime and one perfect imitation of a dime.) Furthermore, in any imitation, that which is best imitated is always itself and yet we rarely claim that a passage in a text is a parody or refers to itself. Even when it is a parody, however, does not our awareness of the farce — the 'less than perfect' in the imitation which makes us laugh — reveal thus a new 'telling'? That is, the act of imitating, whether of itself or of another, when we recognize it, turns out to be also an act of telling. (What about a telling which is a parody of some other telling in another work by the same author? Is this a telling about a telling or a telling which is an imitation of a telling?) The point here is that telling and showing cannot in principle be kept apart and neither can be perfect, for then one becomes the other. They cannot be related in a hierarchy (deep telling, surface showing) nor can they exist on the same level. Rather, the categories seem to describe the same phenomenon under different conditions; that is, the distinction arises from a confusion of purpose and is not helpful in explaining narration. There is a temptation in reflecting about the concepts telling and showing to say that literature is primarily telling (words) while the cinema is primarily showing (pictures). A critic may then argue that each should remain ontologically distinct (pure) from the other on the grounds that it is more effective when true to its nature, so how to distinguish between the arts becomes a central issue (that of specificity). Or, using a different principle, a critic may argue that each should as-

Still 2 9 :

The Story of a Man Who Left His Will on Film (shot 2) (pages 144, 152).

Hb Ml, r Still 3 0 :

L

The Story of a Man Who Left His Will on Film (shot 3) (pages 144, 1 5 2 , 1 5 4 ) .

i.

Still 32:

The Story of a Man Who Left His Will on Film (page 159).

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sume the challenge of overcoming its apparent limitations to explore new territory, new knowledge, so that the art of telling should aspire to be showing and vice versa.4 In literary studies such a debate has centered on the work of Robbe-Grillet and the rise of the nouveau roman. The new novel is pure showing to an unprecedented degree and in this way, according to one evaluation, foreign to the nature of literature, and according to the other, a breakthrough which expands the resources of literature. In film studies, the telling/showing distinction sets, for example (although the exact boundary may shift), montage, dialogue, and expressionism (broadly conceived to include such authorial interventions as eccentric framing and unmotivated camera movements) against what is called the 'visual' — deep focus, long takes, and compositional values. Many critics tend to privilege the visual as the essence of film because film seems to present itself directly, to show forth a pure objectivity. The polite word for showing, here, is often 'presents' or 'presentational',5 and a major theme in film writing becomes objectivity — the relation of image to reality. Recall that Friedman's final two categories of showing in literature (the Dramatic Mode and the Camera, especially the latter) almost forecast what writers will say when confronted by film narration.6 Even if one argues for an increased role for sound over the visuals, one often remains trapped in that dichotomy of telling versus showing and making evaluations based on a presumed ontology of cinema. There are other problems with telling and showing. Though we may say that A tells (or imitates) Β we seldom say that Β also tells (or imitates) A. Thus one must build in a directional component to the relations telling and showing. But this raises the problem of multiple kinds of telling and showing. For example, A tells about a narrator, B, who tells of a character, C, who shows us something, D; schematically, A tells Β tells C shows D. Is the second telling (B tells C) legitimate? On the one hand, C depends on A's telling of Β but on the other, it is Β which takes 'responsibility' for the telling of C (if there are mistakes they are laid to Β not A). Can there be a showing which depends on prior explicit tellings? Is the reverse possible? Note that the change from one form of narration to the other is particularly troublesome; does it not require an authorial presence — an act of telling? And if so, showing again becomes only a local and temporary manifestation on a different logical plane than telling. The problem here is not that we are led to posit a series of narrators standing one behind the other but that there is, finally, according to a telling/showing theory of narration, a single real narrator — the author. That is, the series is brought to an end, and measured by, an Original who we realize has produced a series of copies, imperfect imitations of himself. And where is this Original? Though he/she/it may be 'in' the text, it is certainly not 'the' text; thus it is absent and somewhere else — an ideal — toward which we are to move, approaching closer, though perhaps never reaching.

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It seems clear that the telling/showing distinction is a reenactment on the plane of narration of a more general theory of representation associated with Plato: art as imitation. We should not be surprised to find at the center of telling/showing the idea of illusion (a series of frauds) versus a real being which itself is absent and can only be located in an ideal state or essence. With respect to narration, the essence of a telling becomes the reconstruction of a psychological universal. I will not rehearse the general failings of an imitation theory of representation7 except to note that in its Platonic version, a distrust of art (an imitation of an imitation of a universal) is fully carried into the distinction telling/showing. The distinction forces upon us the question why an author should imitate something with the suggestion that the deceit involved in imitation can never be anything but false and dangerous, an appearance. The text remains subordinate to an absent author whose artful series of masks can cover only his misdeeds. It may appear that we have strayed from the problem of point of view in talking about an author who tells or shows things to a reader but in actuality a theory, of point of view is also a theory or conception of authorship. The basic question remains, how are we to understand the narration of a narrative? Therefore as we rethink the problem of authorship and narration under the pressure of, say, linguistics and psychoanalysis, we must at the same time restructure our conception of point of view. I have suggested that Wayne Booth's categories for the analysis of point of view are essentially a random list of psychological traits. Although Norman Friedman subjects the scheme to greater order by expanding the telling/showing distinction (Booth's category five, figure 1), the underlying assumptions remain unchanged. Concealed in Friedman's secondary categories (figure 2) is much of the psychology of Booth's scheme. The reigning logic in both is that of an author's (narrator's, character's) 'consciousness', and a reader's response to such mental expressions. Traditional point of view theories are haunted by the effort to elaborate states of consciousness and especially to locate what Friedman calls a 'guiding intelligence' which is only another name for that 'center of consciousness' Henry James claimed is the unity of prose narrative.8 We have already observed the search for consciousness among film critics and in theories of communication and expression.9 A communication model is almost always present though seldom acknowledged. As Booth states, "In any reading experience there is an implied dialogue among author, narrator, the other characters, and the reader" and for Friedman, "the problem of the narrator is adequate transmission of his story to the reader". 1 0 Art is reduced to a special form of conversation among several persons where not only psychological states and intentions must be uncovered but also the norms and values of the participants (see Booth's category nine). 11 The search for these 'persons' leads to a decisive split between internal/external — subjective/objective (cf. the break between Friedman's categories six and seven)12 — and elevates irony from a simple rhetorical figure13 to the preeminent function of narra-

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Figure 1: Wayne Booth's Major Categories for the Analysis of Literary Point of View 1. 2. 3. 4.

5. 6.

7. 8.

9.

10. 11.

First or Third Person Narrator Author as a Real Person Implied Author (the author's 'second self in the text) (a) Undramatised Narrator (b) Dramatised Narrator (i) observer (ii) narrator-agent (narrator as actor) Scene (showing) or Summary (telling) Narrator Silent or Commenting Narrator (a) amount and kind of commentary provided in scene or summary by a narrator where the kind of commentary is measured, for instance, as ornamental, rhetorical, or dramatically necessary Self-conscious, Conscious, or Unconscious Narrator Degree, Kind, and Change of Distance Between the Following (where the degree ranges from identification to alienation; the kind ranges from deep personal concern to disapproving and includes bland, mildly amused, ironic, and merely curious detachment; and distance is measured on such axes as moral, intellectual, emotional, aesthetic, physical, spatial, temporal, social class, and conventions of speech and dress): (a) implied author (b) narrator (of any type) (c) character (d) reader Reliable or Unreliable Narrator (as to the norms of the implied author) (a) isolated or (b) supported or corrected (by another narrator) either (i) internally or (ii) externally (to the action) Privileged (omniscient) or Limited (to realistic vision) Narrator (a) degree and kind of privilege Outside or Inside View (within a character's mind) (a) depth and axis (moral, psychological ...) of inside view note: an inside view makes the character into a (temporary) narrator

tion and the first concern of criticism. Scholes and Kellogg tie irony into an orthodox theory of communication and point of view as follows: By definition narrative art requires a story and a story-teller. In the relationship between the teller and the tale, and that other relationship between the teller and the audience, lies the essence of narrative art. The narrative situation is thus ineluctably ironical. . . . Irony is always the result of a disparity of understanding. In any situation in which one person knows or perceives more — or less — than another, irony must be either actually or potentially present.... [T]he control of irony is a principle function of point of view. 14 Irony attracts the critic because it is at once the most elusive of narrations and the one which threatens all the masks of an author by slyly suggesting yet another

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Figure 2 : Norman Friedman's Major Categories for the Analysis of Literary Point of View The following primary categories range from 'telling' (category 1) to 'showing' (8); from the subjectivity of an author (1, 2) to a narrator (3, 4) to internal character states (5, 6) and finally to external states of the world (7, 8) i.e., objectification. 1. Editorial Omniscience the active presence of an author in the form of intrusive commentary and generalizations about life, manners, and morals, which may or may not be explicitly related to the story and frequently given in the first person 2. Neutral Omniscience editorial omniscience with the author speaking in the third person 3. " I " as Witness-Narrator first person narration by a minor character within the story 4. " I " as Protagonist first person narration by a central character 5. Multiple Selective Omniscience direct presentation of the mental states of several characters (no explicit narrator) 6. Selective Omniscience internal states as above (5) but limited to a single character; note that the representation of internal states may be more or less articulate depending on the "level" of consciousness being explored (cf. Henry James, Virginia Woolf, and James Joyce) 7. The Dramatic Mode external description only of characters and action (no explicit narrator) 8. The Camera details presented without apparent selection or arrangement; random, a 'slice of life' (no explicit narrator) The following secondary categories apply in various degrees to each of the above eight types of narration: 1. Who speaks to the reader? the author (first or third person), a character (first person), or ostensibly no one 2. From what distance? near, far, or shifting 3. From what position? above (godlike), periphery, center (in the middle of the action), front (as if from third row center at a stage play), or shifting 4. Through what channels? words, thoughts, perceptions, feelings, or actions

mask and so another search for the author's being — that being who, provocatively, knows, if not all, at least always more.

2. Hugo Münsterberg and Film Psychology In a book first published in 1916, The Film: A Psychological Study, Hugo Münsterberg laid the groundwork for naturalizing filmic conventions in terms of

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psychological laws. According to Münsterberg film is an objectification of human consciousness. The events of film — freed from the physical constraints of space, time, and causality by the medium — conform instead to the events of the inner world, namely, attention, memory, imagination, and emotion. 15 He asserts, for example, that the close-up is an objectification of attention and the flashback, an objectification of our memory function. 1 6 The dissolve used in a flashback, he says, "indeed somewhat symbolizes the appearance and disappearance of a reminiscence". 17 The result is that the techniques of film are seen to have inherent, a priori meanings in terms of the psychology or expectations of a viewer. This leads to an expressionist theory of art and recipe books which reveal the 'natural' meanings of techniques — a low angle expresses dominance, back lighting expresses spirituality, and so forth. 1 8 Thus a residual of subjectivity exists in all the materials of film 19 waiting to be exploited and which can be defeated only when a material is not used in accordance with its natural meaning. In these latter cases, it is said that technique calls attention to itself, appears contrived and unreal, and fails to engage the spectator in a true psychological process. 20 Thus it is said technique must be transparent, invisible so as not to hinder natural expressivity and response. If technique is invisible, the camera must be an unseen observer who acts for the spectator. Camera movement should be invisible 21 and the camera should be placed only where a real person would be likely to stand; that is, no shots from inside a fireplace showing two lovers through the flames. Ivor Montagu argues as follows: As nobody has ever sat in a fireplace, and if he tried to would burn his bottom, such a scene immediately reminds us that the flames are not flames, the couple are not lovers but actors, that there is no chimney there but a camera — in fact that we are watching a pretense. Here the form is so wrong it is impossible that the content can be apprehended aright. 22 Further, the camera, as an ideal observer, must always assume the best view of the action in accordance with the natural attention of the spectator. In this way the spectator's involvement in the events of the film varies according to the position of the camera. If the camera is on the sidelines away from the action the view is objective; if standing next to the action — partially subjective (e.g., the POV shot); or if the camera participates in the action — because other characters look directly into the camera — the view is subjective. 23 Therefore, spectator identification in the orthodox theory is reduced to a matter of camera location: the positioning of an ideal but unseen observer. Through the aegis of the ideal observer the camera becomes an anthropomorphic entity. It is not simply that the camera may on special occasions represent a character's movement — a pan for the turn of a head (Bigger Than Life, Ray, 1956), a dolly shot for walking — but that, in general, it represents the viewer at

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and during a scene. The overriding concern is to provide the best view and, secondarily, to allow the author a certain emphasis (but no more). The lateral tilt is especially difficult to justify in these terms — why should an ideal observer cant his head in watching a scene? The lateral tilt, accordingly, is relegated by orthodox theory to extraordinary scenes — special emphasis, characters in unusual body positions or with disturbed states of mind, etc. Both the doctrines of 'best view' and 'emphasis' presuppose a split between the camera and a profilmic reality or between camera and mise-en-scene.24 By contrast to the orthodox theory, the approach I have sketched emphasizes that subjectivity is a rhetorical strategy, not an effect innate to the materials of film which is to be revealed or brought forward. The materials of filmic expression are not isomorphic with real persons and real psychological states. Material is not privileged and immutable; rather, it is evidence of a labor, a transformation through which representation is brought into being. The classical theorist finds himself in a box when it comes to describing and analyzing subjectivity because the categories of classical theory are premised on the idea that there is no labor or transformation involved in representing; that is, there is a residuum of subjectivity in all the materials of film and so representation is direct, often causal. If techniques are transparent (invisible cutting, unobtrusive sound, motivated camera movement, etc.), consciousness will shine through. The most that can be said then is that a representation is within the privileged system as another 'level of reality' or outside of that system as mere 'contrivance' (a failure of causal connection among author, reader, and reality). The camera becomes caught in the contradiction that it is present in the profilmic event but cannot be seen by the characters. The orthodox theorist may admit to 'levels' of reality but these are ultimately referenced to the truths of psychology and mind rather than the work of rhetoric and culture. Although one may reject the orthodox method or theory of subjectivity, one cannot reject all of its results and descriptions. Certainly some films do court psychological readings; sometimes a low angle does mean character dominance; and the notions of an ideal observer and impossible camera positions are useful in describing some films. Our aim must be to develop a new, broader theory which will include as special instances the important results of orthodox theory.

3. Andre Bazin: Point of View as a Real Condition of Vision Andre Bazin addresses the problem of cinematic point of view in a 1951 essay in which he sets out "three possible ways of analyzing reality" in most films.25 First,

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there is a "purely logical and descriptive analysis". Bazin's example is the weapon lying next to the murder victim. Second, there is a "psychological analysis from within the film, that is, one that conforms to the point of view of one of the protagonists in a given situation". The examples cited are the ring on the finger of Teresa Wright in Shadow of a Doubt (Hitchock, 1943) and the glass of milk, 26 perhaps poisoned, which Ingrid Bergman is forced to drink in Notorious (Hitchcock, 1946). Finally, there is a "psychological analysis as a consequence of spectator interest; either a spontaneous interest or one provoked by the director precisely through this type of analysis". Bazin's example is a door handle turning behind a character who thinks he is alone: "Look out!" the children in the audience will shout to the character. Bazin's system seems to be constructed around three primary distinctions. The distinction between 'psychological' and 'non-psychological' separates categories two and three from one. Next, the distinction between 'internal' and 'external' separates categories two and three. By an analysis 'internal' to the film, Bazin apparently alludes to the subjective structures which we have defined as the pointof-view shot and the perception shot. These forms of narration are explicitly marked as if taken from the eyes of a particular character, e.g., Teresa Wright's point-of-view as she looks at her ring in Shadow of a Doubt.27 In the perception shot there is an additional mark relating to a state of sight; for example, throwing the image out of focus to indicate a character who is drunk, dizzy, or, in Notorious, drugged. The POV shot is marked negatively; for example, keeping the image in focus to indicate normal awareness. It is possible that Bazin would include other forms of subjectivity, such as flashbacks and dream sequences and even the narration of non-diegetic characters, such as a voice-over narrator. Bazin's third category — an 'external' analysis — covers the interaction of the film with a spectator. Bazin conceives of two causal possibilities for this interaction: either a particular passage in a film is a consequence of a spectator's natural interest or the passage effects, or raises, a spectator's interest. This final distinction between natural and induced spectator interest sets the direction of the causal arrow between film and spectator and is one which, in various guises, permeates the orthodox account of point of view in film. What are some implications of the concept of spectator interest? Bazin speaks of both spectator 'interest' and spectator 'attention' but uses the words interchangeably. 28 Karel Reisz and Gavin Millar, however, prefer spectator 'attention'. In either case the concept refers to a psychological process of selection on the part of the spectator that is influenced, but not determined, by the eye movement of the spectator in watching a film or by the glance of a character in a film. Reisz and Millar's discussion of the principles of editing is structured throughout by a dichotomy, like Bazin's, between natural (spontaneous) and artificial (induced) spectator attention. 29 They begin with Ernest Lindgren's formulation of the problem:

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[I]t is a normal part of our behavior -— so normal, indeed, that we never stop to remark on it -— to look one moment at one thing, and the next moment at another, according to the direction in which our attention is attracted. . . . The fundamental psychological justification of editing as a method of representing the physical world around us lies in the fart that it reproduces this mental process in which one visual image follows another as our attention is drawn to this point and to that in our surroundings. Insofar as the film is photographic and reproduces movement, it can give us a lifelike semblance of what we see; insofar as it employs editing, it can reproduce the manner in which we normally see it. ... [T]bis very simple fact is the keystone not merely [of\ the whole theory of film editing, but of the whole technique of filmic representation.30 I will not pause to consider whether Reisz and Millar provide an adequate or even correct description of human attention in actual life (their argument seems to rest on intuition rather than scientific study and often confuses attention and eye movement). Instead I will explore the argument that editing is a substitute for the spectator's natural attention. Shot/reverse shot editing in a conversation, as well as the classical rule on screen position, for example, might be justified as following the natural perception of a spectator in turning from speaker to speaker as if the spectator were actually present at the conversation. Along these lines, a weaker claim is sometimes advanced which asserts that film places the spectator only at the conversation as if it were actually being played on a stage. This claim attempts to strike a compromise between a film's apparent twin sources in real space and fictional space. But there is no ontological halfway house. The problem can only be resolved by rejecting the initial dichotomy of real versus fictional in favor of a general inquiry into representational activity. In this latter account the 'real' becomes an effect of the text and the 'fictional' is forever present in the form of codes and abstractions based on cultural conventions. A 'fiction' is thus an exploration of language itself, or more broadly, of the systems of intelligibility of a culture; and the dominant system of intelligibility is, exactly, 'reality' for that culture. For Reisz and Millar, the link between film and spectator is founded on real psychological conditions and the problem in editing is to discover the "psychologically correct method of transferring attention from one image to another". 31 Like Bazin, however, they assert that natural attention is only half of the problem; the other half involves the duty of the artist to stimulate spectator attention by artificial means. Under the first heading Reisz and Millar attempt to justify (or naturalize) a range of filmmaking practices, including the match on action, compositions built around center frame (because center frame is also the center of attention),32 and the use of sound. It is worth noting that in this argument camera movement becomes merely another method of transferring the spectator's attention (analogous to eye movement according to Lindgren)33 and so is treated as a subcategory of editing.34 In each instance a specific technique is traced back to a "normal mental mechanism by which we alter our attention from object to object

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in real life". 3s Bazin, too, asserts that a "universal psychological experience" underlies the devices of film. He adds that, " O u r legs and neck didn't wait for the cinema to invent the tracking shot and the pan, nor our attention to contrive the close-up". 36 The limit, however, of exploiting a spectator's natural attention is what Reisz and Millar repeatedly term 'mechanical' editing or a blind imitation of reality. The operative concepts are such things as the artist's 'right to select and emphasize', 'dramatic' logic, and the overall purpose or idea of the work. 3 7 The artist may temporally abridge or expand actions within a scene, even though the physical continuity is wrong, so long as the dramatic logic is clear. 38 Taken to an extreme, however, they say the result is not art but artifice. Hence the most common and durable refrain in all of orthodox criticism, whether applied to film or any of the other arts: The spectator must never become aware of the actual techniques employed by the artwork, for that reveals not reality and truth but the contrivance of an individual (the artist). Techniques must never be 'obvious' or become 'obtrusive'. Narrative, too, is subject to the 'unobtrusive' principle. Consider Donald Richie's assessment of a 1936 Ozu film: One scene of The Only Son is almost ruined when, after the mother has gone, the son, talking about her with his wife, absently picks up the baby's bottle and distractedly puts the nipple in his mouth — a symbol of filial attachment so blatant that only the context of the picture and the brevity of the action save the scene. Much more satisfying are those "symbols" if they may so be called, of uncertain meaning. 39 As Richie illustrates, ambiguity neatly straddles the extremes: committed neither to the surfaces of objects — simple realism — nor to 'meaning' and symbol. The tension between these contradictory poles may be seen in the familiar adage about nature imitating art (or vice versa) or the (contradictory) injunction that art is 'natural artifice': "With true art — the art that art conceals — Ozu triumphs in making a formal device appear natural". 4 0 In short, the task of the artist according to the orthodox critic is to steer between natural and artificial spectator attention so as to avoid on the one hand a vulgar realism and on the other crude artifice. 41 Bazin characterizes the tension between realism and artifice (which he also calls 'expressionism') as a 'dialectic'. Further, it is this dialectic which explains the history of the cinema. To define a film style, it is always necessary to come back to the dialectic between reality and abstraction, between the concrete and the ideal. . . . Good cinema is necessarily, in one way or another, more realistic than bad cinema.

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But simply being realistic is not enough to make a film good. There is no point in rendering something realistically unless it is to make it more meaningful in an abstract sense. In this paradox lies the progress of the movies.42 It should be pointed out that the dialectic between realism and artifice can be a powerful and sophisticated tool for the analysis of historical problems. We cannot, however, explore its implications for a history of the cinema.43 In summary, Bazin, and Reisz and Millar, share a fundamental assumption: that cinema — both its realism, and its devices — is to be understood as the relationship between the normal conditions of perception and the conditions of perception imposed by cinema when the individual becomes a spectator.44 What is crucial is the psychological impact of film technique in terms of a spectator's behavior, emotions, mental processes, attention, and perception. In the end Reisz and Millar privilege editing as the essence of cinema45 while Bazin effectively reverses that prejudice in favor of the long take. The question now arises, how does Bazin argue, like Reisz and Millar, from psychological premises but reach different conclusions about film technique? The answer lies in Bazin's notion that film is uniquely suited to reveal concrete reality. While recognizing that editing is capable of reproducing a spectator's attention as if the person were actually present at a scene,46 Bazin opts for a 'deeper' psychological realism founded on the long take, camera movement, and deep focus. These techniques in some measure restore the concrete essence that narrative seeks to steal from reality. Certain traits of this reality, favored by Bazin, recur throughout his writing: ambiguity, multiplicity, independence, density, and even the mystery of objects and events in the world. Concrete reality is the detail which exists in reality prior to narrative and which ultimately surpasses, survives any narrativization.47 Certain techniques, Bazin says, preserve the spatial and temporal unity of reality and so preserve the spectator's freedom of attention. By contrast, editing often restricts the spectator to the passive reception of an a priori, single meaning. Bazin points to a technique allied to deep focus, which he calls 'lateral depth of field', to explain how camera movement can act as a constantly shifting mask or window revealing reality almost by chance — certifying that what was off-camera a moment before is not an imaginary backstage but continuous and concrete reality — depth in the shot and at its sides.48 The camera moves or reframes freely as if to catch the world unawares. The camera's freedom, and consequently the spectator's freedom of attention, are not, however, unlimited. And here Bazin shows himself to be a remarkably subtle theorist of point of view. The point of view of the camera, he says, should not be unlimited like the novelist's omniscient third-person narrator, nor should it be a private subjectivity, but rather: ... a way of seeing, free of all contingency but which still preserves the conditions and the concrete quality of vision: its continuity in time and its vanishing

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point in space. It is like the eye of God, in the proper sense of the word, if God could be satisfied with a single eye. 49 Bazin proposes the paradox of an 'imperfect' omniscience. What he means is that the device of point of view provides yet another opportunity to reveal reality: The very act of seeing — apart from what is seen — should be restrained by real conditions of vision. Bazin approves Cocteau's idea that cinema is an event seen through a keyhole and adds, "The impression one gets from the keyhole is of an invasion of privacy, the quasi-obscenity of 'viewing' ". 5 0 In this metaphor, it is the door and the keyhole which serve to limit vision (viewing) and make it less than perfect. What is of crucial importance for Bazin is that these constraints on the vision of the spectator are real constraints; hence, the reference to a door and a keyhole. Bazin amplifies his concept of point of view with reference to a 1939 Renoir film. Throughout the entire last part of The Rules of the Game the camera acts like an invisible guest wandering about the salon and the corridors with a certain curiosity, but without any more advantage than its invisibility. The camera is not noticeably any more mobile than a man would be . . . And the camera even gets trapped in a corner, where it is forced to watch the action from a fixed position, unable to move without revealing its presence and inhibiting the protagonists. 51 Bazin might have added that such a conception of the camera — as a personification of a witness — prohibits the use of impossible camera positions; for instance, from within a fireplace looking out at the characters. In short, the camera's point of view reveals concrete reality by acceding to the real conditions of vision and spectatorship. As he concludes in another essay, "The camera is at last a spectator and nothing but a spectator". 5 2 In Roberto Rossellini's Paisä (1946) there is a scene dealing with several World War II Italian resistance fighters who are hiding from the Germans in a marshland area. In order to avoid detection they must remain crouched down in a small boat below the level of the reeds and very low to the horizon. Bazin is fascinated by Rossellini's framing of the scene, which holds the horizon at a constant height. Maintaining the same proportions between water and sky in every shot brings out one of the basic characteristics of this landscape [the marsh]. It is the exact equivalent under conditions imposed by the screen, of the inner feeling men experience who are living between the sky and the water and whose lives are at the mercy of an infinitesimal shift of angle in relation to the horizon. 5 3 Thus the framing repeats the concrete reality of these men under these conditions. The spectator is placed not inside the men, but under similar conditions (re-

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strictions) of vision. For Bazin this is a true subjectivity for it reveals man's relation with the facts of reality. A false subjectivity, say a dream sequence, reveals only private and abstract meanings. Since "meaning emerges only after the fact", 5 4 a true subjectivity must always directly represent the external facts and conditions of private life. In Jean Renoir's The Crime of M. Lange (1935), Bazin examines two shots in detail for what they disclose about point of view. These shots concern the murder of Batala by M. Lange. The first shot (which I will term shot 10 in the scene) begins on two characters — Batala and Valentine — conversing in a courtyard at night. Suddenly there is a quick camera movement. The camera cranes upward, diagonally to the right, dollies in, and catches a brief, obscured view of Lange looking out of a second floor window. The camera then pans and tracks, following Lange as he hurriedly exits left. We follow his progress — from our viewpoint outside the building — through several rooms and six windows and then the camera cranes down to catch Lange rapidly descending a flight of stairs. Lange runs into a full length view, stops, and stares off right. There is now a match on action to a medium shot (shot 11) as Lange raises his hand. He exits foreground right. At this point the camera executes an extraordinary movement. Instead of following Lange, it pans quickly left through about 180 degrees around an empty courtyard to reach Batala and Valentine staring left foreground. The camera dollies in, Lange enters left foreground, struggles with Batala, and we hear a pistol shot but do not see the gun. Batala slips from view and after a few lines of dialogue Lange and Valentine exit left foreground. Bazin provides a number of reasons to justify the seemingly inexplicable pan left which leaves Lange in order to find Batala. 55 One of these reasons concerns point of view. But first of all, we should understand what the camera movement does not do. Strictly speaking, the camera is not taking a shortcut as Bazin intimates. (The pan is about 180 degrees and, anyway, one assumes that Lange would take the shortest path to Batala.) Nor can it be simply a matter of showing Batala's reaction to Lange before Lange arrives; in that case, the camera could just as well have started to follow Lange right but speeded up to reach Batala ahead of Lange, or there could have been a straight cut from Lange to Batala. Instead Bazin argues that, with this extraordinary movement, the camera demonstrates its freedom from the characters and from the dramatic geometry of the scene. Bazin's notion of lateral depth of field is relevant: Since what we are shown is only significant in terms of what is hidden from us and since therefore the value of what we see is continually threatened, the mise en scene cannot limit itself to what is presented on the screen. The rest of the scene, while effectively hidden, should not cease to exist.... The camera should be able to spin suddenly without picking up any holes or dead spots in the action. 5 6

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Freedom of the camera is related to the freedom of attention of the spectator. When the camera moves — as if by chance — it certifies the documentary reality beneath the (manufactured) fiction and warrants the spectator's faith in his or her vision of a complete reality. Bazin recognizes the crucial importance of off-screen space and endeavors to harness it in the service of reality. (By contrast, later theorists, like Nöel Burch, will argue for an expansion of the potentialities of offscreen space.)57 In addition Bazin argues that the camera's point of view must be consistent or continuous because human perception and attention are 'naturally' continuous: What all of this means is that the scene should be played independent of the camera in all its real dramatic expanse and that it is up to the cameraman to let his viewfinder play over the action. Reframing, then, is substituted as much as possible for a switching of points of view, which not only introduces spatial discontinuity, a phenomenon foreign to the nature of the human eye, but also sanctions the concept of the reality of a shot on a single plane, the idea of each shot as nothing more than a unit of place and action, an atom which joins with other atoms to make the scene and then the sequence.58 Just as Bazin opposes deep focus to montage so he opposes a consistent, continuous point of view to a changing, discontinuous point of view. The instantaneous change of position produced by editing upsets the notion of an invisible witness who presumably cannot change position in an instant. In summary, Bazin asks for (1) a consistent point of view which (2) reaffirms the integrity of space and time, primarily, by (3) affirming a particular, or the, concrete conditions of vision and spectatorship which of necessity will be "limited" rather than all-knowing and seeing.59 As noted earlier, by 'concrete' Bazin refers to such properties of reality as ambiguity, multiplicity, chance, independence, density, and detail. Bazin clarifies the special quality of the unmotivated pan shot in The Crime of M. Lange by considering the alternatives: a pan shot which follows Lange or a simple cut from Lange to the waiting Batala. In either case, the approach would be "purely descriptive, directly determined by the action and the position of the actors". 6 0 This recalls his three types of point of view with which we began — description, character subjectivity, and spectator psychology — the first of which involves a neutral or apsychological description. At first, one might think that a descriptive point of view would be the best at revealing objective reality, but for Bazin such description is linked to the logical, the dramatic — what is abstract and constructed for the viewer (the action, the position of the actors). Reality, instead, for Bazin depends on the third type of point of view — the psychology of vision of the spectator. Only in this way can reality (and the spectator) achieve a certain independence from the narrative, from the artist's will. Thus Bazin praises a shot in Les Parents terribles61 which avoids the first two types of point of view —

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description and character subjectivity — in favor of spectator psychology. At a particular moment in the narrative Bazin says the camera is behind a character so that "The object of the shot is not what she is looking at, not even her look; it is looking at her looking".62 We see reality severed from the (immediate) drama. Before leaving The Crime of M. Lange, it may be useful to mention some aspects of the scene which reinforce Bazin's analysis and others which do not. One might argue that there is an earlier unmotivated camera movement (in shot 10) which abruptly leaves the conversation between Batala and Valentine to crane upwards to Lange just as the camera movement (in shot 11) leaves Lange to refind Batala and Valentine. Both camera movements traverse 'empty' space, that is, space empty of narrative significance. (In shot 10 we see a wall, a corrugated tin roof, and blackness before we reach the window.) In each shot, what is unmotivated is actually the movement which gives us space empty of narrative. Reisz and Millar would undoubtedly point out that the use of editing here could eliminate the empty space and 'tighten-up' the narrative in spite of the fact that the apparent glance of Lange does provide a degree of motivation for the crane up (although we arrive a bit late for the glance). The sequence clearly establishes a background set against which to measure the difference of its primary device. There are, for instance, other camera movements which do center and follow characters and character glances, and which predict narrative space. Thus a camera pan which does not follow character and moves away from a character glance or sight line is indeed anomalous. Also, character stares, exits, and entrances into the foreground tend, as Bazin would say, to place the camera at the center of the action (shots 8, 11, 12). A central view tends to maintain continuity in point of view. If Bazin celebrates a point of view limited by concrete reality — something more than character vision but less than omnipresence — the sound track may pose a problem. The sound track during the scene from The Crime of M. Lange is an elaborate orchestration of dialogue with the noises and distant singing of a large drinking party. Starting with the unmotivated pan shot, for example, the party noise fades to a silence which lasts nearly five seconds — a very unusual effect. After the gunshot we hear a baby burst into tears, and then after Lange asks (still in the same shot), "Is he dead?", we hear loud laughter from the party. How does the dramatic manipulation of sound for emphasis, irony, etc., affect the visual point of view? Strictly speaking, the camera does not change position during a pan so that the radical change in sound (to silence), assuming that the party has not suddenly ended, cannot be identified with a consistent or central camera position. In this instance, the aural 'point of view' may have more to do with what we see (the pan shows us the far side of the courtyard) than from where we see it (where the party noise should be undiminished). The manipulation of sound and sound levels for dramatic purposes runs counter to the integrity of space and time. Generally, it

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has remained for avant-garde filmmakers like Straub and Huillet to experiment with such possibilities as integral direct sound. One concludes that Bazin did not work out the relationship between the concrete conditions of viewing and the concrete conditions of hearing.63 As many critics have noted, Bazin assumes the existence of a profilmic world against which he measures the techniques of film. His most famous statement in this respect is "The Ontology of the Photographic Image" where he argues that there is a necessary, scientific link between the objects of the world (or at least light rays!) and the objects as projected (or at least the film emulsion in the camera!). 64 Across this link reality passes into the film and its representations. Our primary concern, however, has been with a second strain in Bazin's writing — the relation of the film to the perceptual realities of seeing the film and the world. One might say that Bazin's first argument involves a reality that is profilmic while the second involves a reality that is postfilmic. Both allow film techniques to be gauged against reality. Both are used to sustain Bazin's opinion that editing basically elides and conceals the world by fragmenting space and time as the captives of dramatic logic. Thus Bazin calls for the camera to be "independent" of the scene both to record the autonomy of profilmic objects and to reassert the freedom of postfilmic viewing.65 Though some writers have edged away from a profilmic rationale and may even, as Reisz and Millar, reach opposite conclusions about film techniques, the underlying method remains the same. In-particular, recent work has sought to secure the postfilmic as a new hiding place for reality. Nick Browne, for example, says that narration plays between the fictional space of the screen and the real space of the spectator seated in the theatre. 66 He makes this claim because he wants finally to get at the emotions, responses, identifications, and judgments of real spectators: in short, "our attitude of approval or disapproval".67 My analysis brackets the postfilmic as part of what Barthes calls the 'narrative situation' and considers only the internal relations of the text: the imaginary narrator-in-the-text and the imaginary spectator-in-the-text.68 I assume that a pre-existent reality — whatever the production facts of a given film — cannot be separated out from the film text so that reality becomes something merely formed (copied, distorted) by the filmic apparatus and techniques. I also assume that a film is not merely the form of a real viewing experience. I do not attempt to work forward from the film to the real effects on its spectators. Instead, film is considered as a representational system which may create an 'impression of reality' and an 'impression of performance' but only as an effect of particular codes — practices of reading combined with the protocols of the reading situation. The real in this sense is the labor through which matter is transformed into significance by a spectator/artist. Reality is the infinity of cultural texts — aesthetic and non-aesthetic — through which man endlessly formulates/fabricates meaning for himself. A second implication of Bazin's theory is the priority he places on vision — the

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perception of light rays from an origin (!) to an object to our senses. "To understand the world," he says, "is above all to know how to look at it and to make it abandon itself to your love under the caress of your eye". 69 As others have argued, this assumes that (1) reality is visible, (2) the camera is capable of reproducing the visible and (3) the spectator's experience of the film is somehow perceptually equivalent to the spectator's experience of reality. 'Experience', here, usually refers to a prelogical awareness or intuition which verges toward doctrines of phenomenology. Depending on one's choice of metaphor, this sort of experience is either before language (in the broadest sense) or beyond language. The result is that such experience exists before meaning or, as Bazin states, "Each [film] image alone [is] only a fragment of reality existing prior to meaning". 7 0 And "meaning emerges only after the fact". 7 1 Many critics — some relying explicitly on phenomenology — move onward from the viewing experience (the sensation of fact) toward spirit and various formulations of the transcendence of self 72 — where reality and sensation join at some primal level of consciousness beyond mere meaning and cognition. Bazin shares the mystic's belief that there exists a knowledge not expressible in a semantic system (through word, pictures, gestures, etc.). 73 The mystic is particularly fond of metaphors, riddles, and non sequiturs because these figures challenge the bounds of meaning and the possibility of meaning. The aim is to transcend sign systems. Roland Barthes states a radical alternative to the above view of language: Language cannot be considered as a simple instrument, whether utilitarian or decorative, of thought. Man does not exist prior to language, either as a species or as an individual. We never find a state where man is separated from language, which he then creates in order to "express" what is taking place within him: it is language which teaches the definition of man, not the reverse. 74 Barthes adds that "culture, in all its aspects* is a language". 7 5 These are the assumptions I follow, with the provision that 'language' is to be construed in its broadest compass as 'representational activity' (see chapters 1 and 2). Natural language and linguistics are not to be taken as master paradigms. Third, in analyzing point of view, Bazin commonly anthropomorphizes the camera and speaks of it as a person, an invisible witness. 76 Bazin, of course, is not alone, for this tendency is widespread in film criticism. Consider Tony Pipolo's description of the camera in Max Ophuls' Letter Front An Unknown Woman (1948). Ophuls has made every effort to attune the camera's gaze and mobility to Lisa's temperament. . . . As a result, he has achieved much more than an approximation between camera view and character consciousness, for at such moments as those described, the camera almost attains an actual consciousness itself. In effect, ... the correspondences between character and camera "behavior" amount

Still 3 7 :

81/2 ( s h o t 1 A ) ( p a g e 1 6 3 ) .

Still 3 8 :

81/2 ( s h o t 1 B ) ( p a g e 1 6 3 ) .

Still 40:

The Story of a Man Who Left His Will on Film (page 164).

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to this: the camera is personified to the degree that it acts in unison with, and often as a substitute for, the character consciousness which controls it. 77 The camera, however, once awakened to consciousness, cannot be limited to characters. It may reflect other sentient beings and even pursue its own course. Consider Dudley Andrew's account of the husband meeting the vamp in the marsh in Sunrise (Murnau, 1927). Later, the man, back to us, wanders toward the marsh and the camera, full of our desire, initiates one of the most complex and thrilling movements in all of cinema. It crosses the fence at its own spot, turns on the man who in his stupor passes by it, and makes for the vamp. But the camera finds its own, more direct path, pushing past bushes until she is revealed in the moonlight. When the man reenters screen left we are doubly startled, having forgotten that he had left us. Indeed we are perhaps ashamed to have reached the vamp before him in our driving impatience. This shame is intensified at the end of the sequence when the camera, nose in mud, sniffs after the retreating sinners. It is a daring, highly unconventional shot, and it delivers its image of guilt not only by its content (high-heel shoes oozing with mud, while the marsh refuses to give up the imprint of the shoe), but by making us feel guilty as we literally track the couple down. 78 Here the camera, certainly, is the true vamp! It teases sinful desire from us only to betray that trust, exposing us to shame in the same wil|ful, almost casual manner that it decides to take a shortcut through the marsh. Oddly, the net effect, according to Andrew, is 'thrilling'. It is perhaps too easy, however, to criticize this way of speaking about the camera without recognizing that it does provide a convenient, succinct description of a scene and has the merit of recognizing narration as an activity of framing which is never static. The problem is that point of view cannot be centralized in an independent camera nor in a camera which is the receptacle for human psychological states. Nick Browne nicely demonstrates that a spectator's point of view may sometimes be reduced to camera position, angle of view, distance, etc., or to character attention in a scene. But, he remarks, our point of view is not always reducible to these terms and when it is, we still need not identify with the character. 79 This leads him to jump to the conclusion that, in the end, point of view depends on a postfilmic reality: the way we feel about the film, 'our attitude of approval or disapproval'. 80 The answer, however, may yet lie internal to the film text: in the context of narration, that is, in the overall relations of the different levels of narration. Browne concedes as much when he refers to the effect on the spectator of earlier scenes of a film. 81 Indeed it is quite possible for a given level of narration to function as counterpoint, thus defining our place through opposition, irony, etc.

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Part of the problem is the very concept of 'camera' — a notion which has become hardened into place and which is crucial to Bazin's theory. When film is understood in relation to a profilmic or postfilmic reality, it becomes difficult to conceive of the camera except as a real object in that reality which can move as humans do (a pan is 'like' a turn of the head) and can record a point of view 'like' a human observer. If one is to work toward a definition of film as a representational system, scrapping profilmic and postfilmic models, and if point of view is to be defined textually as part of a symbol system, apart from 'humans', then one must also redefine the concept of a camera. In chapter 3,1 suggested that the camera is a reading hypothesis about space — a label applied to the text by the reader. Coupled with the distinction between motivated and unmotivated, we can say that the camera movement uncovered by Bazin in The Crime of M. Lange is unmotivated and would be related not to the freedom of the spectator (real conditions of vision, the release of documentary reality) but to a disjunction in narration. Fourth, there is a confusion in Bazin's writing between technique and psychology. Principles of human psychology are at the center of his three types of point of view — description (which is the absence of those principles), character subjectivity, and spectator psychology — and those principles lead him to prize certain techniques, such as the plan-sequence over montage. The danger is that technique may become the mere receptacle for character and spectator emotion (the camera in Sunrise, for instance, embodies our shame). There is a danger also that technique will be reduced to an a priori ascription of meaning; crudely, that a low angle means 'dominance,' back lighting means 'saintliness', etc. To be fair, Bazin largely avoids this error (though many others do not). His first category of point of view cannot simply be associated with montage or his third category with camera movement. The strain between technique and psychology, however, is apparent as Bazin wrestles with Renoir's The River (1950) — a film which eschews the favored techniques, 82 yet, he claims, is unsurpassed in its realism. Bazin wants to say that it is reality, not the interpretation of reality, which is a priori. The difficulty is that reality is specified in terms of sensory experience (a viewing situation) which is then ontologically linked to film and technique. Realism in the cinema, he says, comprises "those conditions which respect certain physiological or mental facts of natural perception or, more exactly, in rediscovering equivalents for them". 83 Thus in a bold conclusion Bazin is, nevertheless, led to connect William Wyler's technique with character and spectator psychology: "The depth of field of William Wyler wants itself to be as liberal and democratic as the conscience of the American spectator and of the heros of his films". 84 Finally, once film technique operates to personify psychological states, point of view begins to slide toward someone's (psychological) attitude. Point of view becomes "ultimately the product of the narrator's disposition", "judgments", or "commentary" on the story. 85 In brief, point of view becomes viewpoint and the search is on to locate a center of consciousness. In Sunrise Andrew finds a collec-

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tive consciousness: "The drama of the film is seen by and through the eyes of the village. ... The entire film is a community parable told by its citizens to us, an extension of that community".86 In Stagecoach (Ford, 1939) Browne discovers the 'central consciousness' of the character Lucy in the first six shots of a particular scene, and in Au Hasard, Balthazar (Bresson, 1966) he discovers the "opaque though sensible 'center'" of the donkey Balthazar who is transformed "into the subjectivity of one blessed by grace, a saint". 87 And in Letter From An Unknown Woman Pipolo detects the 'central consciousness' of the character Lisa in 'everything', the screenplay, shot composition, camera angle, camera movement, editing, sound, and mise-en-scene.aa Parallel with the search for a center of narration — whether a character, an ironic narrator, or an author — is the search for the ideal reader, that is, the 'proper' response (attitude, point of view) to the text. Browne speaks of "our sympathies", "commitments", and finds, for example, that the proper response to Au Hasard, Balthazar is a "passionate but distanced contemplation".89 Lying behind this conception of point of view is a communication model of representation. 90 The attitude or viewpoint of an author, or at least some species of narrator, is transmitted with minimal resistance (lessened by the critic) to the reader. The result is knowledge about reality, inflected by the narrator's view of it. 91 Thus a salient practice of traditional film writing is to divide a technique (sound, color, lighting, camera movement, angle, etc.) strictly into its realistic and unrealistic uses and term the latter commentary. Such "comments" are inevitably attributed to a film director, author, or narrator of some kind. The distinction in Bazin's three-tiered model of point of view between natural and artificial spectator attention involves him, too, in a communication model. The artist has a right and obligation to induce spectator interest but without, of course, resorting to artifice. Bazin, ultimately, wanted to free the text as much as possible from the point of view (attitude) of an author and the various "manipulative" techniques at the author's disposal. It is clear now why Bazin disliked German expressionist films and the subjective film, Lady in the Lake (Montgomery, 1946); 9 2 for these films set out to obscure reality in favor of the private vision of an author or character. Indeed, one might argue that his theory of cinema is weighted toward the spectator. Bazin celebrated, above all, a spectator's 'natural freedom' of attention within the process of narration. My approach to point of view does not assume that a text is a communication involving the psychological experiences of characters and spectators. This will avoid the embarrassment of assigning a gender to an effaced narrator and of characterizing these parts of a film as a sort of commentary, as in 'his commentary'. 93 It does involve, however, a constant struggle against many of the words one must use — such as narrator — which have overtones of communication and suggest a personality instead of a symbol system. I consider point of view to be a textual system which controls (expands, re-

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stricts, changes) the viewer's access to meaning. Point of view is a limit on the very existence or production of meaning. Changes in point of view constitute changes in the level of narration so that, for instance, subjective narration is an expansion in the text, as if between brackets, of narrative information limited as to its 'truth' by an epistemological boundary — the nominal subject of 'subjective'. By truth I mean what the text finally declares to be (or suspends) the answers to the questions it raises. As the six elements of representation change, the boundaries of coherence change for the spectator. Meaning is not absolute even in the classical text, but is always, at least implicitly, produced with respect to a set of coordinates — an 'authority'. Point of view basically answers the question: What work (by 'whom') has transformed matter into meaning? The word 'whom' is qualified because to name a character, for example, as a producer of meaning is only shorthand for naming a textual process. It does not name a real person, a person who might or could exist, or indeed anything with psychological traits. Characters (as well as character's 'attitudes' and actions) exist as constructions of the text — as various premises in the overall argument of the text.

4. The Categories of Jean Mitry Jean Mitry explores issues of point of view by dividing subjective film images into five categories.94 First, the point-of-view (POV) shot where the camera assumes the spatial position of a subject in order to show us what the subject sees. Second, the flashback — the memory image of a character. Third, the purely mental image: we see what a character only imagines — his or her dreams, fears, hopes, etc. Fourth, the imaginary or fantasy narrative — legends, fairy tales, etc. — where the film or a major passage of the film is "deliberately 'un-realist' " ; 9 5 for example, an animated sequence. And, finaly, the image which results from 'subjectivising the objective'. Here the spectator is involved or implicated in a character's state of mind principally through the use of camera framing and movement. Mitry does not provide an exact definition of the last sort of image. Time, however, seems to be a critical factor. At the exact time that the character sees — interacts with — an object we also see both the character's reaction and the object of attention. The conjunction of character and object allows us to judge the character's emotional state and simultaneously see the cause or effect (reflector) of that state in the object. The idea is that we share immediately and totally in a character's psychological point of view. As an example of 'subjectivising the objective' Mitry cites the expectation and impatience of Bette Davis in Jezebel (Wyler, 1938), revealed to the spectator by a camera which whirls and circles with her in a room as she nervously prepares for a

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visit from the man she loves. In this manner the camera movement itself, Mitry says, becomes feverish, subjective,96 and allows us to "associate ourselves with her and project on her those feelings which would be ours in an identical situation" (Mitry's emphasis). 97 Another example is the shot in Jezebel which shows Bette Davis' frightened reaction to Henry Fonda's horror at discovering she intends to wear a red dress to the ball (where white is the color that must be worn by young, unmarried women). Mitry stresses that we instantaneously see both the reaction of Davis and the cause — the object — of her reaction. 98 The object, here, is another character, Fonda, whose reaction of displeasure we witness through a violent squeezing of his cane in the immediate foreground. Evidently, the category of 'subjectivising the objective' depends on a continuous interpretation and reading-in of character psychology. The category threatens to swallow up almost every shot in a film — how does one draw the line between character psychology, implied states of mind, and spectator projection? Furthermore, since the situation is fictional and can never arise for us, how do we know what our feelings would be in that identical (or even similar) situation? Note that as a first step in answering this question one must immediately weaken the notion of a 'fiction' so as to incorporate a profilmic and postfilmic reality which is shared by character and spectator. Mitry's first example from Jezebel is not nearly as marked in the film as his description suggests. Nevertheless, the category of 'subjectivising the objective' does seem to capture something and it forcefully illustrates that subjectivity depends on a narrative context and cannot be defined in strictly formal terms. (In chapter 6 , 1 have reformulated and detailed the sort of subjectivity captured in "subjectivising the objective.") In addition to the five subjectivities, Mitry discusses two other kinds of images. One is the opposite of character subjectivity — an impersonal, descriptive shot — and the other is the author's subjectivity which he calls a "descriptive subjectivity", a "personal image", or the "author's point of view". The author's subjectivity is revealed by, say, stylized or eccentric framing. Setting aside the problems of impersonal and authorial images, there still remain serious problems with Mitry's system for discussing point of view. One might begin by asking what theoretical criteria or logical grid has produced this typology of subjective images? For one thing, the categories do not seem exclusive. Consider the out-of-focus POV shot which commonly represents the condition of a character who is drunk, dizzy, or drugged. Is this subjective structure a POV shot or a mental image? What about the reverse angle (over the shoulder shot), the eyeline match, or eccentric framing — all of which may have subjective, character overtones? Are these mere variations of the POV shot or are they 'subjectivising the objective'? For another thing, the categories do not seem to be on the same level of generality. The category of fantasy narrative seems to be out of place since it involves questions of narrative genre — the definition and relation of various

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genres" — rather than subjectivity; otherwise it is no different from a character's dream state. The category of flashbacks would seem to be merely a subset of the category of mental images; that is, a memory image is only one type of a broader class of mental functions which also includes the daydreams, desires, terrors, random thoughts, etc., of a character. On what ground should we privilege the memory function? Is a character's memory apt to be more 'reliable'? Is it more 'real' because it ostensibly deals with actual, past events and other characters? Mitry's system appears to depend on categories of human consciousness and their opposition to concrete reality. The former are invisible and personal; the latter are visible and public. If so, we cannot be sure that the system is logically exhaustive since there is neither an inventory of possible mental conditions nor one of relevant filmic elements. Although the definition of the POV shot is specific in terms of a particular juxtaposition of shots in a film, there is no hint what constitutes a mental image in a film. Moreover, for Mitry, film is a duplication of public reality and so everything a spectator senses (?!) as non-real in film is a representation of some invisible and potentially subjective world. But, it turns out, all subjectivities are not equal and here, perhaps, one may glimpse some of Mitry's basic assumptions. According to Mitry, the attempt to represent the invisible — a mental entity — directly in film must fail miserably. Metz summarizes his view as follows: The shots which make up the film can only render the visible, and they are helpless in the face of what no one has ever seen. The image which aims at being subjective — at least in this sense — is always experienced by the spectator as objective in the same way as its neighboring images and because of this it disturbs rather more than it enlightens, for as a view of the real it has no satisfactory meaning in relation to the rest of the film. The cinema is thus too "real" to translate effectively the imaginary views of its characters. 100 It is not that mental or dream images have no meaning, but that they have no satisfactory meaning. This evaluative statement reveals that Mitry's categories depend on a priori categories of human consciousness (reality vs. imagination, memory, awareness) — recognized by and in real spectators — as well as a theory of film as a particular sort of representational system — a certain duplication of visible, concrete reality. Subjectivity is defined and measured against the (assumed) absolute duplication of concrete reality. As Mitry notes, a "major difference is that literary form is pure creation while filmic form is only second-degree creation since it is by means of a concrete reality.... While in literature reality is virtual, it is, in cinema, real presence". 1 0 1 Memory images, on the other hand, are different from mental images for Mitry because memory is only partially subjective. A flashback relates to an objective world which can be wholly or partly verified. Since film deals in objective images, flashbacks can be successful. Mitry notes that the events in a flashback "are al-

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ways seen as if they developed in the course of previous sequences or as we would have been able to see them if we had been present at the past events. In every way, it is the point of view of an invisible witness and not that of the person who is remembering".102 We have already noted the importance of the "invisible witness" for orthodox theory. The POV shot, too, is partly objective — the optical view from a given point may be checked by another observer — and so it too may be successfully represented in film. The same is true of 'subjectivising the objective' which Mitry, in fact, refers to as a 'semi-subjective' image. The category of fantasy narrative, then, seems to exist in order to collect the remaining cases of unreality which do not fit into any of the other four categories; such as, one might suppose, cases where there is no representation of concrete reality at all (e.g., animated sequences) or no character is explicitly marked as the source of the distortion (e.g., early French Impressionist films). When Mitry asserts that mental images have no satisfactory meaning, he reveals an assumption about the nature of filmic representation. By contrast, the analytical approach I have laid out makes no ontological claims about film and instead concentrates on the conditions of meaning in a film. Meaning, I have assumed, is based not on psychological categories apart from the film (reality vs. imagination) but on cultural units structured within the film. For Mitry to speak of subjective images rather than subjective structures already implies a resemblance theory and perhaps an idealist theory of representation. The difference between the two approaches is clearly illustrated by Mitry's category of 'subjectivising the objective'. At a rhetorical level, a 'subjective objective' is an oxymoron and perhaps suggests a more fundamental contradiction in the underlying scheme. (Can the inverse process also exist: 'objectifying the subjective'?) In his first example from Jezebel, what is important is not the fact that 'impatience' is successfully conveyed (in the objective terms of camera movement) but how — through what process, what production — the film signifies the impatience of Bette Davis. It is not enough to speak of a whirling camera because not all such camera movements signify impatience; for example, in Long Day's Journey Into Night (Lumet, 1962) a similar camera movement portrays Katherine Hepburn as simply agitated and suspicious. Nor are all such camera movements necessarily subjective. Besides mentioning camera angle and movement, Mitry is quite vague about how these subjective images come into being. What about such elements as camera distance, placement, or focus; editing, mise-en-scine (e.g., Expressionist decor), optical effects, slow motion, acting style, lighting, and sound? It is in fact impossible to assign a priori meanings to these elements.103 What is needed is a theory of representation which goes beyond the material features of the text and yet addresses the problem of the conditions of meaning in the text. Subjectivity depends crucially upon, and cannot be defined apart from, narration, narrative context, and the abstract rules we as viewers employ to make meaning.

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5. From Literature to Film: Narration as Consciousness The most thoroughgoing attempt so far to translate a traditional understanding of literary point of view to film has been made by Bruce Kawin. Although Kawin begins by dividing film narration into first, second, and third person, what truly defines his project as traditional and literary is the insistence on a unified, and unifying, consciousness who somewhere narrates the work. The assumption of classical philosophy is of an undivided subject which aspires to be at One with itself, with its perception, with the world, or with God. 1 0 4 The idea of a unified consciousness underpins the schemes of Booth, Friedman, and Kawin as well as such writers as Pipolo, Andrew, and Browne. The search for consciousness extends even to critics dealing with experimental and non-narrative films. 105 The search derives, I believe, from something like the historical scenario proposed by Jean-Paul Sartre: After the age of objective and metaphysical realism, when the words of the tale were taken for the very things which they named and when its substance was the universe, there came that of literary idealism in which the word has existence only in someone's mouth or on someone's pen and refers back in essence to a speaker to whose presence it bears witness, where the substance of the tales is the subjectivity which perceives and thinks the universe, and where the novelist, instead of putting the reader directly into contact with the object, has become conscious of his role of mediator and embodies the mediation in a fictitious recital. 106 Sartre adds that the device of the interior monologue pushes the hypothesis of a personal subjectivity to the limit and strives for realism by leading idealism to the absolute. " T h e reality which one shows to the reader without intermediary is no longer the thing itself — the tree, the ashtray — but the consciousness which sees the thing." 1 0 7 Sartre condemns the attempt to present directly a psychic reality. However, he cannot escape the belief that consciousness is a primary structuring element of the text. " I f the word is given as an intermediary signifying A reality which in essence transcends language, nothing could be better; it withdraws itself, is forgotten, and discharges consciousness upon the object." 1 0 8 In redirecting consciousness outward, Sartre does not give up the search but merely looks in a new place and for a new value — the writer's engagement or 'commitment'. A glance at Kawin's five types of first person narration (see figure 3) 1 0 9 reveals that what brings together such devices as voice-over, POV shot, and mindscreen is the human psyche, which then becomes a crucial category. For Kawin, first person narration depends on a being who either says, hears, sees, thinks, or who reflects upon saying, hearing, seeing, or thinking (self-consciousness). The category of mindscreen (what someone is thinking) is particularly important for it is the consciousness of the narrator laid naked. It is the most revealing of narrations since it allows the viewer intimate access to that coherence and intention which shapes the

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entire work. According to Kawin, mindscreen is a "visual (and at times aural) field that presents itself as the product of a mind". 1 1 0 Kawin adds that this: . . . [offscreen] intelligence . . . selects what is seen and heard; it is a principle of narrative coherence. The film is its visual field, made accessible to an audience through the technology of projection. 111 Mindscreens are "visualized mentations ... [which] belong to, or manifest the workings of, specific minds". 1 1 2 As examples, he mentions Citizen Kane (Welles, 1941) where each section of the film is "dominated by the mind of its narrator" 1 1 3 and Last Year at Marienbad (Resnais, 1961). The opening tracking shots through the corridors of Marienbad are "movements of the mind" or "attention" of the character X whose mind is "wandering" while watching a play elsewhere in the hotel. 114 Mindscreen, however, does not end with characters, narrators, and authors. More expansive forms of consciousness can be found. In section 3 we noted that critics had discovered behind certain films the collective consciousness of a village and the consciousness of a donkey. Kawin adds to the collection by discovering films narrated by the city of Paris, by the arc rods of a projector, and by God. 1 1 5 Matters do not become clearer when he says that in actuality a mindscreen narrator is "fictitious in that the mind is a persona of the artist, a caricature of God, or an unspecified, made-up dreamer". 1 1 6 As if all these 'mentations' don't raise enough problems, there is an even more startling mindscreen to which he devotes a major portion of his investigation: the mindscreen of the film text itself. Some films apparently are able to directly represent the 'mind of the work' — the mindscreen not merely of a character but of a 'system' (for example, Bergman's Persona, 1966). 117 In these systemic mindscreens, the work "narrates itself," 118 brings itself into being. This goes beyond a notion of pure showing — an absence of author — to suggest that even where there is no author, a consciousness infuses the text. Kawin acknowledges that a camera or an image does not literally have consciousness, 119 nevertheless a film may give the "impression of being perceived or generated by a consciousness". 120 But where is this consciousness? Kawin claims (with remarkable understatement) that it is "offscreen". 1 2 1 Though he never describes the narration of these invisible narrators as 'showing', he does use the word 'presentational' throughout the book and there is the strong possibility that one is not far from a theory of showing; certainly none of the problems of an absent narrator who shows has been solved by referring to the narrator as 'offscreen'. Through what mechanism does consciousness appear? At various times Kawin refers to it as a code (or language), expression, illusion, imitation (or mirror), dialectic, fantasy (imagination), fiction, and impression (effect). 122 Film itself he speaks of as both dream and communication. 1 2 3 But each of these ten words suggests a quite distinct theory of representation and nowhere are these theories con-

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fronted. What does it mean to be a 'fiction'? 124 What is a fictional consciousness? For Kawin there really is no answer to these questions because his discourse everywhere seeks to install the human mind and ego at the center of signification and the world. For Kawin the text is alive with spirits who move in mysterious ways. A curious omission from Kawin's scheme perhaps reveals something about his underlying assumptions: what used to be called the subjective flashback. All modes of narration tend to be flattened into mind or the consciousness of a narrator. Kawin begins by stating a prevailing myth of film theory that images are, by nature, always in the present tense. He argues that film has a past only through the past tense of a voice-over or "some other contextualizing device". 125 The idea is that language — a foreign element — is engrafted onto pure image to yield a past tense. In reply, one must say that images do not have tense at all — only verbs have tense through inflection. In fact, tensed verbs make up only a small portion of the temporal indicators in language. Consider the fact that the English verb, strictly, has only two tense inflections — present and past (the future, conditional, progressive, perfect, subjunctive, etc. are not tenses). Further, the existence of such words as 'before', 'past', and 'next week' shows that tense need not correspond to time, for example in the sentence, "Stephen goes to Cambridge next week". 126 Thus what film and language share is not tense but, more broadly, time, where time is a semantic feature of discourse. Like language, images do not have time as an ontological fact but acquire a temporal reference through a semantic system. The semantic system of interest to us is narrative or, more exactly, narration. In short, a text is a series of marks none of which is itself time but to which we apply temporal labels. When the production of time in a text is motivated by character (memory), we have a subjective flashback. What is it, for Kawin, that is temporally 'present' in the 'present tense' image? Certainly not the time when it was made (which is past) or the time when it is projected and seen (everything, including the written word, is present to this degree)} rather, what is present is the presence of a mind. Thus a memory sequence is not truly past for Kawin but depends upon some mind which functions now and is present to itself. Thus the images which stand-in for this mind — visualize it — must be present as evidence of presence; that is, a flashback, for Kawin, does not represent the past but is the present exercise of a mind. We see that those who hold to the myth of the present tense image are inevitably led to the problem of 'presence' — if not of mind, then of profilmic or postfilmic reality (Bazin), or of some other presence. By contrast, to study time as a function of representational activity means that time becomes a structured absence. Time is not innate to material but arises through a system of signification. The subjective flashback is not mind but a configuration of semantic markers (temporal markers which are linked to that complex of markers we call character) and as such it is not qualitatively different from a wo«-subjective flashback.

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It is not surprising that the effect of Kawin's approach, though he denies it, 127 is to collapse cinema into mind. The idealism of early formulations of the sign — namely, the definition of the signified in terms of mental entities — is here taken to an extreme 128 so that anything and everything becomes mindscreen. The belief is that, finally, every segment of a film is someone's mindscreen, potentially someone's mindscreen, or — when all else fails — the mindscreen of the text itself. If Paris, arc rods, and God can be narrators, certainly the way is open to posit endless sorts of narrators for any occasion. Like allegorical approaches, Kawin's method provides a totalizing reading of a text. No matter how radical, a text can be pacified by constructing an appropriate narrator. Such narrators are, conveniently, restrained only by the critic's imagination. Indeed the films of Godard as interpreted by Kawin suffer a fate identical to that of the novels of the nouveau roman when critics were forced to invent invisible, psychotic narrators to account for the excesses of the novels. 129 If a text can have consciousness, then one must admit that a text, with only a gentle turn of the screw, may also be self- conscious, aware of its own presence. Kawin divides self-conscious narration into two types — authorial and systemic — though for his purposes Booth's tripartite distinction between unconscious, conscious, and self-conscious narration (figure 1) might be more useful. Self-consciousness, of course, raises anew the problem of consciousness: of whom is consciousness aware? Much of modern criticism denies that such a unity (central intelligence, center of consciousness) can ever be located whether it is called a character, narrator, spectator, author, actor, director, author's persona, mind, or just text (the organic whole). Moreover, Kawin's definition of self-consciousness 130 returns us to a primordial gesture of orthodox criticism — the "unobtrusive principle". 1 3 1 The principle has merely been reversed — it is now laudable when a film flaunts its artifice; in fact, by doing so it becomes modern and, according to Kawin, honest ("Like a person, art must be about itself before it can be about the rest of the world".). 1 3 2 The traditional division between natural and artificial remains untouched. The artificial is simply re-interpreted as self-consciousness and receives a positive evaluation (with certain qualifications, for example, it must be systematic). Even assuming this division, no thought is given to the problem of changing conventions and the development of new techniques. Is it possible that self-consciousness might disappear in a work of art which has become familiar, typical, outmoded, etc., or suddenly appear when a work is revealed in a new light? Further, what is perceived as natural and what is perceived as artificial depend upon conventions and such variables as geography, history, culture, and social circumstance. 133 Kawin forthrightly equates self-consciousness with 'reflexivity' in art, although other critics shy away from the connection. Nevertheless, reflexivity is no answer. First, there are distinctions to be made between what philosophers refer to as reflexivity (of dyadic predicates) and relations of exemplification and self-refer-

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ence; 134 and second, though critics use reflexivity to point out new textual practices, they are in the end, unable to escape traditional theories of representation. The assumption behind reflexivity is that a fiction depends on the reader's belief in it — that fiction is, say, either mimetic or illusory — and consequently reflexivity is needed to break the spell which binds the viewer to a simulacrum of the world. (In Kawin's words, reflexivity means that "one has less suspending of disbelief to do".) 1 3 s The problem is that the concept of fiction and representation is a great deal more complex, as is shown by the analysis of counterfactual conditionals — statements which may be true and non-trivial despite false antecedents136 — and of the imaginary processes of a reader.137 Reflexivity, like self-consciousness, fails to explain narration. The soup only becomes muddier when Kawin lists some varieties of self-consciousness: transcendental, semiotic or political (Godard), purely formal (experimental films), and psychological drama (Bergman).138 With so much subjectivity and mind latent in the film text, third person narration becomes an acute embarrassment. There seems to be nothing for subjectivity to contrast with. After Kawin announces that both third and first person shots are 'equally mental phenomena' and 'all films are mentally presentational' there seems to be no room left to distinguish third and first person. Kawin never offers a satisfactory definition of third person, nor does he illustrate it with detailed film analyses.139 Even less is said about the type of narration called 'point of view' except that it conforms to Jean Mitry's 'subjectivising the objective' and that it is a curious mixture of first and third person narration. 140 Nothing at all is said of second person narration and for a good reason: the scheme lacks any theory of the reading act. Kawin's categories begin to rush together. What he describes as first person character mindscreens in Citizen Kane would seem equally to be third person points of view.141 First person systemic mindscreen is, Kawin admits, identical to third-person unself-consciousness.142 First-person systemic self-consciousness 'most often expresses itself through' first-person systemic mindscreen though the categories are 'independent'.143 First-person subjective camera 'can function as' first-person mindscreen in the context of a self-conscious film. 144 First-person subjective sound in the form of 'expressive' music would seem also to be one or another variety of first person mindscreen.145 The point is that the categories weaken in the face of what, for Kawin, is the most important fact of narration: somewhere there is a coherent, consistent, and free subjectivity who speaks the fiction. It is important to restate briefly the meaning of that element of representation which I have defined as 'mind' and how it differs from the idealist theory of Kawin. Mind, as I employ the term, is a code, or reading hypothesis used to understand certain (classical) texts and not all texts, as Kawin attempts to do. For me, mind does not mean consciousness, but is one of six elements of certain systems of signification.146 A coherent subjectivity (character), for example, underlies that

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c o h e r e n c e w e label as the P O V shot. Deviant P O V shots (e.g., the P O V of an animal, dead m a n , invisible spirit, c o m p u t e r , o r statue) depend on a metaphorical transfer f r o m this apparently unified subjectivity. 1 4 7 It is irrelevant whether such a transfer is plausible o r whether ' m i n d ' can be said t o exist in the first place. W h a t is i m p o r t a n t is t h a t mind is a cultural

fact underpinning certain texts. Thus mind,

along with the other elements of representation, is preeminently an ideological practice, n o t a fact o f the world n o r a condition for all texts.

Figure 3 : Bruce Kawin's Major Categories for the Analysis of Filmic Point of View 1. First Person — a character appears to present his own view of himself and his world 1 a. Voice-over l b . Subjective Sound — e.g., an aural POV shot, or 'expressive' music 1 c. Subjective Camera — optical POV shot or out-of-focus POV shots 1 d. Mindscreen — the presentation of what someone is thinking rather than, as above, what someone is saying, hearing, or seeing l d l . character I d 2 . author I d 3 . author's persona 1 d 4 . text (systemic mindscreen) 1 e. First Person Self-consciousness l e i . authorial self-consciousness l e 2 . systemic self-consciousness 2. Second Person — films which tell the audience ('you') what to think and do, e.g., propaganda films 3. Third Person — there is no apparent narrator except the anonymous 'grand imagemaker' 3 a. Third Person Unself-consciousness 3 b. Third Person Self-consciousness 3 b 1. authorial self-consciousness 3 b 2. systemic self-consciousness 3 c. Third Person Point of View — the presentation of the experience of a single character, subjectivising the world but not the narrative (equivalent to Jean Mitry's 'subjectivising the objective') 3 c 1. point of view unself-consciousness 3 c 2 . point of view self-consciousness (i) authorial self-consciousness (ii) systemic self-consciousness

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NOTES 1. Figure 1 is derived from an article Booth wrote summarizing a more extensive treatment in his book. Wayne Booth, "Distance and Point-of-View: An Essay in Classification", Essays In Criticism 11 (1) (Jan. 1961), pp. 6 0 - 7 9 ; The Rhetoric of Fiction (Chicago: Univ. of Chicago, 1961). For a survey and comparison of the concepts of literary point of view in the English, German, and French critical traditions, see Fran^oise Van Rossum-Guyon, "Point de vue ou perspective narrative: Theories et concepts critiques", Poetique 4 (1970), pp. 4 7 6 - 4 9 7 . Boris Uspensky's work is essentially a grand synthesis of these traditions, A Poetics of Composition: The Structure of the Artistic Text and Typology of a Compositional Form trans, by Valentina Zavarin and Susan Wittig (Los Angeles: Univ. of Calif., 1973). Tzvetan Todorov presents a good overview of the issues in Introduction to Poetics trans, by Richard Howard (Minneapolis: Univ. of Minn., 1981). 2. Seymour Chatman accepts the telling/showing dichotomy and like Friedman attempts to arrange narration in a spectrum from pure showing to pure telling. His broad categories of unmediated literary narrative begin with written records (journals, letters), speech records (monologue, dialogue), and records of thought and feeling; "The Structure of Narrative Transmission", in Style and Structure-in Literature ed. by Roger Fowler (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell Univ., 1975), pp. 2 1 3 - 2 1 6 , 2 3 7 - 2 5 7 . Tzvetan Todorov attempts to assimilate telling/showing into such recent dichotomies as histoire/discours and enonciationlenonce, respectively; Tzvetan Todorov, "Categories of the Literary Narrative", Film Reader 2 (1977), pp. 31 —33.1 prefer not to attempt to rehabilitate telling/showing as critical terms so as to keep separate that theory of authorship, discussed in the text, which is implicated in the traditional use of the distinction. Todorov, following Jean Pouillon, develops a typology of narration based on whether the narrator knows less than, the same as, or more than a character, pp. 3 0 - 3 1 . See also Todorov, "Language and Literature", in The Structuralist Controversy ed. by Richard Macksey and Eugenio Donato (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Univ., 1970), pp. 1 3 2 - 1 3 3 ; a different translation appears in The Poetics of Prose trans, by Richard Howard (Ithaca, Ν. Y.: Cornell Univ., 1977), pp. 2 7 - 2 8 . Roy Schäfer attacks the distinction telling/showing in "Narration in the Psychoanalytic Dialogue", Critical Inquiry 7 (1) (Autumn 1980), pp. 3 8 - 3 9 ; and Gerard Genette argues that showing is an illusory category in Narrative Discourse: An Essay in Method trans, by Jane Lewin (Ithaca: Cornell Univ., 1980), pp. 1 6 2 - 1 8 5 , 244. 3. Norman Friedman, "Point of View in Fiction: The Development of a Critical Concept", PMLA 70 (5) (Dec. 1955), pp. 1162, 1 1 6 9 - 1 1 7 0 ; Todorov, "Categories", p. 32. 4. Cf. Peter Wollen, "Photography and Aesthetics", Screen 19 (4) (Winter 1978/79), esp. p. 23. 5. Bruce Elder, "Modes of Representation in the Cinema: Towards A New Aesthetic Model", Cine-Tracts 6, 2 (2) (Spring 1979), pp. 5 5 - 6 0 ("The Cinema of Presentation"). 6. Edward Murray draws on Friedman's scheme in The Cinematic Imagination: Writers and the Motion Pictures (Ν. Y.: Frederick Unger, 1972), p. 264. 7. See Arthur Danto, "The Artworld", Journal of Philosophy 61 (1964), pp. 5 7 1 - 5 8 4 ; "Artworks and Real Things", Theoria 39 (1973), pp. 1 - 1 7 ; "The Transfiguration of the Commonplace", The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Critidsm 33 (2) (Winter 1974), pp. 1 3 9 - 1 4 8 ; Nelson Goodman, Languages of Art: An Approach to a Theory of Symbols (Indianapolis, Ind.: Hackett, 2nd ed., 1976), ch. 1 "Reality Remade".

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8. Friedman, pp. 1163 — 1164, 1179; cf. Booth, "Distance", p. 65. This is how James has been interpreted by orthodox theory. 9. See ch. 1, sec. 2; ch. 3, sec. 1; appendix, sec. 2 - 5 . 10. Booth, "Distance", p. 69; Friedman, p. 1168. 11. Booth, "Distance", pp. 7 1 - 7 2 ; Friedman, p. 1182. 12. If it is asserted that 'objectivity' or pure showing is still relative to an author, then the question arises why Friedman's categories 7 and 8 are not placed before categories 1 and 2. It would seem that the invisible author of 7 and 8 wields considerably more power than the obvious presence of an author through category 1, editorial omniscience. If this occurs, showing and telling cease to be extremes. 13. See, e.g., Goodman, Languages of Art, ch. 2, sec. 8 "Modes of Metaphor". 14. Robert Scholes and Robert Kellogg, The Nature of Narrative (Ν. Y.: Oxford Univ., 1966), ch. 7 "Point of View in Narrative", pp. 2 4 0 - 2 4 1 . 15. Hugo Münsterberg, The Film: A Psychological Study (New York: Dover, 1970), pp. 46, 74, 82, 95. See also Gerard Buckle, The Mind and the Film (1926) (Ν. Y.: Arno Press, reprint, 1970); Marguerite Bertsch, How to Write for Moving Pictures: A Manual of Instruction and Information (Ν. Y.: George H. Doran Co., 1917), pp. 9 7 - 9 9 . 16. Münsterberg, pp. 38, 41. 17. Münsterberg, p. 42. 18. See Kenneth Roberts and Win Sharpies, A Primer for Film-Making (Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1971), pp. 62, 9 3 - 9 4 ; David Bordwell, "Film Aesthetics and the College Textbook", Quarterly Review of Film Studies 1 (1) (Feb. 1976), pp. 7 9 - 8 7 . For an attempt to define subjectivity by simply dividing up the material spectrum see Paul McGlynn, "Point of View and the Craft of Cinema: Notes on Some Devices", The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 32 (2) (Winter 1973), pp. 1 8 7 - 1 9 5 . 19. Roberts and Sharpies state that "When positioning the camera, the film-maker should be concerned with more than just presenting an external view of the object, but rather he should let the angle express the inner nature of the object too" (their emphasis), p. 95. 20. Cf. also Siegfried Kracauer, Theory of Film: The Redemption of Physical Reality (New York: Oxford, 1965), pp. 8 2 - 9 2 , 1 6 3 - 1 6 6 . 21. Roberts and Sharpies state, "In the proper hands movement of the camera can be a powerful means of visual expression, but the secret to its success is in the ability to move without calling attention to the movement. This can be achieved by having the camera's movement resemble the physical and mental experiences of human vision. When the camera is moved so as to capture these experiences, the spectator will accept such movement because he is unaware of it", p. 102. 22. Ivor Montagu, Film World: A Guide to Cinema (Baltimore, Md.: Penguin, 1964), p. 140. Roberts and Sharpies argue against the fireplace shot by asking, "How many people sit inside a fireplace? Who wants a burned backside? As a result, the impossibility of the camera angle signals to the audience the unreality of the action taking place in front of the camera, and the unwelcome knowledge that contrivance is present," p. 137. On impossible camera position see ch. 3, sec. 5; ch. 4, sec. 3; ch. 7, sec. 4, and David Bordwell, "Imploded Space: Film Style in The Passion of Jeanne d'Arc", 1976, Purdue Film Studies Annual, p. 104. 23. Roberts and Sharpies, pp. 1 3 7 - 1 3 9 . See generally, Herbert Lightman, "The Subjective Camera", American Cinematograph er 27 (2) (Feb. 1946), p. 46 f., reprinted in Lewis Jacobs, The Movies as Medium (Ν. Y.: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1970), pp. 6 1 - 6 6 ; Lightman, "M-G-M Pioneers with Subjective Feature", American Cinetnatographer 27 (11) (November 1946), p. 400f. (the film is Montgomery's Lady in the Lake). 24. For Bazin the best view doctrine was defective not because of the split between camera

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25.

26.

27.

28. 29. 30. 31. 32. 33. 34. 35. 36. 37. 38. 39.

Appendix and reality but because the doctrine implied an omniscient observer acting for a passive spectator. Bazin advocated an observer whose perception was, a priori, limited by real conditions of sight and thus able to reveal reality by the very act of looking. Andre Bazin, "The Evolution of the Language of Cinema", in What Is Cinema? v. 1 trans, by Hugh Gray (Los Angeles: Univ. of California, 1967), pp. 32, 34; and see appendix, sec. 3. Andre Bazin, "Theatre et Cinema", p. I, Qu'est-ce que le cinema}, v. II le cinema et les autres arts (Paris: Editions du Cerf, 1959), pp. 6 9 - 8 9 ; trans, by Hugh Gray, "Theater and Cinema", Part One, What Is Cinema?, v. I (Los Angeles: Univ. of California, 1967), pp. 7 6 - 9 4 . The essay first appeared in Esprit 6 (June 1951), pp. 8 9 1 - 9 0 5 . In the following notes references are to the English edition unless the translation is my own. The French title will be abbreviated Qu'est-ce. The reference in the text is to Qu'est-ce, pp. 8 5 - 8 6 . Actually, it is a cup of coffee which Ingrid Bergman is forced to drink in Notorious. Bazin is perhaps confused by another Hitchcock film also starring Cary Grant, Suspicion (1941), in which Grant carries a glass of milk, perhaps poisoned, to Joan Fontaine. Teresa Wright's emerald ring is important throughout Shadow of a Doubt and hence there are a number of incidental shots, and one close-up, which include the ring from neutral angles. However, there are three pivotal sequences in the film which center on the ring and all involve variations of the point-of-view shot. When Joseph Cotten gives Wright the ring we see an extreme close-up of it from her POV. The shot is somewhat closer than Wright's actual position but this allows us to read the inscription engraved on the ring. Later, when Wright discovers the significance of the inscription there are two POVs of her looking at the ring and another extreme close-up of the inscription. Finally, near the end of the film, we see Wright from Cotten's POV, followed by an expression of fear and anger on his face, and then we again see Wright from the previous angle (but too close for a strict POV shot) as the camera quickly dollies-in to the ring on her finger. This camera movement completes a dynamic perception shot which reveals the object of Cotten's attention (cf. the discussion of Shaft, Notorious, and The Birds in ch. 4, sec. 3). Bazin, "Theatre et Cinema", p. I, Qu'est-ce, v. II, pp. 84—85. See also Andre Bazin, "William Wyler Ou Le Janseniste De La Mise En Scene," Qu'est-ce, v. I ontologie et langage (Paris: feditions du Cerf, 1958), p. 157. Karel Reisz and Gavin Millar, The Technique of Film Editing (New York: Hastings House, 2nd ed., 1968), sec. 3: Principles of Editing, pp. 211—272. Ernest Lindgren, The Art of the Film (New York: Collier Books, 1963), pp. 65—67 (first and last italics are mine). Reisz, p. 213. Reisz, p. 257. Lindgren, pp. 158, 166. See especially the discussion of the 'failure' of Hitchcock's Rope (1948), Reisz, pp. 2 3 3 - 2 3 6 . Reisz, p. 215. Andre Bazin, Orson Welles: A Critical View trans, by Jonathan Rosenbaum (Ν. Υ.: Harper and Row, 1978), p. 77. Reisz, pp. 2 1 5 - 2 1 6 , 232. Reisz, pp. 2 2 9 - 2 3 2 . Donald Richie, Ozu (Los Angeles: Univ. of California, 1974), p. 135 (my emphasis). See also Roberts and Sharpies' prescription on camera movement and position, n. 19, 21 and 22.

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40. Richie, p. 163 (Richie's emphasis). 41. Ernst Cassirer suggests that the unsteady oscillation between realism and artifice is due to a classical mimetic theory of art alongside a romantic conception of the individual whose freedom and passion cannot be questioned. An Essay on Man: An Introduction to a Philosophy of Human Culture (New Haven, Conn.: Yale Univ., 1944), pp. 1 3 8 - 1 3 9 . See also Roland Barthes, "Literature and Discontinuity" in Critical Essays trans, by Richard Howard (Evanston, 111.: Northwestern Univ., 1972) pp. 1 7 3 - 1 7 5 ; John Ellis, "Art, Culture and Quality: Terms for a Cinema in the Forties and Seventies", Screen 19 (3) (Autumn 1978), pp. 2 7 - 2 8 . Another common formulation of the problem — locked in the same brutal duality of realism versus artifice — is in terms of the 'psychical distance' between subject (author, viewer) and artifact. Loss of distance leads to vulgar realism (the object becomes the world; sometimes referred to in a derogatory way as 'naturalism') while an excess of distance leads to feelings of artificiality, improbility, emptiness, or absurdity. See Edward Bullough, "'Psychical Distance' As A Factor In Art And An Aesthetic Principle," The British journal of Psychology 5 ( 1 9 1 2 - 1 9 1 3 ) , pp. 94, 1 0 6 - 1 0 7 ; reprinted in Aesthetics: A Critical Anthology ed. by George Dickie and R. J. Sclafani (Ν. Y.: St. Martin's, 1977), 7 5 8 - 7 8 2 . The duality of realism versus artifice is perpetuated in many film histories by opposing the work of Louis Lumiere and Georges Melies. 42. Andre Bazin, Jean Renoir trans, by W. W. Halsey II and William H. Simon (New York: Dell, 1973), pp. 8 4 - 8 5 , 1 0 5 - 1 0 6 . See also Bazin, "Theater and Cinema", P. II, What Is Cinema ?, v. I, p. 110. A complete description of the historical dialectic between realism and expressionism may be found in Bazin, "The Evolution of the Language of Cinema", What Is Cinema ?, vol. I, pp. 2 3 - 4 0 . 43. Jean-Louis Comolli, "Technique et ideologie", six parts in Cahiers du cinema 229 (May-June 1971), pp. 4 - 2 1 , esp. p. 17; 230 (July 1971), pp. 5 1 - 5 7 ; 231 (Aug.-Sept. 1971), pp. 4 2 - 4 9 ; 233 (Nov. 1971), pp. 3 9 - 4 5 ; 2 3 4 - 2 3 5 (Dec.-Jan. 1 9 7 1 - 7 2 ) , pp. 9 4 - 1 0 0 ; 241 (Sept.-Oct. 1972), pp. 2 0 - 2 4 . The first four parts are translated by Christopher Williams, "Ideas About Film Technology and the History of the Cinema, with Reference to Comolli's Texts on Technology (Cahiers du Cinema)", (London: British Film Institute, mimeograph), esp. p. 2a.2. Also half of part 1 is trans, by Diana Marias, "Technique and Ideology: Camera, Perspective, Depth of Field", in Film Reader 2 (Evanston, 111.: Northwestern Univ., 1977), pp. 1 2 8 - 1 4 0 . 44. Dudley Andrew, "Realism and Reality in Cinema: The Film Theory of Andre Bazin and Its Source in Recent French Thought" (Ph. D. diss.: Univ. of Iowa, 1972), pp. 8 2 - 9 3 . 45. Reisz, pp. 249, 255. 46. Bazin, "William Wyler," p. 157; "Theatre and Cinema", Part One, What Is Cinema?, v. I, p. 91. 47. Some of Bazin's principle essays on the problem of cinema and concrete reality are as follows: "The Ontology of the Photographic Image", "The Evolution of the Language of Cinema", "The Virtues and Limitations of Montage", "Theater and Cinema, P. I and II", "Le Journal D'Un Cure de Campagne and the Stylistics of Robert Bresson," "An Aesthetic of Reality: Neorealism," and chapter Five: "The French Renoir" in Jean Renoir. Bazin gives a summary of his argument in Orson Welles, pp. 7 8 - 8 1 . 48. On the idea of the cinema frame as mask see Bazin, "Theater and Cinema", P. II, What Is Cinema?, v. I, pp. 1 0 2 - 1 0 7 ; Bazin, Jean Renoir (Amer. ed.), pp. 87, 8 9 - 9 1 . 49. Andre Bazin, Jean Renoir (Paris: Editions Champ Libre, 1971), p. 81. 50. Bazin, "Theatre et Cinema," p. I, Qu'est-ce, v. II, p. 86.

226

Appendix

51. Bazin, Jean Renoir (Amer. ed.), p. 87. 52. Bazin, "Theatre et Cinema," p. I, Qu'est-ce, v. II, p. 86. 53. Bazin, "An Aesthetic of Reality: Neorealism," trans, by Hugh Gray, What Is Cinema v. II (Los Angeles: Univ. of California, 1971), p. 37 (my emphasis). 54. Ibid. 55. Bazin, Jean Renoir (Amer. ed.), pp. 43—46, 8 8 - 8 9 . Bazin's description and diagram of the shots are inaccurate in several respects. For a discussion of this sequence, including stills, see David Bordwell and Kristin Thompson, Film Art: An Introduction (Reading, Mass.: Addison-Wesley, 1979), pp. 127, 276-278. 56. Bazin, Jean Renoir (Amer. ed.), p. 89. 57. Nöel Burch, Theory of Film Practice, trans, by Helen Lane (New York: Praeger, 1973), ch. 2: Nana, or the Two Kinds of Space, pp. 1 7 - 3 1 . 58. Bazin, Jean Renoir (Amer. ed.), p. 89. Consistency of point of view in literature, too, is hailed by many critics as a virtue. See Friedman, pp. 1164, 1180—1182. 59. Additional suggestive comments by Bazin bearing on point of view may be found in "The Evolution of the Language of Cinema", What Is Cinemav. I, pp. 3 1 - 3 4 ; "An Aesthetic of Reality: Neorealism", What Is Cinemav. II, p. 28; "Cabiria: The Voyage to the End of Neorealism", What Is Cinema?, v. II, pp. 9 1 - 9 2 . 60. Bazin, Jean Renoir (Amer. ed.), p. 88. 61. Les Parents terribles (1948) was directed by Jean Cocteau and based on his play of the same title. It was released in the United States as The Storm Within in 1950. The film should not be confused with Les Enfants terribles (1949) directed by Jean-Pierre Melville and based on a novel of the same title by Jean Cocteau. Les Enfants terribles was released in the United States as The Strange Ones in 1952. 62. Bazin, "Theatre et Cinema", part I, Qu'est-ce, v. II, p. 87 (my emphasis). See also Stephen Heath, "The Question Oshima", Wide Angle 2 (1), p. 51; Heath, "Film Performance", Cine-Tracts 1 (2) (Summer 1977), p. 11. 63. Bazin offers some suggestive comments about sound in "Theater and Cinema" Part Two, What Is Cinema?, v. I. p. 110; "Le Journal D'Un Cure de Campagne and the Stylistics of Robert Bresson", Ibid., pp. 130-131, 139-140. 64. See Bazin, "The Ontology of the Photographic Image", What Is Cinema?, v. I, pp. 9 - 1 6 . But cf. Kari Hanet, "Does the Camera Lie?: Notes on Hiroshima Mon Amour", Screen 14 (3) (Autumn 1973), pp. 5 9 - 6 6 ; Erwin Panofsky, "Die Perspective als Symbolische Form", Vorträge der Bibliothek Warburg, 1924-1925. 65. See text accompanying η. 58. 66. Nick Browne, "The Spectator-in-the-Text: The Rhetoric of Stagecoach", Film Quarterly 29 (2) (Winter 1975-76), p. 36. 67. Ibid., p. 33. 68. See my discussion of 'time' in ch. 3, sec. 5. Part of Browne's analysis is directed toward the imaginary construction of a spectator internal to the text. 69. Bazin, Jean Renoir (Amer. ed.), p. 116. 70. Andre Bazin, "Le Realisme Cinematographique et L'ficole Italienne de la Liberation", Qu'est-ce, v. IV, une esthetique de la realite: le neo-realisme (Paris: fiditions du Cerf, 1962), p. 34. See also Bazin, "An Aesthetic of Reality: Neorealism", What Is Cinema?, v. II, pp. 28, 3 5 - 3 8 . 71. Bazin, "An Aesthetic of Reality: Neorealism", What Is Cinema? v. II, p. 37. 72. Dudley Andrew, The Major Film Theories (New York: Oxford Univ., 1976), ch. 9: "The Challenge of Phenomenology: Amedee Ayfre and Henri Agel", pp. 2 4 2 - 2 5 3 ; Andrew, "Film Analysis or Film Therapy: To Step Beyond Semiotics", Quarterly Review of Film Studies 2 (1) (Feb. 1977), pp. 3 3 - 4 1 ; Andrew, "The Gravity of 'Sun-

Orthodox

73 74. 75. 76. 77. 78. 79. 80. 81. 82. 83. 84.

85.

86. 87. 88. 89. 90.

91.

92. 93. 94. 95.

Theories

of Narration

227

rise'", Quarterly Review of Film Studies 2 (3) (Aug. 1977), pp. 3 5 6 - 3 8 7 ; Andrew, "The Neglected Tradition of Phenomenology in Film Theory", Wide Angle 2 (2) (1978), pp. 4 4 - 4 9 . Cf. Bertrand Russell, An Inquiry Into Meaning and Truth (London: George Allen and Unwin, 1940), ch. 25 "Language and Metaphysics", p. 341. Roland Barthes, "To Write: An Intransitive Verb?" in Richard Macksey and Eugenio Donato, eds., The Structuralist Controversy (Baltimore, Md.: John Hopkins Univ., 1972), p. 135. Barthes, "To Write", p. 136. See text accompanying n. 51 and 52. Tony Pipolo, "The Aptness of Terminology: Point of View, Consciousness and Letter From An Unknoum Woman", Film Reader 4 (Evanston, 111.: Northwestern Univ., 1979), p. 172. Andrew, "Sunrise", p. 362 (my emphasis). Browne, "Stagecoach", pp. 27, 33. Ibid., p. 33. Ibid., pp. 33, 37. Bazin,Jean Renoir (Amer. ed.), ch. 8: "A Pure Masterpiece: The River", pp. 1 0 4 - 1 1 9 . Bazin, "William Wyler", Qu'est-ce, v. I, p. 157. Ibid., p. 160. Another notable example of Bazin's linking of technique with character and spectator psychology is his discussion of low angles, decor, and the wide-angle lens in Welles' Citizen Kane (1941) and The Magnificent Ambersons (1942). See Bazin, Orson Welles, pp. 7 4 - 7 5 . Browne, "Stagecoach", pp. 3 5 , 3 8 , 3 7 . For a broad statement of the position that point of view is an "attitude" and an illustration of the methodological consequences, see Roy Huss and Norman Silverstein, The Film Experience: Elements of Motion Picture Art (N.Y.: Dell, 1968), esp. ch. 6, "Tone and Point of View", pp. 1 0 5 - 1 2 6 . Andrew, "Sunrise", p. 370. Browne, "Stagecoach", p. 35; Browne, "Narrative Point of View: The Rhetoric of Au Hasard, Balthazar", Film Quarterly, 31 (1) (Fall 1977), pp. 2 9 - 3 1 . Pipolo, pp. 167, 169, 171. Browne, "Balthazar", pp. 20, 24. 31. Browne states that, "Narration as a communicational act is a process of interpreting the significance of a character's experience through exhibiting it cinematically for the spectator." "Balthazar", p. 20; see p. 30. See also Browne, "Stagecoach", p. 38 (reading "recreates" the narrator's point of view and is a "reenactment" of the narrator's place); Paul Willemen, "Notes on Subjectivity: On Reading Edward Branigan's 'Subjectivity Under Siege'", Screen 19 (1) (Spring 1978), pp. 4 8 - 5 0 . For example, Wayne Booth asserts that, "In fiction, as soon as we encounter an 'I' we are conscious of an experiencing mind whose views of the experience will come between us and the event." Booth, "Distance", p. 65. Note also that the idea of consciousness in a fictional work commits one to a theory of character. For a subtle analysis which holds onto the idea of consciousness, see Rawdon Wilson, "The Bright Chimera: Character as a Literary Term", Critical Inquiry 5 (4) (Summer 1979), pp. 7 2 5 - 7 4 9 . See Bazin, Jean Renoir (Amer. ed.), p. 105 and Bazin, "Theater and Cinema", Part One, What Is Cinemaf v. I, p. 92. Browne, "Balthazar", p. 20. Jean Mitry, Esthetique et Psychologie du Cinema (Paris: Editions Universitäres, 1965), v. II, pp. 6 1 - 7 9 , 1 0 7 - 1 1 6 , 1 3 6 - 1 4 0 , 4 0 3 - 4 0 6 . Christian Metz, "Current Problems of Film Theory: C. Metz on J. Mitry's L'Esthet-

228

96. 97. 98. 99. 100.

101. 102. 103. 104. 105. 106. 107. 108. 109.

110. 111. 112. 113. 114. 115. 116. 117. 118. 119.

120. 121.

122. 123. 124.

Appendix ique et Psychologie du Cinema, v. II", Screen 14 (1/2) (Spring 1973), p. 48.'See also the discussion of Mitry in ch. 1, sec. 2. Mitry, p. 74. Mitry, p. 74. Mitry, p. 75. Cf. esp. Tzvetan Todorov, The Fantastic: A Structural Approach to a Literary Genre trans, by Richard Howard (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell Univ., 1975), pp. 3 - 4 0 . Metz, p. 46. Like Mitry, Maurice Merlean-Ponty rejects the attempt to portray purely mental images (e.g., the dizziness of a character) in film; Sense and Non-sense trans, by Hubert and Patricia Dreyfus (Evanston, 111: Northwestern Univ., 1964), ch. 4 "The Film and the New Psychology", p. 58. Mitry, p. 71. Mitry, p. 68. Cf. Bordwell, "Film Aesthetics". Colin MacCabe, "Presentation of 'The Imaginary Signifier'", Screen 16 (2) (Summer 1975), p. 8. Constance Penley and Janet Bergstrom (for the Camera Obscura collective), "The Avant-Garde: Histories and Theories", Screen 19 (3) (Autumn 1978), esp. pp. 1 1 3 - 1 1 9 , 124-125. Jean-Paul Sartre, Literature and Existentialism trans, by Bernard Frechtman of Situations, II: Qu'est-ce Que La Litterature? Gallimard, 1948 (Ν. Y.: Citadel, 1962), ch. 3 "For Whom Does One Write?", pp. 1 3 7 - 1 3 8 . Sartre, p. 146 n. Sartre, p. 146n. Bruce Kawin, Mindscreen: Bergman, Godard, and First-Person Film (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton Univ., 1978), Figure 3 is derived mainly from the following pages: 18 — 19, 19n. 7, 2 1 - 2 2 , 5 5 - 5 6 , 1 1 2 - 1 1 6 , and 190. Kawin, p. xi. Kawin, p. 55. Kawin, pp. 12, (Kawin's emphasis), 19, 179; see also pp. 7, 10, 183. Kawin, p. 44 (Kawin's emphasis). Kawin, pp. 8, 81, 82. Kawin, pp. 173, 181, 183 (Two or Three Things I Know About Her, Godard, 1966); pp. 56, 106 (Persona, Bergman, 1966); pp. 93, 135, 139 (Bergman's Shame, 1967 is a "nightmare in the mind of a silent God"). Kawin, p. 141n.l0; pp.4, 181n.l4, 193; see n. 124. Kawin, pp.3, 17, 56, 92, 111, 1 1 5 - 1 1 6 , 124, 126, 145, 148, 171, 185. Kawin, pp. 5, 22, 51, 115, 127, 141. Kawin, pp. xi, 1 1 4 - 1 1 5 ; but cf. 1 , 1 7 , 7 2 , 179, and 75 ("The activity of Joe's camera [Joe is a character in the film Coming Apart, Ginsberg, 1969] does not simply illustrate but is his narration, and to the extent that his mind narrates this world, the screen is the retina of his consciousness.") (Kawin's emphasis). Kawin, p. xi. Kawin, pp. xi, 4, 55, 9 2 - 9 3 , 116 ("Whether it be termed noumenal, or paradigmatic, or simply offscreen, this 'mindedness' is involved in the audience's response to the image."), 141, 183, 188 (latent and offscreen), 190 (invisible, incorporeal, and offscreen). Kawin, pp. xi, 5 0 - 5 1 , 56, 1 1 4 - 1 1 5 , 1 1 6 - 1 1 7 , 141, 171, 183, and 188. Kawin, pp. 3, 5, 139, 192. Kawin's use of the concept of fiction is not helpful. He says, for example, "The worid of the self-conscious artwork is the world in which artist and audience confront each

Orthodox Theories of Narration

125.

126. 127. 128.

129. 130. 131. 132. 133. 134. 135. 136.

229

other across a proscenium both know to be 'true' but deliberately agree to consider 'false'; however, as neither is allowed to forget the fiction of fiction, both continually probe the truth of their encounter, as well as the truth of the lie that accepts its falsehood." Kawin, pp. 5 0 - 5 1 ; see n. 116. Kawin, p. 86, see pp. 34, 190. For further discussion of issues relating to time and image, see ch. 3, text accompanying n. 22 and the discussion of rime in sec. 5; ch. 4, sec. 4, esp. the examples from By the Law and Dark Passage; and ch. 5, sec. 3, esp. the examples from The Birds and Dark Passage. Roderick Jacobs and Peter Rosenbaum, Transformations, Style, and Meaning (Waltham, Mass.: Xerox College Publishing, 1971), p. 27. Kawin, p. 142. The absent signified is "in need of being brought to mind"; Kawin, p. 193. See also Kawin, pp. 3, 50, 92, 116, 183. Kawin utilizes the now bankrupt distinction between the emotions and the intellect; pp. 104, 151, 160, 192. For a non-idealist approach to signification see Rosalind Coward and John Ellis, Language and Materialism: Developments in Semiology and the Theory of the Subject (Boston: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1977). Cf. Kawin, p. 171 with Jonathan Culler, Structuralist Poetics (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell Univ., 1975), pp. 200—202. See generally, Stephen Heath, The Nouveau Roman (Philadelphia: Temple Univ., 1972). Kawin, pp. 5 0 - 5 1 , 5 3 - 5 6 , 6 5 - 6 6 , 1 1 2 - 1 1 6 , 154, 158. See appendix, sec. 3. Kawin, p. 193. See, e.g., Ε. H. Gombrich, Art and Illusion: A Study in the Psychology of Pictorial Representation (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton Univ., 2nd ed., 1961). On the relations of exemplification and self-reference see Goodman, Languages of Art, ch. 2, sec. 3 and 4. Kawin, p. 193. A textbook on logic is the best introduction to counterfactual conditionals; for a more advanced treatment see Nelson Goodman, Fact, Fiction, and Forecast (Ν. Y.: BobbsMerrill, 2nd ed. 1965) and A. J. Ayer, Probability and Evidence (Ν. Y.: MacMillan, 1972), "The Problem of Conditionals", pp. 111 — 139. The following sentences provide examples: (1) If I were to drop an apple, it would fall at 32 feet per second per second. (2) All metals are conductors, (i.e., If I were to discover a new metal, it would conduct electricity.) (3) David has the ability to play the piano, (i. e., If David were here, and if there were a piano here, then ) (4) If Georgia included New York City, then Georgia would not be entirely in the South. (5) If Julius Caesar were I, he would be alive in the twentieth century. (6) If I were you, I would see the film. (7) If you were the last person on earth, I would not marry you. (8) If I had more money . . . (9) If he had been born as a woman . . . (10) If triangles were squares . . . (11) If a wooden marionette were alive . . . (cf. Walt Disney's Pinocchio, 1940). (12) If Ebenezer Scrooge does not change his ways, then at some Christmas future . . . (cf. A Christmas Carol, Marin, 1938). (13) If a young woman were to be married, and if her father . . . (cf. Father of the Bride, Minnelli, 1950).

230

137.

138. 139. 140. 141. 142. 143. 144. 145. 148. 147.

Appendix The truth of a counterfactual depends on its relation to a general scientific theory or widely accepted cultural belief. The truths, then, of narrative fiction — to the extent that narrative fiction is or contains counterfactuals — depend on an ideology. Christian Metz, "The Imaginary Signifier," Screen 16 (2) (Summer 1975); see ch. 1, sec. 3 discussion of psychoanalysis. Constance Penley attacks reflexivity from a psychoanalytical perspective in "The Avant-Garde and Its Imaginary," Camera Obscura 2 (Fall 1977), pp. 1 0 - 1 1 , 1 6 - 1 7 . Kawin, pp. 9 2 - 9 3 . What little Kawin says about third person narration may be found on pp. 1 4 7 - 1 4 8 , 190, 192 (Kawin's emphasis). Kawin, pp. 16, 18, 190. Mitry's category of "subjectivising the objective" is discussed in the appendix, sec. 4. Kawin, p. 44. Kawin, p. 172. Kawin, pp. 19, 53, 56. Kawin, p. 53. Kawin, pp. 19, 2 1 - 2 2 . See ch. 3, sec. 4 and 5. See ch. 5, sec. 1. See also Edward Branigan, "Foreground and Background: A Reply to Paul Willemen", Screen 19 (2) (Summer 1978), p. 139. The Oshima film analyzed in ch. 7 refuses a signifying practice based on a unified subjectivity.

Suggested further reading

Andrew, Dudley. "The Gravity of Sunrise . Quarterly Review of Film Studies 2, 3 (1977): 356-87. Banfield, Ann. Unspeakable Sentences: Narration and Representation in the Language of Fiction. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1982. Barthes, Roland. "An Introduction to the Structural Analysis of Narrative". New Literary History 6 , 2 (1975): 237—272. See also other articles in this special issue oiNew Literary History. Baxtin, Mikhail. "Discourse Typology in Prose", In Readings in Russian Poetics: Formalist and Structuralist Views, edited by Ladislav Matejka and Krystyna Pomorskya, pp. 1 7 6 - 1 9 6 . Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1971. Bellour, Raymond. "Hitchcock, The Enunciator". Camera Obscura, no. 2 (1977), pp. 6 6 - 9 1 . Bergstrom, Janet. "Enunciation and Sexual Difference". Part I. Camera Obscura, no. 3 - 4 (1979), pp. 3 2 - 6 9 . Booth, Wayne. The Rhetoric of Fiction. Chicago: University of Chicago, 2nd ed. 1983. This book contains an extensive bibliography. Bordwell, David. "Narration and Scenography in the Later Eisenstein". Millennium Film Journal, no. 13 (1983-84), pp. 6 2 - 8 0 . Brewster, Ben. "A Scene at the 'Movies'". Screen 23, 2 (1982): 4 - 1 5 . Browne, Nick. "Griffith's Family Discourse: Griffith and Freud". Quarterly Review of Film Studies 6, 1 (1981): 6 7 - 8 0 . . "The Spectator-in-the-Text: The Rhetoric of Stagecoach". Film Quarterly 29, 2 (1975-76): 2 6 - 3 8 . Chatman, Seymour. Story and Discourse: Narrative Structure in Fiction and Film. Ithaca: Cornell University, 1978. Crawford, Lawrence. "Actional Nameability and Filmic Narrativity: From Inner Speech to Identification", Quarterly Review of Film Studies 6, 3 (1981): 2 6 5 - 2 7 7 . . "Verbal Categories and Filmic Narrative", Enclitic 1, 2 (1977): 8 9 - 1 1 0 . Dayan, Daniel. "The Tutor-Code of Classical Cinema", Film Quarterly 28, 1 (1974): 22-31. Dolezel, Lubomir. "The Typology of the Narrator: Point of View in Fiction", In To Honor Roman Jakobson, vol. 1, pp. 5 4 1 - 5 2 . Berlin: Mouton, 1967. Espinola, Judith. "The Nature, Function, and Performance of Indirect Discourse in Prose Fiction". Speech Monographs 41, 3 (1974); 1 9 3 - 2 0 4 . Friedman, Norman. "Point of View in Fiction: The Development of a Critical Concept", PMLA 70, 5 (1955): 1 1 6 0 - 8 4 . Genette, Gerard. Narrative Discourse: An Essay in Method. Translated by Jane Lewin. Ithaca: Cornell University, 1980. Group μ (J. Dubois, F. Edeline, J.-M. Klinkenberg, P. Minguet, F. Pire, H. Trinon). A General Rhetoric. Translated by Paul Burrell and Edgar Slotkin. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1981. Heath, Stephen. Questions of Cinema. Bloomington: Indiana University, 1981. . "Film and System: Terms of Analysis". Part I. Screen 16, 1 (1975): 7 - 7 7 . Part II. Screen 16, 2 (1975): 9 1 - 1 1 3 .

232

Suggested further

reading

Henderson, Brian. "Tense, Mood, and Voice in Film", Film Quarterly 36, 4 (1983): 4 - 1 7 . James, Henry. The Art of the Novel. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1962. Kavanagh, Thomas. "The Middle Voice of Film Narration", Diacritics 9, 3 (1979): 5 4 - 6 1 . Kawin, Bruce. Mindscreen: Bergman, Godard, and First-Person Film. Princeton: Princeton University, 1978. Lotman, Jurij. "Point of View in a Text", New Literary History 6, 2 (1975): 3 3 9 - 5 2 . Lubbock, Percy. The Craft of Fiction. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1921. McHale, Brian. "Free Indirect Discourse: A Survey of Recent Accounts". PTL: A Journal of Descriptive Poetics and Theory of Literature 3, 2 (1978): 2 4 9 - 8 7 . Metz, Christian. The Imaginary Signifier: Psychoanalysis and the Cinema. Translated by Celia Britton, Annwyl Williams, Ben Brewster, and Alfred Guzzetti. Bloomington: Indiana University, 1982. Mulvey, Laura. "Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema", Screen 16, 3 (1975): 6 - 1 8 . Oudart, Jean-Pierre. "Cinema and Suture", Screen 18, 4 (1977-78): 3 5 - 4 7 . Pipolo, Tony. "The Aptness of Terminology: Point of View, Consciousness and Letter From An Unknown Woman". Film Reader, no. 4 (1979), pp. 166—79. A major portion of Film Reader, no. 4, is devoted to point of view in film. Prince, Gerald. "Introduction to the Study of the Narratee", Poetique 14 (1973): 1 7 7 - 1 9 6 . Rothman, William. "Against 'The System of the Suture"', Film Quarterly 29, 1 (1975): 45-50. Scholes, Robert and Kellogg, Robert. The Nature of Narrative. New York: Oxford University, 1966. Scholes, Robert: "Narration and Narrativity in Film". Quarterly Review of Film Studies 1, 3 (1976): 2 8 3 - 2 9 6 . Sternberg, Meir. Expositional Modes and Temporal Ordering in Fiction. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University, 1978. Thompson, Kristin. "Closure Within a Dream: Point-of-View in Laura". Film Reader, no. 3 (1978), pp. 9 0 - 1 0 5 . . "The Duplicitous Text: An Analysis of Stage Fright". Film Reader, no. 2 (1977), pp. 5 2 - 6 4 . Todorov, Tzvetan. Introduction to Poetics. Translated by Richard Howard. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota, 1981. Uspensky, Boris. A Poetics of Composition: The Structure of the Artistic Text and Typology of a Compositional Form. Translated by Valentina Zavarin and Susan Wittig. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California, 1973. Willemen, Paul. "The Fugitive Subject". In Raoul Walsh, edited by Phil Hardy, pp. 6 2 - 8 9 . Edinburgh Film Festival. Colchester: Vineyard, 1974. Williams, Alan. "Structures of Narrativity in Fritz Lang's Metropolis". Film Quarterly 2 7 , 4 (1974): 1 7 - 2 4 . . Max Ophuls and the Cinema of Desire: A Critical Study of Six Films, 1948—1955. New York: Arno, 1980.

For three different analyses of point of view in the same film see: Bordwell, David. The Films of Carl-Theodor Dreyer. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California, 1981. Burch, Noel. "Carl Theodor Dreyer: The Major Phase". In Cinema: A Critical Dictionary, edited by Richard Roud, vol. 1, pp. 2 9 6 - 3 1 0 . London: Martin Seeker & Warburg, 1980. Nash, Mark. "Vampyr and the Fantastic." Screen 17, 3 (1976): 29—67.

INDEX

Adler, Renata, 1, 21 n l Adventures of a Nobleman, 84 aesthetics, 3 0 Aldrich, Robert, 6 2 , 114 Allen, Woody, 166 η 2 5 All That Heaven Allows, 127 All That Jazz, 166 n 2 5 Althusser, Louis, 164 η 3 Altman, Charles, 24 η 3 9 Anderson, Michael, 113 Andrew, Dudley, 8, 176, 2 0 9 , 2 1 0 , 2 1 6 , 231, 225 η 4 4 , 226 n72, 227 n78, 227 n86 Antonioni, Michelangelo, 4 6 , 70 η 3 5 Argento, Dario, 107 Aristotle, X , 10, 3 0 , 6 3 , 66 Arnheim, Rudolf, 5 9 , 169, 2 2 η 14, 67 n 5 , 71 η 4 5 Arsenal, 71 η 60 Arzner, Dorothy, 80 Au Hasard, Balthazar, 2 1 1 authorship, 1, 4 , 8, 16, 6 6 , 1 4 6 - 1 5 1 , 170, 1 9 1 - 1 9 4 , 120 n 2 2 as personality, 39—42 as subcode, 4 1 - 4 2 , 4 9 in error theory of reading, 51—52, 56 psychoanalysis, 11, 13 — 14 Autumn Afternoon, An, 107, 108, 110, 114, 127 Ayer, A. J., 2 2 9 η 136

Back and Forth, 54 Balzac, Honore de, 3 5 Bambi, 106, 107 Banfield, Ann, 5 9 , 171, 174, 2 3 1 , 26 n 5 7 , 67 n 4 , 69 η 19, 7 0 n 4 4 , 139 η 13, 140 η 15, 141 n 3 1 , 184 n l , 184 n 3 , 185 n 6 , 186 η 18, 186 n 2 0 , 186 n 2 1 , 187 n 3 3 , 187 n 3 4 , 188 n 3 6 Bare, Richard, 107 Barry Lyndon, 76 Barthes, Roland, 15, 3 1 , 3 5 , 3 6 , 3 9 , 4 0 , 4 1 , 4 7 , 50, 5 2 , 5 6 , 64, 66, 122, 171, 175, 182, 2 0 7 , 2 0 8 , 2 3 1 , 26 n 5 9 , 26

η 6 2 , 37 n 2 , 37 n 4 , 37 n 9 , 37 n l O - 1 3 , 3 7 η 15, 3 7 n l 9 , 3 7 n 2 0 , 38 n 2 1 - 2 9 , 38 n 3 1 , 67 n 3 , 68 n 8 - 1 3 , 68 n l 5 , 69 η 2 3 , 69 n 2 7 - 2 9 , 69 n 3 1 , 70 n 3 4 , 7 0 n 4 1 , 71 n 5 1 , 71 n 6 1 , 7 2 n 6 2 , 7 2 n 7 0 , 7 2 η 7 3 , 7 2 n 7 4 , 101 η 17, 102 n 2 0 , 102 η 2 4 , 120 n 2 1 , 120 n 2 2 , 164 n 4 , 165 η 10, 185 η 16, 186 n 2 3 , 187 n 2 8 , 187 n 3 5 , 188 n 3 7 , 188 n 3 8 , 188 n 3 9 , 188 n 4 1 , 188 n 4 2 , 189 n 5 2 , 189 n 5 6 , 225 n41, 227 n74, 227 n75 Bateson, Gregory, 2 1 η 4 Baudry, Jean-Louis, 2 7 η 71 Baxter, Peter, 24 η 4 5 Baxtin, Mikhail, X I , 2 3 1 Bazin, Andre, XI, 7, 9, 4 6 , 7 8 , 176, 183, 1 9 8 - 2 1 2 , 2 1 8 , 23 n l 9 , 69 n 2 5 , 223 η24, 224 n25, 224 n26, 224 n28, 224 n36, 225 n42, 225 n 4 6 - 5 0 , 226 n 5 1 - 5 6 , 226 n 5 8 - 6 0 , 2 2 6 n 6 2 - 6 4 , 226 n 6 9 - 7 1 , 227 n 8 2 - 8 4 , 227 n92 Beach Red, 122, 125, 139 η 10 Beardsley, Monroe, 6 7 η 5 Beau Geste, 85 Belle de Jour, 84 Bellour, Raymond, 115, 2 3 1 , 37 n i l , 121 η 2 4 , 121 η 25 Benderson, Albert, 167 n 2 7 , 167 n 2 9 Beneath the Planet of the Apes, 76 Benjamin, Walter, 23 η 3 5 Benji, 104 Benveniste, Emile, 15, 16, 3 5 , 171, 173, 2 4 η 4 4 , 26 n 5 6 , 26 n 5 7 , 26 n 6 2 , 2 6 η 6 8 , 2 7 η 7 0 , 38 n 2 5 , 188 n 3 6 Bergman, Ingmar, 90, 96, 152, 2 1 7 , 2 2 0 , 2 2 8 η 115 Bergstrom, Janet, 2 3 1 , 228 η 105 Bernhardt, Curtis, 6 2 , 91, 145 Bertolucci, Bernardo, 90 Bertsch, Marguerite, 223 η 15 Best, David, 6 7 η 5 best view convention, 83, 86, 136, 1 5 8 - 1 5 9 , 1 9 7 - 1 9 8 , 223 n 2 4 See also ideal view; invisible witness; camera

234

Index

Best Years of Our Lives, The, XII, 135-137, 138, 141 n24 Bigger Than Life, 79, 94, 132, 197, 141 n32, Billy Liar, 145 Birds, The, 80, 81, 82, 115, 116, 139 η6, 139 η 7, 224 n27, 229 η 125 Bird with the Crystal Plumage, The, 107 Bitch, The, 62, 93, 128 Black, Max, 22 n l 4 , 37 n6, 101 n9 Black Book, The, 62, 76 Blackmail, 96, 139 n 6 Blood and Roses, 105, 120 η 13 Bonitzer, Pascal, 28 η 79 Boogey Matt, The, 128 Booth, Wayne, 8, 9, 59, 171, 190, 194, 195, 216, 219, 231, 71 n46, 140 η 17, 140 η 18, 185 η 15, 186 η 19, 187 η27, 222 η 1, 223 η8, 223 η 10, 223 n i l , 227 η91 Bordwell, David, 153, 231, 232, 23 η25, 27 η75, 69 η24, 70 η38, 70 η39, 119 η8, 119 η 12, 121 η31, 140 η21, 141 η25, 165 η8, 165 η 18, 166 η21, 223 η 18, 223 η22, 226 η55, 228 η 103 Boundary oftext, 4 8 - 4 9 , 60, 171-172, 177, 182 Boyer, Deena, 165 η 12 Boy Friend, The, 90 Brahm, John, 32, 84, 89 Branigan Edward, XI, XII, 24 n39, 69 η28, 70 n38, 71 n52, 119 n i l , 139 n6, 140 n21, 164 n3, 166 n21, 227 η 90, 230 η 147 Brecht, Bertolt, 10, 153, 155, 23 n34, 165 η 15, 165 η 17, 185 n 7 Bremond, Claude, 175, 188 n41 Bresson, Robert, 29, 84, 104, 211 Brewster, Ben, 231, 23 n25, 28 n80, 37 η 13 Brief Encounter, 86 Britton, Andrew, 23 n30, 24 n41, 69 n33 Broken Blossoms, 141 η 24 Brooks, Virginia, 27 η 76 Brown, Clarence, 76 Browne, Nick, 7, 8, 47, 169, 171, 176, 207, 209, 211, 216, 231, 22 η 18, 27 η73, 69 η26, 140 n l 3 , 140 n l 4 , 185 n8, 226 η 6 6 - 6 8 , 227 n 7 9 - 8 1 , 227 η 85, 227 η 87, 227 η 89, 227 η 90, 227 η93, 227 η93

Buckle, Gerard, 223 η 15 Bullough, Edward, 10, 23 η33, 24 η36, 225 η41 Bunuel, Luis, 90, 152 Burch, Noel, 6, 16, 65, 103, 112, 175, 205, 232, 22 η 15, 22 η 16, 69 η24, 70 η35, 72 η64, 72 η65, 72 η68, 102 η 19, 119 η2, 119 η6, 120 η 17, 187 η29, 226 η57 Buscombe, Edward, 68 η 13 By the Law, 85, 121 n28, 229 η 125 Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, The, 123 camera, 17, 19 as guest, 203 as perfect observer, 197 (See also best view convention) as reading hypothesis, 44, 5 3 - 5 4 , 74, 210 eccentric framing, 6 2 - 6 3 , 83, 105, 213 expressive/impassive unmotivated, 83, 99 impossible placement, 62, 83, 93, 158-159, 197, 203, 223 n22 in error theory of reading, 51, 53 look into, 4 6 - 4 7 , 7 4 - 7 5 , 110 personified, 2 0 8 - 2 1 0 unmotivated, 4 5 - 4 6 , 83, 204-207, 210, 69 η24, 69 n32 Camp,'Joe, 104 Capra, Frank, 76 Carefree, 52 Carlsen, Henning, 1, 78 Carrie, 91 Cassirer, Ernst, 72 η74, 225 n41 Cat and Mouse, 106 Celine and Julie Go Boating, 84 Chabrol, Claude, 45, 80, 117 Champiguy, Robert, 69 η 27 character, 1 - 2 , 96 consistent, 162-163 construction, 35, 58, 108-109, 122, 181-182, 212, 101 η 17, 120 n l 3 impossible, 145, 157 psychoanalysis, 12 vision, 80 Charley Warrick, 62, 107 Chase, The, 80 Chatman, Seymour, 7, 171, 231, 22 η 18, 67 η4, 68 η 12, 70 n35, 100 n4, 139 η 13, 185 η 14, 187 η31, 187 η34, 222 η2

Index Cbienne, La, 62, 93, 128 Children's Hour, The, 71 η 54 Chinatown, 62 Chomsky, Noam, XII, 17, 19, 170, 171, 27 η 7 4 - 7 6 , 27 n78, 67 n4, 69 n20, 184 η2, 185 n l 2 , 188 η47, 188 n49 Christie, Agatha, 47 Christmas Carol, A, 86, 90, 229 η 136 Citizen Kane, 35, 217, 220, 227 n84 Clair, Rene, 49 classic text, 12, 35, 76, 83, 179 camera, 5 3 - 5 4 definition, 18, 27 n75 ideology, 162 invisible witness, 62 time, 60, 77 vision as truth, 46, 75, 79 Cleo from 5 to 7, 106 Clouse, Robert, 110 Clowns, The, 166 n25 Cocteau, Jean, 226 η 61 code, 1 8 - 1 9 , 3 4 - 3 6 culture, 50, 60 Cohen, Keith, 140 η 13 Cohen, Morris, 167 η 26 Cohen, Ted, 22 η 12 Collingwood, R. G., 67 η 5 color, 34, 9 4 - 1 0 0 Coming Apart, 228 η 119 communication theory, 1, 11, 13, 17, 41, 122, 169, 171, 173, 176, 211 adequacy of, 8 - 9 , 14, 3 9 - 4 0 , 194-195, 23 n33, 25 n54, 67 n 4 Comolli, Jean-Louis, 165 η 9, 225 n43 competence, 18, 21, 53, 175, 179-180, 27 η 74 Conner, Bruce, 49 consciousness and text, 4, 8, 59, 6 5 - 6 7 , 194, 198, 2 2 0 - 2 2 1 Cooper, Merian, 107, 113, 116 Correction Please, Or How We Got into the Cinema, 187 n29 Coward, Rosalind, 24 n39, 25 n54, 71 η46, 187 n29, 188 n38, 229 n l 2 8 Crawford, Lawrence, 231 Crichton, Michael, 105 Crime of M. Lange, The, 7, 204, 205, 206, 210, 69 η24, 69 n32 criticism, activity of, 3 0 - 3 1 , 40, 42, 60 Croce, Benedetto, 67 η 5

235

Crofts, Stephen, 23 η 29 Cromwell, John, XI, 62, 86 Cronaca di un amore, 70 η 35 Crowd, The, 62, 86 Cukor, George, 110 Culler, Jonathan, 67, 21 η8, 23 η23, 26 n57, 28 η84, 37 n4, 37 n5, 37 n l 7 , 37 η 18, 38 n29, 68 η 12, 71 n47, 71 n51, 72 η75, 139 n i l , 185 n l 3 , 186 n l 8 , 186 n21, 187 n34, 229 n l 2 9 Cult of the Cobra, 104 Cummings, Irving, 71 η 60 Curly Top, 71 η 60 Curtiz, Michael, 62, 119 n l

Daddy Long-Legs, 80 Dali, Salvador, 90 Danto, Arthur, 22 η9, 69 n24, 139 η8, 184 n2, 222 n 7 Dark Passage, 86, 107, 113, 115, 70 n36, 121 η27, 121 n28, 229 η 125 Daves, Delmer, 86, 107, 113, 70 n36 Davidson, Donald, 27 η 76 Davies, Gill, 187 n29 Dayan, Daniel, 231, 24 n39 Day of Wrath, 158 Days of Youth, 80, 107 deep structure, 18 — 19 See also surface structure de Filippo, Eduardo, 77 de Leon, Gerardo, 95 de Palma, Brian, 91 Derrida, Jacques, 28 n83, 185 η 13 de Sica, Vittorio, 106 Dewey, John, 67 η 5 Dial Μ for Murder, 104, 109 Diary of a Country Priest, The, 29, 84 diegesis, 73 as reading hypothesis, 54—55 definition, 43, 54 direct quotation, 16 (See also indirect quotation) discours. See histoire Disney, Walt, 80, 106, 107, 229 η 136 Dmytryk, Edward, 62, 80, 145 Dolce Vita, La, 70 η 35 Dolezel, Lubomir, 231, 188 η 36 Donen, Stanley, 84 Donner, Richard, 113 Dovzhenko, Alexander, 71 η 60

236

Index

dream, character, 7, 29, 75, 77, 82, 8 5 - 9 4 , 98 Dream of a Rarebit Fiend, 85 Dreyer, Carl, 12, 15, 45, 62, 104, 158, 25 η 52, 121 n31 Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, 107, 131, 181 Drummond, Philipp, 139 n i l Duck, You Sucker, 89 Duras, Marguerite, 140 n22, 140 n24 Dyer, Richard, 38 η 22 Eagleton, Terry, 164 η 3 Early Summer, 106, 111, 127 Easy Virtue, 80 eccentric framing. See camera Eclipse, The, 46 Eclisse, L', 46 Eco, Umberto, 34, 60, 174, 26 n64, 36 n l , 37 n5, 37 n l 8 , 67 n4, 68 n6, 68 η7, 68 n l 3 , 71 n 4 8 - 5 0 , 72 n75, 166 η26, 188 n37, 189 n60 effacement, 11, 41, 56, 99, 1 6 8 - 1 7 1 , 177, 68 n l 8 , 101 n l 5 , 120 n l 3 , 184 n l , 185 η 18 Effi Briest, 141 η 24 S'/Ü, 90, 128, 1 4 3 - 1 6 4 , 181, 69 n32, 71 η60, 120 η 14, 120 η 15, 140 η23, 141 η32, 166 η25, 167 η29 Einstein, Albert, 60 Eisenstein, Sergei, 9, 29, 64, 23 η 26, 23 η27, 23 η28, 71 η60, 72 η67 Elder, Bruce, 222 η 5 Ellis, John, 24 η39, 25 η54, 28 η84, 71 η46, 187 η29, 188 η38, 225 η41, 229 η 128 embedding, 59, 78, 1 7 1 - 1 7 4 , 1 7 6 - 1 7 7 , 183, 186 η24 See also narration, levels of Emily-Third Party Speculation, 187 n29 empiricism, 8, 16, 18, 1 6 8 - 1 7 1 versus rationalism, 191 See also rationalism Enfants terribles, Les, 226 η 61 enonciation, 2, 171, 176, 180, 1 8 2 - 1 8 3 , 24 η 40, 222 η 2 Enter the Dragon, 110 Entr'acte, 49 Epstein, Jean, 119 η 10 Equinox Flower, 108, 110 Erasers, The, 145 Ermler, Friedrich, 90

error. See reading, error theory of Espinola, Judith, 231 Ever in My Heart, 119 η 1 expression theory, I, 8 - 9 , 13, 21, 3 9 - 4 0 , 1 2 2 - 1 2 3 , 169, 176, 194, 197, 67 n5, 138 n5 eyeline match compositional, 118, 130 definition, 7, 110, 1 2 9 - 1 3 0 impossible, 1 5 6 - 1 5 7 reflexive, 131 relation to mirror imagery, 129—131 relation to point-of-view (POV) shot, 110 relation to shot/reverse shot, 140 η 24 Face to Face, 96, 139 η 6 Fahrenheit 4SI, 114 Fassbinder, Rainer Werner, 141 η 24 Father of the Bride, 229 η 136 Faulkner, William, 169 Fellini, Federico, 46, 90, 128, 1 4 3 - 1 6 4 , 181, 70 n35, 71 n60, 120 n l 4 , 120 η 15, 139 η6, 166 n25 Femme infidele, La, 117 Fistful of Dollars, A, 79 flashback, 12, 29, 59, 75, 78, 105, 181, 218 deviant forms, 8 4 - 8 5 in general, 4 9 - 5 0 , 98 in Stage Fright, 47 in The Locket, 3 2 - 3 3 categories of Jean Mitry, 214—215 time, 64 flashforward, 98, 105, 181 Floating Weeds, 105 Forbes, Bryan, 113 Ford, John, 63, 76, 169, 211 Foreman, Carl, 106 formal divisions in text. See surface structure Fosse, Bob, 166 η 25 Foucault, Michel, 64, 22 η 12, 28 η 84, 71 η 60, 165 η 10 Four Daughters, 62, 119 η 1 Four Nights of a Dreamer, 104 Fragment of an Empire, 90 frame. See representation, elements of classical framing, metaphorical, 82, 9 5 - 9 7 , 98, 99, 123-127, 134-135

Index Frankenstein, 131, 141 n27 Freed, Arthur, 84 Freud, Sigmund, 10, 11, 12, 137, 181 See also psychoanalysis Friedman, Norman, 8, 9, 131, 171, 190, 1 9 3 , 1 9 4 , 1 9 6 , 2 1 6 , 2 3 1 , 1 3 9 η 12, 140 η22, 186 η 19, 222 n2, 222 n3, 222 η6, 223 η8, 223 η 10, 223 n i l , 226 η 58 Front Page, The, 62 Fugitive, The, 63 Fuller, Samuel, 86, 105 Gance, Abel, 75, 106, 100 n3 Gasset, Jose Ortega y, 66, 72 η 71 Gazzaniga, Michael, 26 η 64 General, The, 106, 112 generative system, XIV, 18, 21, 1 7 8 - 1 7 9 , 27 η 76 Genette, Gerard, 44, 171, 231, 21 n2, 69 η22, 69 η28, 142 n35, 186 η 19, 187 η 34, 222 η 2 Gertrud, 12 Gibson, James, 22 η 14, 37 η 14 Gilliatt, Penelope, 5, 8, 10, 22 η 11, 23 n21, 23 n32 Ginsberg, Milton, 228 η 119 Girdler, William, 106 Gledhill, Christine, 187 n29 Godard, Jean-Luc, 172, 219, 220, 228 nll5 Gombrich, Ε. H., 64, 22 η 14, 37 η 6, 37 η 14, 67 n5, 68 n6, 68 n7, 71 n60, 229 η 133 Gommes, Les, 145 Goodman, Nelson, 170, 171, 174, 22 η 10, 37 n7—9, 67 n5, 68 n8, 69 nil, 72 η63, 101 n9, 101 η 10, 101 η 19, 102 η26, 139 n5, 140 η 14, 141 n30, 165 n l 3 , 188 n37, 188 n42, 222 n7, 223 η 13, 229 η 134, 229 η 136 Grande illusion, La, 114 Grandma's Boy, 84 Great Train Robbery, The, 44 Gregory, R. L., 37 η 14 Greimas, A. J., 175, 166 n26 Griffith, D. W., 63, 75, 87, 141 η 24 Grizzly, 106 Group μ, 231 Guillermin, John, 106 Guymon, Wayne, 167 η 26

237

Hair, 106 Hanet, Kari, 226 η 64 Hanoun, Marcel, 84 Hardy, Phil, 119 η 5 Has, Wojciech, 84 Haunts, 84 Hawks, Howard, 29, 80, 119 n l Heath, Stephen, 13, 58, 63, 65, 124, 125, 171, 175, 231, 23 n22, 24 n 3 8 - 4 0 , 25 n51, 25 n53, 28 n81, 28 n83, 38 n22, 68 n8, 68 η 13, 69 n28, 70 n43, 71 n55, 71 n 5 8 - 6 0 , 72 n66, 100 n5, 119 n4, 121 η26, 139 n9, 164 n2, 165 n6, 165 η7, 165 nlO, 186 n l 9 , 187 n28, 188 η40, 226 n62, 229 η 129 Hedges, Inez, 69 η 23 He Died After the War, 164 η 1 Hegel, Georg Wilhelm, 63 Hemingway, Ernest, 169 Henderson, Brian, 232, 69 η 24 Hendricks, William, 166 η 26 Hen in the Wind, A, 62 Hep worth, Cecil, 100 η 6 Herman, Lewis, 119 η 10 High Sierra, 124, 134 Hill, George Roy, 76 His Girl Friday, 29, 119 η 1 histoire, 15, 171, 173, 222 n2 Histoire d'un crime, 85 Hitchcock, Alfred, 40, 47, 61, 62, 80, 81, 84, 86, 89, 93, 94, 95, 96, 104, 108, 109, 114, 115, 116, 117, 128, 129, 182, 199, 71 η54, 119 n l 2 , 120 n20, 224 η 26, 224 η 34 Höchberg, Julian, 22 η 14, 27 η 76, 28 η 82, 37 η 6, 37 η 14 Hofstadter, Douglas, 21 η 4 Hospers, John, 67 η 5 Howard, Richard, 37 η 12 How It Feels to Be Run Over, 100 η 6 Huillet, Daniele, 207, 165 η 7 Human Comedy, The, 76 Hunger, 1, 5, 6, 7, 8, 10, 78 Huss, Roy, 227 η 85 Huston, John, 36, 80 hypothesis. See reading, hypothesis theory of I Am Two, 94 Ichikawa, Kon, 94, 95 ideal view, 4 See also best view convention

238

Index

ideology, 16, 17, 20, 60, 183, 23 n24, 166 η 25 definition, 145-146 in general, 164 n3, 189 n51 social gest, 153, 155 vision as truth, 7 4 - 7 5 , 79, 2 0 7 - 2 0 8 image, temporal aspect of, 45, 6 4 - 6 5 , 77, 8 5 - 8 6 , 116, 218, 229 n l 2 5 imaginary observer. See invisible witness impersonal shot, 2, 12, 13, 125, 184 n l descriptive point of view, 199, 205-206, 213 types, 7 5 - 7 6 , 83 See also omniscience; reference narration Incredible Hulk, 181 India Song, 140 η 24 indirect quotation, 125-126, 134, 173-174 See also direct quotation invisible witness, 4, 6, 8, 122, 136, 158, 197, 203, 205, 2 0 8 - 2 0 9 , 215, 141 n29 See also best view convention irony, 8, 156, 164, 194-196, 185 η 18 Iser, Wolfgang, 189 n62 Isn't Life Wonderful, 87 It Came from Outer Space, 104 It's a Wonderful Life, 76 Ivan the Terrible, Part II, 29 Ivins, Williams, 22 η 14 I Vitelloni, 139 η 6 Jacobs, Lewis, 100 η 6, 102 η 23 Jacobs, Roderick, 186 η 18, 186 n24, 229 η 126 Jacobsen, Bent, 27 n76, 100 n4, 139 n i l , 185 η 12, 185 η 18 Jakobson, Roman, 15, 174, 26 η 56, 26 η62, 67 η3, 70 η42, 188 η37 James, Henry, XI, 125, 170, 181, 194, 232, 186 η 19, 223 η8 Jameson, Frederic, 26 η58, 164 η3, 166 η 26 Jaws, 104, 113 Jespersen, Otto, 174, 188 η37 Jetee, La, 64 Jezebel, 212, 213, 215 Johansson, Gunnar, 22 η 14 Jones, Mari Riess, 27 η 76 Joyce, James, 169 Judith, 62 Jütra, Claude, 90

Kahane, Howard, 166 n26, 189 n58 Kaminsky, Stuart, 138 n l Kant, Immanuel, 63 Katz, Jerrold, 174, 166 n26, 188 n37 Kauffman, Stanley, 1, 21 n l Kavanagh, Thomas, 232 Kawin, Bruce, 8, 9, 171, 176, 216-221, 232, 186 η 19, 189 n51, 228 n l 0 9 - 1 2 4 , 229 n l 2 5 , 229 n l 2 7 - 1 3 0 , 229 η 132, 229 η 135, 230 η 138-145 Keaton, Buster, 106, 107 Kellogg, Robert, 170, 171, 232, 184 n4. 185 η 9, 185 η 10, 223 η 14 Kelly, Gene, 84 Kennedy, John, 22 η 14 Kimmins, Anthony, 78 King Kong, 106, 107, 113, 116 Klein, Melanie, 137 Knight, Arthur, 1, 10, 21 n l , 23 n31 Kracauer, Siegfried, 223 η 20 Kristeva, Julia, 2 8 n 8 3 , 3 6 n l Kubrick, Stanley, 76, 105 Kuleshov, Lev (Leo), 85 Kuntzel, Thierry, 37 n i l , 120 η 19 Kurosawa, Akira, 62, 84, 110 Lacan, Jacques, 10, 25 η 53, 140 η 16 Ladies' Man, The, 90 Lady in the Lake, 7, 80, 92, 107, 115, 211, 120 η22, 121 n23, 223 n23 Land of the Pharaohs, 80 Langer, Susanne, 24 η 35 LaPlanche, J., 142 n36, 142 n38 Last Laugh, The, 80, 90, 91 Last Year at Marienbad, 77, 84, 104, 217, 141 n25 Laughton, Charles, 76 Laura, 76, 71 η 60 Lean, David, 86 Lee, Rowland V., 62 LeGrice, Malcolm, 187 n29 Leiber, Justin, 184 n 2 Leibnitz, Gottfried Wilhelm von, 9 Leisen, Mitchell, 80 Leitch, Vincent, 28 η 83 Lelouch, Claude, 75, 106 Leone, Sergio, 62, 79, 89 Lessing, Gotthold, 63 Lester, Richard, 84, 107 Letter from an Unknown Woman, 208, 211

Index Letter to Three Wives, A, 76 levels. See narration, levels of Levie, Diane, 26 η 64 Levie, Howard, 26 η 64 Levi-Strauss, Claude, 175 Lewis, Jerry, 90, 145 Life of an American Fireman, The, 85 Lightman, Herbert, 111, 102 n23, 120 η 16, 223 n23 Linden, George, 167 n29 Lindgren, Ernest, 8, 122, 176, 199, 138 η 4, 224 η 33 linear perspective, 5, 15 Lingren, Ernest, 224 n30 Linton, James, 23 η 24 Little Theatre of Jean Renoir, The, 75 Lloyd, Harold, 84, 107 Locket, The, 32, 84, 89 Lodger, The, 62 logic of reading. See point of view Lola Montes, 25 n48 Lommel, Ulli, 128 Long Day's Journey into Night, 215 Lotman, Jurij, 232, 26 η 59, 120 η 22 Loudest Whisper, The, 71 η 54 L-Shaped Room, The, 113 Lubbock, Percy, XI, 232 Lumet, Sidney, 84, 215 Lumiere, Louis, 225 n41 Lyon, Francis, 104 Lyons, John, 184 n2, 185 η 12, 186 η 18 MacCabe, Colin, 17, 24 n41, 27 n72, 27 η73, 187 n29, 228 η 104 McCormack, Gavan, 165 η 8 McGlynn, Paul, 223 η 18 McHale, Brian, 232, 140 η 13 Magnificent Ambersons, The, 227 η 84 Maltese Falcon, The, 36, 80 Mamoulian, Rouben, 94, 95, 107, 131, 102 n21 Man from Laramie, The, 128 Mankiewicz, Joseph, 76 Mann, Anthony, 62, 76, 128, 69 η 19 Mann, Daniel, 62 Man Who Knew Too Much, The, 80, 89, 119 η 12 Man with a Movie Camera, 62 Marin, Edwin, 86, 90, 229 η 136 Marker, Chris, 64 Marnie, 81, 94

239

Martin, Loy, 25 η 53 material divisions in text. See surface structure materials of film, 1 7 - 1 9 , 29, 33-34 See also surface structure Mauerhofer, Hugo, 23 η 35 Mayo, Archie, 119 η 1 meaning. See surface structure Melies, Georges, 225 n41 Melville, Jean-Pierre, 226 η 61 mental process narration. See dream, character Merlean-Ponty, Maurice, 228 η 100 Merrily We Go to Hell, 80 Merritt, Russell, 141 η 24 metalanguage, 3, 1 8 2 - 1 8 3 metaphor, 11, 55, 8 1 - 8 2 , 85, 95, 1 2 4 - 1 2 5 , 128, 134, 137, 70 n39, 139 nil metaphorical framing. See framing, metaphorical metatheory, 34, 1 6 8 - 1 7 4 metonymy, 11, 1 2 4 - 1 2 5 , 70 n39, 139 n i l Metz, Christian, XII, 15, 159, 160, 171, 176, 214, 232, 23 n20, 23 n35, 24 η 3 8 - 4 0 , 26 n63, 28 n81, 28 n83, 37 n l 6 , 68 η 16, 70 n39, 71 n59, 120 n22, 121 η23, 165 n9, 166 n 2 2 - 2 4 , 186 η 19, 187 n29, 188 n43, 227 n95, 228 η 100, 230 η 137 Millar, Gavin, 8, 176, 199, 200, 201, 202, 206, 207, 71 η57, 119 n3, 165 n20, 224 n29, 224 n34 mind. See representation, elements of classical; consciousness mindscreen, 216—221 Mine Own Executioner, 78 Minnelli, Vincente, 229 η 136 Mirage, 145 mirror imagery, 4, 75, 1 1 7 - 1 1 9 , 1 2 7 - 1 3 2 , 22 n l 2 , 140 n24, 141 n32 in 8V2, 1 5 1 - 1 5 2 , 156 relation to eyeline match, 1 2 9 - 1 3 1 Mitry, Jean, 7, 8, 9, 16, 66, 78, 122, 176, 190, 2 1 2 - 2 1 5 , 220, 221, 119 η 10, 227 η94, 227 η95, 228 η 9 6 - 9 8 , 228 η 1 0 0 - 1 0 2 , 230 η 140 Mizoguchi, Kenji, 84, 165 η 8 Montagu, Ivor, 223 η 22 Montgomery, Robert, 7, 80, 92, 107, 211, 120 n22, 121 n23, 223 n23

240

Index

Moreno, Julio, 168, 171, 184 n 4 Movie, A, 49 Mowitt, John, 165 η 16 multiple coding, 31—33, 50, 53, 97, 135, 139 n 9 in The Locket, 89 types, 3 3 - 3 4 Mulvey, Laura, 232, 24 n 3 9 Munsterberg, Hugo, 8, 176, 1 9 6 - 1 9 8 , 223 η 1 5 - 1 7 Murder My Sweet, 80 Muriel, 84 M u m a u , F. W., 80, 90, 209 Murray, Edward, 222 η 6 My Uncle Antoine, 90 Nagel, Ernest, 167 η 26 Naked Spur, The, 69 η 19 Napoleon, 75, 106, 100 n 3 narratee, 11, 12, 13, 14, 47 voice-over, 43, 47 narration, 1 9 - 2 0 , 20 as consciousness, 216—221 as semantic square, 160—163 as symbolic activity, 3 9 - 4 2 , 175, 178-179 as system, 29 character, 2, 5, 9 4 - 1 0 0 (See also subjectivity) code of, 36, 41, 47, 50 definition, 39, 64, 73 first person, 9 4 - 1 0 0 function of, 9 2 - 9 3 , 1 8 0 - 1 8 4 general classes, 43—44 general summary, 175, 1 7 6 - 1 8 0 impersonal component, 4 0 - 4 2 , 46, 48—49 (See also omniscience, underlying) in film generally, 61 in general, 1—5 in The Locket, 32 in the visual arts, 64 orthodox theories of, 1 9 0 - 2 2 1 psychoanalysis, 11, 176 recent approaches, 174—176 relation to consciousness, 4, 8, 59, 6 5 - 6 7 , 194, 198, 2 2 0 - 2 2 1 relation to point of view, 171, 1 7 6 - 1 7 7 shift, 9 2 - 9 3 space as reference, 45, 6 3 - 6 4 time of, 56

verbal and pictorial, 44—45 See also point of view; representation, elements of classical narration, levels of, 2, 3, 40, 41, 88, 115, 129, 177, 209, 120 n 2 2 , 121 n 2 9 , 187 n29 description, 4 7 - 4 8 , 1 7 3 - 1 7 4 function of, 9 2 - 9 3 , 1 8 0 - 1 8 4 hierarchy, 36, 48 in error theory of reading, 51 in general, 4 2 - 5 0 in The Locket, 33 point-of-view (POV) shot, 57 realism, 165 η 13 segmentation, 61 shift, 91, 9 2 - 9 3 , 1 0 9 - 1 1 0 , 113, 117, 120 η 14 See also embedding narrative as a logic of reading, 1 9 - 2 0 definition, 3 4 - 3 6 , 115 in general, 1 - 5 linear, 162—163 psychoanalysis, 12 narrator, 1, 16, 39 as symbolic activity, 40 deception, 43, 47, 49 definition, 48 psychoanalysis, 11 relationship to reader, 39, 4 2 - 4 3 types, 4 3 - 4 4 Nash, Mark, XI, 15, 16, 171, 232, 25 η52, 26 n 6 1 , 26 n 6 6 , 26 n 6 7 , 70 n 3 3 , 120 η 18, 140 η 14, 186 η 19 Nathalie Granger, 140 η 22 Neame, Ronald, 132 Neilan, Marshall, 80 Neisser, Ulric, 37 η 14, 186 n 2 4 neutral shot. See impersonal shot; omniscience; reference narration Newmeyer, Fred, 84, 107 Nichols, Bill, 100 η 7 Night of the Hunter, The, 76 Nights of Cabiria, 46 N o Man of Her Own, 80 non-subjective narration. See impersonal shot; omniscience; reference narration No Regrets for My Youth, 62 Notorious, 80, 81, 82, 83, 108, 199, 139 η 6 , 139 η7, 101 n l 2 , 121 n29, 141 n 2 8 , 224 n26, 224 n 2 7

Index Not Reconciled, 62, 84 Nowell-Smith, Geoffrey, 13, 127, 171, 21 η2, 24 n39, 25 n50, 28 n81, 68 η 13, 72 η 74, 140 η 16, 140 η 19, 186 η 19 object in general, 1 - 5 See also representation, elements of classical object language, 3 objective narration. See impersonal shot; omniscience; reference narration observer. See invisible witness Oedipus complex, 12 Of Human Bondage, 86, 88 Ohayo, 114 Omen, The, 113 omniscience, 13, 43, 61, 105, 185 η 10 definition, 49, 68 η 18 description, 48 imperfect, 48, 2 0 2 - 2 0 3 (see also camera, unmotivated) in La Ckienne, 93 motivated camera, 45 relation to origin, 43, 63 types, 83 underlying, 4 0 - 4 2 , 46, 4 8 - 4 9 , 91, 111, 171-173, 177, 182, 120 n22 See also impersonal shot; reference narration Once upon a Time in the West, 62 On Dangerous Ground, 80, 107 Ophuls, Max, 62, 109, 208, 25 n48 origin. See representation, elements of classical Oshima, Nagisa, 131, 143-164, 119 η 7, 119 η9, 140 n23, 165 n8, 230 n l 4 7 Oudart, Jean-Pierre, 232, 24 n39 Ozu, Yasujiro, 62, 80, 105, 106, 107, 108, 114, 127, 131, 154, 158, 140 n22 Pace, Barbara, 37 n i l Painted Lady, 75 Paisä, 203 Paivio, Allan, 26 η 64 Panofsky, Erwin, 23 η 35, 226 η 64 Parents terribles, Les, 205, 226 η 61 Parks, Gordon, 80 Parrish, Robert, 96 Passion de Jeanne d'Arc, La, 121 n31 Pawnbroker, The, 84

241

Peckinpah, Sam, 84 Peirce, C. S., 39, 67 n2 Penley, Constance, 228 η 105, 230 η 137 Penn, Arthur, 80 perception, character, 6, 7 9 - 8 1 , 83, 94 aural, 94 definition, 9 8 - 9 9 , 132-133 dynamic, 81, 99, 121 n30, 224 n27 in Spellbound, 108 in The Locket, 89 in Vertigo, 118 relation to character dream, 89—90 relation to mirror imagery, 132 relation to projection, 82 perfect view. See best view convention Perkins, V. F., 71 n54 Perry, Ted, 167 η 29 Persona, 217, 228 η 115 personality effect, 181-182 Petulia, 84 Pichel, Irving, 70 η 38 Pinocchio, 80, 106, 229 η 136 Pipolo, Tony, 208, 211, 216, 232, 227 η 77, 111 η 88 Plaisir, Le, 109 Plato, 30, 66, 190, 194 Poe, Edgar Allan, 181 point of view as a logic of reading, 16—21, 55, 175, 210 as a real condition of vision, 198—212 as attitude, 7 - 9 , 10, 17, 210-211, 23 η 24, 227 η 85 as consciousness, 2 1 6 - 2 2 1 as identification, 7, 9 - 1 4 , 17 as language, 14-16, 1 7 - 2 1 as perception, 5—7, 1 6 - 1 7 character, 9 8 - 9 9 (See also subjectivity) consistency, 205, 226 η 58 definition, 3, 7, 5 2 - 5 3 , 110, 172, 176-178, 183, 2 1 1 - 2 1 2 empiricism versus rationalism, 168 — 174 function of, 9 2 - 9 3 , 180-184 general summary, 175, 176-180 independent of camera position, 52—53, 96, 179, 209 (See also framing, metaphorical) in general, XIV, 2 0 - 2 1 , 61 orthodox theories of, 190-221 relation to consciousness, 4, 8, 59, 6 5 - 6 7 , 194, 198, 2 2 0 - 2 2 1

242

Index

relation to narration, 171, 1 7 6 - 1 7 7 terminology, 21 η 3 See also narration; representation, elements of classical point-of-view (POV) shot, 2, 6, 8, 62, 103-119 categories of Jean Mi try, 215 definition, 5 7 - 5 8 , 9 8 - 9 9 , 1 0 3 - 1 0 9 framing, 78, 1 0 9 - 1 1 1 , 118, 1 2 3 - 1 2 4 in Lady in the Lake, 7, 107, 120 n22 in Notorious, 83 in Shadow of a Doubt, 224 η 27 in The Locket, 89 linguistic analogue, 16, 51 logic of, 7 3 - 7 5 look into camera, 4 6 - 4 7 , 7 4 - 7 5 , 110 mind, 7 8 - 7 9 , 81 narrative, 120 n21 relation to perception, 8 0 - 8 1 relation to reflection, 82 reverse angle, 110 secondary cues, 106—107, 116 time, 64 point-of-view (POV) shot, types of ambiguous, 8 3 - 8 4 aural, 9 4 - 1 0 0 , 109 cheated, 81, 86, 99, 116, 121 n27, 121 n30 closed, 112 continuing, 1 1 4 - 1 1 6 , 121 n23 delayed, 1 1 2 - 1 1 4 deviant, 5 8 - 5 9 , 81, 84, 86, 98, 1 0 5 - 1 0 6 , 110, 112, 221 discovered, 111 — 112 embedded, 117 forged, 116 impossible, 1 5 8 - 1 5 9 interlocking, 1 1 6 - 1 1 7 , 121 n31 metaphorical, 1 0 3 - 1 0 4 multiple, 1 1 6 - 1 1 7 open, 114, 120 η 13 plural, 116, 69 η 19 prospective, 111 reciprocal, 117 reflexive, 117 retrospective, 1 1 1 - 1 1 2 superimposed, 100 η 3 suspended, 1 1 2 - 1 1 4 total, 7 4 - 7 5 , 141 n25 traveling, 106 Polanski, Roman, 62

Pollock, Griselda, 24 η39 Pontalis, J. B., 142 η 36 Porter, Edwin, 44, 85 Poseidon Adventure, The, 132 Possessed, 62, 91, 92, 145 Post, Ted, 76 Pouillon, Jean, 222 η 2 POV shot. See point-of-view shot Prats, A. J., 166 η 25 Preminger, Otto, 76, 71 n54, 71 n60 present tense. See image, temporal aspect of Prince, Gerald, 232 Prisoner, The, 100 n3 projection, character, 73, 82, 9 5 - 9 7 , 1 2 2 - 1 3 8 , 101 η 12 ' ambiguity, 126, 137 aural, 9 6 - 9 7 definition, 9 8 - 9 9 , 123, 1 2 6 - 1 2 7 , 137-138 expressive act, 136 — 137 psychoanalysis, 137—138 relation to character dream, 82 relation to reference narration, 82 Propp, Vladimir, 174 Psycho, 61, 104, 107, 115, 117, 129, 182 psychoanalysis, 1, 1 0 - 1 4 , 17, 64, 25 n54 See also Freud, Sigmund Purple Plain, The, 96, 97, 139 n6 Pursued, 11, 69 n33 Que la bete meure, 45 Quiller Memorandum, The, 113, 69 n32 Quine, Willard, 170 Rashomon, 84 Rastier, Francois, 166 η 26 rationalism, 16, 1 6 8 - 1 7 4 , 68 η 18 versus empiricism, 177 See also empiricism Ray, Nicholas, 79, 80, 94, 95, 107, 132, 197, 101 η 12 reader, 1, 14 ability to frame, 3 - 4 linguistic analogue, 16 personal address, 44, 4 6 - 4 7 relationship to narrator, 39, 42—43 types, 4 3 - 4 4 voyeurism, 44, 4 6 - 4 7 reading, error theory of empiricism, 168

Index in general, 5 0 - 5 6 metaphor/metonymy, 70 n 3 9 multiple subjectivities, 83 reading, hypothesis theory of in general, 50—56 metaphor/metonymy, 70 n 3 9 multiple subjectivities, 83 rationalism, 168 reading act, 1 8 - 1 9 , 30, 3 9 - 4 0 code of, 4 1 - 4 2 , 47 creating an author, 4 1 - 4 2 independent of camera position, 52—53, 96, 179, 209 (See also framing, metaphorical) project hypotheses, 61, 124, 134, 158,179 relation to diegesis, 5 4 - 5 5 use of label mind, 59, 194, 198, 2 2 0 - 2 2 1 (See also consciousness) reading competence. See competence reading hypothesis, 3, 1 8 - 1 9 , 20, 49, 87, 179-180 in The Locket, 32 realism, 40, 1 8 1 - 1 8 2 , 200, 2 0 7 - 2 0 8 , 165 η 13 Rebel without a Cause, 101 η 12 Record of a Tenement Gentleman, The, 107 Reed, Carol, 62, 63 reference narration, 76, 78, 88, 126, 101 nil internal/external description, 83, 99 types, 83, 9 8 - 9 9 See also impersonal shot; omniscience reflection, character, 4, 82, 116, 118, 1 2 2 - 1 3 8 , 121 n 2 7 aural, 140 η 20 definition, 9 8 - 9 9 , 123, 1 2 6 - 1 2 7 , 137-138 relation to reference narration, 82, 98 See also eyeline match; mirror imagery Region Centrale, La, 54 Reichenbach, Hans, 174, 22 η 10, 72 n 6 3 , 188 n 3 7 Reign of Terror, 62, 76 Reisz, Karel, 8, 176, 199, 200, 201, 202, 206, 207, 71 n 5 7 , 119 n 3 , 165 n 2 0 , 224 η 2 9 , 224 n 3 1 , 224 n 3 2 , 224 n 3 4 , 224 n 3 5 , 224 n 3 7 , 224 n 3 8 , 225 n 4 5 Reivers, The, 76 Renojr, Jean, 7, 40, 61, 62, 75, 93, 114, 128, 203, 204, 210

243

representation, elements of classical, 20, 83, 1 7 7 - 1 7 8 as cultural codes, 60 character dream, 9 0 - 9 1 character vision, 80 definition, 57 flashback, 75, 8 4 - 8 5 frame, 53, 57, 65, 73, 1 5 7 - 1 5 9 , 174 in film, 61—67 in general, 30, 5 6 - 6 0 , 37 n 6 mind, 5 7 - 6 0 , 6 5 - 6 7 , 78, 1 5 9 - 1 6 4 , 2 2 0 - 2 2 1 , 120 η 13 object, 1 - 5 , 57, 65, 165 η 8 origin, 57, 6 1 - 6 3 , 73, 1 4 6 - 1 5 1 , 174, 69 η 19 point-of-view shot, 5 7 - 5 9 , 103 relation to subjectivity, 7 6 - 7 9 time, 57, 6 4 - 6 5 , 1 5 5 - 1 5 7 , 174 vision, 57, 6 3 - 6 4 , 1 1 5 - 1 1 6 , 1 5 1 - 1 5 5 See also narration; point of view representation, nonclassical, 60, 143 — 164 Resnais, Alain, 77, 84, 104, 217, 141 n 2 5 reverse angle, 110 Richie, Donald, 201, 71 n56, 119 n 6 , 224 n 3 9 , 225 n 4 0 Riffaterre, Michael, 66, 72 η 72 River, The, 210 River of No Return, 71 η 54 Rivette, Jacques, 84 Robbe-Grillet, Alain, 45, 145, 193, 28 n84 Roberts, Kenneth, 22 η 13, 223 η 18, 223 η 19, 223 n 2 1 - 2 3 , 224 n 3 9 Rock, Irvin, 71 η 45 Ronde, La, 62 Rope, 71 η 54, 224 η 34 Rose, Olivia, 23 n 2 9 Rosen, Philip, 164 η 3 Rosenbaum, Peter, 186 η 18, 186 n 2 4 , 229 η 126 Ross, John, 184 η 1 Rossellini, Roberto, 203 Rothman, William, 232, 24 n 3 9 Rules of the Game, The, 61 Rupture, La, 80 Russell, Bertrand, 90, 171, 174, 21 n 4 , 185 n 5 , 188 n 3 7 , 227 n 7 3 Russian Formalism, 6, 60 Rydell, Mark, 76 Saboteur,

80

244

Index

Said, Edward, 28 n83, 185 η 10 Sailor-Made Man, A, 107 Salt, Barry, 24 n39, 100 η 6, 101 η 13 Sandglass, The, 84 Sandrich, Mark, 52 Sansbo the Bailiff, 84 Saragossa Manuscript, The, 84 Sartre, Jean-Paul, 216, 228 η 1 0 6 - 1 0 8 Schafer, Roy, 222 η 2 Schlesinger, John, 145 Schlondorff, Volker, 107 Schoedsack, Ernest, 107, 113, 116 Scholes, Robert, 170, 171, 232, 184 η 4, 185 η9, 185 η 10, 223 η 14 Schwartz, Elias, 67 η 5 Scorsese, Martin, 128 Seidman, Steve, 26 η 61 Seven Chances, 107 Seven Samurai, 110 Shadow of a Doubt, 199, 224 η 27 Shaft, 80, 81, 139 n6, 139 η7, 224 n27 Shame, 228 η 115 Sharpies, Win, 22 η 13, 223 η 18, 223 η 19, 223 n 2 1 - 2 3 , 224 n39 shifters, 4, 1 4 - 1 5 , 39, 59, 169, 174, 177, 181, 21 n5, 25 n56 Shklovsky, Viktor, XI, 22 η 17 Shock Corridor, 86 Shoeshine, 106 Shoot Loud, Louder ... I Don't Understand, 77 showing. See telling versus showing Siegel, Don, 62, 107 Silverstein,• Norman, 227 n85 Simple histoire, Une,' 84 Since You Went Away, 62 Singin' in the Rain, 84 Sirk, Douglas, 85, 127, 141 n24 Slide, Anthony, 141 n27 Small Change, 81, 82, 139 n6 Smullyan, Raymond, 21 η 4 Snow, Michael, 54 Snyder, Joel, 22 η 12 Sober, Elliott, 15, 26 n60, 26 n65, 26 η66, 27 η76, 37 n6 So Dark the Night, 145 Son of Frankenstein, 62 Sontag, Susan, 65, 72 η 69 Sorrows of Satan, 75 sound, 9 4 - 1 0 0 , 2 0 6 - 2 0 7 diegetic, 5 4 - 5 5

perspective, 63 subjective, 9 4 - 1 0 0 , 109, 140 n20 Souriau, fitienne, 68 η 16 So You Want To Be a Detective, 107 Spectator. See reader Spellbound, 90, 108, 116 Spider's Stratagem, The, 90 Spielberg, Steven, 104, 113 splitting, 1 0 - 1 1 , 14, 88, 181, 21 n5 Stage Fright, 47, 84 Stagecoach, 169, 211 Staiger, Janet, 70 η 40 Stardust Memories, 166 n25 Stars Look Down, The, 62 Steel Helmet, The, 105 Sternberg, Meir, 232, 186 η 19 Steven, Tony, 189 η49 Stevenson, Charles, 22 η 9 Sting, The, 76 Storm Within, The, 226 n61 Story of a Love Affair, 70 η 35 Story of a Man Who Left His Will on Film, The, 83, 131, 1 4 3 - 1 6 4 , 181, 72 η63, 119 η7, 119 n9 Strange Ones, The, 226 η 61 Strangers on a Train, 1 2 8 - 1 2 9 Straub, Jean-Marie, 62, 84, 207, 165 η 7 Straw Dogs, 84 Strawson, P. F., 188 n37 subject, 14 in general, 1 - 5 position in discourse, 10, 30 psychoanalysis, 11 splitting, 3 - 4 See also representation, elements of classical subjectivising the objective, 7, 122, 138, 2 1 2 - 2 1 3 , 215, 220, 221 subjectivity, 14, 20 as narration, 73—76 categories of Jean Mitry, 212—215 character, 2, 5, 9 4 - 1 0 0 (See also character; narration; point of view) definition, 1 - 2 , 7, 1 7 6 - 1 7 8 in error theory of reading, 51 in Hunger, 6—7 in hypothesis theory of reading, 52, 124 in the visual arts, 64 multiple, 83 types, 7, 20, 7 6 - 8 0 , 9 8 - 9 9 Sugarland Express, The, 141 η 24

Index Summer Holiday, 94, 139 η6 Sunrise, 209, 210, 69 n24 Sunset Boulevard, 76 surface structure, 13, 41, 101 η 19 deep structure, 179 in error theory of reading, 55 meaning as system (not material or form), 1 8 - 1 9 , 29, 50, 79, 81, 9 0 - 9 1 , 113, 1 1 7 - 1 1 8 , 124, 130, 134, 174, 1 7 8 - 1 7 9 , 215 versus deep (underlying) structure, 91, 1 1 6 - 1 1 7 , 130 Suspicion, 93, 224 η 26 Sylvia Scarlett, 110 Tarski, Alfred, 21 η 4 Taxi Driver, 128 telling versus showing, 170, 1 9 0 - 1 9 4 , 196, 217, 68 η 18, 222 n2 Tender Comrade, 62 theory, 18, 22 n 9 - 1 0 in general, 4 - 5 Third Man, The, 63 This Man Must Die, 45 Thompson, Kristin, 232, 22 η 17, 24 n40, 27 η75, 38 n30, 70 n39, 71 n49, 119 n8, 119 η 12, 140 n21, 141 n25, 164 n5, 166 n21, 226 n55 Three Musketeers, The, 107 time. See image; representation, elements of classical Tin Drum, The, 107 Todorov, Tzvetan, 16, 171, 232, 21 η8, 26 n69, 37 n3, 68 η 14, 72 n72, 121 η26, 185 η 16, 186 n22, 186 n24, 187 η27, 187 n28, 187 n30, 189 n54, 189 n61, 222 n l - 3 , 228 n99 Tokyo Senso Sengo Hiwa, 164 η 1 Tokyo Story, 105 Tolstoy, Leo, 67 η 5 Touch of Evil, 13, 42, 61, 63 Tout νa bien, 172 transformation, 4, 18, 30, 50, 91, 100, 128, 27 η76, 101 η 19, 198 character reflection, 129—130 dream sequence, 86—87 Tristana, 90 Truffaut, Francois, 81, 114, 71 η53, 120 η 20 truth, 1 8 2 - 1 8 3 , 212 Tudor, Andrew, 23 η 24

Turbayne, Colin, 72 η 74 Turim, Maureen, 165 η 16 Two or Three Things I Know About 228 η 115 2001: A Space Odyssey, 105, 106 Tynjanov, Yuri, XI

245

Her,

Ugetsu Monogatari, 165 η 8 Ulzana's Raid, 114 unobtrusive principle, 1 9 7 - 1 9 8 , 201, 219 Uspensky, Boris, 232, 222 η 1 Vadim, Roger, 105, 120 η 13 Vampire People, 95 Vampyr, XI, 15, 45, 62, 104, 106, 112 Van Rossum-Guyon, Fran?oise, 222 η 1 Varda, Agnes, 106 Vaughan, Dai, 100 η 2 Vertigo, 81, 86, 117 Vertov, Dziga, 62 Vidor, King, 62, 86 viewer, See reader vision. See representation, elements of classical Wadleigh, Michael, 113 Walsh, Raoul, 11, 124, 133, 69 n33 Wavelength, 54 Welles, Orson, 13, 35, 42, 61, 63, 217, 224 η36, 111 η 84 Wellman, William, 85 Westworld, 105 What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?, 62 White Heat, 1 3 3 - 1 3 5 , 136, 138, 141 n32 White Rose, The, 63 Wiene, Robert, 123 Wilde, Cornel, 122 Wilde, Oscar, 161, 167 n28 Wilden, Anthony, 21 η 4 Wilder, Billy, 62, 76 Wild Strawberries, 90 Willemen, Paul, 11, 12, 14, 51, 171, 232, 24 n39, 24 n 4 1 - 4 3 , 24 n46, 25 n 4 7 - 4 9 , 25 n53, 26 n58, 67 η 1, 69 n33, 70 n33, 70 n37, 71 n59, 186 η 19, 227 η 90 Williams, Alan, 232 Williams, Christopher, 165 η 9 Williams, Linda, 139 n i l Williams, Raymond, 164 η 3

246

Index

Wilson, Rawdon, 227 η 91 Winsatt, William, 67 η 5 Wittgenstein, Ludwig, 171, 21 η 4 Wolfen, 113 Wollen, Peter, 111 η 4 Wollheim, Richard, 37 η 6

Written on the Wind, 85, 141 n24 Wyler, William, 135, 210, 212, 71 n54 Young Mr. Lincoln, 76 Zecca, Ferdinand, 85

Robert Μ. MacLean NARCISSUS AND THE VOYEUR Three Books and Two Films

1979, 252 pp. Paperbound. DM 49.00/approx. US $17.50 (Approaches to Semiotics 48) The scope of this study is its treatment of a particular mode of coverage or reportage. Three literary works and two films are dealt with, all of which treat the problems of reporting an experience (Melville's Moby Dick, Antonioni's The Passenger, Agee's Let Us Now Praise Famous Men, Burroughs' Naked Lunch, and Godard's Alphaville). Each of these works deals with the fact that the faculty of observation or attention finds no reflection of itself in the world, and that narcissistic attachment to what it takes to be that reflection is at odds with the salutary project of criticizing empirically unsound preconceptions. On the one hand, the films and books help to clarify their respective semiotic informants, and, on the other hand, are explicated by them.

John M. Carroll TOWARD A STRUCTURAL PSYCHOLOGY OF CINEMA 1980, X+ 227 pp. Clothbound. DM 56.00/approx. US $20.00 (Approaches to Semiotics 55) This book presents an analysis of narrative cinema as aformal and psychological object in which the methodologies and theoretical concepts of modern transformational linguistics and psycholinguistics are applied. It extends the classic "filmolinguistic" analyses of Sergei Eisenstein and Christian Metzand develops a theory having important implications not only forstudies of cinema structure, perception, and aesthetics but for the study of these same features in other complex cognitive modalities, language being one. The book contains nine chapters with the following main headings: (1) Introduction, (2) Recurrent Problems in Cinema Theory, (3) Film as Language, (4) A Linguistic Approach to Cinema Theory, (5) Transformational-Generative Cinema Grammar, (6) Deletion as a Case Study, (7) Actions and Shots as Psychological Units, (8) The Place of Cinema Grammar in Cinema Theory, and

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