SIGS AD MEAIG TH CEMA Expanded Edition
Peter Wolen
8 Publshng
This ditio rst pubishd i 1998 by th British Fim Istitut Istitut, , 2 1 Stp Stph h St, Lodo Lodo W P 2LN Th British Fim Istitut xists to promot prom ot apprciatio, joymt, protctio ad dvopmt dvopmt of movig imag cutur cutur i ad throughout through out th who of o f th itd Kigdom Its activitis icud th Natioa Fim ad Tvisio Archiv; th Natioa Fim Thatr; th Musum of th Movig Imag; th Lodo Fim Fstiva; th productio ad distributio of m ad vido; dig ad sup port r rgioa activitis; Library ad Irmatio Srvics; Stis, Postrs ad Dsigs; sarch; Pubishig ad Educatio; Educatio ; ad th mothy mothy Sight Sight and Sound magazi First pubishd by Sckr & Warburg i associatio with th British Fm Istitut 1969 third ditio, ditio , rvis rvisd d ad arg argdd 1 972 97 2 urth ditio, ditio, rvisd rvisd a add arg argd d 1 998 This coctio copyright© British Fim Istitut 1998 opyright© Ptr Wo 1969, 1972, 1998 ovr dsig Swrybird At & Dsig Typst by Fakham Photosttig Limitd, Fakham, Nork Pritd i Grat Britai by St Edmudsbury Prss, Bury St Edmuds British Library ataoguigiPubicatio Data A cataogu rcord r this book is avaiab om th British Library ISBN 08 08 5 1 706 70646 460 0 hbk ISBN 085 085 1 706479 706479 pbk
Contents
TDUCT 1 Eissti's Asthtics
10
2 Th Autur Thory
50
3 Th Smioogy of th ima
79
CUS (1972) HE JTGS F EE USSE New Le Review (19647) FTED (1997) L uss itrviws Ptr Wo DEX
107 119 154 184
Intoduction
Th gral purpos of this book is to suggst a umbr of avus by which th outstadig problms of lm asthtics might b uitlly approachd. My guidig pricipl has b that th study of lm dos ot cssarily hav to tak plac i a world of its ow, a closd ad idiosycratic uivrs of discours om which all ali cocpts ad mthods ar xplld. Th study of lm must kp pac with ad b rsposiv to chags ad dvlopmts i th study of othr mdia, othr arts, othr mods of commuicatio ad xprssio. For much too log lm asthtics ad lm criticism, i th gloSaxo coutris at last, hav b privilgd zos, privat rsrvs i which thought has dvlopd alog its ow lis, haphazardly, irrspctiv of what gos o i th largr ralm of idas. Writrs about th cima hav flt to ta about lm laguag as if liguists did ot xist ad to discuss Eissti's thory of motag i blissl igorac of th Marxist cocpt of dialctic. Bradth of viw is all th mor importat bcaus, by right, lm asthtics oc cupis a ctral plac i th study of asthtics i gral. I th rst plac, th cima is a tirly w art, ot yt so much as a hudrd yars old. This is a uprcdtd challg to asthtics; it is dicult to thik of a vt so mo mtous as th mrgc of a w art a uprcdtd challg ad a astoishig opportuity. Lumir ad Mlis achivd, almost witi our liftim, what Orphus ad Tubalai hav b rvrd r throughout th millia, th mythical udrs of th art of music, acit, rmot ad aw ispirig Scodly, th cima is ot simply a w art; it is also a art which com bis ad icorporats othrs, which oprats o dirt ssory bads, dirt chals, usig dirt cods ad mo ds of xprssio. It poss i th most acut rm th problm of th rlatioship btw th dirt arts, thir similaritis ad dircs, th possibilitis of traslatio ad trascriptio all th qustios askd of asthtics by th Wagria otio of th Gesamtkunstwerk ad th Brchtia critiqu of Wagr, qustios which sd us back to th thory of systhsia, to Lssig's Laocon ad Baudlair's correspondances Yt th impact of th cima o asthtics has b almost il. ivrsitis still cotiu to parad a drlict phatom of asthtics, robbd of immdiacy ad ilig i rgy, paralysd by th ormity of th challg which has b throw dow. May writrs o asthtics hav go so r as to rs th cima ay status whatvr; thy hav avrtd thir gaz ad rturd to thir customary pursuits. Various attmpts hav b mad to rovat asthtics, but ths hav sprug mostly om cotact with othr acadmic disciplis psychologica tstig, statistical sociology, liguistic philosophy rathr tha om dvlopmts i
Lumir postr
Gorgs Mlis
2
th arts thmsvs. It is icrdib that writrs o asthtics hav ot sizd o th cima with thusiasm. Prhaps, at tims, Pudovk, Eissti or Ws may b mtiod but, o th who, thr is a dprssig igorac, v ucocr. I th 1920s th ussias Kushov, Pudovki, Eissti maagd to rc thmsvs o th atttio. Th situatio i which thy workd, of cours, was uiqu. Th Boshvik voutio had swpt away ad dstroyd th od ordr i ducatio as i vrythig s; acadmic cosrvatism was i sca rtrat. Exprts o asthtics cam ito cos cotact with th artistic avatgard; this was th hyday of ussia Formaism th coaboratio btw pots ad ov ists o th o had, ad itrary critics ad thorists o th othr, is ow w kow. Idd, may of th adig critics wr aso po ts ad ovists. Th cima was obviousy actd by this. May of th Formaists th ovist ad itrary thorist Tyyaov, r istac aso workd i th cima as scriptwrit rs. With th brakdow of th od acadmic systm, thr was ot a sackig of itctua pac, but actuay a itsicatio. Thr was th crystaisatio of a authtic itigtsia, rathr tha a acadmic hirarchy ik a itigtsias, it was buit roud a rviva of srious jouraism ad pomic. Litrary thorists, such as Victor Shovs i particuar, issud maistos, wrot broadsids, coaboratd thusiasticay o magazis ik Le This was, of cours, oy a itrim priod a w d of hav acadmicism soo dscdd. It is possib to dismiss Eissti as a autodidact, to sight him r his ack of srious acadmic traiig or rathr traiig i th wrog subjct but fw ar ow wiig to tak this risk. It is quit car that, dspit his ow ack of rigour ad th dicut circumstacs i which h workd, Eissti was th rst, ad probaby sti th most importat, major thorist of th cima. Th mai task ow is to rassss his voumious writigs, to isrt thm ito a critica am of rrc ad to si th ctra probmatic ad cocptua apparatus om th aarms ad divrsios. Of cours, th rst wav of popuar works o m asthtics, i amost vry coutry, shows th vry powr iuc Eissti xrtd, i part, vidty, bcaus of his prstig as a dirctor. Th ky ida, which sizd th imagiatio, was th cocpt of motag. Thr ar ay umbr of pdstria xpositios of Eissti's viws about this. Ad, of cours, a coutrcurrt has ractd agaist this orthodox, strssig th squc istad of th shot ad th movig as agaist th statioary camra. It sms to m that what is dd ow is t a outright rjctio of Eissti's thoris but a critica rivstigatio of thm, a rcogitio of thir vau, but a attmpt to s thm i a w ight, ot as th tabts of th aw, but as situatd i a compx movmt of thought, both that of Eissti himsf ad that of th cutura miiu i which h workd. It is ot possib to b ditiv about Eissti at this stag. Th 1 920s i th Sovit io is a xtraordiariy compx priod ot oy compx but startigy ad brathtakigy origia. Th hug poitica ad socia uphavas of th priod producd a uprcdtd situatio i th arts, i cutur i gra, i th movmt of thought ad idoo gy. I th sctio o Eissti i this bo ok, I hav trid to shi th trrai of discussio ad to idicat, i broad outis, what I tak to b th mai dri of Eissti's thought ad to ocat it i its st tig. But a this is cssary vry provisioa. 3
Russian and American bourgeoisie: (top) October (above) A that Heaven Allows.
4
Italian peplum and Japanese science ction: (top) Maciste the Might (above)
Rodan. 5
Vienna in Hollywood: Wilder's he Emperor Watz.
The main stumbingboc stumbing boc r lm aesthetics however however has not been Eisenstein Eisenstei n but Hollwood. Eisenstein as we have seen was part of a genera movement which included not onl m directors but also poets painters and architects. It is relative eas to assimiate the Russian cinema of the 1920s into the norma ame of reference of art istor. Hollwood on the other hand is a competel dierent diere nt ind of phenomenon much more rbidding rbidding much more cha chalenging. lenging. here is no dicu d icut t in taing taing about Eisenstein in i n the same breath as a poet po et lie Maaovs a painter ie Maevich or a theatre director lie Stanislavs. But John Ford or Raou Walsh? The initial reaction as we well now was to damn Hollood completel comp letel to see it s a threat to civilised vaues vaues and sensibilitie se nsibilities.s. he extent of the the panic can be seen b the wa in which the most bourgeois critics and theorists manage to nd attleship Potemkin r preferabe to an Metro GoldwnMaer musical or Warner Bros. thrier. The actual prefer te depiction of the bourgeoi bourgeoisie sie in Strike or October hideous bloated and cruel to its depiction depict ion in the movies of o f Vince Vincente nte Minne Minneli li or o r Douglas Do uglas Sir which appas them much more. his attitude seems to have ver strong roots. t is not surprising surpri sing that Jean Domarchi gave as his tite to a review of rigadoon Marx would have ied Minnelli.' (It is possible to doubt whether rigadoon is the most apposite choice but itit is not hard hard to see Domarchi's point. ) Of course the reaction to Hollwood was awas exaggerated. here are two points which need to be separated out. Firstl Hollood is b no means monolithical dierent; the American cinema is not utter and irretrievabl other. o begin with all cinemas are commercia; producers and nanciers act
Terence Fisher's e Mumm
om te same motives everwere he main dierence about American lms is tat the have succeeded in capturing te reign as well as te home maret We onl see the tip of te Frenc talian o Japanese cinema or East European too r tat matter but we see a much more broad slab of Hollwood en we do see more of a reign cinema it is usuall dismissed in just the same wa as American movies talian p eplums or Japanese science ction r example Ten a ver large number of American directors actuall wored in Europe rst: Hitchcoc is te most obvious example but we sould also consider Sir Siodma Lang Ulmer ourneur studied in Paris Welles in reland Siegel in England ere is a wole Viennese' scool of Hollwood directors One of te more extraordinar convergences of Viennese culture was tat between Sternberg 7
ad Nutra, th architct of th Strbrg hous i Sa Frado Vay. Th whol battl r ad agaist oramt, which xplodd i Via, is xprssd i th work of ths two Vis i xil. I th sctio of this book o th autur thory, I hav trid to outi th thortica basis r a critical ivstigatio ad assssmt of th Amrica ci ma, as a mod of th commrcia cima. I hav rstrictd mysf to Amrica xampls Ford ad Hawks but I caot s ay raso i pricip why th autur thory should ot b appid to th Europa cima Th British cima, r istac, is i obvious d of rivstigatio; w ca s th bgiigs of a rassssmt i th Frch studis of Trc Fishr ad Gr's Mvie articl o Michal Pow. Th sam is tru r th Italia ad Frch cima. It is vry strikig, r istac, how Godard ad Truaut ar stil tratd with wid sprad critica rspct, v idugc, whras w har vry itt today about habro, who sms to hav vaporatd i th sam magica way that was oc prsumd to hav ovrcom Hitchcock ad Lag. Our idas about th Japas cima must b xtraordiarily distortd ad bikrd. I do ot i ay way wat to suggst that it is oy pos sib to b a autur i th popular cima. It is simply that workig r a mass audic has its advatags as wll as its drawbacks, i th sam way, mutatis mutandis that workig r a limitd audic of cnscenti dos. Erwi Paofsky put th poit vry rcy t tr tat corca art aay n an o nn a a ottt, it a tr tat noncomrca at aas n an o nn as a o ma. Noncommrca at a vn at' n Je an ar' ots, t aso mc tat otc to t ont o nconca. ovy, coca at a vn c tat a o no to a ct o t a t to t ont o oaton, t ao ' nt an aka' pay. I would ot myslf us esteric ad vular as th prtit pair of cotraris, but th mai gist is clar ough. Th raso r costaty strssig th autur thory is that thr is a qualy costat, ad spotaous, tdcy to xaggrat th sigicac ad vau of th art lm. Dspit all that is shioab about a tast r horror movis, it is stil much ss uqustiod tha a tast r East Europa art movis. What has happd is that a dtrmid assaut o th citadls of tast has maagd to stablish th Amrica work of Hitchcock, Hawks, prhaps Fur, Bottichr, Nicholas ay. But th mai pricips of th autur thory, as opposd to its isoatd achivmts, hav ot b stabishd, crtaiy ot outsid a vry rstrictd circl. Howvr, thr ar v mor dicult probms r lm asthtics tha thos raisd by th popuar cima, by Hoood ad Hawks. I haptr 3 of this book I try to st out som guidis r a smioogy of th cima, th study of th ci ma as a systm of sigs. Th udrlyig objct of this is to rc a rivstigatio of what is mat wh w ta about th laguag of lm; i what ss is lm a laguag at al. A grat da of work i this d has arady b do o th cotit of Europ, i Frac, Itay, Poad, th rmr Sovit io. Th AgoSaxo coutris ar still comparativly ioct of this I hav trid to combi 8
a itroductory accout o f th mai issus, th mai probms which hav b ud to aris, with a origia itrvtio i th Europa dbt. Th probms which smioogists coot ca quicky bcom compx; I far it is tru to say ovrcompx ad pdatic. Th importat thig is to rmmbr that pdatry is a cssary byproduct at a crtai stag of ay scitic advac; pdatry bcoms dagrous wh it is cosrvativ. Thr ar two rasos why smioogy is a vita ara of study r th asthtics of m. Firsty, ay criticism cssariy dpds upo kowig what a txt mas, big ab to rad it ss w udrstad th cod or mod of xprssio which prmits maig to xist i th cima, w ar codmd to massiv imprcisio ad buosity i m criticism, a uudd riac o ituitio ad momtary imprssios. Scody, it is bcomig icrasigy vidt that ay ditio of art must b mad as part of a thory of smioogy. Forty yars ago th ussia Formaist critics isistd that th task of itrary critics was to study ot itratur but itrariss'. This sti hods good. Th who dri of modr thought about th arts has b to submrg thm i gra thoris of commuicatio, whthr psychoogica or socioogica, to trat works of art ik ay othr txt or mssag ad to dy thm ay spcic asthtic quaitis by which thy ca b distiguishd, xcpt of th most baa kid, ik primacy of th xprssiv ovr th istrumta or simpy istitutioaisatio as art. Th grat brakthrough i itrary thory cam with Jakobso's isistc that po tics was a provic of iguistics, that thr was a potic ctio, togthr with a motiv, coativ, phatic ctio ad so o. Th sam visio of asthtics as a provic of smioogy is to b ud i th Pragu schoo i gra ad i th work of Hjmsv ad th ophag schoo. W must prsvr aog this road. Two ad a haf cturis ago Shasbury (1711713), th gratst Egish writr o asthtics ad th smioogy of th visua arts, wrot as ows, i his primiary ots r a tratis o Pastics Remember here as pretory to antcpate the nauseatng the pukng th del cate tenderstomached squeamsh reader p seudo or countercrtc all ths?' and can't one taste or relsh a pctu r wthout ths ado?' Thus kck ng spurnng at the speculaton nvestgatng dscusson o Euge tuum et belle nam bele hoc excute totum Qud non ntus habet? So the ke you e who can rbear? who does rbear? Therere. Have patence at the tale t me unld etc
I codty hop that th j i qoy is ot so dpy trchd today as it was i Shasbury's tim ad that thr is ss rsistac, mor awarss of th importac of spcuatio, ivstigatio ad discussio.
9
1 Esensten's Aesthetcs
Ev today th Bolshvik volutio rvrbrats through our ivs. Durig thos hroic days Eissti was a studt at th Istitut of ivi Egirig i Ptrograd. was it yars old. was ot prpard r th ovrthrow of th xistig ordr of socity, th collaps of his cultur ad idology ad th dissolutio of his miy as his parts dpartd ito xil. Th voutio dstroyd him, smashd th coordiats of his lif, but it also gav him th opportui to produc himslf aw. It swpt asid th dismal prospct of a carr i girig, his thr's profssio, ad opd up sh vistas. I th spa of t yars, as w kow, Eissti was to wi world m, rst i th thatr, th i th cima. I ordr to achiv this, h was compd to bcom a itllctual, to costruct r himsf a w wordviw, a w idologica cocptio both of socity ad of art. had to bcom a studt of asthtics i ordr to work i th cima; h could tak othig r gratd. d, of cours, w caot sparat th idas which h dvopd om th matrix i which thy wr rmd, th matrix of th Boshvik volutio. Th idology of th w ordr of socity was procaimd as politica, rvo utioary ad scitic, ad it was i this imag that Eissti sought to costruct his art ad his asthtics. Wh, through a chac mtig with a childhood id, h bcam a scrypaitr ad stdsigr at th Proltcut Thatr i Moscow, h quickly rcogisd that th thatr shoud b a vhicl r politica propagada, a laboratory r avatgard xprimt ad, i th words of his mtor, th actor ad dirctor Vsvolod Myrhold, a machi r actig, mad by tchicias, rathr tha a tmpl with a pristhood. I this, of cours, h was ot alo. idtid himslf with th artistic avatgard which h ud, a dyamic avatgard whos idas wr rgd, amog othrs, by Myrhold, th pot ad plawright Mayakovsky, th paitrs Kasimir Mavich ad Vladimir Tatli. dr thir adrship th prvoutioary movmts of Futurism ad Symbolism wr rassssd ad trasrmd. Art was to b a brach of productio, i th srvic of th volutio. Thus ostructivism was bor. Eissti's rst productio i th thatr took plac i 1923 Th play, a adaptatio of a itthctury work by Ostrovsk, was orgaisd ot ito acts ad scs but as a programm of attractios, as i th musichall or th circus. Th stag was aid out lik a gymasium, with a tightrop, vautighorss ad paralll bars. aricaturs of Lord urzo, Marsha Jor, Fascists ad othr political gurs wr lampood i satirica sktchs. Thr was a parody of a rligious procssio, with placards radig ligio is th opium of th pop'. 10
S M. Eisenstein
Cowns and noise bands' assaulted the audience under whose seats rewors exploded. At one point a screen was unroled and a lm diar projected. t was this travest of Ostrovs produced incongruousl enough in the baroom of the exVila Morossov which was the occasion r Eisenstein's rst th oretica writing pubished in the magazine Le In this manifesto he outined his concept of the montage of attractions At this point the greatest inuence exerted on Eisenstein was that of Meerhod Meerhold alread a success theatre director bere the Revoution emerged aer it as a eader of the avantgarde. He was motivated b a deep distaste r the
11
(Aboe and opposite) Eisenstein's prdution The Wise an
12
methods of Stanislavs and the Moscow Arts Theatre later of course to be enshrined as the apogee of Stalinist art. Meerhold's original antipath sprang om his hostilit to aturaism part o f his inheritance om Smbolism which until Futurists such as Maaovs burst upon the scene was the leading reign imported countertrend to the dominant domestic insistence on civic and social themes going bac om Tolsto to Belins. In 11 Meerhold had set up an experimental studio where he wored under the pseudonm Dr Dapertutto a name taen om the Tales of Homann. Hoann and German Romanticism in general had an enormous inuence on Meerhold and on the whole Russian inteligentsia of the time. (Adaptations of Hoann's Tales were put on in the theatre b almost ever leading Russian director the were made into ballets the provided the name r the Serapion Brotherhood the are alluded to in Maaovs's The Backbone Flute the were among the vourite wors not onl of Meerhold but also of Foine and indeed Eisenstein. ) In particular Meerhold drew om Hoann (especiall e Princess Brmbilla an enhanced interest in te commedia dell'arte which he saw as the main element in a theatrical antitradition comprising the ntastic the marvelous the popular the lloric: a nonverbal stlised conventional theatre which he could use as a weapon against Stanislavs's aturalism and pschologism. The lins with the Futurists' adoption of the circus are quite evident: the two trends towards pantomime and towards acrobatics quicl merged. Later a second ult more obvious to a Constructivist than a Smbolist was de tected in Stanislavs: his msticism. Stanislavs's closest collaborators Mhail Chehov and Sullerzhits were both absorbe d in the Russian mstical tradition. Sullerzhits had been a Wrestler of God' who helped move his religious sect om the Caucasus to Canada then returned to Russia were he was given a job as a stagehand b Stanislavs. He came to inuence Stanislavs enormousl infecting him with a nae intuation with Tolsto Hindu phiosoph and oga. 13
Stanislavsky's production ofArmoured Train 14.
1
Stanislavsky with M Reinhard
1
hkhov too vop th yogc stra th Stasavs systm, what h ca ts Pytha quaty'. O stut actor has scrb how w ulg prana, strtchg out our has a mttg rays om th tps of our grs. Th a was to gt th prso at whom your grs pot to f th raat.' Ths atcs wr out of ky wth th poch of th mach, th mass, urbasm a Amrcasm. Myrhol attack thm. Hs ow systm, bomchacs, h cocv as a combato of mltary rll wth agbra Th huma boy was s amost as a robot, whos muscls a tos wr k pstos a ros. Th ky to succss as a actor ay rgorous physca trag. Ths systm was gv a psychoogca urpg by Pavova rxoogy Th actor must b ab to rspo to stmul.' Th goo actor a ayboy physcay f cou bcom a goo actor was o wth a mmum of racto tm'. Thr wr othr mportat grts Myrho's systm Tayorsm, th stuy of workrs' physca movmts, vt Amrca to cras proucto a popuars ar th voluto ussa, wth L's approva (Lt us tak th storm of th vouto Sovt ussa, ut t to th pus of Amrca f a o our work k a chroomtr! ' ra o soga of th tm); Dacroz's urhythmcs, uta o Mass's chorography; th om mia llar; Douglas Farbaks; th Grma omatc cut of th marott (Kst, Hoa); th Orta thatr (urg hs Dr Daprtutto pro Myrho ha vt Japas juggrs to hs stuo) . Furthr ammuto was prov y th psychoogy of Wam Jams; aothr atStasavska, Evrov, was struck by Jams's xampls of how wh w cout up to t, agr sappars, a how whstlg brgs courag ts tra; Esst cts Jams's ctum that w wp ot bcaus w ar sa; w ar sa bcaus w wp' whch was tak to prov th prmacy of physoogca gstur ovr psychoogca moto A ussa jourast scrb th work of th Protcut Thatr 19 23 , th yar Th Wis Man was prouc nn n tan n nn n n nn n n n nn an by n n nn n n n nn nn n nn nn n n n Esst's bt to Myrhol v xt to payg partcuar attto to th movmts of cats a tgrs, whch Myrho's vw xmp th scrts of boy pastcty. Bss workg r Myrho, Esst ha aso coaborat r a sp wth Forrggr, hs stuo of satrca thatr, whr h sg Pcassouc sts a costums a ga th a of th os ba whch xprss th sous of a mchaca, ustral poch rathr tha thos of th cat artsaa orchstra, a aso wt to Ptrogra wth th m rctor Srg Yutkvch whr h som sgg r FEKS (Factory of th Ecctrc Actor), ru by Koztsv, Traubrg a Krjtsky. Th a ofrca cctrcsm' ca, lk so 17
s fr Mrhls prin fDawns.
much else, be traced bac to the Futurist Manifesto; the FEKS group were scinated with what Radlov, another Petrograd director, expupil of Dr Dapertutto, called a new aspect of the comic outloo on life, created b AngloAmerican genius': all inds of slapstic, comic policemen, rooop chases, rescues b rope om aeroplanes, underground hatchwas, etc. Radlov introduced contortionists into his plas and replaced Pantaloon in the mmi llr b Morgan, the Wall Street baner. Eisenstein and Yutevich wored with FEKS on what was billed as Electrication of Gogol, Music Hall, Americanism and Grand Guignol'. he tempo of the revolution believed Kozintsev, is that of scandal and publicit.' For Forregger the did sets based on the urbanistic' r; Yutevich has described the main inuences on Forregger at this time as being mmi l lr French cancan, ragtime, jazz, Mistinguett. (Jazz was also seen as urbanistic' as well as exotic; this was the time when Bechet and Ladnier received a tumul tuous welcome in the Soviet Union, onl exceeded b that given to Douglas Fairbans and Mar Picrd. ) Eisenstein, with considerable bravado, attempted in his manifesto to give theoretical coherence to all these ntastic and bizarre inuences which la behind his production of Ostrovs's' i Mn. He chose as his slogan the idea of Montage of Attractions'. Some ears later he described how he invented this phrase: D' h d h d m h d h hd d hd h hm h: v v m mm h h h m dd k ' d ' h ' vd d m d d d h m , , mh
18
o he ut.
I
_i ·
"
_
o y .
19
_
oo. n wo ona wc an an, an o no y n vo, ha vy acaon o co ona. y w n o on con no on wo x o a a , ana an aca. wa ona o aacon con. Some more inrmatio ca be added to this Yutkevich suggests that the word at traction' may wll have bee suggested to Eisenstei by the rollercoaster i the Petrograd Luna Park, which caied tha name. Probably the idea of montage was suggested by the photomotages of odchenko, aother of the Lef group, ad George Grosz ad Joh Hearteld i Berlin. But this would only take things back oe step aoul Hasma, speakig of Berli Dadaism, explained, We called this process photomontage because it embodied or resal o play the part of the artist. We regarded ourselvs as eginees ad our wok as costruction we as semble i French moner] or work, like a tter. Of course contacts between Berli ad ussia, betwee Dadaism and Costructivism, were very close at that time. Halfidustrial ad halfmsichall this expresses pefectly the curious artistic admixture of the time. Eisnstei, it will be se, was very much swept alog by the crrets of the epoch. This is hadly srprising only nineteen at the time of the Bolshevik evolutio, he had been impelled ito a vortex r which he was ot prepared, a epoch of overwhelming ce and change, unprecedented, upre dictable. It was not ntil this molen magma adeed into the lava of Staliism that Eisnstei had tim eally to take stock of his sitatio. Howeve, already there were some oigial traits to be seen. I paticula, there was his qite idioscratic approach to the emotional strctue of works of at. Loong back, he was to descibe his pojet in The Wise Man in these typical wods A gestre expaded into gymastics, age is expressed throgh a somersalt, exaltatio through a salo morale, lyicism on th mast of death" .' He wrot that he dreamed of a thatre of such emotional saturation that the wrath of a ma would be expressed i a backwad somrsalt om a trapeze This dream of emotioal saturation was to stay with Eisenstei all his lif. It became a preoccupation with the idea of ecstasy. Eisestei was iunced by wo powerl, bt in many ways incompatible, teachers of sychology Fred and Pavlov. In his Lefmanifesto we can see plaily Freud's innce in his obsrvations on th diculty of ing the bondary line where religios pathos moves into sadist satisctio dring the toture scees of the miacl plays This intees i the ovelapping of sexal ad eligious ecstasy is a recurent feature i Eisesein's work. Pera Attasheva recounts how Eisestei was delighted to nd at MontSaintMichel two postcards in which the same model posed as St Thse de Lisiex and, heavily mad up, i th arms of a sailor. In Mexico he wote of Th Vigin of Gadlpe woshipped by wild daces ad bloody bullghts. By towerhigh Indian hairdesses, ad Spaish mantillas. By exhaustig hourslong daces in sushie and dust, by miles of kneecrepig peitence, and the goldn ballets of bllghting cadillas.' One theme of the nished Qe Viva Mexio! sems to have been this intemingling of sexual, reli gious ad sadistic ecstasy. However, during the 12s, Pavlov became of ve geater impotace to 2
s: rs ss sh m Que Viva Mexico!
Eisenstein As the idea of montage developed in his mind he tended to replace the idea of attractions b that of stimuli or shocs. his merged with two other currents: the extremist assaut on the spectator and the demands of political agi tation; aer s M Eisenstein's next production s Ms was caed an agitguignol'. Eisenstein had awas been concerned with the agitational aspects of his wor: during the Civi War of 1 92 1 he had wored on an agittrain as a posterartist drawing political cartoons and caricatures decorating banners and so on. his attitude to art was one of the dominating trends of the time; Maaovs boasted that his slogans urging people to shop at Mosselprom were poetr of the highest calibre and he designed and wrote jingles r countless posters and pubicit dispas; it led eventuall to Maaovs's doctrine of the socia command he problem o f art became that of the production of agitational verse: I want the pen to equa the gun to be listed with iron in industr. And the Poitburo's agenda: Item I to be Stalin's report on "he Output of Poetr. ' In a curious wa this was a return of the Russian intelligentsia to its old civic preoccupations: though of course those who had been through Futurism r did not see ee to ee with those who had just ept trudging along with naturaistic writers ie Chernshevs and Dobrolbov. Bere he embared on his rst lm r Eisenstein directed one more pla smss devised b retaov. For this production he abandoned the moc Spanish exVilla Morossov r the Moscow Gas Factor a setting suitabe r the modern age comparable with Maaovs's Broon Bridge or atin's 21
October reexes o struggle 22
Monmn o h Thir Inrnaiona (Tatlin, taking his view that the artist was an engineer workr to its logical conclusion, actually went to work in a metallurgcal ctory near Petrograd. ) Also relevant here was Tretyakovs prefrence r ctog raphy as it came to be known, r which he propagandised in L Literature be came seen as a matter of diaries, travelogues, memories and so on, dealing with the raw material of life tself. Tretyakov developed the biointerview a technique lke that of Oscar Lewiss Chirn of Sanhz ; he wrote angrily, There is no need r us to wait r Tolstoys, because we have our own epics. Our epcs are the news papers. It seemed only logical that if the theatre was to become a ctory the c tory should become a theatre. The stage rst broke through the proscenium arch, then outburst the brckandmortar integument of the theatre itself. Already the theatre had taken to the streets in great mass pageants, reminiscent of the fs of the French evolution. Next they must enter the ctory itself. nrtunately, the experment was not a great success. As Eisenstein ruelly described, the giant turbogenerators dwarfed the actors. However, it prepared the way r the next step out of the drama altogether and into the cinema. Srik was made in 124; Eisenstein was then twentysix. Srik, like Lisn Mosow, was to be an agitguignol. He planned to produce a chain of shocks Maximum intensicaton of aggressive relexes of social protest is seen in Srik, in mounting reexes wthout opportunity r release or satisction or, in other words, concentration of reexes of struggle, and heightening of the potental ex pression of class feeling. Thus the concept of montage was retained, but that of attractions dropped, except in the reductive sense of shocks or provocations. The lm was made up in eect of posterlike, oen caricatural vignettes, planned r maximum emotional impact. The next year, Eisenstein wrote that
e sene o o an er onae n eaon o ee one o et he . onen a I ee s a ee o onnen o arraned n a etan eqene and ee at e adene. . A aea mt e arrane an oane n eaon o ine w wou ea to te ee eaon n oeon rooon. The dominant inuence of Pavlov is manifest. In order to transpose his system of montage om theatre to cinema Eisenstein made use of the discoveres that had been made by Kuleshov and Vertov. Bere the evolution Kuleshov had been a designer at the Khanzhankov Studio, where he already began writing theoretical articles stressing the visual aspects of lm. In 12, aer a period in the ed Army, he became a teacher at the State Flm School, where he set up his own workshop; Eisenstein studied there r three months in 123 . It was there that he carried out his mous experiments in editing. The rst was a demonstration of creative geography or articial landscape placng the ite House in Moscow. The second was a synthetic composition of a woman out of the lips of one, the legs of another, the back of a third, the eyes of a urth and so on. The third showed how the expression perceived on an actors ce grief, oy, etc. is determined by the shots which precede and llow it. For Kuleshov the third demonstration was, of course, a blow against Stanislavsk; he insisted, when he made his lm Mr Ws in h Lan of h Boshviks in 12324, tha the most 23
Vovs KinoPravda
dicult tas was to show that new actors specicall trained r lm wor were r better than the pschologicaltheatrical lmstars' He hated aturalism and alwas rerred to actors as models' he importance of Kuleshov's experiments was that the showed how b editing the antiaturalist antipschologist trend in the theatre could also be introduced into cinema using scientic laboratortested and specicall cinematic methods he second major inuence was Dziga Vertov the leading lm documentarist of the period who lie Eisenstein was a contributor to where he had developed his theories of inopravda' and the inoee' However perhaps more important was Vertov's use of editing Eisenstein was to tell Hans Richter a w ears later that Vertov should be credited with the invention of musical rhthm in the cinema governing the tempo of the lm b the measured pace of the cutting and hence with a decisive breathrough in montage principles Moreover Vertov (or rather Rodcheno who collaborated with him) was the rst to realise the importance of the titles and to integrate them into the lm as an element in its construction rather than as troublesome interruptions In Bshi omin especiall the titles on which retaov wored plaed an important role he documentar tendenc Eisenstein was hostile to wards; he lied to repeat: I don't believe in inoee I believe in inost During his wor on i Eisenstein also elaborated his theor of tpage' in the choice of actors Lie Kuleshov lie the whole theatrical tradition in which he wored he rejected orthodox stage acting Instead he preferred to cast his lms simpl b the phsiological particularl cial characteristics he felt suited the part He would oen spend months looing r the right person A man who he saw shovelling coal in the hotel at Sevastopol where the were shooting was 24
Th nrl Ln y h hhmv s h
Strik mois jmi o of hi s. 25
Strie h rfs. draed into the cast to pla the surgeon in shi mi. Fo Th i his cameaman iss recalls h kk' l d hkhmv, lm d m m h m h d d h h hd ld h h k h, dd h m d l jd h Rd m d d h h Kd h vl d h h dvdd h d Nvhkv, vll d lv
he heoine was und on a State Farm at Konstantinova Eisenstein has descibed how he developed the idea of tpage om his thoughts about the m mi r with its stoc tpes who are immediatel ecognised b the audience He wanted ces which would immediatel give the impression of the role Later he became inteested in Lavater's sstem of phsiognomis; pobabl Leonardo da Vinci had an inluence too However ri still etained important elements om Eisenstein's past in the theate he guignol stain plaed a e part paticuarl in the closin g sequence where the subjection of the wores is paalleled b the slaughter of cattle in an abattoir he lm is sufsed with parod a catoonist's approach squibs lam poons and so on in the eccentric musichall tadition he critic Victo Shlovs commented on the similaities to Keaton both the scination with machine and the eective use o f the eccentricit o f his material and the sharpness of the contrasts' A ind of Hoannesque grotesque is evident in ri with the police spies who are metamorphosed into animals monke bulldog x and owl he lumpenproetaian striebreaers jumping out of thei barrels as Shlovsy comments ae lie devils jumping out of hel in a mster pla he pe 26
Strike h poli spy s ol 27
Batteship Potemn iio if omos hooh. 28
culiar dwarfs who appear reveal a theatrical, almost Gothic, outlook, r om what was regarded as ealism. But as Eisestei became more egrosed i the ciema this residue om the theatrical past bega to fall away. Oober s the last lm to have a very strog theatrical avour, where the scees of the stomig of the Witer Palace were evidetly echoes of the eormous pageats whic had take place i Petrograd, whe tes of thousads had swarmed through the street ad squares, reeactig the evets of the October evolutio. I a quite dieret way Ivan he Terrible looks back to the theatre, but o loger to the theatre of FEKS or the Proletcult. Yet I thik that these three lms Srike Oober ad Ivan h Terrible are certaily Eisestei's best, most extraordiary achievemets. He was at his strogest whe he was workig withi the theatrical traditio which ex erted such iuece o him i the 120s his more purely ciematic work lacks the bite, the lampooig edge which was his stregth. I Balehip Poemkin, the most successl sequece, the mous massacre o the Odessa Steps, is really a extesio of the agitguigol he had worked at i the Proletcult Theatre; other se queces o the lm, beautilly composed photography, heroic postures, etc., look rward to the artistic disaster of Alexaner Nevky Durig the years om 124 to 12, whe Eisestei le ussia r a tour abroad, he worked more itesively tha at ay time durig his career, ad also made a great eort to elaborate his aesthetic theories more systematically, i par ticular his theory of motage. It is popularly believed that Eisestei coceived of motage as the basis of a lm laguage, a ciematic rather tha a verbal code, with its ow appropriate, eve ecessary, sytax. I ct, at this stage, Eisestei was rather sparig i his remarks o m laguage ad usually very vague. At a later date, as we sha see, he delved ito liguistic theory, but throughout the 20s his ideas of laguage ad liguistics seem to have bee extremely sketchy, though through ef he was i cotact with a umber of the Formalist liguists. at did iterest Eisestei, however, was the dialectic. He costatly stresses that motage is a dialectical priciple. Eisestei seems to have absorbed his otio of the dialectic i rather a haphazard maer. Certaily, the domiat i uece must have bee Debori, the editor of Uner he Banner of Marxim, the leadig philosophical magazie of the time i the Soviet io. Debori was a militat Hegelia, egaged durig the secod half of the 120s i a erce cotro versy with the Mechaist school, militat materialists, whose hard core were leaders i the campaig of the godless agaist religio Iclied towards Positivism, they regarded the dialectic as so much mumbojumbo. Debori was able to couter their attacks by poitig to Egels's e Dialei of Naure ad Lei's Philoophial Noebook, rst published i ussia durig the 1 20s, i part o Debori's iitiative. Eisestei equetly quotes om these two works; he seems to have bee particularly d of a excerpt om Lei's Philoophial Noebook, O The Questio of Dialectics rst published i Bolhevik i 125. Oe setece struck him rcelly I ay propositio we ca (ad must) dis close as i a ucleus" (cell") the germs of all the elemets of dialectics. Eisestei was able to lik this to his cocept of the shot as the cell, or later, as his views grew more complex, the molecule of motage. Clearly there were some difculties i Eisestei's positio, of which he bega to grow ucomrtably aware. The problem was to recocile his idealist' preoc 2
cupation with the dialectic with the materialist inheritance he carried with him om the Proetcult Theatre the stress on the machine on gmnastics and eu rhthmics on Pavlovian reexolog The dialectic Lenin stressed was nowledge the iving tree of vita rtile genuine powerl omnipotent objective absolute human nowledge'. n the past isensein described how cinema was cononted with the tas of straining to the utmost the aggressive emotions in a denite direction' (that is an agitationa tas whose ideological roots la in reexoog) but the new cinema must include deep reective processes'. At rst isenstein's ideas on this subject were rather abstract and vague. He criticised Kuleshov and Pudovin r seeing the unit of the shot as being lie a bric; maing a lm was lie laing brics end to end. Pudovn wrote isenstein loudl defends an understanding of montage as a i of pieces. nto a chain. Again "brics. Brics arranged in a series to an idea.' He goes on I cononted him with m viewpoint on montage as a isi. A view that om the collision of two given ctors iss a concept. . . So montage is conlict. As the basis of ever art is conict (an "imagist transrmation of the dialectical principle )' But how did a concept arise om a collision? either Pavlov nor D eborin were ver helpl on this subject Marxism did not have a satisctor aesthetics. ts most clamorous aestheticians were particular hostile to the bacground om which isenstein had emerged Futurism and Constructivism and to which he stil adhered. In ct Eisenstein proved unable to sove the problems cononting him and eventual tacitl abandoned t em Primari a wor of art remained r him a structure of pathos which produced emotional eects in the spectator The
Battleship Potemin ymsis. 30
October oi ihi h m. problem was to get the maximum eect. If we want the spectator to experience a maximum emotional upsurge, to send him into ecstas, we must oer him a suit able "rmua which will eentual excite the desirable emotions in him.' his was a simpe phsiological approach; conict, on arious leels and dimensions, on the screen excited emotions in the spectator, which would either strengthen hi political and social consciousness or jolt him out of his ideological preconceptions to loo at the world anew. at baed Eisenstein was how concepts could be precisel coneed. He buit up a mode, rst with ur and then with e leels of montage (metric, rhthmic, tonal, oertonal, intellectual), in which, in each case, eer leel except the last coud be described as pure phsiological'. he last (inteectual montage ) was to direct not onl the emotions but the whole thought process as well Eisenstein conceded that his method might be more suitabe r the expression of ideoogicall pointed theses but explained that this was onl a rst embronic step'. Ahead a the snthesis of art and science' and the dream of a lm of il the summit of Eisenstein's ambitions. his search r the snthesis of art and science led Eisenstein into a ine of argument to which there could be no satisctor conclusion. He became increas ingl interested in the idea that erbal speech is a ind of secondar process and that the primar, underling eel of thought is sensuous and imagistic. He was impressed b the notion that the origins of language were in metaphor and in conjunction with magic and mstic rituals. He came to b eliee that the language of primitie peoples was more imagistic and metaphoric than the tongues of ad anced nations. He saturated himself in the writings of anthropologists such as Frazer, LBruhl and Malinows, and regarded mth as the primar nction of thought; logica thought, in the more usual sense, came to be seen as a ind of shrieled mth. It was in mth that the snthesis of art and science coud be seen. his idea, of course, is at the root of i Mio Eisenstein also became 31
October s i ris room. 32
33
iterested i the coct of aective logic based o the observatio that most eole, i colloquial seech, did ot utter comlex ad logically rmed seteces so much as bursts of disjoited hrases which the hearer was able to coect. Fially, he was deely imressed by the work of ames oyce ad was ersuaded that ier seech was closer to sesuous ad imagistic ho ught tha exteralised, verbal seech I som sese, the ciema might corresod to iterior moologue; the dri of oyces literary iovatios was towards a kid of ciematisatio of laguage. Of cours, it is easy ow to oit out how may of his metors have bee discredited, how ou cocets of myth ad of he sytax of colloquial seech have bee trasrmed, how it has bee show that ier seech is ot less but more sohisticated ad advaced tha extealised seech. But at the time Eisestei was workig, ad i the isolaed coditios i which he worked, here was othig abormal about his lie of thought. It did, however, brig him ito error ad cosio. imortat momt i the develomet of his ideas occurred whe the Kabuki troue of Ichikawa Sadaji visited ussia i 128 Eisestei, who had log bee iterested i Jaa, was eormously imressed. He felt that there was a kishi of ricile betwee Kabuki actig, the aaese writte ideogram, ad his great discovery of motage ow ra was o t r avn m o oda o ann a ena ana w n ay , onn a an way o nn a an wo oay wa y na way o tn a a d o a na o oa, and a, wn a o o na oona way o nn, n o o coon oa way, o on o on od o at der the iuece of the Kabuki theatre Eisestei bega to see motage as a activity of metal sio or sythesis, through which articular details were uited at a higher level of thought, rather tha a series of exlosios as i a com bustio egie, as it had oce semed. Eisestei was sciated by the use of covetios, masks ad symbolic costumes i Oietal theatre. He became iterested i aaese ideas of ictur comositio. der the sell of the East, motage was dsed r Eisestei Fially, the aaese theatre suggested to Eisestei the cocet of a moistic esemble which came to domiate his thought more ad more, culmiatig i the Wageria excesses of his stage roductio of the Valyri He was struck by the way soud ad gesture were correlated i the Kabuki theatre; this was a subject which became more ad more crucial to him as it became clear that the soud lm was to be the rm of the ture Agai, quite i the traditio of Meyerhold, he reacted agaist the idea that the soud lm must mea the domiace of the soke word ad looked r a dieret way of combiig the visual ad aural comoets of the ciema. I the Kabuki theatre Eisestei felt that the lie of oe sese did ot simly accomay the other, the two were totally iterchagable, isearable elemets of a moistic esemble his iterest i the relatioshis btwee the dieret seses coverged with 34
Kai ar
35
Eisestei's growig proeess to se msical aalogies ad termiology to explai what he was tryig to achieve i the ciema. Ths, while poderig over the editig of Th Gnl Lin, he came to the coclsio that his motage shold cocetrate ot o the domiat i each shot (toal motage) bt o the overtoes. At the same time he pt icreased stress o dig the correct rhythm. Ad, whe he discssed the relatioships betwee the dieret seses ad dieret lies of developmet, he itrodced the idea of coterpoit ad later of polyphoy (oise bads, which i a way srvived til Balship Pmkin, with the msic of the machies' passage i Meisel's score, ow disappeared etirely). This stress o the sychroisatio of the seses ad o aalogies with msic, set the stage r the llscale rex of Symbolism which overwhelmed Eisestei's thoght drig the 1930s. Eisestei's visit to Wester Erope, the ited States ad Mexico had a shatterig eect o his life. Firstly, there was the terrible catastrophe of Q Viva Mic!, a lm to which he became obsessively attached, which he was able to ish ad over which he lost all cotrol. Secodly, there was the completely chaged political ad cltral atmosphere which greeted him whe he retred to the Soviet io, sspicios of Eisestei r his ethsiasm r Wester cltre ad hostile to the dri of his ideas abot ciema ad aesthetics i geeral. Eisestei had le ssia drig the spial year' of 1 929, whe the collectivisatio of the peasats had reached the vital poit of o retr, whe the rst Five Year Pla had reached the momet of te. ssia was throw ito a ezy to reach prodctio goals, to destroy the klaks, to erce collectivisatio. At the time Eisestei le the shock waves had ot yet broke with their ll rce po the itelligetsia. By the time he retred, party cotrol had bee made rigid, a stadard ad reqisite ideology itrodced ad may of the artistic ad academic stars of 1929 qeched ad discredited. Eisestei took p a post at the Istitte of Ciematographic Stdies where he codcted a series of lectre corses, read volmiosly ad worked i isolatio at a projected magnm ps of lm aesthetics. Eisestei had cotial problems eve i this relative isolatio ideed, i part becase of it. He was accsed of withdrawig ito a ivory tower, charges which he cotered by describig himself as at work i a laboratory o the theoretical problems withot whose soltio practice wold be prematre, orieted. Qite clearly, however, the tedecy of his theoretical work ra coter to the mai lies of Staliist aesthetics. His views o Joyce, r istace, were well kow He had met Joyce, ad Joyce had oce said that if ysss were to be lmed it shold be by either Eisestei or ttma. Coseqetly, whe i 1 93 3 Vsevolod Vishevsk made a defece of Joyce i a article etitled We Mst ow the West he cited Eisestei as a great Soviet artist who recogised the importace of Joyce. Vishevsky's defece leashed a cotroversy which raged til the 1934 Cogress of Soviet Writers. adek there gave his otorios report, oe sectio of which was etitled James Joyce or So cialist ealism?' It was ot hard to gess the aswer a taste r Joyce was deoced as a cravig to ee om Magetogorsk. Eisestei, however, resed to sbmit. I his lectres at the Istitte he observed or o yea ere were con aot anan oyce cetc oe, t an wa aanoe ae e eec y ae. ecae o e a o 36
n rer e re e. r e' eec. en ne n e e cnenn nerren ce. Joyce concuded Eistestei hopel etes the line commece b Blzc The min oslught on Eisenstei howeer ws to come oer his lms of the 1 920s d the issue of elism. Perhps the strngest feture of the Stliist ttck is the wy in which it hs echoed dow the yers e r e e e e re ren e n cnnecn. e n n er n. e nere re n cnnece nree ece. me e r enen' cnrcn c rcme n rnce rcrec rn m e ere ere ren e n re rn nere re e rcn r m re e. I isimo's decition of Th Gra Li pregures i eerie d uncy wy whole series of criticisms stil to come om obert Wrshow d more seriousy om Chrles Brr Christin Metz. Aisimo ee jois Wrshow i ttckig Eisestei r colectiism r mking lms without idiidul chrcters. It is strge to see how the phiistiism of the Stliist regime i the 1930s ds its belte ouble i the ited Sttes of the Cold Wr two decdes lter. elism' hs lwys bee the rege of the cosertie i the rts together with prerece r propg of comrtig rther th disturbig d. Thus Axar Nvsky, Eisestei's worst m mde durig the 1 930s uder the impct of Stinist criticism ws his most successl propgd lm. Film Chrles Brr hs written cot show the essece but it c suggest the essence by showig the substce dermed udisitegrted merely suggestie ersios of relity' re lwys the best propgd r the stats qo Mewhile howeer Eisestei ws pursuig his reserches. The domit str throughout the rest of his life ws to be the iestigtio of the sychro istio of the seses reur to the Symbolist itutio with Budelire's orrspoas, equet subject r debte i ussi i the two decdes bere the eolutio. me e n c e n e cnnen n ne nree e rne n e cmme n e cmme cr e r e cer e e n e rnen. e e rm cme e cr 'enn cme e er cmme e rre . . . Eisestei wet ee rther th Budelire by icludig tste. I his discussio of the Kbuki thetre he wrote een een n ere ccen n rn cer r een. e e eer en e ere r ere 37
d m? I h , m d h m h
Eisenstein aowed no scientic scrupes to stand in his wa; indeed b an astute reading of Pavovian reexoog he was abe to vaidate his ideas scientica to his own satisction. The was summari dismissed: d d d mm dm h d dm h d h d md , h m d h , h d h d h m kd h, m m m : I '
Aer this however clumsil it ma have been expressed the wa was open r ever ind of interpenetration and admixture of categories. Eisenstein's ritings on snaesthesia are of great erudition and considerabe interest despite their ndamental unscientic nature. For example he quotes numerous Baroque and Romantic authorities who speculated about the coour smboism of the vowels ong bere Rimbaud. He sees himsef in the tradition of Wagner and the smsr and quotes copious om the French Smboists. In particular we can detect the inuence of Ren Ghi a close iend of Y. Brusov the po et and evange of Russian Smboism and a equent and re spected contributor to Brsov's review ls. Another source r Eisenstein's
Battleship Potemin I fl 38
peculation on colour ymoim i Kandink Though h expicitly diociate hime om Kandiny' myticim and piritualim, hi general tone and the trend o hi invetigation vividly recal Kandinky' programme r he nkhuk (ntitute o Artitic Culture) Clinging a hard a he can o the anchor o eexology, ientein explain that the colour timulu act a in a conditioned reex which recal a whoe complex, in which it had once played a par , o the memory and the ene He alo nd a crum o cientic comrt in the theory o viration Another important rerer whom ientein cite i S criain, who wrote a colour core aongide the ound core r hi Th om of i Scriain alo panned a tupendou Ms with geture, colour, perme, etc ientein ued Scriain, together with Deuy, to j uti hi theory o overtonal montage and alo aw hime a the vector o Scriain' dream o a tei o the art (He doe not dicu the occult and peculiarly Ruian rand o Theoohy which underlay thi dream) The idea o thetic theatre wa one much voiced during the 1 920 ientein adopted it and went o r a to write that the cinema wa detined to ll the prophecie o dward Gordon Craig and Adolphe Appia, the great Symoit and Wagnerian theoretician o the preRevolutionary theare he ogica extenion o thi, o coure, wa hi pro duction o the li a the Bolhoi Opera in 1 940 (n deence o ientein it hould e aid that he wa not entirely dominated y Symoit and Wagnerian thought; he lo hailed Wal Diney a a mater o ynaetheia) The li according to ientein' pintaking iographer, Marie S eton, had hi aim Men, muic, light, landcape, colour and motion rought into one integra whoe y a ingle piercing emotion, y a inge theme and idea' He himel wrote o hi eort to achieve a ion e ween the element o Wagner' core and the wah o colour on te age Thi ed directly on to v h Til
Wl iss s Silly Symphony
39
issi mir
The reult o thi overwhelming Symolit reux wa that the monitic en emle gradually ecame no moe than an oganic whole and the dialectic wa reduced to the interconnection o the part At the ame time ientein ecame intereted in idea o hamony, mathematical proportion, and the golden ection a part o a each r Claicim A r ack a Th r i hi cameraman Ti recall, we reolved to get away om all trckcamerawork and to ue imple method o direct lming, with the mot evere attention to the compoition o each hot (Fo the Odea Step equence o shi mi ientein had trapped a camera to a omeraulting acoat) Thi interet in geometry wa not that o the Contructivit, derived om the machine, ut e 40
h i s f van the Terrile
4 1
Ivan the Terrile ed on inght into the nature o art ientein wa epecially nd o citing the geometry o the work o Leonardo da Vinci It eem at time a component o that oeion with cience which he wa never ale to control, reminicent almot o Ren Ghi In hi attempt to create the logarithmic tale o art there i omething akin to alchemy oerved one critic, and it i hard not to ee much o ientein later writing a an attempt to hore up, cientically and intellectually, an art increaingly preoccuied with emotional aturation, ectay, the ynchroniation o the ene, myth and primitive thought (olk image equal human knowledge, he aid, apropo o i Mio! ndeed, there omething eentally Symolit in hi whole view o the nearidentity o art and philoophy, though in hi cae philoophy wa a izarre mixture o Hegel with avlov One nal trand in ientein aethetic hould e noted hi lielong interet in caricature, in lampoon, in the groteque Thi derive in part om Meyerhold, Homann, and the eventeenthcentury rench etcher Caot The artit entein revered were Daumier, TouloueLautrec and Sharaku (the Japanee Daumier) In Mexico he added oada to thi pantheon the Dance o Death equence which wa to cloe the lm owe it provenance to oada a well a Hoann and Callot Later he ecame oeed y l Greco, aout whom he planned to write a ook Thi reect oth an interet in caricature, or at leat hy peroe, and the cinaton o the trange adopiritual atmophere o the Toledo o the nquiition, imilar to that that he elt in Mexico (Hence too hi erie o emicaricatural drawing o the Stigmata and hi admiration r Lawrence) ientein egan hi artitic career a a caricaturit on a n agittrain; h e ended i t de 42
43
! \ •1 · �
Iva the Terrile l skh isnsin n ih hkssov.
Iva the Terrie hkssov. 44
�
Brhol Brh
igning the trange, ditorted cotume r h Trril twiting the actor Cheraov out o hape till he collaped om exhaution (In more than one way h Trril return, in a dierent rm, to the idea o the 1 920 there i even the gigantic Mayaovian theme o the attle with God, trangely ditended ) It i intructive to compare ientein with Brecht hey oth tarted ou t in the ame cultural milieu, with the ame ind o orientation the inluence o Meyerhold (relayed to Brecht through icator), the interet in Oriental art, in muichall, in port; their commitment to Marxim and the Bolhevi Revolution; their Americanim, Behaviourim, hatred o Naturalim Brecht might have echoed Eientein' word h A h m dd m h h m d h h m h v hh d h hm d m m , m m v h m h, h m v h m m
here are iendhip in common hey oth ought the ame goal the eluive unity o cience with art But at the end o the 1 920 they too dierent path Brecht proteted to Tretyaov againt the idea o pathetic overtone' ; he devoted himel to attacing Wagner, to initing that the ene, a the oo had howed, mut e eary dierentiated, that the dierent component in a wor o art hould e pecied and e ept early apart Brecht tried to nd an artitic rm r rational argument; ientein repe atedly tried to cram and queeze con cept into an artitic rm he had already emiintuitively (even ectatically') ela 45
Brh pri f Dreigrochenoper
46
orated i the ed, he decided thought ad image were at oe i myth ad ier speech, abadoig ratioal argumet r aective logic' But it would be too easy simply to praise Brecht at Eisestei's expese Brecht always stayed with words, with vrbal discourse, ad was ever compelled to ce the problems of workig i a predomiatly overbal, icoic rather tha symbolic medium Scietic cocepts ca, i ct, oly be expressed withi a symbolic code Eisestei's whole orietatio, however, preveted him om pursuig the search r a symbolic laguage I s o r as he was iterested i semiology his kiship is ot so much with Saussure ad structural liguistics, as Christia Metz supposes, as with Charles Morris ad his Behaviourist semiotic Eisestei soo disowed his early experimets with odiegetic metaphor, the ecessary begiig r ay movemet towards the establishmet of paradigmatic sets, such as the Gods sequece i obr, though, as Godard has sice show i Un Fmm Mri ad L Chinois, this was ot a deaded street at all Probably too he uderesti mated the importace of the support verbal discourse ca ad must give o the soudtrack (Stragely, he was much more aware of the importace of subtitles durig the silet era) His emphasis o the emotioal impact of the ciema teded all the time to draw him away om the symbolic Paradoxically, it was his covictio of the scietic basis of art which i the ed led him ito a llscale retreat om the expressio of scietic cocepts through lm His acceptace of Pavlovia reexology was uquestioig ad rigid (ile he was i the ited States he eve felt moved to cotrast iTiTi u vourably with Pavlov's laboratorytraied dogs) At a epistemological level, he was ever able to resolve clearly what he iteded by the Marsm to which he was fervetly committed It fell ito two urelated shells, ad lacked a bidig core O the oe had was a scietistic' materialism, which sought physiological ex plaatios r all huma activity. O the other had, there was a purely rmal ad abstract cocept of the Hegelia dialectic, mechaically applied ad evetu ally degeeratig ito a empty stereotype Eisestei liked to compare himself with Leoardo da Vici, as a great artist who saw his art as scietic ad became, i time, more iterested i aesthetic theory tha i art itself (He eve compared his ilure to complete Q Viv Mxio! with the catastrophe of the Srza Moumet) His aspiratios were greater tha his achievemet Nevertheless, he was oe of the few writers o aes thetics i this cetury to show ay awareess of the cataclysmic reassessmet of aesthetics which must take place. He was a origial, ureletig, ad compre hesive thiker The ct that he fell short of his ow gigatic appreciatio of his worth should ot lead us to rget that he towers above his cotemporaries He still has a eormous amout to teach us
7
i-TiTi s.
48
49
2 The Auteur Theory
The polii s ars the auteur theory, as Andrew Sarris calls it was developed by the loosely knit group of critics who wrote r Cahirs Cima and made it the leading lm magazine in the world. It sprang om the conviction that the American cinema was worth studying in depth, that masterpieces were made not only by a small upper crust of directors, the cultured gilt on the commercial gingerbread, but by a whole range of authors, whose work had previously been dismissed and consigned to oblivion. There were special conditions in Paris which made his conviction possible. Firstly, there was the ct that American lms were banned om France under the Vichy government and the German Occupation. Consequently, when they reappeaed aer the Liberation they came with a rce and an emotional impact which was necessarily missing in the AngloSaxon countries themselves. And, secondly, there was a thriving cinub movement, due i part to the close connections there had always been in France between the cinema and the intelligentsia witness te example of Jean Cocteau or Adr Malraux. Connected with this cinub movement was the magnicent Paris Cimah, the work of Henri Langlois, a great auteur, as JeanLuc Godard described him. The policy of the Cimah was to show the maximum number of lms, to plough back the production of the past in order to pro duce the culture in which the cinema of the ture could thrive. It gave French iphils an unmatched perception of the historical dimensions of Hollwood and he careers of individual directors. The auteur theory gre' up rather haphazardly; it was never elaborated in programmatic terms, in a manifesto or collective statement. As a result, it could be interpreted and applied on raher broad lines; dierent critics developed somewha dierent methods within a loose amework of common attitudes. This looseness and difseness of the theory has allowed agrant misunderstandings to take root, par ticularly among critics in Britain and the nited States. Ignorance has been compounded by a vein of hostility to reign ideas and a taste r travesty and caricature. However, the uitlness of the auteur approach has been such that it has made headway even on the most unvourable terrain. A straw poll of British critics, conducted in conjunction with a Don Siegel etrospective at the National Film Theatre, revealed that, among American directors most admired, a group consisting of Budd Boetticher, Samuel Fuller and Howard Hawks ran immediately behind Ford, Hitchcock and Welles, who topped the poll, but ahead of Billy Wilder, Josef von Sternberg and Preston Sturges. Of course, some individual directors have always been recognised as outstand ing Charles Chaplin, John Ford, Orson Welles. The auteur theory does not limit 50
ri Scarlet Street rih iho Vertigo
itel to acclaiming the director a the main author o a m t implie an oper ation o decipherment; it reveal author where none had een een ere or year, the mode o an author in the cinema wa that o the uropean director, with open artitic apiration and ll control over hi lm Thi mode til linger on; it lie ehind the exitentia ditinction etween art lm and popular lm Director who uit their reputation in urope were dimied aer they croed the Atlantic, reduced to anonymity American Hitchcock wa contrated unvouray with nglih Hitchcock, American Renoir with rench Renoir, American ritz Lang with German ritz Lang The auteur theory ha ed to the revaluation o the econd, Holwood career o thee and other uropean director; without it, materpiece uch a r r or rio would never have een perceived Converely, the auteur theory ha een ceptical when oered an American director whoe alvation ha een exile to urope t i dicult now to argue that r r ha ever een excelled y Jule Dain or that Joeph Loey' later work i markedly uperior to, ay, h ror n time, owing to the diuene o the origina theory, two main chool o auteur critic grew up thoe who inited on revealing a core o meaning, o thematic moti, and thoe who treed tye and mi There i an im portant ditincion here, which hall return to later The work o the aueur ha a emantic dimenion, it i not purely rmal; the work o the mr on the other hand, doe not go eyond the realm o perrmance, o tranpoing into the pecial compex o cinematic code and channe a preexiting text a cenario, a ook or a play A we hall ee, the meaning o the lm o an auteur i contructed oriori; the meaning emantic, rather than tylitic or expre ive o the lm o a mr exit riori n concrete cae, o coure, hi ditinction i not alway cearcut There i controvery over whether ome director houd e een a auteur or mr . or example, though it i 51
Js ssis Brute Force
Josph osys he rowler
52
possible to make ituitive ascriptios there have bee o really persuasive ac couts as yet of aoul Walsh or William Wyler as auteurs, to take two very dier et directors. Opiios might dier about Do Siegel or George Cukor. Because of the diculty of xig the distictio i these cocrete cases, it ha oe be come blurred; ideed, some Frech critics have teded to value the metter en scne above the auteur. MacMahoism sprag up, with its cult of Walsh, Lag, Losey ad Premiger, its sciatio with violece ad its otorious text Charlto Hesto is a axiom of the ciema at Adr Bazi called aethetic cults of persoality' bega o be rmed. Mior directors were acclaimed befe they had, i ay real ese, bee idetied ad deed. Yet the auteur theory has survived despite all the halluciatig critical extrava gazas which it has thered. It has survived because it is idispesable. Geoy NowellSmith has summed up the auteur theory a it is ormally preseted today e eenta oroa o te teor a t a ee eeoe te ovey tat te deg aatet o an auto' o ae ot eear toe c ae ot ea aaret. e oe o ct t eoe to uoe end te uea otat o ect ad teatet a a coe o a a oe re conte ot. he atte e ee ot . at gve an ator' wo t atar ttre, o eng t tera a dtgug oe od o o o aote. It is this structural approach as NowellSmith calls it, which is idispesable r the critic. The test case r the auteur theory is provided by the work of Howard Hawks. y Hawks, rather tha, say, Frak Borzage or g idor? Firstly, Hawks is a di rector who has worked r years withi the Hollwood system. His rst lm, oad to Glory, was made i 1926. Yet throughout his log career he has oly oce received geeral critical acclaim, r his wartime lm, Sergeant York, which closer ispectio reveals to be eccetric ad atypical of the mai corps of Hawks's lms. Secodly, Hawks has worked i almost every gere. He has made Westers (io Bvo), gagsters (Scarface), war lms (Air Force), thrillers ( The Big Sleep), sciece ctio ( The Thing om Another World), musicals ( Gentlemen Prefer Blondes), comedies (Bringing p Baby), eve a Biblical epic (Land of the Phaaohs) Yet these lm (except perhaps Land of the Pharaohs, which he himself was ot happy about) exhibit the same thematic preoccupatios, the same recurrig motifs ad icidets, the same visual tyle ad tempo. I the same way that olad Barthes costructed a species of homo rcinians, the critic ca costruct a homo hawk sians, the protagoist of Hawksia values i the problematic Hawksia world. Hawks achieved thi by reducig the geres to two basic types the adveture drama ad the crazy comedy. hee two types express iverse views of the world, the positive ad egative poles of the Hawksia visio. Hawks stads opposed, o the oe had, to Joh Ford ad, o the other had, to Budd Boetticher. All these directors are cocered with the problem of heroism. For the hero, as a idivid ual, death is a absolute limit which caot be trasceded it reder the life which preceded it meaigless, absurd. How the ca there be ay meaigl i dividual actio durig life? How ca idividual actio have ay value be heroic 53
ihrs he Bullghter and the Lady
i it cannot have trancendent value, ecaue o the aolutely devaluing limit o · death John Ford nd the anwer to thi quetion y placing and ituating the individual within ociety and within hitory, pecically within American hitory Ford nd trancendent value in the hitoric vocation o America a a nation, to ring civiliation to a avage land, the garden to the wilderne At the ame time, Ford alo ee thee value themelve a prolematic; he egin to quetion the movement o American hitory itel Boetticher, on the contrary, init on a radical individualim am not intereted in making lm aout ma eling am r the individual' He lo ok r value in the encounter with death itel the underlying metaphor i alway that o the ullghter in the arena he hero enter a group o companion, ut there i no poiility o group olidarity Boetticher' hero act y diolving group and collectivitie o any kind into their contituent individual, o that he conont each peron ce to ce; the lm develop, in Andrew Sarri' word, into oating poker game, where every character take turn at lung aout hi hand until the nal howdown' Hawk, unlike Boetticher, eek trancendent value eyond the individual, in olidarity with other But, unlie Ford, he doe not give hi heroe any hitorical dimenion, any detiny in time For Hawk the highet human emotion i the camaraderie o the excluive, el ucient, allmale group Hawk' heroe are cattlemen, marlinhermen, racingdriver, pilot, iggame hunter, haituated to danger and living apart om ociety, actualy cut o om it phyically y dene ret, ea, now or deert heir aerodrome are gound; the radio ha cracked up; the next mailco ach or 54
Only Angel have Wing h mm si-s packetoat doe not leave r a week The lite group trictly preerve it excluivity t i neceary to pa a tet o aility and courage to win admittance The group' only internal tenion come when one memer let the other down (the drunk deputy in i the panicky piot in s Wis and mut redeem himel y ome act o exceptional ravery or occaionally when too much individualim' threaten to dirupt the cloeknit circle (the rivalry etween dri ver in i 7000 the ghter pilot among the omer crew in i . The group' ecurity i the rt commandment You get a tunt team in acroatic in the air i one o them i no good then they're all in troule omeone loe hi nerve catching animal then the whole unch can e in troule' The group mem er are ound together y ritual (in i! lood i exchanged y tranion) and expre themelve univocally in communal ingong There i a mou example o thi in i n the camaraderie o the pilot tretche even aco the enemy line a captured German ace i immediately draed into the group and join in the ingong; in ! hunter o dierent nationality and in dierent place join together in a ong over an intercom radio ytem Hawk' heroe pride themelve on their proeionalim They ak How good i he He'd etter e good' They expect no praie r doing their jo well ndeed none i given except The oy did all right en they die they leave ehind them only the mot meagre peronal elonging perhap a handl o medal Hawk himel ha ummed up thi deolate and arren view o li It jt t t O Ages Wgs i, t : H jt t W, tt t t tt k
55
John os he Searcher fnl svi
eoe o e ut ave to a oe a't ood eou, ad 'm etter ta oe, o o aead ad do t' d te nd out te're ot a etter ta oe, ut ten t' too ate, ou ee In Ford lm, death i celerated y neral ervice, an impromptu prayer, a ew tave oShall we gather at the river' it i inerted into an ongoing ytem o ritual intitution along with the edding, the dance, the parade But r Hawk it i enough that the routine o the group' lie goe on, a routie whoe only relieving eature are danger' i! and n Danger give exitence pungency very time you get real action, then you have danger And the uetion, "Are you living or not living i proaly the igget drama e have' hi nihilim, in which living' mean no more than eing in danger o loing your lie danger entered into uite gratuitouly i augmented y the Hakian concept o having n' he word n' crop u contantly in Hawk' interview and cript It mak hi depair en one o Hawk' lite i aked, uually y a woman, why he rik hi li, he replie No reaon I can think o make any ene I gue we're jut craz' Or Feather, ardonically, to Colorado in io Bvo You haven't even the excue I have We're all ol' By crazy' Hak doe not mean pychopatic none o hi character are like Turkey in eckinpah' l ompnions or Billy the Kid in enn' Th -n n Nor i there the ene o the aurdity o lie which we ometime nd in Boetticher' lm death, a we have een, i r Hawk imply a routine occurrence, not a osi a in Th Tll T (retty oon that well' going to e chockalock') or Th is n ll of s imon For Hawk crazine' implie dierence, a ene o apartne om the ordinary, everyday, ocial orld At the ame time, Hawk ee the ordinary world a eing crazy' in a much more ndamental ene, ecaue devoid o any meaning or 56
The Rie and a o Leg iamond qi
Land o the haraoh i vaue mean crazy reaction dont think theyre crazy think theyre normal ut according to ad habit weve en into they eemed crazy ich i the norma which the anorma? Hawk recognie inchoatey that to mot peope hi heroe r om emodying rationa vaue are ony a dwinding and o eccentric Hawk kind o men have no pace in the word The Hawkian heroe who excude other om their own ite group are themeve excuded om ociety exied to the Aican buh or to the Arctic Outider other peope in genera a re perceived y the group a an undierenti ated crowd Their roe i to gape at the deed o the heroe whom at the ame 57
H Gr Frday h ormn insrn slsmn tme, they hate The crowd aeme to watch the howdown n io ro to ee the car pin o the track in h ro ors The gu etween the outider and the heroe trancend among the ite witne n rol or Nee n l oro. Mot dehumaned o a the crowd in n of h hrohs em ployed in uildng the yramid Orginay the lm wa to have een aout Chinee laourer uiding a magnicent air ed' r the American army, ut the victory o the Chnee Revoluton rced Hawk to change h plan (Then I thought o the uilding o the yramid; I thought it wa the ame knd o tory') But the preence o the crowd, o externa ocety, i a contant covert threat to the Hawkan ite, who retalate y havng n' In the crazy comedie ordnary citizen are turned nto comc utt, ampooned and tormented the mot oviou target i the inurance aeman in is irl riy Oen Hawk' revenge ecome grim and macare In rn or it i n' to hoot German ike turey'; n ir or it i n' to ow up the Japanee eet In io o the geigntng o the admen wa very nny' It i at thee moment that the ite turn agant the word outide and take the opportunity to e ruta and detructive Bede the covert preure o the crowd outde, there ao an overt rce which threaten woman Man i woman' prey' Women are admitted to the mae group ony aer much dquiet and a ong ritua courthip, phaed round the oring, ighting and exchange o cgarette, during which they prove themeve worthy o entry Oen they perrm mnor eat o vaour ven then though they are never reay memer A typica dialogue um up their poition
W: , t ? M : W: H I k ? M: t tk 58
The udercurret of homosexualit i Hawks's lms is ever crstallised, though i Th Big Sky, r example, it rus ver close to the surce. d he himself described A Girl in Evry Pr as reall a love stor betwee two me'. For Hwks me are euals, withi the group at least, whereas there is a clear ideticatio be twee wome ad the aimal world, most explicit i Bringing Up Baby Gnlmn Prfr Blns ad Haari! Ma must strive to maitai his master . It is also worth otig that, i Hawks's adveture dramas ad eve i ma of his comedies, there is o married life. Oe the heroes were married or at least itimatel committed, to a woma at some time i the distat past but have suered a uspecied trauma, with the result that the have bee suspicious of wome ever sice. Their attitude is Oce bitte, twice sh'. This s i cotrast to the lms of Ford, which almost alwas iclude domestic scees. Woma is ot a threat to Ford's heroes; she lls ito her allotted social place as wife ad mother, brigig up the childre, cookig, sewig, a life of service, drudger ad subordiatio. She is repaid r this b beig setimetalised. Bo etticher, o the other had, has o obvious place r wome at all; the are phatoms, who provoke actio, are pretexts r male modes of coduct, but have o authetic sigicace i themselves. I herself, the woma has ot the slightest importace.' Hawks sees the allmale commuit as a ultimate; obviousl it is ver retrograde. His Sparta heroes are, i ct, cruell stuted. Hawks would be a lesser director if he was uaected b this, if his adveture dramas were the sum total of his work. His real claim as a author lies i the presece, together with the dramas, of their iverse, the craz comedies. The are the agoised exposure of the uderlig tesios of the heroic dramas. There are two pricipal themes, zoes of tesio. The rst is the theme of regressio of regressio to childhood, itilism, as i Mnky Bsinss, or regressio to savager witess the repeated scee of the adult about to be scalped b paited childre, i Mnky Bsinss ad i Th ansm f Chi With brilliat isight, obi Wood has show how Sarfa should be categorised amog the comedies rather tha the dramas Camote is perceived as savage, childlike, subhuma. The secod pricipal comed theme is that of sex reversal ad role reversal. I Was a Mal War Bri is the most extreme example. Ma of Hawks's comedies are cetred roud domieer ig wome ad timid, pliable me Bringing Up Baby ad Mans Favri Spr? r example. There are oe scees of male sexual humiliatio, such as the trousers beg pulled o the hapless private ee i Gnlmn Prfr Blns. I the same lm the Olmpic team of athletes are reduced to passive objects i a extraordiar Jae ussell sog umber; biggame hutig is lampooed, like shig i Mans Favri Spr? the theme of itilism crops up agai The child was the most mature oe o board the ship, ad I thik he was a lot of ' ereas the dramas show the master of ma over atre, over woma, over the aimal ad childish, the comedies show his humiliatio, his regressio. The heroes become victims; societ, istead of beig excluded ad despised, breaks i with ir ruptios of mostrous rce. It could well be argued that Hawks's outlook, the alterative world which he costructs i the ciema, the Hawksia heterocosm, is ot oe imbued with particular itellectual subtlet or sophisticatio. This does ot detract om its rce. Hawks rst attracted attetio because he was regarded ael as a actio director. Later, the thematic cotet which I have outlied was 59
Womn n h niml worl: Hatari n oosi Gentlemen reer Blonde
detected and revealed Beyond te tyleme emanteme were ud to exit; te lm were acored in an ojective tratum o meaning a plerematic tratum a te Dani linguit Hjemlev would put it Tu te tylitic exreivene o Hawk' lm wa own to e not purely contingent ut grounded in ignicance Someting rter eed to e aid aout te teoretical ai o te kind o cematic expoition o Hawk' work wic I ave outlined Te tructural ap proac' wic underlie it te denition o a core o repeated moti a evi dent anitie wit metod wic ave een developed r te tudy o klore and mytology In te work o Olrik and oter it wa noted tat in dierent lktale te ame moti reappeared time and time again It ecame poile to uild up a lexicon o tee moti ventualy ropp owed ow a wole cycle o Ruian iry tale could e analyed into variation o a very limited et o aic moti (or move a e called tem) Underlying te dierent individual tale wa an arcitale o wic tey were all variant One important point need to e made aout ti type o tructural analyi Tere i a danger a LviStrau a pointed out tat y imply noting and mapping reemance all te text wic are tudied (weter Ruian iry tale or American movie) will e reduced to one atract ad impoveried Tere mut e a momen t o yntei a well a a moment o analyi oterwie te metod i ormalit rater tan truly Structuralit Structurait criticim cannot ret at te perception o reemlace or repetition (redundancie in ct) ut mut alo com preed a ytem o dierence and oppoition In ti way text can e tudied not only in teir univerality (wat tey all ave in common) ut alo in teir ingularity (wat dierentiate tem om eac oter) Ti mean o coure 60
that the test o a stuctua aaysis ies ot i the othodox cao o a directo's wok, whee esemaces are custeed, ut i ms which at st sight may seem eccetricities I the ms o Howard Hawks a systematic seies o oppositios ca e see vey ear the surce, i the contast etwee the advetue damas ad the crazy comedies I we take the advetue damas aoe it woud seem that Hawks's wok is accid, ackig i dyamism; it is oy whe we consider the cazy comedies that it ecomes ich, egis to ement: aogside evey dramatic heo we are awae o a phatom, stipped o mastey, humiliated, iveted With other diectos, the system o oppositios is much more compex: istead o there eig two oad strata o ms thee ae a whoe seies o shiig vaiatios I these cases, we eed to aayse te oles o the protagoists themseves, rather tha simpy the worlds i which they operate The protagoists o iy taes o myths, as Lvi 61
Scace Camo nte with mo nkey
Genemen e Bonde ane Russell and the assive Olympic team
62
M Drig Cemetie Erp h rrs 63
he Searcher Eh Ers rrs o h ilrss. 64
65
Sruss hs ed u c be dssled budles f derel elemes rs f ses. Thus he derece bewee he rce d he gsegrl c be reduced w mc rs: e url mle ersus femle d he her culurl hgh ersus lw. We c rceed wh he sme kd f er he sudy f lms hugh s we shll see we shll d hem mre cmlex h ry les I s sruce r exmle csder hree lms f Jh Frd d cmre her heres: Wy Er My Darig Cmi, Eh Edwrds Th Sarchrs d Tm Dh Th Ma Sh Libry Vaac They ll c wh he recgsble Frd wrld gered by se f ss bu her ci wh h wrld re ery dere. The rele rs f ses erl; dfre rs re regruded dere mes. The ms rele re grde ersus wlderess lughshre ersus sbre seler ersus md Eure ersus Id clsed ersus sge bk ersus gu mrred ersus umrred Es ersus Wes. These mes c e be brke dw rher. The Es r sce c be deed eher s Bs r Wshg d Th Las Hrrah, Bs self s brke dw he des f Irsh mmgrs ersus Plymuh Club hemseles budles f such derel elemes s Celc ersus AglSx r ersus rch Chlc ersus Pres Demcr ersus eublc d s . A rs sgh mgh seem h he ss lsed be erl he exe h hey becme rcclly syymus bu hs s by mes he cse. As we shll see r f he deelme f Frd's creer hs bee he sh m dey bewee clsed ersus sge d Eure ersus Id her ser d l reersl s h Chy Am s he Eures wh re sge he cms wh re heres. The mser my Frd's lms s h bewee he wlderess d he grde. As Hery Nsh Smh hs demsred hs mgserl bk Virgi La, he crs bewee he mge f Amerc s deser d s grde s e whch hs dmed Amerc hugh d lerure recurrg culess els rcs lcl seeches d mgze sres. I Frd's lms s crysllsed umber f srkg mges. Th Ma Sh Libry Vaac, r sce cs he mge f he ccus rse whch ecsules he my bewee deser d grde whch erdes he whle lm. Cmre wh hs he mus scee My Darig Cmi, er Wy Er hs ge he brber (wh clses he ukem) where he sce f heysuckle s wce remrked u: rcl erme culurl rher h url. Ths mme mrks he urg Wy Er's rs m wderg cwby mdc s ge be ersl reege umrred mrred m seled clsed he sher wh dmsers he lw. Er My Darig Cmi, s srucurlly he ms smle f he hree rgss I he meed: hs rgress s ucmlced ssge m ure culure m he wlderess le he ps he grde ced he ure. Eh Edwrds Th Sarchrs, s mre cmplex. He mus be deed erms f s ersus ure r wlderess ersus grde cmuded hmself bu rel w her rgss: Scr he Id chef d he mly f hmeseders. Eh Edwrds ulke Er rems md hrughu he lm. A he sr he rdes m he deser eer he lghuse; he 66
ed, wih perfec symmery, he leaves he house agai o reur o he deser, o vagracy. I may respecs, he is similar o Scar; he is a waderer, a savage, ou side he aw he scalps his eemy. Bu, ike he homeseaders, of course, he is a Europea, he moral e of he Idia Thus Edwards is ambiguous; he aio mies ivade he persoaliy of he proagois himsef. The opposiios ear Edwards i wo; he is a ragic hero. is compaio, Mari Pawley, however, is able o resolve he dualiy; r him, he period of omadism is oly a episode, which has meaig as he resiuio of he mily, a ecessary lik bewe his od home ad his ew home. Eha Edwards's waderig is, like ha of may oher Ford proagoiss, a ques, a search. A umber of Ford lms are bui roud he heme of he ques r he Promised Lad, a America reeacme of he bibica Exodus, he jourey hrough he deser o he lad of milk ad hoey, he New Jerusalem. This heme is buil o he combiaio o f he wo pairs wideress versus garde ad omad versus seer; he rs pair precedes he secod i ime. Thus, i Wagonmaer, he Mormos cross he deser i search of heir ure home; i o Green Wa My Valley ad The Informer, he proagoiss wa o cross he Alaic o a ure home i he ied Saes. Bu, durig Ford's career, he siuaio of home is re versed i ime. I Cheyenne Amn he Idias jourey i search of he home hey oce had i he pas; i The Qie Man, he America Sea Thoro reurs o his acesra home i Irelad. Eha Edwards's jourey is a kid of parody of his heme his objec is o cosrucive, o ud a home, bu desrucive, o d ad scalp Scar. Neverheless, he weigh of he lm remais orieed o he ure Scar has bured dow he home of he selers, bu i is replaced ad we are co de ha he homeseader's wife, Mrs Jorgese, is righ whe she says Some day his coury's goig o be a e pace o ive' The wideress wil, i he ed, be ured io a garde. The Man o Sho Liber Valance has may similariies wih The Searcher We may oe hree he wilderess becomes a garde his is made quie explici, r Seaor Soddar has wrug om Washigo he ds ecessary o buid a dam which will irrigae he deser ad brig rea roses, o cacus roses; Tom Doiph shoos Libery Valace as Eha Edwards scalped Scar; a loghome is bured o he groud. Bu he diereces are equaly clear he loghome is bured aer he deah of Libery Valace; i is desroyed by Doipho himself; i is his ow home. The burig marks he realisaio ha he will ever eer he Promised Lad, ha o him i meas ohig; ha he has doomed himsef o be a creaure of he pas, isigica i he world of he ure. By shooig Libery Valace he has desroyed he oy word i which he himsef ca exis, he world of he gu raher ha he book; i is as hough Eha Edwards had perceived ha by scalpig Scar, he was i reaiy commiig suicide I migh be meioed oo ha, i The Man o Sho Libery Valance, he woma who oves Doiph mar ries Seaor Soddar. Doiph whe he desroys his oghouse (his as words bere doig so are ome, swee home !') also desroys he possibiiy of marriage. The hemes of The Man o Sho Libery Valance ca be expressed i aoher way. asom Soddar represes raioalegal auhoriy, Tom Doiph repre ses charismaic auhoriy. Doipho abados his charisma ad cedes i, uder wha amous o se preeces, o Soddar. I his way charismaic ad 67
The Man ho Shot Lierty Valance h hn.
The Man o Shot Lierty Valance 68
Donovan' Ree h lysis.
Cheyenne Autumn h is. 69
ratioaega authority are combied the perso of Stoddart ad stabity thus assured. I Th Sarhrs this trasfer does ot take pace; the two kids of auth ority remai separated. I My Darling Clmnin they are combied aturay i Wyatt Earp, without ay trasfer beig ecessary. I may of Ford's ate ms Th Qi Man, Chynn Amn, Donovans f the acct is paced o traditioa authority. The isad of Aiakaowa, i Donovans a kid of Vahaa r the homeess heroes of Man o Sho Libry Valan, is actuay a moarchy, though compete with the Bosto gr, woode church ad saoo, made miar by My Darling Clmnin I ct, the character of Chhuahua, Doc Hoday's gr i My Darling Clmnin, is spit ito two Miss Laeur ad Leai, the atie pricess. Oe represets the saoo etertaier, the other the o America i opposito to the respectabe Bostoas, Ameia Sarah Dedham ad Cemetie Carter. I a broad sese, this is a part of a geera moemet whch ca be detected i Ford's work to equate the Irish, Idias ad Poyesias as tra ditioa commuities, set i the past, couterposed to the march rward to the America ture, as it has tured out reaty, but assimilatig the aues of the America ture as it was oce dreamed. It woud be possibe, I hae o doubt, to eaborate o Ford's career, as deed by pairs of cotrasts ad simiarites, i ery great detai, though as aways with m criticism the impossibity of quotatio is a seere hadicap. My ow iew is that Ford's work is much richer tha that of Hawks ad that ths s reeaed by a structura aayss; t s the rchess of the shiig reatos betwee atiomies i Ford's work that makes hm a great artst, beyod beig smpy a udoubted auteur Moreoer, the auteur theory eabes us to reea a whoe compex of meaig ms such as Donovans which a recet mography sums up as just a coupe of Nay me who hae retred to a S outh Sea isad ow sped most of their time rasig he'. Simiary, it throws a competey ew ight o a m ike Wings of Eagls, which reoes, ike Th Sarhrs, roud the agracyersus home atiomy, with the dierece that whe the hero does come home, aer yig roud the word, he trips oer a chid's toy, s dow the stairs ad is com petey paraysed so that he caot moe at a, ot ee his toes. Ths is the macabre rio a absrm of the setted Perhaps it woud be true to say that it is the esser auteurs who ca be deed, as NoweSmith put it, by a core of basic motifs which remai costat, without ariatio. The great directors must be deed terms of shiig reatios, i their siguari as we as ther urmity eoir oce remarked that a director speds his whoe ife makg oe m; this m, which it is the task of the critic to costruct, cosists ot oy of the typica features of its ariats, which are merey its redudacies, but of the prcipe of ariatio whch goers it, that is its eso teric structure, which ca oy maifest itsef or seep to the surce i Li Strauss's phrase, through the repetitio process'. Thus eoir's m' is reaity a kd of permutatio group, the two ariats paced at the r eds beig i a symmetrica, though erted, reatoship to each other'. I practice, we w ot d perfect symmetry, though as we hae see, i the case of Ford, some atio mies are competey reersed. Istead, there wi be a kd of torsio withi the permuatio group, with the matrix, a kd of exporatio of certa possibii ties, i whch some atiomes are regrouded, discarded or ee erted, 70
wheres others remi stble d costt The importt thig to stress, however, is tht it is oly the lysis of the whole rps which permits the momet of sythesis whe the critic returs to the idividul lm. Of course, the director does ot hve ll cotrol over his work; this eplis why the uteur theory ivolves kid of deciphermet, decryptmet. A gret my tures of the lms lysed hve to be dismissed s idecipherble becuse of oise om the producer, the cmerm or eve the ctors. This co cept of oise eeds rther elbortio. It is oe sid tht lm is the result of multiplicity of ctors, the sum totl of umber of dieret cotributios. The cotributio of the director the directoril ctor s it were is oly oe of these, though perhps the oe which crries the most weight. I do ot eed to emphsise tht this view is quite the cotrry of the uteur theory d hs othig i commo with it t ll. t the uteur theory does is to tke group of lms the work of oe director d lyse their structure. Everythig irrelevt to this, everhig opertiet, is cosidered logiclly secodry, cotiget, to be discrded. Of course, it is possible to pproch lms by studyig some other fe ture; by eort of criticl scesis we could see lms, s Sterberg sometimes urged, s bstrct lightshow or s histrioic fests. Sometimes these seprte tets those of the cmerm or the ctors my rce themselves ito promiece so tht the lm becomes idecipherble plimpsest. This does ot me, of course, tht it ceses to eist or to swy us or plese us or itrigue us; it simply mes tht it is iccessible to criticism. We c merely record our mometry d subjective impressios. Myths, s LviStruss hs poited out, est idepedetly of style, the syt of the setece or musicl soud, euphoy or ccophoy. The myth ctios o especilly high level where meig succeeds prcticlly i tkig o" om the liguistic groud o which it keeps rollig. Mas mans, the sme is true of the uteur lm. Whe mythicl schem is trsmitted om oe popultio to other, d there eist diereces of lguge, socil orgistio or wy of life which mke the myth dicult to commuicte, it begis to become impoverished d cosed. The sme kd of impoverishmet d cosio tkes plce i the lm studio, where diculties of commuictio boud. But oe the less the lm c usully be discered, eve if it ws quicke mde i rtight without the ctors or the crews tht the director might hve liked, with itrusive producer d eve, perhps, cesors scissors cuttig wy vitl sequeces. It is s though lm is musicl compositio rther th musicl perrmce, lthough, wheres musicl compositio ests a prr (like scerio) , uteur lm is costructed a pserr Imgie the situtio if the critic hd to costruct musicl compositio om umber of gmetry, distorted versios of it, ll with improvised pssges or pssges missig. The distictio betwee compositio d perrmce is vitl to esthetics. The score, or tet, is costt d durble; the perrmce is occsiol d trsiet. The score is uique, itegrlly itself; the perrmce is prticulr mog umber of vrits. The score, i music, cosists prtly of messge to be trslted om oe chel to other (om the strem of ik to the strem of ir) d prtly of set of istructios. I some moder scores, by Lmote Youg or George Brecht, there re oly istructios; others, by Corelius Crdew, 71
r stace, are lterary texts, whch have to be traslated betwee codes (verbal ad muscal) as well as betwee chaels. But the prcple remas the same. Both messages ad structos must ecessarly refer bak to a commo cde, so that they are tellgble to the perrmer. The perrmace tsef, however, s ot coded; hece ts ugeeralsed partcuarty. The dstctve marks of a perrm ace, lke those of somebody's accet or toe of voce, are ultatve varats. A coded tex cossts of dscrete uts; a perrmace s cotuous, graded rather tha coded. It works more lke a aalog computer tha a dgtal oe; t s smar to a clock rather tha a caledar, a slderue rather tha a abacus. The tellgblty of a perrmace of a pece of mus s of a deret kd to the tellgblty of a score. ere we coot the dstcto made by Galvao della olpe, referred to elsewhere this bo ok, betwee the realm whch jr crtcsm s possble ad the realm whch crtcsm ca oly be fa, the kgdom of more or less as Ncholas uwet has caled t hs study of the semology of musc. Lgusts have oe strve to restrct ther eld of study to the coded aspects of texts ad to expel graded features, such as accets, gruts, rasps, chuckes, wals ad so o. Chares ockett, r exampe, has wrtte that te een e nustc essas . . . sws a ntnus se nas, ans t se ent n n n t n a sa s, ore u, r st, ne n ewen t n et t te nness aatn. . . . n ne . . w n ntnsse n trasts n te nt at ae s s aa, e te anuae ( nt utr. Other lgusts have cotested ths epstemologcal ascetcsm. Thomas A. Sebeok, r stace, has argued agast ockett ad others, ad demaded a radcal rethkg of the relatoshp betwee coded ad graded features of laguage. s ow work zoo lgustcs, commucato amog amals, has led hm to the cocluso that dscrete uts caot be absolutely separated om ther embed dg medum'; f lgusts expel cotuous peomea om ther eld of study they caot the accout, r stace, r lgustc chage. Smlar coclusos coud be reahed by cosderg the relaos betwee composto ad perrmace. There s o ubrdged abyss betwee the two. Patg provdes a partcuary terestg example. At oe tme, durg the eassace ad Maerst perods, may patgs were taly composed ad desged by a coographc programmer, expert mythology or bblca studes, ad the executed by the pater. Some of these programmes have survved. Thus, r example, the marvellous Farese Palace at Caprarola was decorated through out accordg to a scheme elaborated by three humast scholars, Abale Caro, Oophro Pavo ad Fulvo Ors. The sheme was extremely detaed. For he celg of the study, the Staza della Soltude, Caro outled the llowg rogramme, a letter to Pavo
us ne te ar tes t w sw ste stas a n te de ts wu rrsnt st , tn 72
te e n te wn rer, t u te te, t n te tt, t ere, t rn, n ter t n ntn re, w wu e ut te eert t erent e n wu n eet te ee t re te evne trne, wn te eert n ne e te ntn n te ee n te ter n te te ture, wu w, ntrt, te tue te n and so on A letter also survives om Caro to Taddeo Zuccaro, the painter Evidently, this nd of iconographic programming has its similarities with a scenario Gradually, however, the painter emancipated himself om the iconographic programmer We can see the beginnings of this, indeed, even in the case of Caprarola; Caro complained to Panvinio that either the programme must be adapted to the disposition of the painter, or his isposition to your subjects, and since it is obvious that he has resed to adapt himself to you, we must, perrce, aapt ourselves to him to avoid disorder and consion That was in 1575. Fourteen years later, in 1 589, the sculptor Giambologna proved even more headstrong: he sent a bronze to his patron which, he remarked, might represent the Rape of Helen, or perhaps of Proserpine, or even one of the Sabines According to a contemporary he made sculptures solely to show his excellence in art and without having any subject in mind This was unusul t the time Most painters submitted to some kin of iconographical progrmming r mny years aer Giambologna made his break r eedom During the seventeenth century, it was still widely felt that verbal lan guage and Alciati's syntax of symbols' were mutully translatable Shaesbury, as lte s 1712, was programming a complicated allegrical drught or tablature' of the Judgeent of Hercules This was to be pinted by Paulo de Mtthaeis, but it was ade perctly clear that he ws to be the subordinate partner in the enterprise Shesbury cme own clearly on the side of design and repeatedly diminished the imortance of colouring, which he regrded as lse relish, which is governed rather by what immediately stres the sense, thn by what consequentially and by reection pleases the mind, nd satises the thought and reason' Painting, as such, gve no more pleasure than the rich stus an coloured sis worn by our ldies Elsewhere he wrote that: te nter utenu nter en y wrn rt wtn ere te ery ere e t wr rt e r, n, rret, e, ntrt, unte, e, te, t, nr, e, rene et, r e en n tre Shaesbury was trying to hold back tide much too strong r him Painting suc cumbe to te e ne u t w n te nrnt te rt wu reue everytn nt e e, te e n yu e ut wy e n nt w ren n rut w ree t e, e y ny, nen te r, er t, ver er n reet t Shaesbury's platonising nd allegorising were swept way by the ll oo of Romanticism 73
Yet even uring the nineteenth entury we an stil see traes o the o attitues The PreRaphaelites worke om extremey etaile programmes; even Courbet painte what he ale a real alegory' Gauguin programme his paintings but aoring to a system eetively opaque to anyboy but himsef An, at the beginning o this entury, Mare Duhamp rebelle against what he ale retina' painting an the valiation o the painter's touh la patte, his paw' The Large Glass was base upon the ompiate notes an iagrams whih Duhamp later publishe in the Green Box It ha to be planne an rawn as an arhitet woul o it' In a simiar spirit, Lsz MoholyNagy proue paintings by telephone, itating instrutions about the use o graph paper an stanarise oours Thus the wheel ame ll irle The painter, aer the ong an suessl struggle to emanipate himsel om the ionographer, reate against the outome an strove to turn himsel into a esigner in his own right One imension o the history o painting lies in this shiing interation between omposition an perrmane However, it is not only in painting that the perrmer has mae eorts to eman ipate himsel om the esigner Even in musi, whih seems the most stabe art in this respet, there have been intermittent perios in whih improvisation has been highy value An, o ourse, jazz provies a striking exampe To begin with, jazz musiians improvise on tunes whih they took om a repertory marh tunes, popular songs Later they began to write their own tunes an use these as a basis r improvisation Finay, they began to beome primarily om posers an only seonarily perrmers The ega batte over whether Ornette Coleman shoul be ategorise as a assial or a popuar musiian reas the very similar battes whih took plae uring the Renaissane over the ispute status o the painter, whether he was an artist or an artier Conversey, an opposite movement has taken plae within egitimate musi, alowing the perrmers muh greater eeom to interpret an improvise Thus the sore o Cornelius Carew's Tretise only partialy an sporaially reers bak to a ommon oe; it osilates between a isrete an ontinuous notation, between the oe an the grae Coser to the inema has been the experiene o te theatre The polemi o Ben Jonson against Inigo Jones might wel be that o a sriptwriter against a iretor more onerne with visual values
. 0 Sows! Sows! Migt Sows! T Eloqunc of Masqus! a t nd of pros Or Vrs or Sns t'xprss Immortall ou? You ar t Spctacls of Stat! 'is tru Court Hiroglpicks! and all Arts aoord In t mr prspctiv of an Inc board! You ask no mor tn crtn politiqu Es Es tat can pirc into t Mistrs Of man Coulors! rad tm! and rval Molog tr paintd on slit dal! O to mak Boards to spak! Tr is a task! Painting and Carpntr a t Soul of Masqu! Pack wit our pdling Potr to t Sta! Tis is t mongtt Mcanick Ag!
7
ih ils A Midummer Night' Dream
he accuation o commerciaim and mechanicaity i too miiar Ben Jonon' compaint i aed on an aumption o the uperiority o vera an guage the inadequacy o emem and image he theatre ha ocillated etween two mode o communication A very imiar impue to that which motivated maque a downgrading o the iterary text made ite et at the end o the nineteenth and the eginning o the twentieth centurie pringing in part om the theory and practice o Wagner deveoped at Bayreuth dward Gordon Craig treed the nonvera dimenion o the theatre and the overeignty o the director; hi theorie made a particuar impact in Germany and in Ruia where he wa invited to work In Ruia we can trace a direct ink om Craig through Meyerhod to the work o ientein rt at the roetcut heatre then in the cinema In Germany Max Reinhardt wa the anaogue to Meyerhod; he had an equivaent kind o eect on the German xpreionit cinema: even Sternerg ha acknowedged hi admiration o Reinhardt For Meyer hod word were no onger acroanct: pay were ruthey atered and adapted here wa a countertre on the pecicay theatrica mode o expreion: mime m mi ll et deign cotume acroatic and the circu the perrming art xll. Meyerhod and Reinhardt inited on contro Ironicay when Reinhardt did make a m Mismm ihs m in Hoywood he wa ade to hare the direction with an etaihed cinema director Wiiam Dietere None the e hi work in theatre pointed rward to the cinema ven in iterature it houd e aid the eationhip etween compoition and perrmance occaionay varie Mot iterary work ued to e poken aoud and 75
this ersisted, even with rose, until quite recently Benjamin Constant read Aolph aloud numerous times bere it ever saw rint; Dickens had immensely successl recital tours. There is still a strong movement in vour of reading oetry aloud. Of course, literacy and rinting have diminished the social imort ance of this kind of errmance. Ever since St Ambrose achieved the feat of reading to himself, the errmance of literary works has been doomed to be secondary. Yet, during the nineteenth century, as literacy rose, the fall of ublic readings was accomanied by its converse, a rising interest in tyograhy. The tyograher has become, otentially, a kind of interreter of a text, like a musician. Early instances of creative tyograhy can be seen in Tristrm Shany and the work of Baroque oets such as Quarles and Herbert. But the modern movement srings om the convergence of Morris's concern over tyograhy and book design, sread through the Ats and Cras guilds and Art Nouveau, with the in novations of Mallarm. In the rst decades of the century there was a great usurge of interest in tyograhy Pound, Aollinaire, Marinetti, El Lissitsky, Picabia, D Stijl, the Bauhaus which is still bearing uit today. A world wide Concrete Poetry movement has grown u, in which oets collaborate with tyograhers. The cinema, like all these other arts, has a comosition side and a errmance side. On the one hand there is the original story, novel or lay and the shooting scrit or scenario. Hitchcock and Eisenstein draw sequences in advance in a kind of stri cartoon rm. On the other hand, there are the various levels of execution acting, hotograhy, editing. The director's osition is shiing and ambiguous. He both rms a link between design and errmance and can command or articiate in both. Dierent directors, of course, lean in dierent directions. Partly this is the result of their backgrounds Manewicz and Fuller, r instance, began as scritwriters; Sirk as a setdesigner; Cukor as a theatre director; Siegel as an editor and montage director; Chalin as an actor; Klein and Kubrick as hotograhers. Partly too it deends on their collaborators Cukor works on colour design with HoyningenHuene because he resects his judgement. d most directors, within limits, can choose who they work with. What the auteur theory demonstrates is that the director is not simly in command of a errmance of a reesting text; he is not, or need not be, only a mttr n sn Don Siegel was asked on television what he took om Hemingway's short story r his lm, Th Killrs; Siegel relied that the only thing taken om it was the catalyst that a man has been killed by somebody and he did not try to run away The word Siegel chose catalyst' could not be bettered. Incidents and eisodes in the original screenlay or novel can act as catalysts; they are the agents which are introduced into the mind (conscious or unconscious) of the auteur and react there with the motifs and themes characteristic of his work. The director does not subordinate himself to another author; his source is only a retext, which rovides catalysts, scenes which se with his own reoccuations to roduce a radically new work. Thus the manifest rocess of errmance, the treatment of a subject, conceals the latent roduction of a quite new text, the roduction of the director as an auteur. Of course, it is ossible to value errmances as such, to agree with Andr Bazin that Olivier's Hnry V was a great lm, a great rendering, transosition into the 76
rn lrs Hery V
ciema o Sakepeare' origial play Te great mrs n sn ould ot e dicouted imply ecaue tey are ot auteur Vicete Mielli perap or Staley Doe Ad rter ta tat te ame kid o proce ca take place tat occurred i paitig te director ca delierately cocetrate etirely o te tyl itic ad expreive dimeio o te ciema He ca ay a Joe vo Stererg did aout Mr tat e purpoely coe a tuou tory o tat people would ot e ditracted om te play o ligt ad ade i te potograpy Some o Buy Berkeley' extraordinary equece are equally detaced om any kid o dependence on the screenplay: indeed, more ofen than not, some other director was entrusted with the job of putting the actors through the plot and dialogue.
77
Bs Brl sq i GoldDigger o 1 933
Moreover, there i no dout that the greatet lm wil e not impy auteur lm ut marellou expreivey and tyitically a wel ol Mos hihi Moori l j sior i i sho rross or The auteur theory leave u, a every theory doe, with poiilitie and que tion We need to deveop much rther a theory o perrmance, o the tylitic, o graded rather than coded mode o communication We need to invetigate and dene, to contruct criticaly the work o enormou numer o director who until now have only een incompletely comprehended We need to egin the tak o comparing author with author There are any numer o ecic prolem which tand out Donen relationhip to Kely and Arthur Freed, Boetticher m outide the Ranown cycle, Wele relationhip to oland ( and perhap more important Wyler) , Sirk lm outide the Ro Hunter cycle, the exact identity o Walh or Wellman, the decipherment o Anthony Mann Moreover, there i no reaon why the auteur theory houd not e applied to the nglih cin ema, which i tll uttery amorphou, unclaied, unperceived We need not two or three ook on Hitchcock and Ford, ut many, many more We need compari on with author in the other art Ford with Fenimore Cooper, r example, or Hawk with Faulkner The tak which the critic o hirs im emarked on i till r om completed
78
3 The Semiolog of the Cinema
In recent yers considerble degree of interest hs developed in the semiology of the cinem, in the question of whether it is possible to dissolve cinem criticism nd cinem esthetics into specil province of the generl science of signs It hs become incresingly cler tht trditionl heroes of lm lnguge nd lm grm mr, which grew up spontneously over the yers, need to be reexmined nd relted to the estblished discipline of linguistics If the concept o f lnguge' is to be used it must be used scienticlly nd not simply s loos e, though suggestive, metphor The debte which hs risen in Frnce nd Itly, round the work of Rolnd Brthes, Christin Metz, Pier Polo Psolini nd Umberto Eco, points in this direction The min impulse behind the work of these critics nd semiologists springs om Ferdinnd de Sussure's Cors in Gnr Lingisis Aer Sussure's deth in 1 9 1 3 his rmer pupils t the University of Genev collected nd collted his lecture outlines nd their own notes nd synthesised these into systemtic presenttion, which ws published in Genev in 1915. In the Cors Sussure pre dicted new science, the science of semiology A scinc tat studis t lif of signs witin socit is concivabl; it would b part of social pscolog and consquntl of gnral pscolog; I sall call it smiol og (om Grk m sign'. Smiolog would sow wat constituts signs wat laws govrn tm. Sinc t scinc dos not t ist no on can sa wat it would b; but it as a rigt to istnc plac stakd out in advanc. Linguistics is onl a part of t nral scinc of smiolog; t laws discovrd b smiolog will b applicabl to linguistics and t lattr will circumscrib a wlldnd ara witin t mass of antropological cts.
Sussure, who ws impressed by the work of Emile Dureim (18581917) in sociology, emphsised tht signs must be studied om socil viewpoint, tht lnguge ws socil institution which eluded the individul will The linguistic system wht might nowdys be clled the code' preexisted the individul ct of speech, the messge' Study of the system therere hd logicl priority Sussure stressed, s his rst principle, the rbitrry nture of the sign The signier (the soundimge o-s or b- r exmple) hs no nturl connection with the signied (the concept ox') To use Sussure's term, the sign is unmoti vted' Sussure ws not certin wht the ll implictions of the rbitrry nture of the linguistic sign were r semiology 79
en e ee rne ene e en w re weer r n rery ne e exren e n ee ntr n ne n e new ene wee e n nern w e e we r ye rne n e rrrne e n n every en exren e n e e n rne n etve evr r w n e e n n nvenn e r r nne en e w ertn nr exrevene n e e nee w ree eerr y wn wn e rn nne e re nne e e xe y re re n n e nrn ve e ere e ne e e n re wy arrary ree et er n e er te e e e re wy ne e ex n nver ye exren e rer n ene n n ee e erern r rne e a ne ny ne rr e ye Linguistics was to be both a specil province of semiology and at the same time the masterpttern (le ptron gnrl') r the various other provinces All the provinces however or t lest the centrl ones were to have as their object systems grounded on the arbitrriness o the sign These systems in he event proved hard to nd Wouldbe semiologists und themselves limited to suc microlanguges s the language of trsigns the lnguage of ns ships' signalling systems the lnguge of gestre mong Trappist monks vrious kinds of semaphore and so on These microlanguages proved extremely restricted cases capable of rticulating a very sprse semantic rnge Many of them were parasitic on verbal language proer Rolan Barthes as result of is reserces into the lnguge of costume conclded t it ws impossible to escpe the pervsive presence of verbal lnguge Words enter into discorse of another order either to an ambiguous mening like label or a title or to contribute to the mening tht cnnot otherwise be ommunicted like the words in the bubbles in a stripcartoon Words either anchor meaning or convey it It is only in very rare cses tht nonvebl ystems cn exist without auxiliary support om the verbal code Even highly developed and intellectualised systems like painting and music constntly hve recourse to words prticularly at popular level: songs cartoons posters Indeed it would be possible to write the history of painting s nction of the shiing reltion between words and imges Oe of te min hievement of the Renissance was to banish words om the picture space Yet words repeatedly rced themselves back they reppear in the paintings of El Greco r instance in Drer in Hogarth: one could give countless examples In the twentieth century words hv returned with vengeance In music words were not banished until the beginning of the seventeenth century they have asserted themselves in opera in oratorio in Lir. The cinema is another obvious case in point Few silent lms were made without intertitles Erwin Panofsky hs recollected is cinemgoing days in Berlin round 1910: e rer eye en rn ar e we n n e ev r ne tee w rne e r eer rn evaen e e ev titui n r a erer e ere even e e exner w 80
arhs Indutry and Idlene rs i h visal ars.
d , vv ve e t e ded t e 't' d't t ed te de te dece t dt tt te d ve de tt c e cd' I n Japan, explainer' o thi kind rmed themelve into a guild, which proved tong enough to dely the advent o the talkie In the end Barthe reached the concluion that emiology might e etter een a a ranch o linguitic, rather than the other way round Thi eem a deperate concluion The province turn out to e o much the mot complex and univeral' that it engul the whole Yet our experience o cinema ugget that great complexity o meaning can e expreed throug image Thu, to take an oviou example, the mot trivial and an al ook can e made into an extremely intereting and, to all appearance, ignicant lm; reading a creenplay i uually a arren and arid experience, intellectually a well a emotionally The implication o thi i that it i not only ytem excluively grounded on the aritrarine o the ign' which are expreive and meaingl Natural ign' cannot e a readily dimied a Sauure imagined It i thi demand r the reintegration o the natural ign into emiology which led Chitian Metz, a diciple o Barthe, to declare that cinema i indeed a language, ut language without a code (withot a la to ue Sauure' term) t i a language ecue it ha text; there i a meaningl dicoure But, unlike veral language, it cannot e reerred ack to a preexitent code Metz' poition involve him in a coniderale numer o prolem which he never ati ctorily urmount; he i rced ack to the concept o a "logic o implication y which the image ecome language'; he quote with aproval Bla Balz' contention that it i through a current o induction' tat we mke ene o a lm t i not made clear whether e have to learn thi logic or 81
h posr: ors i pii olos rs Je Avril
whether it i turl Ad it i dicult to e e how cocept like logic o impictio' d curret o iductio' c e itegrted ito the theory o emiology t i eeded i more precie dicuio o wht we me y turl ig' d y the erie o word uch logou cotiuou motivted which re ued to decrie uch ig, y Brthe, Metz d other ortutely the groudwork ecery r rther preciio h redy ee ccomplihed y Chrle Sder eirce, the Americ logici eirce w cotemporry o Suure; like Suure hi pper were collected d pulihed pothumouly, etwee 1931 82
and 1935, twenty years aer his death in 191 Peire was the most original Amerian thinker there has been, so original, as Roman Jakobson has ointed out, that r a great art of his working life he was unable to obtain a university ost His reutation now rests rinilly on his more aessible work, mainly his teahings on ragmatism His work on semiology (or semioti' as he himself aed it) has been sadly negleted Unrtunately, his most inuential disile, Charles Morris, travestied his osition by ouling it with a virulent rm of Behaviourism Severe ritiisms of Behaviourism in relation to linguistis and aes thetis, om writers suh as E H Gombrih and Noam Choms, have naturally tended to damage Peire by assoiation with Morris However, in reent years, Roman Jakobson has done a great deal to reawaken interest in Peire's semiology, a revival of enthu asm long overdue The main text whih onern us here are his Spliv Grmmr, the letters to Lady Welby and isnil Gphs (subtitled my hf vr by Peire) These books ontain Peire's taxonomy of derent lasses of sign, whih he regarded as the essential semiologial undation r a subsequent logi and rhetori The lassiation whih is imortant to the resent rgument is that whih Peire alled the seond trihotomy of signs their division into ions, indies and sy bols sign is either an ion, an inx or a symbol ' An ion, aording to Peire, is a sign whih reresents its objet mainly by its similarity to it; the relationshi between signier and signied is not arbitrary but is one of resemblanes or likeness Thus, r instane, the ortrait of a man re sembles him Ions an, however, be divided into two sublasses: images and di agrams In the ase of images simle qualities' are alike; in the as of diagrams the relations between the arts' Many diagrams, of ourse, ontain symboloid features; Peire readily admitted this, r it was the dominant aset or dimension of the sign whih onerned him An index is a sign by virtue o\ existential bond between itself and its objet Peire gave several examles ee n wt a rn t rae ndtn tt e a ar ee
wee n n rury, ter an aet ee are re natn tt e i ey r etn te rt A un r nate te te ay Other examles ited by Peire are the weatherok, a sign of the diretion of the wind whih hysially moves it, the barometer, the siritlevel Roman Jakobson 1 ites Man Friday's otrint in the sand and medial symtoms, suh as ulse rates, rashes and so on Symtomatology is a branh of the study of the indexal sign The third ategory of sign, the symbol, orresonds to Saussure's arbitrary sign Like Saussure, Peire seaks of a ontrat' by virtue of whih the symbol is a sign The symboli sign eludes the individual will You an write down the word star", but that does not make you the reator of the word, nor if you erase it have you de stroyed the word The word lives in the minds of those who use it A symboli sign demands neither resemblane to its objet nor an existential bond with it It is on ventional and has the re of a law Peire was onerned about the aroriate ness of aling this nd of sign a symbol a ossibity whih Saussure also 83
I
considered but rejected because of the danger of consion However, it seems certain that Sausure overrestricted the notion of sign by limiting it to Peirce's symbolic'; moreover, Peirce's trichotomy is elegant and exhaustive The principal remaining problem, the categorisation of such socalled symbols' s the scales of justice or the Christian cross, is one that is soluble within Peirce's system, as I shall how later Peirce's categories are the undation r any advance in semiology It is important to note, however, that Peirce did not consider them t be mutually exclusive On the contrary, all three aspects equently or, he sometimes suggests, invariably overlap and are copresent It is this awareness of overlapping which enabled Peirce to make some particularly relevant remarks about photography otra, eecay ntantaneu otgra, are very nstructve, ecaue we w tat n certan resect tey are exacty ke te oect tey reresent ut t reebance due t te tra avn een rduced under uc cr cutance tat tey were ycay rced t correon nt y nt to nature In tat aect, ten, tey en t te econ ca n, tse y yca cnnecton That is, to the indecal class Elsewhere he describes a photographic print as a quasipredicate of which the light rays are the quasisubject' Among European writers on semiology Roland Barthes reaches somewhat similar conclusions, though he does not use the category indexical but sees the photographic print simply as iconic' However, he describes how the photographic icon represents a kind of natural being-there of the object' There is no human intervention, no transrmation, no code, between the object and the sign; hence the paradox that a photograph is a message without a code Christian Metz makes the transition om photography to cinema Indeed, Metz verges upon using Peirce's concepts, mediated to him through the work of Andr Martinet A ceu o a revover e nt sn revver' a urey otenta exca unt but ne iniu eavn ae t cnntaton, ere a revver t
carre t t wn actuasaton, a n ere s' Voici ' te very wrd wc ndr artnet coner t e a ure nex actuasatn I ti s curious that Metz, in his voluminous writings, does not lay much greater tress on the analysis of this aspect of the cinema, since he is extremely hostile to any attempt to see the cinema as a symbolic process which refers back to a code In ct, obscured beneath his semiological analysis is a very denite and equently overt aesthetic prti pris For, like Barthes and Saussure, he perceives only two modes of estence r the sign, natural and cultural Moreover, he is inclined to see these as mutually exclusive, so that a language must be either natural or cultural, uncoded or coded It cannot be both Hence Metz's view of the cinema turns out like a curi ous inverted mirror image of Noam Chomsky's view of verbal language; whereas Chomsky banishes the ungrammatical into outer darkness, Metz banishes the gramticl h work f Roa Jakobson, inuenced by Peirce, is, as we shall see, a corrective to both thee views The cinema contains all three modes of the sign 8
idexic, icoic d ymoic t wy ppeed i tt teorit o te ciem ve eized o oe or oter o tee dimeio d ued it te groud r etetic rm Metz i \o exceptio i etetic preerence, Metz i quite clery ideted to Adr Bzi, te mot rcel d iteiget protgoit o relim i te cinem B zi w oe o te uder o his du inm d wrote equety i spi te re view uded y mmnue Mouier, te Ctolic pilooper, oigtor o eroim d te mot iportt iteectul inuece on My peope ve commeted o te wy i wic Bzi modeled i tyle, omewt
i ns Nieuge
85
abstruse, unaaid of plungin into the probems and terminoogy of phlosophy, on that of Mouner. Bazin became interested in the cinema during his ilitary service at Boeaux n 1939 Aer is return to Pari he organsed, n collabor aton with iens om si clandestine lm sows; during the Geran Occupation he showed lms suc as Fritz Lang's Mis and te banne works of Chaplin. Then, ae the Lberation, he became one of te dominant gures in orientng the ntastic eorescence of cinema culture which grew up in the clubs, in Henri Langlois's magnicent ihq in the commercial cinemas, where American lms once again reappeared. During this time, perhaps ost important of all, Bazin developed his aesthetics of the cinea, an aesthetics antihetical to the pure cinema' of Delluc and the montage' theoy of Malraux's celebrated article in . A new directon was tken. Bazin's starting-point s an ontooy of the photograpc mage His conclu sons are remrkably close to those of Peirce. Time and gain Bazn speaks of photography in terms of a mould, a deathmask, a Veronca, the Holy Shroud of Turin, a relic, an impnt. Thus Bazn speaks of the lesser plastc arts, the ou ing of death-masks r exampe, whic likewise involves a cetan automatic process. One might consider photography in ts sense s a mouldng, the taking of an mpression, by the manipulation of lit.' Tus Bazin repeatedly stresses the existentil bond between sign and object which, r Peirce, was the deter mning chracteristc of the indexical sign. But wheeas Perce ade s obser vation n order to un a loic, Bazin wished to und an aestetic. Photography aects us like a phenomenon in nature, like a owe or a snowake whose vegetable or earth\y orgns are n inseparable p art of their beauty.' Bazn's aesthetic asserted the prmac of the object over the image, the primacy of the
The Cabnet of Dr. Caigari. 86
natura wor over the wor of signs Nature is aways phoogeni' this was Bazin's wathword Bazin evelope a bipoar view of the inea On the one han was Reais ( The good, the true, the just as G oard was later to say of the work of Rosselii) ; on the other han was Expressionis, the dering intervention of huan ageny Fielity to nature was the neessary touhstone of jugeent Those who transgresse, Bazin enoune Fritz Lang's Niblngn Cabint f Dr Caligari He reognise the Wagnerian abitions of Eisenstein's Ivan th Trribl and wrote One an detest opera, believe it to be a dooe usial genre, while stll reognising the vaue of Wagner's usi' Siiary, we ay aire Eisenstein, whie stil onening his projet as an aggressive return of a angerous aesthetiis' Bazin und the onstant falsiation in Thir Man exasperating In a brilliant artile he opare Holywoo to the ourt at Versaies an aske where was its Phr He und the answer, justly, in Charles Vior's Gila Yet even_ this asterpiee was strippe of al natural aient'; an aestheti annot be unde on an existential voi' In ounterposition to these reurrent regressions into Expressionis, Bazin postulate a triupha traition of Reais This traition began with Feuilae, spontaneously, navely, and then eveloped in the 1920s in the s of Flaherty, Strohei an Murnau, who Bazin ontrasted with Eisenstein, Kuleshov an Gane In the 1930s the tradition was kept alive prinipally by Jean Renoir Bazin saw Renoir steing o the tradition of his ther, that of Frenh Ipressionis Just as the Frenh Ipressionists Manet, Degas, Bonnar had rerulate the pae of the piture ae in pitoria position, uner the inuene of the snapshot, so Renoir ls ha reruate the plae of the ae in ineati oposition In ontrast to Eienstein's priniple of ontage, base on the sarosant loseup, the signiant iage entre in the ae, he had eveloped what Bazin alled r-carg (reaing') ateral aera oveents deserte an reaptured a ontinuous reaity The blakness surrouning the sreen aske o the worl rather than aed the iage In the 1930s Jean Renoir aone re se t a yon t rsures rv y n an s unvr srt a r tat wu rt vrn sa wtut pn te wr u nt te aens, at wu rv t n ean ns n an tns wtou surn t uniy naura t In the 1940s the Reaist traition reasserted itsef, though divied between two dierent urrents The rst of these was inaugurated by Citizn Kan an ontinued in the ater s of Wees an Wyler Its harateristi feature was the use of eep us By this eans, the spatial unity of senes oul be aintaine, episoes oul be presente in their physial entirety The seon urrent was that of Italian Neorealism, whose ause Bazin espouse with espeial fervour Above all, he aire Rossellini In Neorealis Bazin reognise deity to nature, to things as they were Fition was reue to a iniu Ating, loation, inient all were as natura as possible Of Bicycl hivs Bazin wrote that it was the rst exape of pure inea No or ators, no ore pot, no ore mis n scn 87
rr rlim: Vn rhim Gree v Mrn City Girl n i nir La Rgle u Jeu
88
th prfct asthtc luson of raty In ct, no mor cnma hus th m coud obtan radca purty only through ts own annhaton h mystca ton of ths knd of argumnt rcts, of cours, th curous admxtur of Cathocsm and Exstntalsm whch had rmd Bazn Yt t also dvops logcaly om an asthtc whch strsss th passvty of th natura word rathr than th agncy of th human mnd Ban hopd that th two currnts of th Rast tradton Ws and Rossln would on day rconvrg H ft that thr sparaton was du only to tchnca lmtatons: dp cus rqurd mor powrl lghtng than coud b usd on natural ocatons But whn Vscont's rr m appard, a m whos sty was r th rst tm th sam both i and r mros th most Wsan of Noralst ms, nvrthss Bazn was dsappontd h synthss, though achvd, ackd r and actv oqunc' Probaby Vscont was too 89
Dp os: op rson Wss Citize Kae an ao Wiliam Wrs Mrs Miiver.
cose to the opera to Expressioism to be abe to satis Bazi. But i the ate 1940s ad 950s his cocept o eaism did deveop a step rther towards what i a review o a sraa he was to ca reaism o the perso (de a persoe). The echo o Mouier was ot by chace. Bazi was deepy iueced by Mouiers isistece that the iterior ad the exterior the spiritua ad the physica the idea ad the materia were idissouby iked. He reorieted the phiosophica ad sociopoitica ideas o Mouier ad appied them to the ci ema Bazi broke with may o the Itaia protagoists o Neoreaism whe he 90
osr rlism: o osslliis Viva Italia o is Bicycle Tieves.
91
asserted that Visconti is Neorealist in L terr trem when he calls r social revolt and Rossellini is Neorealist in the Fioretti, which illustrates a purely spiritual reality' In Bresson's lms Bazin saw the outward revelation of an interior density in those of Rossellini the presence of the spiritual' is expressed with breathtang obviousness' The exterior, through the transparence of images stripped of all inessentials, reveals the interior Bazin emphasised the importance of physiognomy, upon which as in the lms of Dreyer the interior spiritual life was etched and printed Bazin believed that lms should be made, not according to some priori method or plan, but, like those of Rossellini, om agments of raw reality, mul tiple and equivocal in themselves, whose meaning can only emerge poteriori thanks to other cts, between which the mind is able to see relations' Realism was the vocation of the cinema, not to signi but to reveal Realism, r Bazin, had little to do with mimesis He felt that cinema was closer to the art of the Egyptians which existed, in Panofs's words, in a sphere of magical reality' than to that of the Greeks in a sphere of aesthetic ideality' It was the existential bond between ct and image, world and m, which counted r most in Bazin's aesthetic, rather than any quality of similitude or resemblance Hence the possibility even the necessity of an art which could reveal spiritual states There was r Bazin a double movement of impression, of moulding and imprinting: rst, the interior spiritual suering was stamped upon the exterior physiognomy; then the exterior physiognomy was stamped and printed upon the sensitive lm It would be dicult to overestimate the impact of Bazin's aesthetic His inuence can be seen in the critical writing of Andrew Sarris in the United States, in the theories of Pier Paolo Pasolini in Italy, in Charles Barr's lucid article on CinemaScope (published in Film Qrterly, Summer 1963, but written in England), in Christian Metz's articles in Commniction and Chier Cinm That is to say, all the most important writing on cinema in the last ten or twenty years has, by and large, charted out the course rst set by Bazin For these writers Rossellini occupies a central place in lm history Things are there Why manipulate them?' For Metz, Rossellini's question serves as a kind of motto; Rossellini, through his experience as a lmmaker, had struck upon the same truth that the semiologist achieved by dint of scholarship Both Metz and Barr contrast Rossellini with Eisenstein, the villain of the piece They even ll into the same metaphors Thus Barr, writing of Pudovkin, who is used interchangeably with Eisenstein, describes how he remnd n te aer w rt extrat te nurng art o te ur, roce t, and ten ut a oe a xtra dn' th reut ay e atae, ut t s ary t ny way t a ra, an ne an rte t r en unneesary an tet nde, on u xten t nary anaoy an say that te eren ut ver y te tratona att entay a regete one And Metz: Prosthesis is to the leg as the cybernetic message is to the human phrase d why not also mention to introduce a lighter note and a change om Meccano powdered milk and Nescaf? And all the various kinds of robot?' Thus 92
Rosse becomes a atura woemea rector we Eseste s a rs artca, pregeste. Be tese jugemets stas te whoe rce o Romatc aestetcs: atura versus artca, orgac versus mecaca, mag ato versus cy. But te Rosse versus Eseste atomy s ot so cearcut as mgt ap ear. Frst, we sou remember tat r Baz t was Expressosm at was te morta e: Th of r lr rater ta Blsh om or or. A, te, wat o a rector ke Sterberg, ceary te Expressost trato? It s remarkabe tat Sterberg maage to styse perrmaces as ate to te takes as e .' Arew Sarrs's observato mmeatey suggests tat Sterberg must be arraye agast Rosse. Yet, te same paragrap, Sarrs commets upo Sterberg's escewa o potess cuttg wt scees s acevemets as a omotage rector'. Ts s te same k o probem tat Baz met wt Dreyer, wose work e much amre, cug ts stuo sequeces. Te case o Dreyer's J r s a tte more subte sce at rst sght ature pays a o exstet roe.' Baz u a way out o te emma troug te absece o make u. It s a ocumetary o ces. . . . Te woe o ature paptates beeat every pore.' But s yac moe a bee agerousy sake. Te trut s tat a trac moe s ecessary, owg Perce's trcotomy o the sg Baz, as we ave see, eveope a aestetc wc was ue upo te exca caracter o te potograpc mage. Metz cotrasts ts wth a aestetc wc assumes tat cema, to b e meag, must reer back to a coe, to a grammar o some k, tat te aguage o cema must be prary sym boc. But tere s a tr ateratve. Sterberg was vruety oppose to ay k 93
oni in s La Passon de Jeanne d'Arc.
of Reasm. He sought, as r as possbe, to dsown and destroy the exstenta bond between the naura word and the m mage. But ths dd not mean that he turned to the symboc. Instead, he stressed the pctora character of the cn ema; he saw cnema n the ght, not of the natura word or of verba anguage, but of pantng. he whte canvas on to whch the mages are thrown s a two dmensona at surce. It s not startngy new, the panter has used t r centures.' he m drector must create hs own mages, not by savshy ow ng nature, by bowng to the fetsh of authentcty but by mposng hs own stye, hs own nterpretaton. he panter's power over hs subject s unmted, hs con tro over the human rm and ce despotc.' But the drector s at the mercy of hs camera'; the demma of the m drector s there, n the mechanca contra ton he s compeed to use. Uness he contros t, he abdcates. For versmtude, whatever ts vrtue, s n opposton to every approach to art'. Sternberg created a competey artca ream, om whch nature was rgorousy excuded (the man thng wrong wth h ofnhn he once sad, s that t contaned shots of the rea sea, whereas everythng ese was se) but whch depended, not on any common code, but on the ndvdua magnaton of the artst. It was the conc aspect of the sgn whch Sternberg stressed, detached om the ndexca n order to conjure up a word, comrehensbe by vrtue of resembances to the natura word, yet other than t, a knd of dream word, a heterocosm. he contrast wth Rossen s strkng. Rossen preferred to shoot on ocaton; Sternberg aways used a set. Rossen avered that he never used a shoot ngscrpt and never knew how a m woud end when he began t; Sternberg cut every sequence n hs head bere shootng t and never hestated whe edtng. 94
The Saga of natahan frons n rrs.
M hss Loa Monts
95
Rosseii's ms have a roughadready, sketchke ook; Sterberg evidety paid meticuous attetio to every detai Rossei used amateur actors, without makeup; Sterberg took the star system to its utmate mit with Maree ietrich ad reveed i heratic masks ad costumes Rosseii spoke o the di rector beg patet, watig humby ad owg the actors ut they reveaed themseves: Sterberg, rather tha wishig humby to revea the essece, sought to exert autocratic cotro: he estooed the set with ets, ves, ods, creepers, attices, streamers, gauze, order, as he hmse ut it, to cocea te actors to mask ther very existece Yet eve Sterberg is ot the extreme: this es amated m, usuay e to oe sde by theorists o the ciema But the separato is ot cearcut Sterberg has recouted how the aircra Th fnhn was draw with pe ad ik He aso sprayed trees ad sets with aumium pait, a kd o extesio o makeup to cover the woe o ature, rather tha the huma ce aoe I the same way, Max Ophus pated trees god ad the road red i hs masterpiece o Mons Aai Jessua, who worked wth Ophus, has described how he took the ogca ext step rward ad, mi rip r tted the m Jo Husto made simiar exermets Ad Jessua aso troduced the comcstrip ito the ciema There s o reaso at a why te potographic mage shoud ot be com bed wit the artca image, tted or draw This s commo practice outsde the ciema, advertisig ad the work o artists such as E Lsstsky, George Grosz ad Robert Rauscheberg Semoogists have bee surprsgy set o the subject o icoic sigs They suer om two prejudices: rsty, i vour o the arbitrary ad the symboic, sec ody i vour o the spoke ad the acoustic Both these prejudces are to be ud i th e work o Saussure, r whom aguage was a symboc system which operated i oe privieged sesory bad Eve wrtig has persistety bee assiged a ierior pace by gusts who have see the aphabet ad i the
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written letter only the sign of a sign a secondary, articial, exterior subsystem These rejudices must be broken down at is needed is a revival of the seventeenthcentury science of characters, comrising the study of the whole range of communication within the visual sensory band, om writing, numbers and algebra through to the images of hotograhy and the cinema Within this band it will be und that signs range om those in which the symbolic asect is clearly dominant, such as letters and numbers, arbitrary and discrete, through to signs in which the indexical asect is dominant, such as the documentary hotograh Between these extremes, in the centre of the range, there is a considerable degree of overla, of the coexistence of dierent asects without any evident redomi nance of any one of them In the cinema, it is quite clear, indexical and iconic asects are by r the most owerl The symbolic is limited and secondary But om the early days of lm there has been a ersistent, though understandable, tendency to exaggerate the imortance of analogies with verbal language T main reason r this, there seems little doubt, has been the desire to validate cinema as an art Clearly, a great deal of the inluence which Bazin has exerted has been due to his ability to see the indexical asect of the cinema as its essence in the same way as its detractors yet, at the same time, celebrate its artistic status In ct, Bazin never argued the distinction between art and nonart within the cinema; his inclination was to be able to accet anything as art thus, r examle, his raise of documentary lms such as Kon-Tiki and Annaprna which struck him rcelly Christian Metz has attemted to ll this ga in Bazin's argument, but by no means with striking success In the nal analysis, it is on account of its wealth of connotations that a novel of Proust can be distinguished om a cookbook or a lm of Visconti om a medical documentary' Connotations, however, are uncoded, imrecise and nebulous he does not believe that it would be ossible to dissolve them into a rhetoric In the last resort, the roblem of art is the roblem of style, of the author, of an idiolect For Metz aesthetic value is urely a matter of exressiveness'; it has nothing to do with concetual thought Here again Metz reveals the basic Romanticism of his outlook In ct, the aesthetic richness of the cinema srings om the ct that it comrises all three dimensions o f the sign indexical, iconic and symbolic The great weakness of almost all those who have written about the cinema is that they have taken one of these dimensions, made it the ground of their aesthetic, the essential' dimension of the cinematic sign, and discarded the rest This is to imoverish the cinema Moreover, none of these dimensions can be discounted they are coresent The great merit of Peirce's analysis of signs is that he did not see the dierent asects as mutually exclusive Unlike Saussure he did not show any articular rejudice in vour of one or the other Indeed, he wanted a logic and a rhetoric which would be based on all three asets It is only by considering the interaction of the three dierent dimensions of the cinema that we can understand its aesthetic eect Exactly the same is true of verbal language which is, of course, redominantly a symbolic system This is the dimension which Saussure illuminated so bril liantly, but to the exclusion of every other He gave short shri, r instance, to onomatooeia Onomatooeia might be used to rove that the choice of signier is not always arbitrary But onomatooeic rmations are never organic elements 97
o a linguisic sysem Besides, heir number is much smaler han is generally sup posed In recen years, he balance has been somewha redressed by Roman Jakobson, who has made persisen eors o cus aenion once again on he work o Peirce Jakobson has poined ou ha, whereas Saussure held ha signs ha are wholly arbirary realise beer han he ohers he ideal o he semioogi cal process Peirce believed ha in he mos perec o signs he iconic, he indexical and he symbolic would be amalgamaed as neary as possible in equa proporions Jakobson has wrien on several ocasions about he iconic and indexical as pecs o verbal anguage The iconic, r insance, is manies no only in ono maopoeia, bu aso in the synacic sructure o anguage Thus a senence like Veni, vidi, vici reecs in is own emporal sequence ha o he evens which i describes There is a resemblance, a similiude, beween he synacic order o he senence and he hisoric order o he word Again, Jakobson poins ou ha here is no known language in which he plural is represened by he subracion o a morpheme whereas, o course, in very many a morpheme is added He also inves igaes he role o synaeshesia in language In a brilliant aricle, Shiers, verbal caegories, and he Russian verb Jakobson discusses he indexical dimensions o language He cuses paricular aenion on pronouns, whose meaning a one level varies om message o message This is because i is deermined by he par icular exisenial conex Thus when say I ', here is an exisenial bond beween his uerance and mysel, o which he hearer mus be aware o grasp he signi 98
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cance o what is being sai Pronouns also have a symbolic aspect they enote the source' o an utterance, in general tems which makes them comprehensi ble on one level, at least, even when the actual ientity o the source is unknown The inexical aspect also comes to the re in wors such as here there this that an so on enses are also inexical; they epen r ll intelligibility on knowlege o the point in time at which a message was uttere Jakobson has also pointe out how these submerge imensions o language become particularly important in literature an in poetry He uotes with ap prova Pope's alliteative precept' to p oets that the soun must seem an Echo o the sense' an stresses tha t poetry is a province where the internal nexus between soun an meaning changes om latent into patent an maniests itsel most intensely an palpably' The same is surely true, s is o the cinema nlike verbal anguage, primarily symbolic, the cinema is, as we have seen, pri mariy inexical an iconic It is the symbolic which is the submerge iension We shoul therere expect that in the po etry' o the cinema, this aspect wl be manieste ore palpably In this repect, the iconography o the cinema (which, in Peirce's terms, is not the same as the iconic) is particularly interesting Metz has minimise the im portance o iconography He iscusses the epoch in which goo cowboys wore whites shirts an ba cowboys black shirts, only in orer to ismiss this incursion o the symbolic as unstable an agie Panosky has also oubte the importance o iconography in the cinema 100
Th sraih irl Mary ikfor r aros idtiabl b stadardisd aarac baiour ad attribts t llrmmbrd ts o t am ad t trai irl (ras t most co ici modr qialts o t mdial rsoicaios o t ics ad irts t amil Ma ad t illai t lattr markd b a black mostac ad alkistick. Noctral scs r ritd o b or r lm. A cck rd tablclot mat oc r all a oor bt ost' mili a a marria soo to b dard b t sados om t ast as smbolisd b t ou i's ori t brakas co r r sbad t rst iss as iariabl a ocd b t lad's t lai it r arr's ckti ad as iariabl accomaid b r kicki o r l ot.
But as auences grew more sohstcate an artcuary aer the nventon of the takng m these evces became grauay ess necessary Nevertheess rmtve symbosm' oes survve to Panofsy's peasure n such amusng etas as the ast sequence of asalana where the eghty crooke an rght-mne rf oli casts an emty botte of Vchy water nto the wastepaer basket In ct I thnk both Metz an Panofs as t unerestmate the extent to whch rmtve symbosm' oes survve f nee that s the rght wor at a wth ts hary mue conemnaton to eath Counter to the o ost Esensten overvauaton of the symboc there has eveoe an equay strong rejuce aains symbos Barthes r exame has commente on the perh era zone' n whch a kerne of rhetorc erssts. He ctes as an nstance caenar ages torn away to show the passage of tme But recourse to rhetorc he fees means to w com m o crty It s ossbe to convey Pgaeness' or Pars ness' wth shots of neon cgarettegrs an so on or wth bouevar cafs an the Ee Tower but r us rhetorc of ths kn s screte t may st ho goo n the Chnese theatre where a comcate coe s use to exress say weeng but n 10
oss: l os On he Town.
Europe to show one is weeping, one must weep And, of course, the rejection of convenion entails a no less draconian espect r nature We ae back in miliar territory: cinema is sosis not Ths Roland Barthes sweeps away the American usica, s ls i W and To condemned to medio crity by their recourse to rhetoric to convey New Yorness And what abot Hitchcock: T is o io he symbolic strctre of the ascent and ll in ol os o o Welles? he shaks, he wheelchai, e hal o irors in om i Buel? T o o i l he extaordinary symbolic scenes in he lms of Douglas Sirk, miio of if or Wi o Wi isensein's peacock is by no means the length and breadth of symbolism in the cinema is impossible to negect this whoe rich domain of meaning. Finaly, Rossellini: what are we to say of he Vesuvian lovers in o o l the recod of Hitle's voice playing among the ruins in m o the maneating tiger in i At this point, however, we must go rwad with caution Words sch as smol cary wih them the risk of consion We have seen how Saussure's usage is not copatible with Peice's Fo Peice the lingistic sign is a symbol, in a narow and scientic sense. For S aussure, the inguistic sign is abitrary, wheeas one s o sbo s s o b; s o s d o bod b s d sd sbo o js a o ss od not b d b js o s bo s s a o.
102
Hall of mirrors in Orson Welless Lady om Shanghai.
he consion has been inceased still the by Hjelmslev and the Coenhagen school t t t t t t b t tt tt t t t t t tt t F t t b tt tt t t ttt tt tt t k ' rs t k jt t tt t ·
Hjelmslev, howeve, chose to use the tem in a boade alication; as he ut it, games such as chess, and erhas music and mathematics, ae symbolic systems, as oosed to semiotics. He suggested that thee was an afnity between iso mohic symbols, such as the hamme and sickle, and the iece s in a game, awns or bishos. Bathes comlicated the issue still moe by stessng that symbols had no adequate o eact meaning Chistianity "outuns the coss at should we say about the hamme and sickle, the Chistian cross, the scales of justice? First, unlike Hjelmslev, we must distinguish clealy between a deiction o image, as Peirce would say, and an emblem. An image is edominantly iconic. An emblem, howeve, is a mie sign, atially iconic, atially symbolic. Moeove, this dual chaacte of the emblematic o allegoical sign can be overtly eloited Panofs cites the eamles of De's otait of Lucas Paumgatner as St Geoge, itian's Andea Doia as Netune, Reynolds's Lady Stanhoe as
03
Contemlation Emblem are untable, labile they may develo into redomi nantly ymbolic ign or ll back into the iconic Leing, in the ocon aw the roblem with great clarity The ymbolic or allegorical, he held, are neceary to ainter but redundant to oet, r verbal language, which ha riority, i ym bolic in itelf rna r te oet te e trny er nae, er nctn, we recne er ce e rtt n rer t e t tnale t ext er wt nter n ceet ge, t ttte er rve aet o wc e e t t toeter te ne rna t wen te et wou ay tt rna a long retl et y te tr t let raexerat tr rn wy e, tnn te nter, tereto, rna, te onter n er an, te ceet e ere er t nt e a n wo cn nd ay ea d t te e te tl e e o te n wc te ute n te r erago ve nvente r lc o utternce Leing decribed a cale of rereentation between the urely iconic and the urely ymbolic The bridle in the hand of Temerance and the illar on which Steadtne lean are clearly allegorical e cle n te n tce are certany e rey lercl, ecae te rt e te ce rey rt tce t te yre r te n te n a ue, te er n te n r, te er n tng n te n Vcn, re not yo t al, t ere ntrent Painter hould minimie the ymbolic the extreme cae, the incribed label which iue om the mouth of the eron in ancient Gothic icture Leing diaroved of entirely He looked rward to an art which would be more urely iconic, much more than he ever anticiated Courbet, the plein air ainter, the mreionit n ct, what haened i that, a the ymbolic wa outed, the indexical began to make itelf felt Painter began to be intereted in otic and the ycology of ercetion ndeed, Courbet ound trangely like Bazin ntn, n tn, tt ntn n eenty cncrete rt n can ny cont te rereentatn re an extn tn t cetey ycl nue, te wr wc cnt ve ect n ect wc trct, nt ve, nonextent, nt wtn te re ntn e et f ext n nture nd y e encntere n te t re ner te ot vere ect oon t n tere, t en t art, r rter, t te artt wo now w to ee t tere n ety re n ve, t t rt tc eren tee very te rtce n rt t l t exreon y en wt t, one ny rn te r ervertn an, cneuenty, weaenn t e ety rve y ntre eror to l te cnventn te rtt One current in the hitory of art ha been the abandonment of the lecon of emblem and the turn to nature itelf, to the exitential contiguity of ainter and 10
object which Courbet demded. At the ed of this rod ly photogrphy; uder its imp« ct pitig beg to oscilte violetly. The iconic sig is the most lbile; it observes either the orms of covetio or the physicl lws which gover the idex, either hsis or nomos Depictio is pulled towrds the tiomic poles of photogrphy d emblemtics. Both these udercurrets re copreset i the icoic sig; either c be coclusively suppressed. Nor is it true, s Brthes vers, tht the symbolic dimesio of the icoic sign is ot dequte, ot coceptully ed. To sy tht Christiity outrus" the cross' is o dieret i order om syig tht Christiity outrus the word Christiity or diviity outrus the mere me of Go To see trscedet meig is the tsk of the mystic, ot the scietist. Brthes is dgerously close to Brth, with his impeetrble icogito' of Jesus Christ. There is o doubt tht the cross c serve s phtic sigl d s degeerte idex, triggerig o eusive d devout medittio, but this should be rdiclly distiguished om the coceptul cotet rticulted by the symbolic sig. It is prticulrly importt to dmit the presece of the symbolic hece coceptul dimensio of the ciem becuse this is ecessry gurtee of objec tive criticism. The icoic is shiig d elusive; it dees cpture by the critic. We c see the problem very clerly if we cosider cocrete exmple: Christi Metz's iterprettio of mous shot om Eisestei's Q Viva Mxio! Metz describes the heds of three pests who hve bee buried i the sd, their tormeted yet pecel ces, er they hve bee trmpled upo by the hooves of their oppressors' horses. At the deottive level the imge mes tht they hve suered, they re ded. But there is lso coottive level: the obility of the ldscpe, the beutil, typiclly isesteii, trigulr compositio of the shot. At this secod level the imge expressed the grdeur of the Mexic people, the certity of l victory, kid of pssiote love which the ortherer feels r the su dreced spledour of the scene'. The Itli writer o esthetics, Glvo dell Volpe, hs rgued tht this kid of iterprettio hs o objective vlidity, tht it could ever be estblished d rgued like the prphrsble meig of verbl text. There is o objective code; therere there c oly be subjective impressios. Ciem criticism, dell Volpe cocludes, my exist fao, but it cot exist jr There is o wy of tellig wht imge onnos i the sese i which Metz uses the word, eve less ccurte th its sese i wht Peirce clled J. S Mills' objectioble termiology.' Dell Volpe is right bout this. But, like Metz, he too uderestimtes the possibility of symbolic dimesio i the ciemtic messge, the possibility, if ot of rrivig t jr criticism, t lest of pprochig it, mximisig lucidity, miimisig mbiguity. For the ciemtic sig, the lguge or semiotic of ciem, like the verbl lguge, comprises ot oly the idexicl d the icoic, but lso the symbolic. Ideed, if we cosider the origis of the ciem, strgly med d impure, it would be stoishig if it were other wise. Ciem did ot oly develop techiclly out of the mgic lter, the dguerreotype, the phestoscope d similr devices its history of Relism but lso out of stripcrtoos, Wild West shows, utomt, pulp ovels, brstormig melodrms, mgic its history of the rrtive d the mrvellous. Lumire d Mlis re ot like Ci d bel; there is o eed r oe to elimite the other. It is quite misledig to vlidte oe dimesio of the ciem 10
T A B LE PO U R 10 C
n : Made in U.S.A.
unilaterally at the expense of al the others. There is no pure cinema, gronded on a single essence, hermetically sealed om contamination. This explains the value of a director like Jean uc Godard, who is unaaid to mix Holywood with Kant and Hegel, isensteinian montage with Rosselinian Realism, words with images, professiona actors with historical peope, umire with Mlis, the documentary with the iconographic. More than anyody else Godard has realised the ntastic possiilities of the cinema as a medium of com munication and expression. n his hands, as in Peirce's perfect sign, the cinema has ecome an almost equal amagam of the symolic, the iconic and the indexical. His lms have conceptua meaning, pictorial eauty and documentary truth. t is no surprise that his inuence should proliferate among directors throughout the world. The lmmaker is rtunate to e working in the most semiologicay com plex of all media, the most aestheticaly rich. We can repeat today Ael Gance's words ur decades ago The time of the image has come.'
06
Conclusion (1 972)
n c vr , vn r r nc , r w wrn nnn rnn r wc n y vr. r r, n, y ncunr cn w rn vn' n r. r rru n rur, nn n uc, rw wc r u v rn c, c n yr r r r r, wn cn w n nncy, nv n wr vuv, w n ncn. w r r rc nn, r un , r n n. w r wn y w unc y uur n nv ur n wn ru w n rn cvr. rcy cu cn w nw r, r ny v n c n The rst impct f th mdrn mvement' n the cinm tk plce in the 20s The clerst xmple f this, f curs e, is Eisnstin. At th sme time there ws the wrk f th Parisin vtgrde Lger, Mn Ry, Buuel d f bstrct lmmkrs lik Eggling nd Richter. In Germy Expressinism fed int the cinem in the rm f Cligrim mily udr Eric Pmmer's ptrg. But ling bck it, w c se w supercil thi rst cntct ws nd hw it ws cmpltly litrted during th 30s In Russi, scilist relism ws lunchd nd the vntgrde cinm f the 20s cut shrt. In Germny, Pmmer lst ctrl f UFA er th cil dister f Mropoli d sn, in ny cse, he Nzi rgime ws i pwr. The rly experimnt f Lgr r Richtr petred ut. Buuel wnt his wn wy. Fischingr ws wrking r Diny in the 30s; MhlyNgy r Krd. If thr ws ny nd f vntgrd in thi perid, it ws t e ud in the dcumentry mvemnt, certinly t mst cnsrvtive vtgrde iminble. The ris f the sund lm nd the rpid xpnsin f Americn cnmic nd pliticl pwer er th wr led t the dminti f Hllywd thrughut mt f th wrld. It is in this ctext tht directr like Ors Welles culd p per s n innvtr, dgerus experimntlit, Rsllini rvlutiry, Humphrey Jnnings pt. Tdy ths stimtns sm surd. Thre hs b cmplt chnge, revluti, shi f cus which hd mde cim histry it smething diert. Eisensti r Vertv lk cntemprry inted f tique. Welles r Jeigs lk hplessly ldshined d dtd. Yet this chge hs b vry rcnt nd it ll ects re still t b flt. All th ld landmrks re disppring in the mist f tim. Wht hs hppened? Rlly, tw thigs. First, the rise f the udrgrud, prticulrly i Americ Thi ws prduct f three ctrs: pets nd pinters takig 107
up lmmaking, the arrival of European avantgarde artists like Richter as regees, the peeling o of mavericks om Hollyood There was also a crucial economic pre condition: the availability of equipment and money to buy it In the context of the underground, lmmaking was seen as an extension of the other arts There was no attempt to compete with Hollyood by making feature lms (except, as with Curtis Harrington, by becoming a Hollywood director) It took some tim bere the underground began to get into the cinemas, in ct only in the last few years when Warhol lms began to bite into the sexploitation eld But it was more and more obvious that it was there to stay The second key development was the way that the French New Wave evolved, pushing back the conventional ontiers of the art' cinema Godard has had an incalculable eect, and it was only right that this book should have built up towards a paean of praise r his lms and an eager anticipation of what was to come At the time I was writing, Wk was the last Godard movie I had seen It is now much earer what the eect of May 1 968 was on Godard His ms have increasingly been, so to speak, both politicised and semiologised It is dicult not to think of directors le Makavejev, Skolimowski, Bertolucci, uge, Glauber Rocha and so on, simply as postGodard directors Yet none of them have gone the whole way with him, and some have tended to retreat om the adventurousness of their own early Godardian' work It seems to me now that I was wrong in what I expected of Godard More than anybody else Godard has realised the ntastic possibilities of the cinema as a medium of communication and expression In his hands, as in Peirce's perfect sign, the cinema has become an almost equal amalgam of the symbolic, the iconic and the indexical His lms have conceptual meaning, pictorial beauty and documentary truth' In a sense, the programme I was outlining has been llled, but more by others than by Godard A lm like Makavejev's W Mystris of th Orgaism exploits the ll semiological possibilities of lm in its blend of docu mentary, vrit, library ips, Hollwood, montage, etc But thinking back on it, credit r this should go to Kenneth Anger's Scorpio isig, rather than to Godard Anger was the rst mmagician in this sense ( W can almost be read out of Scorpio isig by substituting Crowley r Reich and Jesus Christ r Stalin) It is obvious now that what concerned Godard was an interrogation of the cinema rather than a llment of its potential It is necessary at this point to make a digression, to sketch in the background against which Godard is working and against which the modern movement' in the other arts also emerged The twentieth century witnessed an assault on traditional art and aesthetics which laid the undations r a revolutionary art which has not yet been consolidated It is possible that this consolidation cannot take place independently, apart om the movement of society and o f politics The heroic rst phase of the avantgarde in the arts coincided, aer all, with the political phase which led om 1905 to the October Revolution; Godard's lms are early linked with the political upheavals which reached a climax in Europe in May 1968 But it is nevertheless possible, on a theoretical level, to try to explain what this potential break with the past involved, would involve if it were to be carried through This raises problems about the nature of art, its place in intellectual production, the ideology and philosophy which underpin it 108
Sigs ad meanigs: cotemporary wester thought, like its reruers, sees the problem predomiatly oe way Signs are used to commuicate meaigs betwee idividuals idividual costructs a message i his mid, a complex of meaig, a idea or thought process, which he wishes to covey to someoe else Both idividuals possess a commo code or grammar which they have leared Through the agecy of this code, the rst idividual, the source, maps his message o to, r istace, its verbal represetatio, a sequece He the remaps this setece o to a sigal, a sequece of souds which give it a physical rm, ad trasmits this sigal through a chael It is picked up by the secod idividual, the receiver, who the decodes the sigal ad thus obtais the origial message A idea has bee trasferred om oe mid to aother There is some disagreemet amog scholars about whether the origial message is articulated i words or i some kid of oarticulated thought process (the problem of sematics) but, give this reservatio, the model outlied above holds good r most cotemporary liguistics ad semiotics: Weaver ad Shao, Jakobso, Choms, Prieto ad their llowers The commo assumptio of all these various views is that laguage, or ay other system of trasmitted sigals, is a istrumet, a tool This assumptio is quite explicit i Jakobso, r istace: These eorts of the Prague School] pro ceed om a uiversally recogised view of laguage as a tool of commuicatio' Or the British liguist, Halliday: Laguage serves r the expressio of cotet": tht is, of the speaker's expressio of the real world, icludig the ie r world of his ow cosciousess We may call this the ideatioal ctio' Ad Prieto: the istrumets which are called sigals ad whose ctio cosists of the trasmissio of messages These istrumets permit ma to exercise a iuece o his eviromet: i this case, this ivolves the trasmissio of messages to other members of the social group' Or, to strike out i a dieret directio, Stali: anuae a eium, an ntrument wit te e o wc eoe comuncate wit one anoter, excane thouts n unertan eac oter en recty connecte wit tout, aue reter an e n wor, an n wor co ne nto entence, te ret o tout an n' uccee n i uet r owede, an tu aes oie te exchane o ea in uan ocety Both Jakobso ad Halliday ote additioal ctios of laguage, but both regard themselves primarily as ctioalist' i approach Prieto uses the term util itaria' rather tha ctioal' but the dri is the same Clearly this model of laguage rests o the otio of the thikig mid or cosciousess which cotrols the material world Matter belogs to the realm of istrumetality; thus, the cosciousess makes use of the material sigal as a tool Behid every material sigal is a ideal message, a kid of archisigal I essece, this view is a humaised versio of the old theological belief that the material world as a whole comprised a sigal which, whe decoded, would reveal the message of the divie Logos Like verbal laguage the material world was iadequate to express the Logos lly (it remaied ieable) but it could give a partial idea of the deity, who was, so to speak, pure Message At the time of the Elightemet, God was o loger evisaged as the author of the great book of the world, but the 109
same semioi model was ransferred o human ommuniaion Ariss, in pariular, were seen as quasidivine auhors who reaed a world in heir imaginaion whih hey hen expressed exernally Wihin a Romani aeshei, he signals were aken as symbols, o be deoded no by applying a ommon ode bu by inuiion and empahy, projeion ino he aris's inner world Porphyry's wise Theology wherein man indiaed God and Divine Powers by images akin o sense and skehed invisible hings in visible rms' was ehoed in Coleridge's desripion of a symbol as haraerised above all, by he ransluene of he eernal hrough and in he emporal' Wihin Classial aesheis signals remained made up of onvenional ouners or okens, as he Romanis onempuously dubbed hem In riiism, i was he Classial view whih prevailed, no surprisingly, sine Romaniism saw no need r riis The nion of riiism was seen as lariing he deoding of signals in order o resore he original message as lly as possible This was neessary beause arisi messages were usually very omplex, he signals were oen ambiguous and a knowledge of he siuaion of he soure, ulurally and soially, ould be helpl owards deiding o n he mos saisory deoding Criiism hus omes o posi a onen' of works of ar, no immediaely obvious om a rapid perusal of he work iself Muh migh be missed by he asual or unsophisiaed reader, whih he rii ould poin ou Basially, here was one orre deoding, as hough he work of ar was he Rosea Sone Wihin a Romani or symboli aeshei, on he oher hand, deoded inuiively, here ould be no righ answer'; i was all a maer of sensiiviy, of spiriual aunemen, so ha riiism ended up wih Waler Paer's mood rereaions Wihin he Classial model, as Posiivism gained srengh, he onen' of he work was inerpreed no as a body of ideas or experienes, bu as he expression of he aris's raial or geographial or soial siuaion Thus Taine's milieu' or he lass bakground' of Posiivis Marxiss Anoher radiion saw onen in erms of moral sane Of ourse, a number of riis have always onsed he dieren posiions, swihing om ehnial experise o mysial inuiion a will One of he main ees of he modern movemen' was o disredi he ideas of inenion' and of onen' aris like Duhamp r example sressed he impersonaliy of he work, he role of hane and parody, and even le works deliberaely unnished The Surrealiss produed auomai wriing; any number of modern ariss sressed he imporane of rm' The really imporan breakhrough, however, ame in he rejeion of he radiional idea of a work as pri marily a represenaion of somehing else, wheher an idea or he real world, and he onenraion of aenion on he ex of he work iself and on he signs om whih i was onsrued This was no exaly he same hing as absraion' or rmalism' hough i was easily onsed wih i absra' aris like Kandins r example saw himself as expressing spiriual realiies, whih oud be grasped only hrough pure rm Kandins was really he endprodu of Symbolism The same kind of aeshei was developed by Hulme in England, who saw absra ar as represening imeless, suprahisorial values, in onras wih he hisorybound, manenred guraive ar of he Renaissane and Romaniism The modern movemen' made i possible r he aris o inerrogae his own work r he rs ime, o see i as problemai; o pu in he reon he maerial 110
caracter f te wrk Again, tis culd easily slide int a kind f mystical naturalism, in wic an artect was equated wit a natural bject like a tree, tus seeking t eradicate its status as a sign entirely Or, n te ter and, it culd lead twards tecnicians, cncentrating n te material asects f art simly t erfect te wrk as an instrument n a sense, mdern art was searcing r a semilgy wic wuld enable it t break wit te Renaissance traditin, but wic ad still t be elabrated, and eras culd nt be elabrated until te need r it was felt Te aestetic and ilsical' backgrund t mst f te wrks f te avant garde was a dismal mixture f tesy, Wrringer, Frazer, bits f Bergsn, even Bradley, and s n Te nly excetin t tis is t be und in te early cllabratin between te Russian linguists and Futurist ets And later, f curse, te Surrealists made an ert t understand Freud Wat was (and still is) needed was a semilgy wic reversed and transrmed te usual terms f its rblematic, wic sted seeing te signal, te text, as a means, a medium existing between uman beings and te trut r meaning, weter te idealist transcendent trut f te Rmantics r te immanent intentinal meaning f te Classical aestetic Tus a text is a material bject wse signicance is determined nt by a cde external t it, mecanically, nr rganically as a symblic wle, but trug its wn interrgatin f its wn cde t is nly trug suc an interrgatin, trug suc an interir dialgue between signal and cde, tat a text can rduce saces witin meaning, witin te terwise rigid straitjacket f te message, t rduce a meaning f a new kind, generated witin te text itself T int ut a arallel tis wuld be as if te dialgue f Freudian sycanalysis, segregated as it is between te sace f te signal (analysand) and tat f te cde (analyst), were t be cmressed and cndensed witin ne single sace, tat f te text Te idelgical eects f suc a recasting f te semilgical undatins f art wuld be f te utmst imrtance t wuld situate te cnsciusness f te reader r sectatr n lnger utside te wrk as receiver, cnsumer and judge, but rce im t ut is· cnsciusness at risk witin te text itself, s tat e is rced t interrgate is wn cdes, is wn metd f interretatin, in te curse f reading, and tus t rduce ssures and gas in te sace f is wn cnsciusness (ssures and gas wic exist in reality but wic are reressed by an idelgy, caracteristic f burgeis sciety, wic insists n te wleness' and integrity f eac individual cnsciusness) All revius aestetics ave ac ceted te universality f art unded eiter in te universality f trut' r f reality' r f Gd Te mdern mvement r te rst time brke tis universality int ieces and insisted n te singularity f every act f reading a text, a rcess f multile decdings, in wic a si f cde meant ging back ver signals reviusly deciered' and vice versa, s tat eac reading was an en rcess, existing in a tlgical rater tan a lat sace, cntrlled yet incnclu sve Classical aestetics always sited an essential unity and cerence t every wrk, wic ermitted a unirm and exaustive decding Mdernism disruts tis unity; it ens te wrk u, bt internally and externally, utwards Tus tere are n lnger searate wrks, mnads, eac enclsed in its wn individual iy, a erfect glbe, a wle t rduces wrks wic are n lnger centrietal, 111
held together by their own centres, but centrigl, throwing the reder out o the work to other works Thus, in the pst, the diculty o reding ws simply to nd the correct code, to cler up mbiguities or res o ignornce Once the code ws known reding becme utomtic, the simultneous ccess to the mind o signl nd content tht mgicl process whereby ides shone through mrks on pper to enter the skull through the windows o the eyes But Modernism mkes reding dicult in nother sense, not to nd the code or to grsp the ides, the content but to mke the process o decoding itsel dicult, so tht to red is to work Reding becomes problemtic; the content' is not ttched to the signl (so closely ttched s to be inseprble om it) by ny bond; it is delibertely, so to spek, detched, held in suspension, so tht the reder hs to ply his own prt in its production And, t the sme time, the text, through imposing this prctice o reding, disrupts the myth of the reder's own receptive consciousness No longer n empty tresure house witing to receive its tresure, the mind becomes productive It works Just s the uthor no longer nds' the words, but must produce' text, so the reder too must work within the text The old imge o the reder s consumer is broken The text is thus no longer trnsprent medium; it is mteril object which provides the conditions r the production o mening, within constrints which it sets itsel It is open rther thn closed; multiple rther thn single; productive rther thn exhustive though it is produced by n individul, the uthor, it does not simply represent or express the uthor's ides, but exists in its own right It is not n instrument o communiction but chllenge to the mystiction tht communiction cn exist For interpersonl communiction, it substitutes the ide o collective production; writer nd reder re indierently critics o the text nd it is through their collbortion tht menings re collectively produced At the sme time, these menings' hve eects; just s the text, by introducing its own decoding procedures, interrogtes itsel, so the reder too must interrogte himsel, puncture the bubble o his consciousness nd introduce into it the ris, contrdictions nd questions which re the problemtic o the text The text then becomes the loction o thought, rther thn the mind The text is the ctory where thought is t work, rther thn the trnsport system which conveys the nished product Hence the dnger o the myths o clrity nd trnsprency nd o the receptive mind; they present thought s prepckged, vilble, given, om the point o view o the consumer Wheres the producer o thought is then envisged s the trditionl philosopher, whose thought is the nction o pure consciousness, pure mentl ctivity, externlised r others only when completed It is to preserve this myth tht notebooks nd drs re so rigidly seprted om nl versions, so tht the process o thought s dilectic o writing nd reding (in the cse even o individul' thought, s dilogue with onesel) is obscured nd is presented s n internl ir mde public only when nished In ddition, drs nd notes, when they re mde public, re seen s the rw mteril, itsel still prtly inchote nd incoherent, out o which the nl, coherent version is shioned Thus incomptible elements hve to be mde comptible, nd it is this gener l comptibility nd consequentility which mrks the completion o work Within Modernist view, however, ll work is work in 112
progress, the circe is never closed ncomptibe eements in text shoud not be ironed out but cononted This is the context in which Godrd's ms shoud be seen Godrd's work represents continu exmintion nd reexmintion of the premises of lmmkng ccepted by mmker nd by specttor t is not simpy question of the juxtposition of dierent styles or of dierent points of view but o the systemtic chlenging of the ssumptions underying the doption of style or point of view n Godrd's eriest ms the nrrtive nd drmtic structure re tken r grnted, but the chrcters in the ms question ech other bout the codes they use, bout the sources of misunderstnding nd incomprehension Then, s his creer continued, he begn more nd more to question, not the interpersonl communiction of the chrcters, but the communiction represented by the m itself Finy, he begn to conceive of mking m, not s communicting t ll, but s producing text in which the probems of mmkng were themseves rised This is s poitic n spect of Godrd's cinem s the overtly poiticl de bte nd quottion which so tke pce in it For it is precisely by mkng things dicult' r the specttor in this wy, by breking up the ow of his ms, tht Godrd compels the specttor to question himsef bout how he ooks t lms, whether s pssive consumer nd judge outside the work, ccepting the code chosen by the director, or whether within the work s prticipnt in dilogue Godrd's work is prticulry importnt r the cinem becuse there, more perhps thn in ny other rt rm, semiologicl mystiction is possibe This is becuse of the predominntly indexicliconic chrcter of most lms nd the illusion of relity' which the cinem provides The cinem seems to l the geold drem of providing mens of communiction in which the signls employed re themseves identicl or neridenticl with the word which is the object of thought Reity is, so to spek, tered nd bstrcted in the mind, conceptuised, nd then this conceptuistion of relity is mpped on to signls which reect the originl relity itself, in wy which words, r instnce, cn never hope to mtch Thus the cinem is seen to give wordviews in the literl sense of the term, wordconceptions which re iterlly wordpictures The dross ltered out of the sensuous world by the process of bstrction nd thought is restored in the process of communiction Hence the immense ttrction of Reist esthetics r theorists of the cinem For Relist esthetics, the cinem is the privieged rm which is be to provide both ppernce nd essence, both the ctu look of the re world nd its truth The re word is returned to the specttor puried by its trverse through the mind of the rtist, the visionry who both sees nd shows NonReist esthetics, s is pointed out elsewhere in this book, re ccused of reducing or dehydrting the richness of reity; by seekng to mke the cinem into convention medium they re robbing it of its potenti s n terntive word, better, purer, truer, nd so on n ct, this esthetic rests on monstrous deusion: the ide tht truth resides in the re word nd cn be picked out by cmer Obviousy, if this were the cse, everybody woud hve ccess to the truth, since everybody lives l their life in the re world The Reism cim rests on seight of hnd: the identi ction of uthentic experience with truth Truth hs no mening unless it hs explntory rce, uness it is knowledge, product of thought Dierent people 113
my experience the ct of poverty, but cn ttribute it to ll nds of dierent cuses the will of God, bd luck, nturl derth, cpitlism They ll hve genuine experience of poverty, but wht they know bout it is completely dierent It is the sme with sunshine everybody hs experienced it but very few know nything scienticlly bout the sun Relism is in ct, s it ws historiclly, n outgrowth of Romnticism, typiclly Romntic in its distrust of or lck of interest in scientic knowledge Besides Relism, the other min current in lm theory hs been the ttempt to import into the cinem trditionl Romntic concept of the rtist, the privileged individul with the culty of imgintion Bsiclly, the concept of imgintion ws the short cut by which Romntic writers on esthetics crmmed the clssicl dulity of thought plus expression, reson plus rhetoric, into one copious port mnteu The imgintion produced not concepts plus similes, but metphors which sed concept nd simile into whole Thus the rtist in the cinem is ble to produce visul metphors, in which the ct of thought nd the ct of lming re simultneous nd inseprble This ide of the imgintive rtist mkes it possible to go beyond the old distinction of scriptwriter nd director which divorced composition om execution One of the problems tht hd lwys ced lm esthetics ws how to get round this wkwrd division, which mde it impossible to see lm s the cretion of single subjectivity Grdully, in the cowledged rt' cinem rst of ll, the gp ws bridged nd the director ws c knowledged to be the imgintive rtist A few critics, ttched to the ide of the priority of the scriptwriter nd of composition bere execution, hve held out ginst this trend, but not with much success ile it is possible to rgue tht the composer of musicl score envisges every note uditorily or tht the writer of ply hs n ide of how it should be perrmed inherent in the text, becuse of the primcy of words in the bourgeois thetre, it is dicult to rgue long similr lines bout the scriptwriter At this point, it is necessry to sy something bout the uteur theory since this hs oen been seen s wy of introducing the ide of the cretive personlity into the Hollwood cinem Indeed, it is true tht mny protgonists of the uteur theory do rgue in this wy However, I do not hold this view nd I think it is importnt to detch the uteur theory om ny suspicion tht it simply represents cult of personlity' or potheosis of the director To my mind, the uteur theory ctully represents rdicl brek with the ide of n rt' cinem, not the trnsplnt of trditionl ides bout rt' into Hollwood The rt' cinem is rooted in the ide of cretivity nd the lm s the expression of n individul vision t the uteur theory rgues is tht ny lm, certinly Hollwood lm, is network of dierent sttements, crossing nd contrdicting ech other, elborted into nl coherent' version Like drem, the lm the specttor sees is, so to spek, the m de the endproduct of secondry revision which hides nd msks the process which remins ltent in the lm unconscious' Sometimes the de' is so worked over, so smoothed out, or else so clotted with disprte elements, tht it is impossible to see beyond it, or rther to see nything in it except the chrcters, the dilogue, the plot, nd so on But in other cses, by process of comprison with other lms, it is p ossible to decipher, not coherent messge or worldview, but structure which underlies the lm nd shpes it, gives it cer 114
tain pattern of energy cathexis. t is this structure which auteur analysis disengages om the lm. The structure is associated with a single director, an individual, not because he has played the role of artist, expressing himself or his own vision in the lm, but because it is through the rce of his preoccupations that an unconscious, unintended meaning can be decoded in the lm, usually to the surprise of the individual involved. The m is not a communication, but an artect which is unconsciously structured in a certain way. Auteur analysis does not consist of retracing a lm to its origins, to its creative source. t consists of tracing a structure (not a message) within the work, which can then p facm be assigned to an individual, the director, on empirical grounds. t is wrong, in the name of a denial of the traditional idea of creative subjectivity, to deny any status to individuals at all. But Fuller or Hawks or Hitchcock, the directors, are quite separate om Fuller' or Hawks' or Hitchcock the structures named aer them, and should not be methodologically consed. There can be no doubt that the presence of a structure in the text can oen be connected with the presence of a director on the set, but the situation in the cinema, where the director's primary task is oen one of coordination and rationalisation, is very dierent om that in the other arts, where there is a much more direct relationship between artist and work. t is in this sense that it is possible to speak of a lm auteur as an unconscious catalyst. However, the structures discerned in the text are oen attacked in another way. Robin Wood, r example, has argued that the auteur' lm is something like a Platonic dea. It posits a real' lm, of which the actual lm is only a awed tran script, while the archilm itself exists only in the mind of the critic. This attack rests on a misunderstanding. The main point about the Platonic dea is that it pre dates the empirical reality, as archetype. But the auteur' lm (or structure) is not an archilm at all in this sense. t is an explanatory device which species partially how any individual lm works. Some lms it can say nothing o r next to nothing about at all. Auteur theory cannot simply be applied indiscriminately. Nor does an auteur analysis exhaust what can be said about any single lm. t does no more than provide one wa of decoding a lm, by speciing what its mechanics are at one level. There are other kinds of code which could be proposed, and whether they are of any value or not will have to be settled by reference to the text, to the lms in question. Underlying the antiPlatonic argument, however, there is oen a hostility to wards any kind of explanation which involves a degree of distancing om the lived experience' of watching the lm itself. Yet clearly any kind of serious critical work would say scientic, though know this drives some people into transports of rage must involve a distance, a gap between the lm and the criticism, the text and the metatext. It is as though meteorologists were reproached r getting away om the lived experience' of waing in the rain or sunbathing. Once again, we are back with the myth of transparency, the idea that the mark of a good m is that it conveys a rich meaning, an important truth, in a way which can be grasped immediately. f this is the case, then clearly all the critic has to do is to describe the experience of watching the lm, reception of a signal, in such a way as to clear up any little consions or enigmas which still remain. The most
that the critic can do is to put the spectator on the right wavelength so that he can see r himself as clearly as the critic, who is already tuned in. The auteur theory, as I conceive it, insists that the spectator has to work at reading the text. With some lms this work is wasted, unproductive. But with others it is not. In these cases, in a certain sense, the lm changes, it becomes another lm as r as experience of it is concerned, it is no longer possible to look at it with the same eyes'. There is no integral, genuine experience which the critic enjoys and which he tries to guide others towards. Above all, the critic's experience is not essentially grounded in o r guaranteed by the essence of the lm itself. The critic is not at the heart of the matter. The critic is someone who persists in learning to see the m dierently and is able to speci the mechanisms which make this possible. This is not a question of reading in' or projecting the critic's own concerns into the lm; any reading of a lm has to be justied by an explanation of how the lm itself works to make this reading possible. Nor is it the single reading, the one which gives us the true meaning of the lm; it is simply a reading which produces more meaning. Again, it is necessary to insist that since there is no true, essential meaning there can therere be no exhaustive criticis, which settles the interpretation of a lm once and r all. Moreover, since the meaning is not contained integrally in any lm, any decoding may not apply over the whole area of it. Traditional criticism is always seeking r the comprehensive code which will give the complete interpretation, covering every detail. This is a wildgoose chase, in the cinema, above all, which is a collective rm. Both Classical and Roantic aesthetics hold to the belief that every detail should have a meaning Classical aesthetics because of its belief in a comon, universal code; Romantic aesthetics because of its belief in an organic unity in which every detail reects the essence of the whole. The auteur theory argues that any single decoding has to compete, certainly in the cinema, with noise om signals coded dierently. Beyond that, it is an illusion to think of any work as complete in itself, an isolated unity whose intercourse with other lms, other texts, is carelly controlled to avoid contamination. Dierent codes may run across the ontiers of texts at liberty, meet and conict within them. This is how language itself is structured, and the ilure of linguistics, r instance, to deal with the problem of semantics is exemplied in the idea that to the unitary code of grammar ( the syntactic component of language) there must correspond a unitary semantic code, which would give a correct semantic interpretation of any sentence. Thus the idea of grammaticality' is wrongly extended to include a quite lse notion of semanticity'. In ct, no headway can be made in semantics until this mh is dispelled. The auteur theory has iportant implications r the problem of evaluation. Orthodox aesthetics sees the problem in predictable terms. The good' work is one which has both a rich meaning and a correspondingly complex rm, wedded together in a unity (Romantic) or isomorphic with each other (Classical). Thus the critic, to demonstrate the value of a work, must be able to identi the content establish its truth, prondity, and so rth, and then demonstrate how it is expressed with minimum loss or leakage in the signals of the text itself, which are patterned in a way which gives coherence to the work as a whole. Truth' of con tent is not envisaged as being like scientic truth, but more le human' truth, a 116
distilltion of the world of hun exeriene, rtiulrly interersonl exeriene The world itself is n untidy le, ll of loose ends, but the rtet n tie ll these loose ends together nd thus onvey to us eningl truth, n insight, whih enbles us to go bk to the rel world with reordered nd reyled exeriene whih will enble us to oe better, live ore lly nd so on In this wy rt is given hunisti ntion, whih gurntees its vlue All this is overthrown when we begin to see loose ends in works of rt, to rese to knowledge orgni unity or integrl ontent Moreover, we hve to revise our whole ide of riteri, of judgeent The notion behind riteri is tht they re tieless nd universl They re then lied to rtiulr work nd it is judged ordingly This rigid view is vried to the extent tht dierent riteri y ly to dierent nds of works or tht slightly dierent riteri y reet dierent oints of view or kinds of exeriene, though ll re rooted in oon hunity ut lost ll urrent heories of evlution deend on identiing the work rst nd then ononting it with riteri The work is then ritiised r lling short on one sore or nother It is bleished in soe wy Evidently, if we rejet the ide of n exhustive interrettion, we hve to rejet this kind of evlution Insted, we should onentrte on the prociviy of the work This is wht the odern oveent' is bout The text, in Otvio Pz's words, is soething le hine r roduing ening Moreover, its ening is not neutrl, soething to be sily bsorbed by the onsuer The ening of texts n be destrutive of the odes used in other texts, whih y be the odes used by the settor or the reder, who thus nds his own hbitul odes thretened, the bttle oening u in his own reding In one sense, everybody knows this We know tht Do Qixoe ws destrutive of the hivlri rone We know tht ysses or Fiegs Wke re destrtive of the nineteenthentury novel ut it sees diult to dit this destrutiveness into ourt when judgeents re to be de We hve to To go to the ine, to red books or to listen to usi is to be rtisn Evlution nnot be irtil We nnot divore the roble of odes o the roble of riteri We nnot be ssive onsuers of l s who then stnd bk to ke judgeents o bove the y Judgeents re de in the roess of looking or reding There is sense in whih to rejet soething s unintelligible is to ke judgeent It is to rese to use ode This y be right or wrong, but it is not the se thing s deoding work bere lying riteri A vluble work, owerl work t lest, is one whih hllenges odes, overthrows estblished wys of reding or looking, not sily to estblish new ones, but to oel n unending dilogue, not t rndo but rodutively This brings us bk to Godrd The hostility felt towrds Godrd exresses reisely relutne to ebrk on this dilogue, stistion with the ine s it is When, in Es Wi, Godrd ritiises not only the work of other lkers, but his own rtie in the rst rt of the se l, he is t the se tie sking us to ritiise our own rtie of wthing his l At the se tie s he interrogtes hiself, we re interrogting ourselves The le of his interrogtio is the , the text This is not sily question of selfonsiousness It is onsiousness, rst nd reost, of text, nd the eet of this text is like the eet of n tive intruder It is this intrusion whih sets u onits whih nnot be 7
settle by one (rtionl) prt of consciousness surveying noter prt of its own pst n ten bringing it bck into line. It is only nturl tt people soul wnt to rive te intruer out, toug it is icult to see ow critic coul justi tis. Gor represents te secon wve of impct of te moern movement' of te cinem te movement represente elsewere by Ducmp, Joyce, n so on. During te 20s, Russin lmmkers like Eisenstein n Vertov mke up te rst wve. It remins to be seen weter Gor will ve ny greter sortterm effect tn tey . But it is necessry to tke stn on tis question n to tke most seriously irectors like Gor imself, Mkvejev, Strub, Mrker, Roc, some unergroun irectors. As I ve suggeste, tey re not ll oing te sme ting, n it my be tt irector like Mkvejev is not relly in the sme cmp s Gor t ll. Tis remins to be seen. For tis reson, I o not believe tt evelopment of uteur nlyses of Hollywoo lms is ny longer rst priority. Tis oes not men tht te rel vnces of uteur criticism soul not be efene n sfegure. Nor oes it men tt Hollywoo soul be ismisse out of n s unwtchble Any teory of te cinem, ny lmmng, must tke Holloo into ccount. It provies te ominnt coes wit wic lms re re n will continue to o so r te reseeble ture. No teorist, no vntgre irector cn simply turn teir bck on Hollywoo. It is only in cononttion wit Holloo tt nyting new cn be prouce. Moreover, wile Holloo is n implcble e, it is not monolitic. It contins contrictions within itself, ierent kins of conicts n ssures. Hollwoo cnnot be smse semiologiclly in y, ny more tn it cn economiclly. In tis sense, tere my be n spect of venturism' or Utopinism in Gor. Tere certinly is in number of unergroun lmmkers. So, looking bck over tis book, I feel tt its most vluble sections re tose on Eisenstein n on semioloy, even toug I ve now cnge my views on te ltter. I no longer tink tt te ture of cinem simply lies in ll use of ll vilble coes. I tink coes soul be cononte wit ec oter, tt lms re texts wic soul be structure roun contrictions of coes. Te cinem its origins in populr entertinment n tis gve it gret strengt. It ws ble to resist te blnisments of tritionl rt' novel, ply, pinting n so on. Neverteless, te perio of te rise of Hollwoo coincie in mny respects with move in Hollywoo towrs rtistic respectbility, personie r exmple by Irving Tlberg. Tis movement never relly got beyon kitsc Welles, wo soul ve been its culmintion, prove too muc r it. At te sme time, te populr sie of Hollywoo ws never completely smotere by te cult of te Oscr n of ne lmmking eiter. Now, r te secon time te rst wve prove premture te vntgre s me itself felt in te cinem. Perps te ct tt it is gting minly ginst Hollywoo rter tn ginst tritionl rt' will give it n vntge over te vntgre in te oter rts. It is possible tt te trnsitionl perio we hve now entere into coul en wit victories r te vntgre tt s emerge.
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The Writings of Lee Russell: New Lef Review (1 964-7)
Samue Fue [rst used n no. 2 nury/erury 964 . 86-9] Samuel Fuller was one year old when Walsh made his rst lm, three years old when Chaplin made his rst, ur years old when Grifth mde Birh ofa Naion, s years old when Ford made his rst. Many veterns of the silent lm are still alive, working or loong r work Swan, Lang, Hitchcock, Hawks, Renoir, Vidor. Fuller made his rst lm, I Sho J Jam aer wo decades of sound, in 1 949. He is a postWelles director, a little older than Weles, whose lms apper along with lms made by directors whose cinem careers began bere Welles was born. The ntastically reshortened timescale of the cinema has meant that few Americn directors are seen in their roper perspective, Fuller perhaps least of ll. Even an inrmed critic like Andrew Sarris, writing in Film Clr, hs described Fuller s a pimitive'; his ilure to tret contemporary reallife' subjects and situations has led most critics to lose sight of his distinctiveness and to relegate him into the ranks of the action directors' who are thought of s making up the solid, traditional rearguard of Americn cinema rather than its brilliant, exceptional vnguard. Ritt, Cassavetes and Sanders excite criticl attention, while Fuller is neglected. Fuller has worked consistently within the American cinem genres Western, gangster, Pacic war. These genres, I would argue, are the great strength of the erican cinema. America is a comprtively young nation which has grown very rapidly into a leading globl power. It is no accident that the epochs of the cinema genres are also the epochs of crisis in Amerca's consciousness of itself, its national identi and its role in history. The American cinema helped to develop the national consciousness while it developed its own genres, through its mutually responsive relationship with its mass publc. Americn cinema has develoed artisticlly out of the romantic movement and of national consciousness. This trend was strengthened by the emergence of the genres, in which themes and attitudes could be systematically developed. The work of Fuller in these genres represents a r point of bourgeois romanticnationalist consciousness, in which its contra dictions are clearly exposed. Fuller's world is a violent world, a world of conict Red Indian v white man, gangster v police, American v Communist. (Fuller hs updated the Pacic war 119
movie to deal with both Korea and Vietnam) But neither the onts nor the oc casions r conict are clearly delimited Battles take lace n utter consion in thick g in snowstorms in mazes All Fuller's war lms are about encounter behind the enemy lines Nor do the rotagonists even know why or r what they are ghting How do you tell a North Korean om a South Korean?' asks a uz zled GI in Stl Hlmt. His stogiechewing sergeant relies If he's running with you he's a South Korean If he's running aer you he's a North Korean' In China Gat we see the defence of the American alliance in Vietnam by a commando atrol one is a German veteran of the Hermann Goering Brigade one an American negro both enlisted in the Foreign Legion The only reason they give r being there is that the Korean War is over so they looked r another troublesot They are in ct the dregs of society sychoathic killers with no urose in life Fuller oen oints out how such eole take the burden of defending the so ciety which � The tyical Fuller hero is oised ambiguously in the conlict Oen he is a double agent In Vrbotn the neoNazi Bruno inltrates the American Occuation HQ; in Ho of Bamboo, a military oliceman inltrates a gang entirely made u of men discharged with ignominy om the US army In Pik-p on Soth Strt and China Gat the central characters try to lay both ends at once America and Communism to their ersonal advantage Don't wave the ag at me says the ickocket hero of Pikp who has inadvertently lied a microlm om a Russian sy and roceeds to auction it to the highest bidder Lucky Legs in China Gat, makes ossible the success of a French mission by her iendshi with the Vietminh lookouts and cams whom she leads in singing the Marseillaise' while the legionaries sneak by In the end they both choose America Why? Irrational ersonal loyalties Ambiguity in its most extreme rm is reresented in Fuller's lms by the Nisei the Jaanese American and the Chinese American In Hll an High Watr a catured Chinese Communist aeals to an American Chinese who is a stool igeon to get inrmation om him Desite the Communist's evident humanity and amiability the American Chinese betrays him He is as he sees it a loyal American Fuller takes the matter rther He asks how the white American sees the Chinese American One of the major themes of his lms is antiracism subordinated to the theme of nationalism In Th Crimon Kimono set in Los Angeles a white girl leaves her white boyiend r his best iend a Nisei This lm was made in the same year 1959, as Hirohima mn amor. Fuller deals with the race roblem much more radically than Resnais The Nisei marries the white girl; the animosity of his iend when he realises what is haening is clearly shown culminating in a bout of ghting when he goes out of his mind and tries to kill the Nisei To Fuller however it is America that is always aramount There is a clear con tradiction between his attitude to the Nisei and the negro whom Fuller sees as being necessarily integrated into American soc iety and the attitude he takes to the white renegade' O'Meara in n of th Arrow, a Western O'Meara a Southerner cannot tolerate the idea of living under the Union ag and the Union constitution aer Lee's surrender They chased us when we had not legs; they crammed our bread into their mouths when we had no od He goes west and joins the 120
Te Crimson Kimono (1959). Siox nation Wen te Yankees come and make a treat wit te Siox cief Red Coud, Red Cloud insists tat tey empoy a Sioux scout, not a Cerokee Te Sioux scout cosen y te cief is O'Meara Fuller is scrupuously ir to te ndians e permits O'Meara to criticise te treaty terms and sympatises wen te Indians wipe out a US cavalry detacment aer te terms are roken But e insists tat O'Meara cannot fully integrate imself into te Sioux nation He re turns wit is ndian wife and cild to te Union, recognising tat e is an American Yet e insists tat te Nisei is not a renegade' and tat e can e inte grated into America Fuller's anti racism is imited y is nationalism and is na tionalism is nally determined y is own nationaity Fuller is an American and in te end all is eroes choose America But Fuller does not evade te prolems; he evades te answers Atoug e is
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committed t Americ, he is well wre of the contrdictions in Americn sociey nd does not hesitte to conont them. His Americ is violent, divided Americ; his sviours of Americ re delinquents nd mists. His ericns rmpge through SouthEst Asi through Burm, Vietnm, Kore, Jpn nd huge sttues of the Buddh smile srdoniclly down on them. In Steel Helmet US troops crouched on the Buddh's lp re over the Buddh's shoulder. Fuller's romntic ntionlism is quite incpble of seeing ny positive wy rwrd, ny rel ture. The Americ he celebrtes is teetering into luncy. This is rther demonstrted by the plotsynopsis of the lm he is now working on, Shock Coido A journlist (Fuer himself ws journlist bere he went into cinem, rmtion he is proud of nd which he hs explicitly used in his lm bout journlism, Pak ow) wnts to win the Pulitzer Prize. He hers of n unsolved murder in luntic sylum nd rrnges to be dred into the sylum double gent between snity nd luncy nd write up the story. There re three key witnesses. First, the single negro student in Southern university, who hs gone md nd thinks himself the hed of the Ku Klux Kln. Second, GI who went over to the Communists er being cptured in Kore. Third, n tomic scientist who hs regressed to the mentl ge of six. The journlist solves the murder, writes the story nd wins the Pulitzer Prize. But he is so disturbed by his experience tht he too goes insne nd is put in n sylum. His choice hs been mde. Finlly, few comments on Fuller's style. Fuller hs extrordinry commnd over tempo. He is celebrted both r his quick jumpcutting decisive inuence on Godrd's Beathless nd r the length of individul tkes. (A tke in Veboten of m. 29s.; tke in un of the Aow of 4m. s.) His lms contin un usully striking imges: view of Fujiym between the shoes of corpse (House of Bamboo); bttle in mze of polygonl mnheight tnktrps (Meill's Mauaudes); dumb child being sucked into quicksnd nd blowing on hrmonic r help (un of the Aow) Finlly, despite ll the specultion bout Lng nd Losey, it seems to me tht Fuller is the lm director whose methodology clos est pproches Brecht's thetre. Compre, r instnce, his use of chrcters both s ctors in drm nd spokesmen of their consciousness of the drm, his use of song nd of exotic, distnt settings, nd even his use of posters nd slogns: t the end of un of the Aow rubric shes on to the screen, The end of this story will be written by you'. Fuller is n exmple of distinctive cretive personlity (he hs written, pro duced nd directed the mjority of his lms) working within trditionl genre to extend nd explore both its trditionl thees nd his own ttitudes to them. The genres he hs used re the genres which del with the key res of Americn history, nd Fuller hs used them to conont the problems which re rised by the contrdictions of Americn history He hs not shirked those contrdictions but hs sought to dissolve them in n extreme sttement of romntic ntionlism. He hs pushed romntic ntionlism s r s it wl go. His ture ms will show how r he cn push his own energy nd integriy.
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Jean Renoi [rs puse n n 25 y/une 1964 pp 5760] I 1 936 , it is e rgten, Jean Reir e prpgn l, La Vie est nous r te Frenc Cuis Prty, starring auric Trez, Jcques Ducls, etc: i 193 7 e ae La Maseillaise r te Trae Ui veet ( CGT) Te te war ele i Hllyw Te eay ays f te Ppular Frt ever re ture In 1950, e e The Rive in Inia (is ls Aeric l) , explinig tat, weres bere te war e a trie t rise a prtestig vice e w tugt tt bt te ties a e iself a cge: is ew was ne f lve f te iulget sile' Fllwig s seee t cr te tre: Fench Cancan Elena et les hommes. Betryl? Or turity? Te critics split Oe cp praise e prewar Reir, te Renir f te le'; te ter prise te pstwar Reir, te Renir f pure ciea' One scl, lenig n te autrity f Are Bazi, reebee Frec' Reir; ater, eae by te eergig critics f Cahies du Cinma, eale erica' Reir As Reir gew ler, te Cahies critics argue, e grew re persnl, ence re f an autr, greater irectr Debte ture acriius Reir, e nti critic wrte, eie by ibeciles, as lst all sese f values' A s Te rut is tat Reir's wrk is a ceret wle Te ainsprig f is tugt as always bee te questi f te atural a: ature a rtice, Pan a Fust, turl arny His ierig atitues t sciey ve bee te result f te atural' navet e as cerise Te Ppulr Frt ppele t i, e as cesse, prtly because it seee t presage er f any betwee classes, a atial iyll; aer te war te rces wic a ae up te Frt shwe iscr raer tn cncr a Reir retrete pliticl life, awy cps blcs it te cutrysie, is ter's estae, stlgi a a ki f pateis Yet Reir te pateis is ne ter ta Reir te Cuist, Rei the re' prpaganist His rst allegiace s lways been t te riary an, askig tig re an eat, rik, sleep, ake lve a live i rny with all te ter illis f riary en rugut te wl He islikes regietati, systeatisati nytig wic tretes e tul, ua qualiies t wic e is attace He etests te cnitis ipse n a by capitl at its rtest liit is etestati as le i t arcis a pacis but e c ccept te cict r te isciplie necessry r e vertrw f te cpialist syste His gre pilspicl ancestr is Russeau; t e tie is preccupati as bee te Geerl Will, t ter te Nble Savge Renir recgnises te estece f scial clsses an atilities e is sciate by te, as peea bu e insists tat tese ierences ee t ivie e i teir ua essence Tus asters servants teir lives a es capaes ave always ualy intercte n iterlcke i Reir's wrl, tug te tw rers rei istict (Renir as always peferre t epict asterservat relatis ta eplyerwrker: e is repelle by te ayity f te ctry) Witess, r istace, e cversatin abut ares between te arquis an te servat i La Rgle du jeu. Te ivisis wic cunt re spiritual t scial, ivisis My wrl is ivie it iser a spetri, careless a cautius, aster a slave, sly n sicere, crer n cpyist' (Master 123
La Rgle du jeu and save, to Renor, are sprtual categores he uses arstocrat' n he same way) Renor s the spokesman r human values whch captalst socety wl destroy as r as can he values whch Rousseau though of as presocal He s condent that these vaues cannot be desroyed entrey, that there are sprtual recesses nto whch capalsm cannot reach, that human bengs cannot be entrely dehumansed Renor beleves that most peope wat no more than a smple, uncomp caed lfe; anythng rher s vaty, se p omp Ths nvolves a renuncaton of publc and a retrea nto prvacy, a ght om the central reales of an nhu man socety o s human margns I explans Renor's scnaton wth women, wandering players, gypses, vagabonds, poachers and so on all those who lve n ths human margn Yet Renor's bonhome hs open optmsm easly sps nto buonery a knd of hdden pessmsm The purest expresson of Reor's attachment to the natural man s hs m Boudu au d au made n 1932 Ever snce he made t, he has sad, he has been lookng n van r another such sory A Parsan bookseller rescues a tramp, Boudu, who has thrown hmself nto the Sene He akes hm home and starts try ng to cvlse hm, o educae hm n the desderata of bourgeos lfe But Boudu s ntractable a natural man, mpervous o resrant or ncety he clmbs on to the dnner tabe, seeps curled up on the oor, runs rare books, tears down the curtans, assauls hs beector's wfe, etc Eventually, a knd of settlement s reached and s decded that Boudu s to marry the mad (Marryng the mad s a recurrent feaure of Renor's lms) Durng the weddng party, Boudu upsets a boat on the Sene, swms ashore, les down beneath a hedge and returns happy
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to a life of vagray Boudu's iursio ito soiety is destrutive, aa hi: the same bourgeoisie whih, i Reoir's words, produed Proust ad the railway, aot ope with Boudu It is lear whih way of life Reoir regards as more autheti But Boudu is a extreme ase: o the whole, Reoir tempers ature with prudee r e te re trat ye exaty tt de ur moer vton w nt e A re t e ad everyne t: exaty tu tey ee rere t veryne ee e er r n te e erentr ut t' everye t ere re t a everyoe t e, tt ut te ae yu ave to aet t, eaue you rre , ete te re t, u w ry et e Reoir's masterpiee, La Rgle du jeu explores the same theme o a dieret level; it is more omplex ad more uaed Adr Jurieux, a popular hero (a ae pilot who is lumsy o the groud: the symbol is miliar), disturbs the aristorati house party to whih he is ivited by his passio r his host's wife The ode of rules by whih life is ordered breaks dow ad guests ad host begi to ght le Polish avvies' Jurieux, the disturbig re, must be expelled; he is shot ad a speeh of great deliay by De la Chesaye the host, a marquis who adores mehaial musiboxes restores order ad the ovetioal ode The shootig of Jurieux ehoes the shootig of birds ad rabbits at the butts the seseless destrutio of atural beigs i order to orm with a style of life Suh a shema does ot suggest the ll sope of the m: the sure is otiually utuatig ad it is this utuatig iteratio of the haraters, rather tha the itrigue (a kid of Beaumarhais plot), whih sets the pae ad holds the eye Reoir gives his ators a great deal of room ad time by the use of deep us ad log takes ad eourages them to move about The m is awash with movemet ad gesture, so that the rst impressio is of a otiual to ad o, ombied with sharp psyhologial auray The amera, i dr Bazi's phrase, is the ivisible guest, with o privilege but ivisibility' The ostrutio of the lm reveals itself little by little to the attetive spetator: Reoir does ot belabour his poits Ideed, i La Rgle du jeu tragedy emerges impereptibly om breakek re; the aristoray are most doomed a aristoray who are ever artoos, as they are i Eisestei whe they are at their best Aer the war, Reoir retured agai to the themes of La Rgle du jeu most obviously i Elena et les hommes but also i Le Caosse d'o made i Italy i 1 952 There is spae here oly to make some suggestive remarks about this lm First, it takes up agai the same triad of haraters who appeare i La Rgle du jeu Vieroy = Marquis, Bullghter = Pilot (the popular hero) , Felipe = Otave But here is a dieree: it is the woma, Camilla, who is the disruptive, atural re; the bullghter is merely the suitor who is lumsy, eve ridiulous, whe outside the area Seod, the golde oah itself is used as a symbol of huma vaity, of the wish r publi alaim ad pomp It is the oah of Faust (mastery over ature): the vieroy must hoose betwee the oah ad Camilla (submissio to ature) But third, Reoir itrodues a idea whih radially modies his attitude to ature: that, i some irumstaes, it is most atural to play artiial roles 125
Thus, Camilla, the atural rce, is oly really her atural self whe playig o the stage i the commedia dell'ate Real life ad theatre becomig iextricably cosed: it would be, i a sese, uatural r the viceroy to choose Camilla; he caot Yet ally, Felipe, who goes to live with the Idias (Rousseau's savages) , ca be atural, because he opts out o f society altogether He is, like Octave i La Rgle du jeu a ure, uable to choose at rst betwee acceptace ad resal of society betwee two sets of values but ally costraied to leave Reoir has always bee a pioeer His lm Toni (1934) is widely cosidered to be a mai source of Italia NeoRealism: there is a direct lik through Viscoti, who was Reoir's assistat La Rgle du jeu used deep cus bere Welles Reoir wated to be more ee to place his actors ad let them move The same d of cosideratio led him to TV techiques r Le Dejeune su l'hebe ad D Codelie shot with several cameras simultaeously ad hidde microphoes: this gave much more uidity ad also meat that the actors could ot play to the camera Reoir has ever liked quick cuttig: a extravagat camera movemet, like the 360degree pa so admired by Bazi i Le Cime de Monsieu Lange is oe preferred to a cut His lms use less ad less champscontechamps fewer ad fewer closeups The tempo of his lms comes om the actors, ot om the mo tage Whe he uses closeups, r istace, it is ot to stress a dramatic climax, but to puctuate with images om outside the mai actio Oe they are of ature (quasiaimist' is Jacques Rivette's phrase): the ogs ad twitchig rabbits i La Rgle du jeu the squirrel Kleber i Diay of a Chambemaid the isects i Le Djeune su l'hebe. Udoubtedly Reoir is oe of the great masters of the ciema His work stretches om Gork's Lowe Depths to commedia dell'ate ; it embraces Idia sakecharmers, ymphs ad satyrs, Jell ad Hyde, Geeral Boulager, testtube babies, caca dacers ad the Commuist Party Some critics have see o more i Reoir tha the retreat ito a pastoral idyll, a remiiscece of his ther's paitig The eormous diversity of Reoir's material gaisays them For, whe he does isist o the values of the idyll values ucorrupted by capitalism he has ever made the limits of the idyll his ow horizo O the cotrary, he has isisted o applyig these values to every kid of circumstace Perhaps he has bee oeroptimistic But it would be wrog to reproach him r the overoptimism of, say, Elena et les hommes its pervasive atmosphere of beevolece ad sympathy r everyoe ad ot r the overoptimism which marked his support of the Popular Frot Moreover, it is his optimism which eables him to reduce the values of bourgeois society to rce; it is ot the hypocritical optimism of bourgeois setimetality It is a rm codece i ma ad his attachmet of authetic values Apropos of La Maseillaise Reoir commeted o th me who stormed the Tuileries: Of course, rst ad remost, they were revolutioaries, but that did ot stop them eatig, drikig, feelig too hot or feelig too cold They were i the midst of evets, which trasrmed the destiies of the world, like straws i a storm But we must ot rget that the storm which swept them alog was their ow work
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Staney Kubick [r ue n no. 2 6 ummer 1964 . 714 Stanley Kubrik, by his meteori rise to the top of the idustry, has so r man aged to outpae ritial appraisal. At rst he was greeted as the regeerator of the thriller; suddenly he tured to good auses ad soial otet. Ad the o sooer had he wo new ieds with Paths of Gloy than he straied their allegiae to the limit by hoosing to make a blokbuster, Spatacus. Next, Lolita onrmed Adrew Sarris in the dark view he had taken of Kubrik, but was welomed by JeanLu Godard i the pages of Cahies du Cinma as simple ad luid a surprise'. Fially, D Stngelove split the more orthodox ritis as uexpetedly as Lolita has split Sarris ad Godard. To some it seemed a deeply serious lm, ourageous and progressive; to others, sik and nihilisti. By ad large, two broad urrents of opinion seem to have rmed. O the one had, Kubrik a be see as trying bravely and more or less suesslly to make serious onormist lms whih, at the same time, reah a mass audiee ad beet om the resoures usually available only to the mere spetaular'. Or, o the other hand, Kubrik an be seen as strething his powers too r, as dissipatig his tal et i grandiose projets ad big ideas attrative r their sope, but whih he a mark with his own persoality oly in quirks ad agmets. But either way, ueasy doubts remai. One ruial ambiguity in Kubrik's work lies in the relatioship betwee his bienpensant liberalism ad his obsession with disaster. Kubrik has mentioed that Ophuls is his vourite diretor most ritis have thought this a stylisti preferee and oted it alogside his addition to tragshots. But here is aother, more proud, ommon quality Kubrik's lms are pervaded with the Ophulsian bittersweet. olita, of ourse, is bittersweet through ad through. I Kille's Kiss the two lovers, Gloria and D avy, are both ilures a iled daer, overshadowed by her balleria sister, ad a ed boxer, whom Gloria wathes o the TV pummelled igomiiously o to the avas. Two of Kubrik's ms, Paths of Gloy and D Stngelove, end with setimetal songs, used to outerpoint total defeat. In Paths of Gloy the sog moks the order r battleweary troops to retur to the ot aer the exeutio of three amog them r owardie three who were, in t, innoent, who were arbitrarily hose as sapegoats to over up the bluders ad savagery of a high oer. In D Stngelove, the irony is eve more ere a Vera Lyn song aompanies a long sequee of atomi explosios ad mushroom louds. Yet there is a vital distintion to b e made betwee Ophuls's pessimism and Kubrik's. Ophuls was a romanti indeed, a arhromati. I Lola Monts his greatest and most pessimisti lm, the myth f Lola is that of Iarus Lola's aspiration to an ideal, individual eedom is shattered by the reality of human history, a reality whih, sie her ow visio remais pure, she aot grasp even aer her fall. She eds up i a age i a irus meagerie, imprisoed, degraded, llen but still attahed to er broke dream, whih she re enats eah ight. The reeatmet tive and theatrial is a heroi reassertion of the value of the aspirations of her wreked life the triumph of myth over reality through art. But r Kubrik, there are no myths, no eedom, o hope only their absene. The outerpart of Kubrik's jejue liberalism is a jejune nihilism. 127
Dr Sragelove (1963) Kubrc's Lol s doaed o by he ues r a possible passio (poss be because Lolia us ve i e) bu by he search r Quly racg hi dow ad g hi Kubrc's word s dehuaised; hua passos are uous Hs pessis s cold ad obsessve For Kubrc he berswee easy spls over o he groesue ad io bac rce his srea showed iself very early ad has gradualy grow doa: he gh wih reaxe ad repole bewee Day ad Rapalo Klls Kss which a roo of aior's dues are hacked o pieces by huge swipes lbs ad heads yig everwhere; Ni's coversaio wh he egro carp ar ae
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dant in e Killing the pingpong bere Quilty's murder in Lolita, the grotesque Pentagon warroom sequences in D Stngelove Expressionism is pushed toward Surrealism bizarre juxtaposition, macabre undertones, the triumph of the ir rational. But Kubrick goes much rther than Welles, particularly in his choice of actors. It is entirely logical that Kubrik should have xed on Peter Sellers r his two latest lms: an actor with almost no human essence, an impersonator and a caricaturist. And whereas in Welles caricatureactors are used as ils r the mass ive, perverted, but very human quality of Welles himself, in Kubrick there is nothing but caricature. The real logic of D Stangelove is that Sellers should play, not just three, but all the parts. or Welles, the world is a nightmare which perverts man's austian aspirations into Mephistophelean evil: the only authentic response is stoicism and scepticism Welles's vourite writer is Montaigne. or Kubrick, everything is diseased, all human qualities are caricatures, there is no authenticity. (Even his apparently positive characters Dax and Spartacus experience nothing authentically but defeat: hope, r them, is just ignorance.) Bere h e went into movies, Kubrick worked as a still photographer r Look. His rst lms were praised by critics r their visual air': Kille's Kiss is ll of carelly composed shots reections, shadows, silhouettes, etc. The general ef fect is rather ssy and overornamental. The Killing is a much cleaner lm. It tells the story of a racetrack heist; the tasks o f each member of the gang are slotted into a precise schedule. The cutting is brilliant; the plan of the lm reects the plan of the robbery in its precision. Some sequences are repeated twice, om dierent viewpoints, as the dierent roles of dierent actors in each operation are llowed. The camera is very mobile. This mobility becomes overobvious in Paths of Glo the camera tracks endlessly down trenches ll of exhausted soldiers the trench walls circumscribe the camera's range too blatantly. In another scene the camera tracks back and rth across the end of a large hall as Colonel Dax, defender in a court martial, paces back and rth with it. ll Kubrick's lms tend to be overdi rected. In his later lms, the construction becomes much looser, the camerawork more expressionistic still. The retreat om naturalism is very obvious in Lolita, which was made in England: the paean of praise to the American landscape mo tels, tollgates, cloverleafs, neon, etc. which might have been expected om Nabokov's book, was completely regone by Kubrick. In D Stngelove the plot develops very loosely and schematically it does not seem to matter how much time there is le; the point is that there is not enough. Kubrick is an ambitious director. But his more grandiose projects do not seem to have rced him to deepen his thought: ndamentally, D Stngelove is an ad vance over Kille's Kiss only in so r as its pessimism is spread much wider, more universalised and more cosmic. Certainly this makes a more sensational eect: the end of the world is necessarily sensational. But, at the same time, it is not the end of the real world; it is the end of a monstrous caricature. or, the more univer salised the pessimism becomes, the more it is necessary to dehumanise the world and to caricature mankind. Thus D Stangelove has no real bite. On the other hand, Kubrick is certainly not a Preminger. The claim of daring of cononting problems is obviously hollow with Preminger; even though he has made lms about drug addiction, rape, Israel, homosexuality in the United States senate, the Ku Klux Klan and so on, he has never been more than a parasite on controversy. 129
ndeed, his two latest lms have been apologias r the American constitution and the college of cardinals. Compared with Preminger, Kubrick is a genuine nonconrmist. ndeed, he seems increasingly antiAmerican: he has even gone into voluntary exile. But the more Kubrick retreats into expressionism and caricature, the more his pessimism becomes merely a question of mood, rather than the outcome of a conontation of real problems. n the last resort, perhaps, Kubrick shows no more than the easy way out of the liberal impasse. He sees the inadequacy of liberalism, its impotence when it comes to a crisis, but he cannot abandon it. He goes on repeating its platitudes. Each time they taste sourer in the mouth. Dalton Trubo gives way as scriptwriter to Terry Southern. And as the platitudes become more and more bitter, more and more rcical, so does the world. Everybody becomes Peter Sellers. Humanity becomes the most grotesque platitude of all. Meanwhile, his best lm remains The Killing where the human quality of the characters (Sterling Hayden, Kola Kwarian, Tim Carey, Ted de Corsia, Jay C. Flippen), seen in relation to each other and to their work, is as yet unmatched. Yet, despite the cility of Kubrick's development, it would be wrong to discount him altogether. Somewhere inside him is lurking a Nathanael West struggling to emerge. f he does not succee in releasing him, Kubrick will end up as tuous as the world he depicts.
ouis M ae [Frt ue i n no. 0 Marc/r 1965 76 The nouvelle vague is now at least six years old and the time has come to take stock. Perhaps the best way to do this is to consider the work of Louis Malle, never at the heart of the group who took the headlines, yet in a way the nou velle vague archexponent, and certainly its most consistently successl in terms of both box oce and prizes. n his latest lm, Le Feu olet Malle showed himself perhaps closer to the original spirit of the movement than others who have sheered o in their own personal or hyperpersonal directions. Malle, the most eclectic, is also the most typical. The paradox need not surprise: unable to develop a style with its own dynamic, the eclectic devises a composite, whose surce shimmers with unresolved tensions, but which is easily assimilable. n the wrong circumstances, the eclectic becomes either an academic or a grotesque. Malle, an intelligent director, has been saved om these extremes both by the progressive atmosphere surrounding him and by his own good judgement. But, whereas Godard is Godard and Truaut is Truaut, Malle is the nouvelle vague t is worth recapitulating why it was that the rst lms of the movement cre ated such a vivid impression of novelty. Partly it was a question of mise en scne seminewsreel, oen handheld camerawork; a carelessness about aming and a much greater insistence on texture; a belief that the camera should llow actors encouraged to act naturally rather than perrm in ont of the autocratic camera; a new wlingness to use unorthodox eects more or less casually rather than as set pieces. Partly it was a new approach to content and a new kind of content: epi 130
sodic costuctio oe with may paetheses; a felessess about itoducig itellectual' mateial covesatio ad allusios; a pheomeological appoach to domestic psychological poblems; a moe candid teatmet of sexuality; a pef eece atual spontaeous athe than instumetal plotwadig dia logue oe impovised o the spot Othe featues wee moe upecial: i jokes tibutes to the Ameica gagste movie visual pus Also thee was a clea isistece oe to the point of agacy o havig a developed ciematic cultue leadig to a isistece o cleacut diectioal cotol Almost all these qualities ad chacteistics ae to be ud i Malle's lms His st m Ascenseu pou l'chafaud, did ot lly satis him ulike othe nouvelle vague diectos who maaged to make thei own pojects as st lms Malle had the sceeplay ced o him It was a lm which was give nouvelle vague teatmet (the Miles Davis soudtack istace) it established Malle's talet but did ot give him the chace to make his own lm Les Amants, his ext lm ad his ow poject was clealy too coceed with the d of peoccuptios a nouvelle vague lm ought to have Its cetal featue a log eotic se quece of lovemakig sigalled a ew libety without makig ay eal ew advace The plot despite its mode tappigs the 2CV ad the bathoom was essetially ultaomatic ad aachoistic As so oe with Malle the most distictive atue of the lm was its oamet: the polo the bathoom etc Zazie dans le mto was a moe impotat wok ot exactly because of its me its but because it ws a uashamed attempt to make a splitlevel lm which would appel to cinphiles ad the geeal public but dieent easos O the oe had it was an athology of allusios and quotes om umeous histoic movies; o the othe it was a zay cackpot comedy with lots of chases and slapstick The lm also showed Malle's moutig iteest i cameawok; plot ad chaacte hadly est ad the lm is kept om saggig almost etiely by stimulatig the eye ad ot allowig it to settle Zazie showed how it was possible to use typical nouvelle vague devices i ode to elive a actio of little iteest to the diecto i itself ad tun it ito a vituoso stylistic execise (This of couse is what Richadso tied to do with Tom ones) It should be said that sice Queeau's oigial book was little moe tha a vituoso sematic execise itself it is aguable that Malle was taslatig it ithlly ito ciematic tems But this meely udelines the poit that Malle has bee uable to nd his ow dyamic The nouvelle vague was always cael not to seem aaid of commecialism; its admiatio Ameican ciema implied a belief that good ciema might well also be good box oce Yet it soo became quite clea that the leadig nouvelle vague diectos om beig shadowy gues i the Hollywood jungle wee goig to be ethoed as the idols of the itelligetsia i the ll glae of the limelight ad applauded by the vey citics who spued the Ameica ciema Besides they wee ealy all itellectuals themselves ad though it is oe thig to isist that the ciema all the meits of Ameica diectos still lacked a cetai itellectual dimesio it is quite aothe to litte Faue's Wild Palms o Goethe's Elective Anities aoud o the scee ad commet o them i log pssages of sceeplay Cosequetly thee was always a ndametal tesio i nouvelle vague ciema sometimes expessig itself i supisig ways appaetly pevese: thus Godad makes lms with Bigitte Badot ad Eddie Costatie 131
Vi priv (1961)
Mall too ad a l with Brgitt Bardot Vi ri Godads L ris was uttry paadoxica to th point of slfdstuction; it was an attpt to ak a l of Anononi in th styl of Hitchcock and Hawks a bizar juxtaposition of yoy closups of Brigtt wih a rcondit allgory basd on h yssy. But Malls l was as on ight xpct a or o lss staight corcial proprty siilar in ts ky ida to Clouots L Vri but givn a nw kind of stylistic gloss ts two ost striking faturs Dcas xprintal oiiis pho ography and a long squnc of Brigitt Bardot falling through spac basd on th parachut jup in Sirks rish s had no rlvanc to th pl ot of th l which sd to dand ithr nwsrl tratnt or ls outandout Ophulsian thaicality Onc or howv Mall lapsd at crucial onts into a wak roanticis which blid his quirks of xpintation Th l sd subsrvint to consrvativ boxoc opinion and not cottd to th blif that advancd cina could pay wll Moov h sd quit incapabl of daling sriousy with any of th ths such as th natur of stardo th privat and t public c tc whch th l ight hav suggstd t sd ar Vi ri ha d b n shown that littl o coud b xpctd o Mall Howvr h povd rsilint nough to ak a coback and his ost rcnt l L fo was wll rcivd alost vrywhr t was not an outstandngly good l but it was a l which prhaps or than any othr was calculatd o catch th attntion of th intllctual Th scrnplay was basd on an adaptaon of a novl by Driu La Rochll with th ho changd o a dug addict to an alcoholic This shi bought h l into ln wth its prvailing
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mood, which was clearly sigalled by a umber of allusios to Scott itzgerald. Although the lm, like the book, eds with the hero's suicide, it was ot so much a suicide of a oppressed or broke ma as of a privileged yet doomed ma, a ma who obscurely feels that he has o rther ime to live ad that to cotiue livig, perversely, would be to live i such a coditio of radical separatio om others as hardly to be livig at all. The lm does ot cosider the origis of this feelig of tality ad of separatio, but chroicles a series of episodes i which it becomes maifest. The camera, therere, is the typical nouvelle vague llowig camera, but it is also edowed, r quite log periods, with the hero's ow subjectivity. The pricipal episodes are i the rm of vigettes of the hero's ieds: a earest adept of the kabbala, a beatik girl ad a Maeceas who likes to etertai the wealthy ad the witty. Like the hero, they are all itellectuals. Durig the day, the hero, who has just udergoe a alcoholic's cure, gets icapably druk. However, this is ot the cetre of the lm alcoholism, it is evidet, is a symptom ad ot a disese. What is really at stake is the essetial character of the itellectual, his obsessio with the problematic, his fear that the problem is a lse problem. The lm owes its success to the ct that its audiece a audiece of itellectuals through the obsessive camera, is made to share the activities of other itellectuals ad see them as uitelligible, phatomlike. Thus Malle makes use of the process o f audiece ideticatio with the camera ad the radical separatio betwee the audiece ad the shadows o the scree. Ciema, i this sese, becomes the cetral rite of a cult, by which a deed group makes its auto critique, its cofessio of fear that life caot be made itelligible, ad eacts the suicide i shadows which it will ot eed ot make i substace. Evidetly, uderlyig a ciema of this d is a dametal jadedess ad lack of eergy. It seeks to evoke a state of mid, a quality of feelig, which is saturated i itellectuality but does ot give its material ay itelligible structure. It is this basic lack of orietatio which allows Malle to osciate so violetly betwee the hyperitellectual ad the vulgar. His ext m, Viva Maia, starrig Brigitte Bardot ad Jeae Moreau, promises to be yet aother tightropewa. Doubtless, it will be both a commercial success ad strog coteder r a Golde Lio. But it will probably do little to solve the problems which beset Malle ad the rapidly dissipatig nouvelle vague It is ot oly esh ideas about ciema which are ow eeded, but esh ideas about society, about people, about the world. A ew ciema demads a ew athropology.
Budd Boettice [First published i n no 2 July/August 1 965 pp. 78-84]
Budd Boetticher is ot a wellkow director ideed, eve such a kowledgeable critic as drew Sarris raks him amog esoterica'. Most critics would be iclied to dismiss him as resposible r o more tha a few ruofthemill Westers, hardly distiguishable om his equally aoymous fellows a tpical Hollyood techicia, a ame which ashes past o the credits ad is soo rgotte. This 133
would be to misjudge Bo etticher His works are, in ct, distinctive, homogeneous in theme and treatment, and of more than usual interest He is an author and well aware of it himself; he is lucid about his own lms It is high time critics were equally lucid Budd Boetticher's rst contact with the movies was in 1 94 1 , when Mamoulian went to Mexico to make Blood and Sand. Boetticher had already been in Mexico some years he went there to recuperate aer an erican otball season and while there had taken up bullghting, eventually becoming a professional Maoulian hired him, as an erican and a torero, as the technical adviser on bullghting r his lm Boetticher became as enthusiastic about movies as he had about bullghting and, aer three years as messenger boy and assistant director, made his rst lm, One Mysteious Night in 1 944 For a number of years he made ephemeral quickies; his pise de conscience as an author in his own right did not come til 1951, when he made e Bulghte and the Lady For this lm, he changed his signature om Oscar Boetticher Jr to Budd Boetticher; he himself has recognized it as the turningpoint in his career Even then, it was another ve years bere Boetticher und the conditions which really suited him The breakthrough came in 1956 with Seven Men om Now; his rst m r Ranown Productions, e Tall T came the next year During these two lms the team was assembled with which Boetticher was to make his most characteristic work: Randolph Scott as star, Harry Joe Brown as producer, Burt Kennedy as scriptwriter Seven Men om Now was also Boetticher's rst lm to get critical acknowledgement: Andr Bazin reviewed it in Cahies du Cinma under the head, ' Exemplary Western' Boetticher made ve Westerns with Ranown; they are the core of his achievement Finally, in 1960, he made his most celebrated work, e Rise and Fall of Legs Diamond r Warner To make this lm, he had to tear up a Philip Yordan script in ont of Yordan's ce and shoot in such a way that the producer could not puzzle out how to do the montage Exasperated, he le Hollywood and erica, determined, in ture, to work under conditions of his own choice Since then he has made only the unreleased Auza in Mexico, aer considerable diculties He now has numerous projects but uncertain prospects The typical BoetticherRanown Western may seem very unsophisticated It begins with the hero (Randolph Scott) riding leisurely through a labyrinth of huge rounded rocks, classic badlands terrain, and emerging to approach an isolated swingstation Then, gradually, rther characters are made known; usually, the hero proves to be on a mission of vengeance, to kill those who lled his wife He and his small group of travelling companions, thrown together by accident, have to contend with various hazards bandits, Indians, etc The lms develop, in Andrew Sarris's words, into oating poker games, where every character takes turns at blung about his hand until the nal showdown' The hero expresses a weary serenity has a constant patient grin and willingness to brew up a pot of coee, which disarms each adversary in turn as he is prised away om the others Finally, aer the showdown, the hero rides o again through the same rounded rocks, still alone, certainly with no exultation aer his victory At rst sight, these Westerns are no more than extremely conservative exercises in a kind of Western which has been outdated This impression is strengthened by Randolph Scott's resemblance to William Hart, noted immediately by Bazin The 134
Westerns of Ince and Hart were simple moral conontations, in which good vanquished evil; since then, the Western has been enriched by more complex sociological and psychological themes John Ford's The on Hose ( 1 924) already presaged new developments, which he himself was to carry through as the Western became the key genre r the creation of a popular myth of American society and history Today, Westerns as diverse as Penn's The Lehanded Gun, almost a psychological study of delinquency, or Fuller's Run of the Aow have completely transrmed the genre Bazin saw, in Boetticher and Anthony Mann, a parallel tendency towards the increasingly subtle renement of the pristine rm f the genre; it cannot be denied that there was a strain o nostalgia r innocence in his attitude In ct, Boetticher's works are something more than Bazin's expressions of classicism the essence' of a tradition, undistracted by intellectualism, symbolism, baroque rmalism, etc The classical rm which he chooses is the rm which best ts his themes: it presents an ahistorical world in which each man is master of his own individual destiy And it is the historic crisis of indi vidualism which is crucial to Boetticher's preoccupations and his vision of the world I am not interested in mang lms about mass feelings I am r the individual' The central problem in Boetticher's lms is the problem of the individual in an age increasingly collectivised in which individualism is no longer at all selfevident, in which individual action is increasingly problematic and the individual no longer conceived as a value pe se This problem is also central, as has oen been pointed out, to the work of such writers as Hemingway and Malraux (Boetticher has himself expressed his sympathy r aspects of Hemingway) This crisis in individualism has led, as Lucien Goldmann has shown, to two principal problems: the problem of death and the problem of action For individualism, death is an absolute limit which cannot be transcended; it renders the life which precedes it absurd How then can there be any meaningl individual action during life? How can individual action have any value, if it cannot have transcendent value, because of the absolutely devaluing limit of death? These problems are to be und in Boetticher's lms Indeed, Boetticher insists on putting them very starkly; he permits no compromise with any kind of collectivism, any kind of transcendence of the individual Two examples will show this Boetticher has made only one war lm, Red Ball Expess, with which he was extremely dissatised He later contrasted the Western in which individuals (the story must be kept very personal) accept to ce dangers in which they risk death, in order to achieve a denite goal' with the war m in which armies are ung into danger and destruction by destiny at the command of the countries involved in the war' In other words, I prefer my lms to be based on heroes who want to do what they are doing, despite the danger and the risk of death In war, nobody wants to die and I hate making lms about people who are rced to do such and such a thing' Courage in war is not authentic courage, because it is not authentically chosen; it is a desperate reaction The same point comes out in The Man fom the Alamo, about a Texan who leaves the amo just bere the mous battle; he s branded a coward and a deserter But r Bo etticher he shows more courage tan those who stayed; he made an individual choice to leave, to try to save his my 135
in heir border rstead He risked his life ad his reutaio r a recise, ersonal goal rather than say, under the ressure of ass feeling, to ght r a collective cause He is a tyical Boeticher hero He did his duty, which was as dif cult and dangerous r him as r hose who stayed' (n he sae vei, Boetticher seaks of Shakeseare's Henry V ad of the scene in which the kig goes roud he ca he nigh bere the battle, whe Shakeseare raises the whole issue of the ersonal involveet of he soldiers i the kig's war) he risk of death is essential o any actio i Boetticher's ls is both the guaratee of he seriousness of the hero's action and the nal ockery which akes hat actio absurd Meaningl action is both deenden on the risk of deah and made eaningess by i. Goldman has described how, in the early ov els of Maraux, a soution to his aradox is und by the toa imersion of he hero in hisorical, collective action (he Chinese revolution of 927) until the o et of deah, no r the values of the revolution itself, quite reign to a hero who is eiher Chinese nor revouionary by convicion, bu r he oorunity i oers of auhentically meaningl action Boetticher, as we have seen, rejects this solutio; he cannot identi hisef, i any circusaces, wih a historic cause or a collective actio He akes rege, therere, in an ahistorical world, i which in dividuals can sill act authentically as individuals, can still be asters of their own destiny he goal of vengeance r a urdered wife which Boetticher's heroes have so oe set theselves oers, in a society in which justice is no collectivised, the o oruity of eaningl ersoal action Of course, this signicance is still reroacively destroyed at the oent of death he ll absurdiy of death is
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quite ruthlessly shown in The Tall T in whih boies are thrown own a well Pretty soon that well's going to be hokablok' an in whih the ller (Henry Silva) invites a vitim to run r the well an see if he an get there bere he is shot to kin of make it more interesting'. The removal of an iniviual exatly amounts to the removal of all meaning om his life. Of ourse it is quite lear that the moral struture of Boettiher's worl is utterly ierent om the simple moralism of Ine an Hart. There is no lear iviing line between ba an goo in Boetiher's lms. l my lms with Rany Sott have pretty muh the same story with variants. A man whose wife has been kile is searhing out her murerer. In this way I an show quite subtle relations between a hero wrongly bent on vengeane an outlaws who in ontrast want to break with their past.' about the ba men' in his Westerns They've mae mistakes like everyboy; but they are human beings sometimes more human than Sott.' The question of goo an evil is not r Boettiher a question of abstrat an eternal moral priniples; it is a question of iniviual hoie in a given situation. The important thing moreover is the value whih resies in ation of a ertain n; not ation to values of a ertain kin. Eviently this is a kin of existentialist ethi whih by its nature is impure an imperfet but whih reognises this. Hene the irony whih marks Bo ettiher's lms an partiularly his attitue to his heroes. The haraters playe by Ranolph Sott are always llible an vulnerable; they make their way inh by inh not at all with the sublime onene of rusaers. Yet it is possible r Anrew Sarris to talk of the moral ertitue' of Boettiher's heroes; in t he is onsing the philosophial integrity whih strutures the lms with what he takes to be the absolute moral enorsement of the hero. Boettiher sympathises with almost all of his haraters; they are all in the same preiament in whih the prime ults are inauthentiity an selfe eption rather than iningement of any olletively reognise oe. The t that some en up ea an some alive oes not neessarily iniate any moral jugement but an unerlying tragey whih Boettiher prefers to treat with irony. Something ought to be sai about the heroes' style of ation; this is not emphasise r its style in itself but as the most eetive way of arrying out the ation neee to ahieve the goal hosen. Boettiher's heroes at by issolving groups an olletivities of any n into their onstituent iniviuals. Thus in Seven Men fm Now an The Tall T, the hero piks o the outlaws one by one separating o eah member of the ban in turn. An in Buchanan Rides Alone the same metho is applie to the three Agry brothers who run Agry Town who at rst groupe to ether against Buhanan (Ranolph Sott) en up aer his proing an prising in onit with eah other. Similarly in the same m when Buhanan is about to be shot he manages to ally himself with one of the gunmen against the other by oning to Lafe om east Texas that all he wants is to hea out an get himself a sprea by the Peos River. Buhanan's tehnique is by his personal approah to Lafe to reveal his own iniviuality to him so that he is no longer willing to at as an agent r someboy else or r the olletivity at large enre an enring. Eviently the themes an problems whih I have isusse have a lose onnetion to the ethos of bullghting about whih Boettiher has mae three lms 137
ad which is persoally of great importace to him The ethos of bullghtig also cotais obvious traps ad pitlls; aroud it has crystallised a extremely repugat litism, quick to degeerate ito a cult of violece, traditio ad superhumaity oetticher does ot escape these traps It is impossible to separate the persoal ecouter betwee the bullghter ad the bull, the idividual drama of actio ad death, om the society ad social cotext which surrouds ad exploits it Thus, i e Bulghte and the Lady, the role of the crowd, icapable itself of actio, is to provoke the bullghter ito actio, eve whe he is wouded I this respect, the crowd i oetticher's bullghtig movies is similar to the wome i his Westers phatoms, with o authetic sigicace at couts is what the heroie provokes, or rather what she represets She is the oe, or rather the love or fear she ispires i the hero, or else the cocer he feels r her, who makes him act the way he does I herself, the woma has ot the slightest importace' The crowd, like the heroie, represets passivity i cotrast with the hero, the bullghter, who is the ma of actio The dager is clear; it is ot so ulikely that oetticher could llow Malraux ito a litism, i which me of ac tio are thought of as creatig values It is a pity that Auza, the latest ad most persoal bullghtig m, has ot yet bee released; it would help clari this poit Fially, there is e Rise and Fall ofLegs Diamond. Legs Diamod (Ray Dato) is the last idividualist, the last sigle kig of crime; i the ed he is replaced by the sydicate, by the cofederatio of crime bosses seated aroud a roud table, at which there is o chair r Legs At which, ideed, he wats o chair Legs Diamod, moreover, believes himself to be ivulerable, bulletproof, immortal; he believes i ct that it is impossible that death should deprive his life of all sigicace For him his ow idividuality is a absolute; hece his ruthlessess aaid that his brother, stricke with T, will be used as a paw agaist him, he abados him, reses to pay the cliic bills ad shrugs whe he is shot dead i his wheelchair Istead, he boasts that obody ca hurt him, because he has o ties with aybody d this, i the ed, is his dowfall You were ivulerable as log as somebody loved you ad He did't love aybody; that's why he's dead' oetticher seems to codem Legs Diamod because he is icapable of ay iter persoal relatioships, ad to hold that idividualism oly has ay meaig i so r as it recogises the idividuality ad persoality of others ad hece its ow relativity I the last shot, you are le with just the slush ad sleet That is all that remais of Diamod ut it is Alice who has to ce it D iamod wi ever be worried by the cold of the ight agai His life, i ct, was a tragirce ad this is how the movie is coceived, ot as a didactic story like most gagster movies I Legs Diamond, ulike the Westers, the heroie, Alice (Kare Steele), is more authetic tha the hero, i that she is willig to risk her life actig to save him, but he is uwillig to do the same r her He has o goal except his ow absolute aggradisemet; he dupes himself that there is o rther problem Legs Diamond is techically ad stylistically o etticher's most remarkable lm It is shot etirely with the techiques actually available ad i use i the 20s; deep cus, uirm lightig, o trackig shots, o dolly, etc This also eables him to itegrate stock shots ad ewsreel sequeces ito the movie much more successly tha is usualy the case It is costructed with great dramatic skl, 8
ecoomy ad lair with gags. Boetticher has said that he would ot wat there to be ay Boetticher touch' like the Lubitsch touch'. He distrusts the elegat compositios ad Frakeheimer eects' ad puts the arrative as his rst priority; he is ot iterested i style as such. Nevertheless, Legs Diamond is stylistically extremely origial. Boetticher's other gret asset is his hadlig of actors: Ray Dato had such a success i Legs Diamond that he was eve give a cameo appearace i the same role i Pevey's Potit of a Mobste, about Dutch Schulz. Boetticher has give breaks to a great umber of good actors: Lee Marvi, Richard Booe, Hery Silva, Sp Homeier, etc. With wome he is much less sure r Boetticher, actig ad actio as he uderstads it go together. He is always keely iterested i what actors ca do well i real life ad tries to t it ito the lm (Robert Stack ad shootig i The Bulghte and the Lady); he complais about havig to use stadis r actors who caot ride, ght bulls, etc. (he himself stood i r Stack i The Bulghte and the Lady). Fially, Boetticher has always isisted that ciema is a visual art; he has more tha oce expressed his admiratio r Cezae, Va Gogh, Gaugui etc., ad regretted that they were ever able to make a lm. There is much else which could be said about Boetticher's attitude to his vourite coutry Mexico, r istace. But the importat thig is to recogise the ature of Boetticher's achievemet up till ow. I may ways, he is a miiaturist he does ot have great imagiative vigour or paoramic sweep or pail selfcosciousess, but works o a much smaller scale ad i a much lower key. I may ways, his cocer with idividualism is aachroistic, though less so, per haps, i America, where old myths die hard. But it would be quite wrog to assume that, because his movies are ot about the sociological ad psychological problems to which we are more attued, they are without theme or cotet. I realise that i this review I h ve committed the cardial si of talg about Westers ad philosophy i the same breath; I am quite urepetat. Adr Bazi described Seven Men fom Now as oe of the most itelliget Westers I kow, but also oe of the least itellectual'. Boetticher, himself always a ma of actio (bullghter, horsema, etc.) does ot give his movies a opely itellectual di mesio; evertheless, he has always isisted that the Wester is more tha cow boys ad Idias, it is a expressio of moral attitudes. He has always, sice at least e Bullghte and the Lady, take mmakig seriously, to the poit of jeopardisig his career. d he has cosistetly made itelliget movies, treatig however ituitively dametal themes with great lucidity. He feels that he has ot yet made a really successl movie; certaily, some of his lms are ilures, others I have metioed his bullghtig movies cotai dagerous aws. It is to be hoped that he will be able to complete The Long Had Yea of the ite Rolls Royce, which he feels will be the lm. We ca the make a much more deite as sessmet of his place ad of his whole work. He may well surprise may who have till ow igored him.
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Alfred Htchcock irs publisd in NLR no 35 , nur/brur 1 966, pp 992 Hitho of ourse is a household name His rst m was made in 9 2 1 , his rst sound lm (Blkml in 1929, his rst Amerian lm (R in 940 He has ome to dominate ompetely the suspense thriler genre; his sihouette on puiity posters is enough to hi spines in antiipation Bt he is not ony a househod name; his ms are also arguay the pinnae of lm art. At east three serious and extremey interesting ooength exegeses have een devoted to Hitho's wor; ohmer and Charol's assi Hthk Paris 965), ean Douhet's Hthk Paris 965), and oin ood's Hthk's Flms London 965) Al these oos ontain exhaustive aounts and theories of Hitho's prinipal themes: ood's oo though not the most riiant is perhaps the est he riti therere who now hooses to write aout Hitho is not as is usuay the ase with auteur ritii sm starting nhl; there is aready an esta ished area of ritia agreement and a numer of emryoni ritia deates are under way On the other hand there is stil an impotant tas of popularisation of his ritia deate to e aomplished. Perhaps the next step should e as r as spae aows to seth out the main themes whih have een diserned in Hitho's ms partiuary his reent ms and then in onusion to mae some general and synthesising remars aout their impliations onnetions and imortane. First there is the theme of guit: of ommon guit and exhanged guit. A reurrent pattern in Hitho's lms is that of the man wrongy aused of some
Conss (1953.
40
crime he has not committed; the plainest example is The Wong Man. This theme is typically developed by revealing how the wrongly accused man could very well have been guilty; he is compromised in all kinds of ways d by identication with the hero, the audience is compromised as well; this is the theme of common guilt A equent dimension of this theme is the transition om play to reality; in both Rope and Stnges on a Tin ordinary people at a party play with the idea of mur der, revelling in the idea; in each case they are tang to a real murderer: words have become unpleasantly and ambivalently involved with deeds Stnges on a Tin takes the theme rther with the notion of exchanged guilt: Guy and Bruno both have strong motives r committing murder, as they mutually though tacitly admit; when Bruno actually commits one murder, Guy is inevitably implicated in his guilt Hitchcock's world is never one of a simple division between good and evil, purity and corruption; his heroes are always involved in the actions of the villains; they are separated om them only by a social and moral convention During the lm they become guity, and this guilt can never etirely leave them In I Confess, r instance, the priest hero is und legally guilty of murder there was a clear motive but the true murderer is later revealed and the priest eed; but, though the juridical guilt is thus annulled, the moral guilt remains Second, there is the theme of chaos narrowly underlying order Hitchcock's lms begin, typically, with some banal events om ordinary, normal life The characters are rmly set in their habitual setting, a setting more or les the same as that in which the audience must pass their lives Then by a trick of te, a chance meeting or an arbitrary choice, they are plunged into an antiworld of chaos and disorder, a monstrous world in which normal categories shi abruptly and disconcertingly, in which the hero is cut o om all sustaining social relations and ung, unprepared and solitary, into a world of constant physical and psychological trauma In contingent detail this antiworld is the same as the normal world, but its essence runs completely counter It is a world of excitement as against banality, but it is also a world of evil, of unreason Thus, in The Bids the quite ordinary smalltown world of Bodega Bay is abruptly shattered by the meaningless attacks of the birds Everything is turned upside down: instead of civilised man caging wild birds, wild birds encage civilised man, in telephone kiosks and in boardedup houses This is not just an image of doomsday or vengeance; it is also an image of the precariousness of the civilised, rational order Even a lm like Noth by Nothwest usually considered nothing more than a divertissement, exhibits the same theme: Thornhil is kidnapped in a hotel lobby and is suddenly ung into a world of international political intrigue and calculated murder The utterly public and commonplace Mount Rushmore monument is turned into the scene of an intense, private drama, quite surreal and incomprehensible to an out sider, a normal onlooker (Hitchcock equently uses these public monuments r startling episodes in the intrigues of the chaosworld: the bert Hall, the United Nations, etc; their use universalises the chaos) Third, there is the theme of temptation, obsession, scination and vertigo Once the heroes have le the world of order and reality r the world of chaos and illusion, they are incapable of drawing back They are enthralled, terrorised but excited; chaos and panic seem to meet some unexpressed inner need; there is a kind of obsessive release In Noth by Nothwest Thornhill insists on reentering 141
the chaoswold when, ae his tial dunkenness, he has a chance to fall back into nomal life; it is as if he must nd out the meaning of the absud events which ovetook him and somehow captue them the wold of eason In ct, he entes moe and moe into the wold of uneason, unintelligibility and the absud In Rea Window Jeies obsessively involves himself in the uneason he obseves in the block opposite until it busts into his own pivate oom Ad in Vetigo, when Scottie is cheated of his deam he ties to ebuild it out of eality, almost de manding the disaste which eventually occus The lm, as Rohme has pointed out, is ll of spial images, images of instability and mesmeisation, images of spinning down into dakness (These spial images in Hitchcock's ms ae usually ssociated with the eye, spialling out of the light into the dak pup and again with a special meaning in the context of the cinema being mesmeised by the wold of appeaances ) Fouth, thee i s the theme o f uncetain, shiing identity and the seach se cue identity In the geat majoity of Hitchcock's ms, thee ae epeated and complicated cases of mistaken o alteing identity Clealy, this links up with both the exchange of guilt theme and the chaoswold theme One implication is that identity is a puely mal social attibute, apidly destoyed by kaleidoscopic changes in social coodinates; only aely can it be said to epesent a elatively autonomous coe of being And, not only is it a mal attibute, but it is easily consed and meged with the identity of othes Mee accidents of physiognomy, clothes, documents, etc, not only confe the mal identity of somebody else, but even thei moal being, thei histoy and thei guilt And, in the same way that identities mege, they also split up and disintegate into sepaate, paallel identities in Manie instance, the heoine changed he identiy by changing he clothes and dyeig he hai The same thing happens with the tansmation of Madeleine into Judy in Vetigo Fih, thee is the theme of theapeutic expeience, stongly insisted on by Robin Wood, but about which I am moe dubious Wood agues paticulaly om the case of Manie instead of epesenting a development in Hitchcock's moal thought, a ecognition that descent into the chaoswold is not ievocable, that identity can be secued, that guilt can be puged, that it might tun out to be meely a moe supecial lm with athe a shallow condence Again, it seems to me athe doubtl to ague, as Wood does, that Jeies goes though a theapeutic expeience in Rea Window Wood quotes D ouchet's view that the block opposite is like a cinema sceen on to which Jeies pojects his own subconscious desies in a kind of deam m paticulaly his desie to get id o f Lisa, his tue wife and that these desies eupt destuctively into his own life, punishing him And, in paticula, punishing him (and by implication the involved cinema audience) both the sin of cuiosiy and the uge to wok out inteio desies in extenalised ntasy Wood insists that a mude is actually detected and a maiage actually amed But, on the othe hand, he concedes that, in one sense, nothing has changed Lisa, at the end, is looking at the same shion photos, though this time inside a news magazine cove he new undestanding is hypo citical and illusoy And, though mudees ae bought to justice in Hitchcock lms, this does not simply mean a tiumph of ode and eason; moe oen than not, eason can only be easseted though the violent and inexticable enty of 142
unreason into its world a dialectical paradox vividly expressed in the sartling mad denouements of so many Hitchcock lms the nun in Vetigo, the Mount Rushmore climax of Noth by Nothwest Finally there is the notorious mother theme important in Stnges on a Tin and reaching its nal macabre conclusion in Psycho Even in the mily what is presumed to be the most secure and loving of relationships is revealed in the most grotesque and macabre way to be potentially horric and destructive The world of chaos inhabits the mily itself It is worth noting that the theme of the mother has really come into its own in erican ms presumably the legendary American mother made a strong impression on Hitchcock Indeed Hitchcock's pessimism and emphasis on unreason and chaos has grown immeasurably stronger during his American period His British lms by com parison are lighthearted and amusing without either the sinister undertones of the American lms or more importantly the serious themes which shape them Hitchcock seems to have been rather aectionate towards English hierarchised class society and rather admiring of its continuity and stability It was not till he reached America that he began to see society as precarious and agile constantly threatened by unreason Something should also be s aid about two rther dimensions o f Hitchcock his Catholic upbringing and his attitude towards psychology Rohmer and Chabrol insisted that Hitchcock is stil a Catholic director; I do not think this can be sustained though clearly he has been very much inuenced by Catholicism This is readily conrmed by the overt evidence of I Confess or The Wong Man; the theme of guilt is particularly pertinent On the other hand there is no parallel theme of redemption certainly not through the proper channels Many critics have attacked Hitchcock r his rather hamhanded attitude to Freudian psychological theory his vlgarisations of dream experience and psychotherapy in Spellbound and Vetigo, his portrayal of trauma in say Manie and the glib conclusion of Psycho It must be admitted that there are w niceties in Hitchcock's psychology; he has adopted various key Freudian ideas which he uses quite unashamedly in whatever way he sees f. But the point is that Hitchcock is not primarily interested in the medical diagnosis and therapy of psychosis; indeed this is just the kind of ordered rational triumph of reason over disorder which he rejects He is concerned with showing the proximity of chaos to order and their recurrent arbitrary (irrational) interpenetration their mutual subordination to each other He is interested in the moral reality of unreason and not the medical categories of madness Freudian vocabulary and imagery is necessary to locate his themes in the modern world; but he is himself locating Freud in a dif ferent world of his own Hitchcock's lms are primarily moral They portray a dialectical world in which the unreason of nature narrowly underlies the order of civilisation not only in the external but also in the internal world This unreason is common to men erupts in all men We are scinated by it and need to involve ourselves in it in an attempt to make it intelligible There can be no purity no withdrawal We must recognise the precariousness of our security Hitchcock's vision is intensely pessimistic in a sense almost nihilistic but it is worked out on several levels and in several dimensions He is a great lmmaker 143
Josef von Sternberg First published n N no 36, r/r 1966 pp. 7881] Josef vo Sterberg remis best kow s the director of sequece of lms with Marlee Dietrich i the 30s, strting with e Blue Angel in Germany d the cotiuig i Hollywood Usually these are thought of as glmour' lms, successl becuse they took peole's mids o the miseries of the D epressio era, but today dted, bizarre ad basically cotetless ad empty Josef vo Sterberg is remembered s eccetric d moomiac director, cretor of shopgirl's dream world, unable to ride with the times ito the postwr 40s Still he retais a certai legedary spledour, a ura of the dys whe Hollywood was relly Hollywood I ct, Sterberg's career stretches both bere d er the D ietrich eriod, startig with Salvaton Huntes, shot i Hollywood i 925, and cocludig with The Saga of Anatahan, shot i Kyoto i 95 3. Throughout this period Sterberg ught a cotiuous bitter battle r ll cotrol over the lms he ws directig, i order to put ito eect the theories of ciem which he hd developed This struggle met with limited ad uneve success Ideed, it ws ot util his very lst lm, mde ot i Hollyood but in Jp, tht Sterberg was llowed ything like the eedom he desired As we see Sterberg's lms, the, we re rced to decipher the true sese of his work through a structure which hs bee repeatedly distorted d betrayed Sterberg strogly believes ad his belief hs bee stregtheed by his experiece i the ciema that art is the prerogtive of a cretive lite, ppreciated oly by a miority He iterprets iterferece by producers with his work s a attempt to cater to the tste of the msses, necessrily lowest common de omitor Ciema is always beig degrded d debsed, but its vocation is to be a art His view of huma history is talist ad stoic Little chges There is o essetial poit of dierece betwee Herclitus ad Joh Dewey, Praxiteles ad Mlliol, Aesop d Walt Disey Perhaps there is progress in techique, but, on the other hd, perhps taste actully deteriortes Fundametlly, mkid is still i its icy ucotrollable d selfdestructive, paicstruck d ll of guilt ad shows scat sig of ever escpig it Oly the artist is ble to create aythig which escpes the depredtios of his fellows ad of time His task is to grasp the mhs which most higy express the huma predicmet d, by mstery of style ad techique, reiterpret them to ech age To chieve this, he must uderstd both the chracter of the huma coditio d that of his chose art Ciema, to Sterberg, is ew art with its ow specic qualities The secret of the ciem is light imge i motion ecouterig light d shdow He puts great stress o this rmal specicity of the ciema he eve envisges projectig his ms upsidedow so that the play of light d shadow i movemet is udisturbed by the itrusio of extraeous elemets Sterberg maitais cotemptuous attitude towrds actors, whom he views as o more tha the directors' instrumets Mostrously elrged s it is o the scree, the humn ce should be treted like ladscape' Fudmetally, its expressivity is due, ot to the itelligece or skill of the actor, but to the way i which the director illumites d obscures its features (It is ot surprising that 144
the two two ators ators about about whom whom Sternberg s most most sathng Eml Jannngs n The Last are espeal espeally ly Command and Charles Laughton n the unnshed I Claudius are mous r ther vrtuosty as ators Smlarly, Marlene Detrh, whom he launhed om nowhere and whom he depts as always unbelevably servle to hs slghtest whm, was hs vourte atress He was destned, n a soety where women women and, by by ext extenson, enson, atresses are predsposed predsposed to be servle servle and passve, passve, to be a woman woman's 's dretor' ) It s s lear that that somebody someb ody who, lke Sternberg, vews human hstory as a goalless harade and art as a prvleged atvty, should stress not realsm but artalty He has always prded hmself on the artalty of hs sets and hs plots I was an unquestoned unquestone d authorty on Hollywood Hollywood,, and that made t dult to be unrealst unrealst n pturng t I felt more at home wth the Russan Revoluton, r there I was ee to use my magnaton On the other hand, Sternberg nurtures the nd hope that, n ths way way, he an go to the heart he art of o f a stuaton, stuato n, undstrated by petty detal, by what he refers to as the fetsh of authentty' In ths sense, he sees hs work paradox par adoxial ially ly as realst rather than symbol symbol Sternberg's work, f anythng, s baroque Yet, at the same tme, ths s vtated by a strong streak of nneteenth entury sentmentalty sentmentalty Perhaps t t s rather le to onnet ths wth hs early years n Venna; Sternberg hmself aowledges the nluene of Shntzler, but hardly ever mentons the baroque whh domnates the ty But all the marks of the baroque are n hs work: the mportane of movement, of lgh and shade, the multplty of ornament, the urous oexstene of abstraton and erotsm, extravagane and hmeras, the retreat om realsm nto magnaton Sternberg's vson of hmself and hs art s urously akin to that of, say, Bernn, even down to the snaton wth arnvals The typal Sternberg lm s festooned wth streamers, rbbons, notes, onds, tendrls, lattes, vels, gauze, nterposed between the amera and the subjet, brngng the bakground nto the reground, astng a web of lght and shadow (as Sternberg put t, onealng the ators) l sharp edges and orners are veled and obsured and everythng, as r as possble, made awash wth swrls of movng lght Conneted wth ths baroque sensblty s Sternberg's obsessve nterest n the phantasmagor qualty of human lfe Hs autobography ontans numerous long drawnout evoatons evoatons (ehoed ( ehoed n Shanghai Gestue Macao et) of gamblng gamblng dens n Shangha, okghtng arenas n Java, strptease shows n Havana, pagan danes n Inda, Ind a, amel markets n Egypt, Egypt, et (Shangha (S hangha and Havana, of ourse, are now dened hm: Chna has been shuled n Cuba Castro s drest n a lttle bref authort authorty') y') He seems to owe ths snaton or at least least relat relatee t to hs hldhldhood snaton wth the Prater Gardens n Venna, a phantasmagor memory of jugglers, tumblers, mdgets, swordswallowers, weghtlers, bearded women, Red Indans, elephants, twoheaded alves, magans, annbals, mazes of mrrors, et, all thrown together under the gant ferrs wheel (Sternberg dretly elebrates the Prater n The Case of Lena Smith n 1929) However, t presents some theoretal dultes r hm, sne these entertanments are so unashamed unashamedly ly even lurdl lurdlyy popular eneve on oaon
my wo n vou w e ow, e ore 145
iti ic td t d bius biu s t ctct it t tiss cd ud ti ud t b dicu d cctd its its citi dd usd usd t t u us s t s s it, it, ic ic d t t]] ti ti t tt t s stid cd s ild t d c i d uit t sus ctibiit t s s b t c it ittis, suc css, t t cu ists
n ct, Stenbe's mistakes' are an inteal at of his vision of the wold the counte of his aistocatic disdain and alooess aloo ess,, of seein in at the only stabil stability ity,, is to be obsessed with the otesque, ntastic dreamlike quality of oula life andd its ceaseless an c easeless carnivallike instability instability,, as he wo wou udd see s ee it i t Somethin moe, ehas, ehas, shoud be said about the oles o f Malene Dietich in Stenbe's S tenbe's lms Stenbe himself himse lf indinantly disavow disavowss every accusation that he set out to exloit Malene Dietrich's hysical attaction; indeed, he is con stantly very contemtuous about the attactiveness of actors and actresses, contastin them unvouably with scaecrows, which ae desined to reel He refers refe rs to he alwa always ys in the most abstac t terms He modelled mo delled her, he claims, claim s, on the aintinss of Feicie aintin Feicien n Ros and oulouse oulouseaut autec; ec; what aealed to him was her disdain and coldness in this, he was consciously distancin he om what he thouht of as eotic eoti c He deliber d eliberat ately ely encouaed a de d effemini eminisin sin imae of o f he, by by dessin her in men's cothes her nihtcub emances n Th rl mrss she ends u layin an exlicitly male oe Of course, this contasts staney with his autocatic manne towads her and his claim that she woud obey anythin he odeed, to the extent of layin an e him if he didn't like the one eared his beakst Once aain he ended u oducin in at the
he Scalet Emess (1934)
146
diect diect convese convese of o f wht he thought tho ught tue tue of life life He ws scinted by the shiing s hiing nd mbiguous oles of dominnce nd sevility: this is mde cle by e Blue which despotic Russin genel genel becomes by Angel nd e Last Com Comman mand, d, in which twist of te n bused lm ext who is mde to ply the ole of despotic Russin genel In his ttitude to Dietich, stins show: instnce, the sentimentlity of the child's bedtime stoy in Blonde Venus o the pye nd sttion econcilition scenes in Shanghai Expess These e the occsions on which womn womn is the the ptheti ptheticll cllyy put bck in he plce plce But, s genel genel ule, ule, womn is consciously defeminised yet she emins emins so diclly othe' othe ' tht this only seves to ccentute he specicity nd hence, by mking he even moe poblemtic, he mystey Finlly, wod should be sid bout The Saga Saga ofAnatahan, Anata han, Stenbeg's most pesonl m, in which he ecpitultes ecpitultes the whole of humn histoy nd his uge to destuction Pehps the most inteesting spect of this lm is his ttempt to ovecome the poblems bought by the intoduction of sound lm Fo Stenbeg, this ws lmost disste: it thetened to subodinte the tempo of cinem to tht of speech, the cme to the micophone nd the diecto to sciptwite nd cto In Moocco he delibetely chose tuous stoy in ode tht the impotnce of wods should be minimised In The Saga of Anatahan he eches moe stisctoy solution: the ctos tlk thoughout in Jpnese nd commenty by Stenbeg himself is inseted ove the othe sound This gives him much gete eedom in choosing the ight hythm the montge It hs been the most impotnt ttempt to solve the dicult poblem of sound, which s Eisenstein Eisenstein esw esw nd feed feed destoye destoyedd clssicl clssicl montge, pehps until until the wok of Godd, who hs, of couse, und much moe complex nd oiginl solution, bsed ptly on the use of visul witten wods, ptly by sound mixing, ptly by delibet delibetee pssges of silence nd by specil use of music nd song By emphsising the ole of the (utoctic) diecto nd by xing the specicity of the cinem to the poblems of light nd shde, Stenbeg becme diecto of get oiginlity His wok is unmistkble On the othe hnd, these vey chcteistics, in his cse, went hnd in hnd with othe pati pis which tend to vitite his chievement His emphsis on the pivileged ole of the cetive individul hs led him to etet om elism which, on occsion, becomes blind nd ludicous ludicous His distste wods nd ctos hs led him to dehumnistion which, which, t the sme sme time, is infected infected with n unejected Viennese sentimentlism The T he whole tend of cinem hs been wy wy om the boque sen sibity which most mos t obviously mks mks the wok of Stenbeg But the obvious simility between the pedicment of the boque tist nd tht of the cinem diecto mens, lmost cetinly, tht Stenbeg will hve nd hold (constntly disputed) plce in the histoy of the cinem Few, t ny te, will wnt to deny the oiginlity of the diecto of Undewold (the seminl gngste lm), Dishonoued nd e Saga Saga of Anatahan Ana tahan
1
Jean-Luc Godad [rt ue n n , eteer/ter 966 8-7] I hd intended t write but Gdrd bere reding Robin Wd's rticle lso in NLR n 39 ] ; the rst thing which struck me s I red it ws tht, though I gree tht the issue which he rises is ne f the key ones, the words which he uses nd stresses re quite dierent om those I would chose This springs, of curse om n underlying dierence in criticl method his terminlgy, like his method, is lrgely derived om tht of R Levis There is n doubt bout the prvennce of words such s trditin identiy wholeness etc In sense, then, my wn in terprettion f Gdrd's lms, juxtpsed with Rbin Wod's, implies nt only clsh f pinins but lso clsh f method nd, in the lst nlysis, clsh f worldviews But rst Godrd's lms The culturl references in Godrd's lms re, s Robin Wod writes, nt decortive but integrl' Fr Godrd culture is hrdly ble t sustin itself; it is nt intelligence, but violence, which mkes the wrld go rund Il ut voir l rce quelqueis de yer son chemin vec un pignrd' It is the world f Les Cabinies f Ubu Roi, which Gdrd hs sid he wuld like to lm It is world in which the newsppers, s in Bande a pat, re ll f lmst surrelistic excesses of vilence; it is wrld f Algeri, of Sn D mingo, f Vietnm, t whih Godrd mkes constnt references nd which give the lrger context f his ms And this llpervsive violence is ls vndlism It is the execution f the girl who recites Myakvs in Les Cabinies t is the destructin f boks in Alphaville, it is the suicide of Drieu L Rchelle r Nicols de Stel But we d not cndne this wrld f violence nd vndlism into which we re thrown Where is the vein of optimism which prevents us m cmmitting suicide? The nswers which Gdrd explres re the romntic nswers f beuty, ction, contempltin The ntinomy between ction nd cntempltin r reection is recurrent in Godrd's lms Actin is the crrelte f dventure; it is to leve behind the everydy norms f life, to leve r Rme, r Brzil (both Le Petit soldat nd Bande a pat), r the Outerlnds topgrphic symbls r wrld in which ll conduct is imprvised, experimentl yet t the sme time symbls lso of withdrwl, of distncing nd hence f cntempltion, f repose (the Jules Verne prdise f Pieot le fou) In Le Petit soldat reectin llows ctin ( Pour mi, le temps de l'ctin pss! J'i vielli Celui de l reexin commence') In the story of Prthos told by Brice Prin in Vive sa vie reection prevents ction, it is rm f suicide; in Pieot le fou ctin, incrnted by Mrinne, nd contempltin, by Ferdinnd, prve mutully destructive The problem is ls tht of time bove ll, of the mbiguus nture of the pre sent Fr Godrd, the present is both the moment in which ne feels neself live, the existentil mment f respnsibility r lighting cigrette, nd ls the monstrous unstructured, dehistoricised desert of Alphaville or La Femme maie Incresingly, in Godrd's lms, the present hs become the relm of womn he remins uncertin whether it is relm f innocent hedonism or f mindless viciusness Alredy in Veronic, in Le Petit soldat we see this dilemm the beutil cver girl who likes Pul ee nd Guguin nd who is t the sme time terrorist who dies under trture In Pieot le fou it is even mre evident (While 48
e Petit sodat (1960) on this point, it may be worth commenting c ommenting on o n the resembance between between Alpha Alpha 60's interrogation of o f emm emmyy Caution Caution and Nana's Nana's of Brice Brice Parain ) Another recurrent feature feature of Godard's Go dard's atitude to women i s that they they are traitors Patricia betra betr ays Miche in s s Marianne betrays Fredinand in irr . iv iving ing in the pres present ent means mea ns o o be unabe to bear b ear an anyy xity xity of reations with others, oth ers, which woud impy a pa past st and a ture tur e Yet set set against agai nst this image ima ge of woman is one on e drawn om romanticism, romantic ism, om o m association asso ciation with ideas of purity purity,, beauty, beauty, etc t is Godard's God ard's inabiity to resove this this contradic cont radiction tion which expains his continuous conti nuous hostile scination with women, reminiscent in a way of Hitchcock Hitchcock Hence, too, the instabiity of his po rtra rtraya ya of o f women certain constant features features remain, but with with dierent degrees o f emphasis and in a number of dierent combinations binat ions hus, r instanc instance, e, there is a criss crossi crossing ng of o f roes roes between between s and i irr rr the carsteaer, murderer, gangster is no onger Miche but Marianne; the companion is not Patricia but Pierrot (The character of Patricia is rther compicated by a reversa reversa of o f roe roess between between Europe and America a kind kind of antiHenry antiHenry James in which which Miche Miche is the the Bf B feat eature ure Bogart hero, hero, Patricia the inteectua reading i ms. Again, some of Patricia Patricia's's innocence survives in Veronica and is then rther rened into the gir who recites rini rs. And she, in turn, is the poar oppo Mayakovsk in s rinir opposite site of the protagonist of mm mri who hersef inherits inherits something s omething of o f Patricia Patricia's's shiessness and capacity r betraya Nex, there is Godard's Go dard's atitude to eed om For Fo r him, eedom is away awayss persona pers ona eedom: he h e recognises no socia ties Hi Hiss heroes, her oes, ike ike those of Samue Samue Fue Fuer, r, op
149
erate i a perpetual o ma's lad, a labyrith i the iterstices of society Freedom is, i very simple terms, doig what you wat to whe you wat to The sharpest test of eedom, r Godard, is torture Bruo, i Le Petit soldat, s oldat, does ot wat to give irmatio: eve if he did, he would ot wat the occasio rced o him To To do what oe wats to be silet whe uder torture is the extrem extremee of persoal eedom Yet at the same time eedom is iterwove with destiy: me choose c hoose their ow te, but it remais remais a tality also i its impact o us Thus Michel Poiccard choose s, by by ot escapig, to be shot by the police but whe he is shot, it takes o the rm of destiy Ad whe Ferdiad dies at the ed of Pieo Pie ott le fo fo u, he has chose to commit suicide while, at the same time, the image of the spark travellig alog the se makes it a tality These themes itercoect with Godard's attitude to the ciema itself The ciema is both the double of life ad, at the same time, a artice It is both istatae stataeity ity actio ow ad permaece, permaece, a d of memory memory It is both America, America, iocet, ioce t, without history, history, ad Europe, Europ e, part par t of o f a agmeted culture ad itself the most eclectic of arts It is both the eedom of the travellig shot ad the ecessity of the ame Robi Woo Woodd commets o the aalogy a alogy betwee the improvised coduct of Godard's heroes ad the improvised rm of his lms ad o the use of allusios to strip cartoo to emphasise oe aspect of ciema, just as documetary is used to emphasise aother Godard himself has commeted o the paradoxical doxical ature of the ciema, o its beig be ig a series of Chiese boxes of reality reality ad illusio, as i Reoir's e Golden Coach Coach This reects ot oly his attitude to the ciema, but also his attitude to life itself, i which war, r istace, as i the Mayakovsk ble i Les Cabinies or the Vietam charade i Pieot Pie ot le fou fou,, is both a absurd patomime ad a horrible ho rrible reality reality But i the last resort the probpro blem r Godard has alwa alwayys bee to tell the the truth hece his admiratio r r Brecht ad Rossellii I may ways, what I have said about Godard echoes what Robi Wood says, though with a dieret accet But I feel there is also a radical dierece betwee our poits p oits of view view The problem cetres roud his use us e of the word word traditio i a way which makes it almost syoymous with culture' For Godard, I thik, cul ture is ot itimately part of society: it is what remais of the work of artists, may of whom were atagoistic to society, margial to it, idieret to it If society has ay meaig at all it is as a istrumet of violece It is deed by the soldier ad the police The artist is somethig quite dieret; he is somebody who is pursuig a kid of persoal adveture adveture There seems o refe referece rece i Godard Go dard to the possibility po ssibility of a cultur culturee secure securely ly itegrated ito society so ciety,, i the th e sese se se suggested by traditio Thus there is ot wholeess ad agmetatio, by violece ad beauty, beauty, vadalism ad art, brute rce ad itelligece The rst are the mai characteristics of the world ito which we are throw, the secod are the values o which we may base a persoal soa l search search Godard rejects society because society has rejected traditio I thik ot: Godard's belief, as show i the lms, is that the exercise of eedom is icompatible with observace of prevalet social orms (whether these could be called traditioal or ot) ad that art or culture has o social so cial ctio but is all that that remais of o f a disparate umber of idividual idividual advetures, advetures, idividual searches I ct, c t, 150
in that society s ociety is ndamentall nd amentallyy vandalistic, art is essentially essentially dysncti dysnctional: onal: there is no possibility whatever of a cultural tradition in Robin Wood's sense, only a nd of cultural guerrilla war The void in Godard's view, evidently, is the absence of politics In a sense, Godard himself acowled acowledges ges this: he tas, r r instance, of the the possibil p ossibility ity of making political lms in Italy, though not in rance Yet, in another sense, he is not deeply interested: interested: he talk talkss of politics as what you you see the other side of the window window and, citing Velzquez, speaks of portraiture as the highest rm of art Interestingly, whenever revolutionary politics enters his lms, it is defeated: Veronica is killed in Le Petit soldat, the partisans are shot in Les Caabinies, the Dominican student is exed in Pieot Pie ot le ou ou I think this helps Godard evade the issue; it is the romantic cult of defeat, of nostalgia r Spain, etc Desperately, Godard lls back on individualism and attempts to reconstitute the legend of the erican ontier in contemporary rance: Jesse James reappears as Pierrot le ou Yet, as Robin Wood says, he adopts no easy or comrting solutions: there is a relentlessness about Piet traditionalist, but Pie t le ou ou which is, not that of a lost traditionalist, that of o f a lost revolutiona revolutionary ry or if, as seems evident enough, Godard is radically dissatised with society, then it is is the absence abs ence of politics which condemns him to rootlessness roo tlessness and despair To be dissatised, aer all, is to want change change Politics is the principle of change change in history; when whe n we we abandon abando n it nothing noth ing remains except except the scattered, expendable ef ef rts of artists and romantics In this sense, as Godard has said, art is always le wing Tradition is the enemy The tradition of our society, it would be hard to deny, is violence, vandalism, oppression and its developing sanctions, the advertiser's copy and the carabinier's gun
Robeo Rosseii [ir published in no 42 Marc March/A h/Apri prill 97 pp 9-7 9-7 ) Rossellini's reputation has ebbed and owed more mor e perhaps than that of any any other leading director In part this has been because of the nexus between politics and lm criticism in Italy, in part because of changes in shion and taste, in part be cause of the personal scandals which have punctuated Rossellini's career Nevertheless, looked back on now, om the near peak of his achievement, e Seiz Se izu uee of of Powe by b y Lou Lo u is XIV XIV, his work shows a remarkable consistency, thematically and stylistically He has persevered on his own path; sporadically this has crisscrossed with the stampede of popular and critical taste Rossellini's themes are ndamentally Italian, indeed southern Italian The humus om which his themes spring is that of traditional Catholic (s uperstitious and semipagan) semi pagan) southern Italy about to be b e sucked into the vortex vortex of northern northern Europe, with its entirely dierent kind of o f civilisation, civilisation, cultural and social so cial Thus we nd at the centre of his work the antagonistic couplet north south, cynicism innocence, positivism spirituality spirituality,, etc His H is Bergman cycle, r instance, is dominated by by the theme of the northern northe rn woman coming s outh and undergoing a spiri spir i tual crisis, om which she emerges with a kind of religious ith It would be 151
isleaig to call this ith Catholic: i ay ways, with its ehasis o accetace, it is Orietal (Buhist or Hiu) a, of course, this becoes exlicitly aaret i his l India I ters of Christiaity, Rossellii's visio of saithoo is close to the Dostoyevskia holy ol, to Sioe Weil (whose iuece Rossellii acowleges) or to a of legeary Fracisais, allue to i several ls, icluig of course his versio of e Little Flowes This ehasis o ae ith a accetace aturally goes ha i ha with a uabashe oulis: i e Miacle or The Machine fo Eteminating the Wicked this takes the r of a extree iulgece i souther Italia suerstitio, to the oit of cetrig ls arou iraculous sueratural evets, which Rossellii justies as art a arcel of oular culture I Euopa 51 there is a clea istictio raw betwee the hua' slu wellers a the ihua' bourgeois a bureaucrats: riest a Paese Se jouralist occuy a ueasy ile ositio Agai, Rossellii's Resistace ls are oulist i toe, with the sae curious tesios betwee riest a Couist This oulis has le to olitical iculties r Rossellii: he has oe succeee i isgrutlig both the Couist Party a the Catholic Church (I Vanina Vannini, r istace, Rossellii actually use both Marxists a riests as scritwriters, so that the tesio betwee Catholic a Cabonao i the l was actually throw back ito the scritwritig, wt reictable results) I ct, Rossellii is scarcely itereste i olitics, but he has a trouble cosciousess (which woul ow be calle Johaie) of the overla of Church a Party i uch oular (easat a petit bougeois) culture, which is ueasily reecte i his ls The couterart of Rossellii's oulis is a itese atriotis a also a cocer with herois: ot as a sychological so uch as a socioolitical category His atriotis is the atural result of his coece i Italy a exresses itself i his costat retur to rst the Resistace, the the isogimento (Rossellii's retreat bacwars ito history, llowig that eastwars to Iia, srigs o his isechatet with the cyicis of oer Euroe: a search r the ure well of life, i ct) I Viva l'Italia it is clearly like with the thee of herois: Garibali is the oular hero (i the sae way that St Fracis is the oular sait) The two ls have the sae oleograhic quality Rossellii's aroach is to bathe Garibali i a charisatic aura, while at the sae tie stressig his hua' weaesses a ibles, such as his gout With this ki of cocet of the hero, it is ot har to ake the trasitio o Garibali to Louis XI I have sketche Rossellii's thees rst because it is iortat to o it out that his work has this theatic cosistecy, i view of the rhetoric about realis' with which critics have always surroue his ls It is easy to see what realis' eas whe alie to Rossellii: it eas the absece, to a uusual egree, of rofessioal actors, stage sets, akeu, a rearrage shootig scrit, etc It eas a graiy, rather roughareay look, eiiscet of ewsreels, r o Hollywoo quality' But this is a questio of etho a style: it i o way eas ay greater quotiet of truth or reality as regars the theatic cotet of the l This is ot to say that r a cotet are urelate: the ieology of accetace' a atiece' which relates to Rossellii's views of saithoo also relates to his ethos of work, to the cocet of the caera which recors (accets the give, eliiatig irectorial itervetio) a llows (atietly waitig the oet 152
of reveltio) Similrly, his episodic method of costructio (Pais The Lile Flowes India etc) sprigs om dislike of rticil' plots, which prllels his dislike of the rticility' of moder Europe society I some wys, Rossellii's relism' is correct, more hoest cocept th others: the turl cocomitt of the oitervetio of the director is the oitervetio politiclly of m i the turl course of history (or, s i India i the turl cycle of life d deth) The lewig ideology of relism' hs gret diculty i overcomig the icosistecy of pproch tht both stys t the level of the pheomel rms d lso demds the reveltio of esoteric (essetil) meig: the trditiol Mrxist ttck (derived om Tit d Bliks) dumbrtes theory of ypes, s distict om cotiget pheome, but this hs obvious drwbcks: it esily lls ito schemtism or eve setimetl idelistio Rossellii's impct hs bee cosiderble; he hs represeted the opposite pole to, sy, the Americ musicl ( the Lumire trditio s gist Mlis) He hs re mided directors tht there is scle of possibilities of mise en scne t oe ed of which he stds He hs thus cotributed eormously to the developmet of cotemporry ciem: we c see his iuece o Godrd, r istce, i his use of episodic costructio ( Vive sa vie) his delibertely o qulity photogrphy (Les Cabinies) his portrit of Kri (echoig Rossellii's portriture of Bergm) I this sese, Rossellii is historic director He is lso cosistet uthor, who hs persevered i developig his persol themes d style i dverse circumstces He lso hs obvious limittios, s this rticle will hve suggested, if oly cursorily: these re clerly relted to the ucriticl chrcter of his relism For, despite the vuted objectivity of the les, the world revels itself to Rossellii much s he hd subjectively evisged it
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Aerword (1 997) : Lee Russel ntervews Peter Wolen
en did you write this book?
A log time ago! I ct, as it happes, I wrote Signs and Meaning in the Cinema i the moth of May, 1968 As rtue decreed, this has become a emblematic date May, 1968 it seemed like the begiig of a ew epoch Signs and Meanin is ll of the same sese of a begiig a ew approach to lm studies, a ew i tellectual seriousess, ew theoretical developmets, the promise of a ew ciema, eve the udatio of a ew academic disciplie You were working at the British Film Institute?
Yes I the BFI Educatio Departmet, uder Paddy ael We were itellectual activists We orgaised a series of semiars We taught a aual summer school We started the Cinema One series of books We reuded Screen magazie as a theoretical joural I retrospect, it all looks positively heroic i its optimism Yet, i some ways, that optimism tured out to be quite justied Ciema studies has become a recogised academic disciplie ad, as a disciplie, it has developed its ow distictive style ad traditio, its ow theoretical u datio I other ways, it has simply led to a typical process of academicisatio e I wrote the book, I was ot workig i a uiversity, as I am ow I saw myself as a itellectual rather tha a academic ad I was cosciously ot writig r a uiversity readership, if oly because oe existed I evisaged readers who were beig swept alog by the same artistic ad itellectual tides as I was myself readers who were excited by the lms of JeaLuc Godard, the rediscovery of a hidde Hollwood, the structuralism of Claude LviStrauss, the ewly lauched veture of semiology ad the politics of the New Le or perhaps I should say the New New Le' The New New Le'? Perhaps you had better explain that The way I remember it the New Le would have been the group which founded the journal New Le Review at the end of the 50s -Communists like Edward Thompson and Raymond Williams who had le the Party in 1 956 aer Hungary and were searching for a new politics.
It was lauched i 1959 There was a merger of exCommuists om the New 154
Reasoner with Stuart Hall's Universi and Le Review But then in 1962 there was an internal coup and a new editorial group came into the NLR oce with Perry Anderson replacing Stuart Hall as the editor and E P Thompson ejected as the chair of the board And the new regime was what you mean by the New New Le'?
That's right The new team wanted to develop the journal in a very dierent way They weren't so directly concerned with English or British culture They felt Britain was too insular They wanted to import esh ideas om Western Europe om France and Italy especially Sartre LviStrauss Gramsci and so on Later they went on to introduce thusser and Lacan to England They were interested in psychoanalysis and they had a very dierent cultural policy ey came om Oxford too like you did
Mostly but not exclusively! Their intellectual agenda was rmed at Oxrd I think that's ir to say at do you see as the underlying rationale for their new poli agenda?
Well the way I see it they wanted to provide a nucleus om which a new critical inteligentsia could develop by combining western Marxism' with a broader cul tural and artistic radicalism and a strong commitment to theor It was never an academic journal Actually in 1968 two of the editors lost their teaching jobs r their role in the student uprisings at Hosey College of Art and the LSE at did you mean by saying just now that cinema studies has undergone a typical process of academicisation'? Can you expand on that?
It is a natural process isn't it? The rst generation were eelance intellectuals who were interested in laying the undations of lm study the broad theoretical issues of lm aesthetics lm semiotics and lm historiography which would give the eld credibility and a denite shae which would enable it to stand on its own feet rather than be just an adjunct to literature or art or communications When the eld was successlly established as a discipline in its own right then in evitably there came a loss of cus with a growing range of dierent research agendas It is probably a cyclical process An interest in high theory in the old Enlightenment sense will roll back again in the ture I imagine in an eort to redene the discipline again But hasn't theory always persisted even pervaded the discipline? In fact you could easily argue that the humanities in generl became completely dominated by theor Overdominated I would sa I must admit I was arcted by the element of cinephilia and that's precisely what got lost with the relentless expansion of theory over the face ofacademe. The auteur theory may have been called a theory but really it was an pression offanatical love for the cinema
155
True enough, theory has expanded everywhere, but it has ceased to be lm theory as such Barthes or Foucault or Derrida were introduced into lm studies om outside That's precisely my poit They were't itroduced to explai lm better but because academics became fasciated by theory i itsel for itse Theory for theory's sake.
But then there is someone like Deleuze, who does write specically about lm There's a cinephile side to Deleuze But I still feel that his work o the ciema is basically a by-product of some much broader theoretical project
I am not going to argue about Deleuze's concept of time or whatever! I never llowed Deleuze closely In ct, I never did theory in that sort of way at all I was always interested in the ontology of lm as such, just as the Russian Formalists spoke about literature as such That kind of theory has gone ou of shion But it will come back Mark my words! I the book you put aesthetics rst rther tha semiotics y was that?
I wanted to establish, rst and remost, that lm was an art and therere it should be studied r its own sake in the same way as the other arts literature, painting, music, etc At that time, lm was primarily seen in the context of the mass media, which led to a communications or sociological approach, rather than an aesthetic approach Of course, viewing the mass media as art was polemical and provocative Do you thik that particular bale was wo?
Yes and no Take ed Hitchcock, r example I regard Hitchcock as one of the great artists of the twentieth century, genuinely on a par with Stravinsky or Kaa I don't think that is generally accepted, even now For the book, I decided to write about Eisenstein rather than Hitchcock, partly because Eisenstein was already accepted as a great artist, even though he had worked with a large budget in an industrial context He was a kind of wedge that I could use to break open the crust of prejudice and philistinism and hopelly smooth the path r others, like Hitchcock And then Eisenstein also provided me with a way of linking the cinema to theory and semiotics through his own concerns with the nature of m language' But later on in the book, in the section on auteurism, I chose Hawks rather than Hitchcock, which was a more polemical choice All or nothing It is dicult to imagine the battles that we ught in those comparatively recent years, not simply r auteurism or semiotics, but r cinema itself As a art form?
Yes, as an art rm In ct, as the art rm of the twentieth century Part of the problem cing the cinema, om an aesthetic point o f view, was the total domi 156
Aled Hitchcock in the late 1 95s
ace of Moderis i the other arts literature or atg or usic Moderis had ecoe so to seak the guarator of rtess as olad Barthes ight have said Moderis cooted rtess But Moderis had ade very little headway i ollyood isestei o the other had was early a Modeist as descried ad that was art of the reaso r cusig o hi Sice the have ecoe iterested i awkss relatioshi to Moderis as well i two rather dieret seses oth his sese that a l shoud work like a iece of recise egieerig ad his rologed artershi with Faulker itchcock too had both exlicit ad ilicit coections with Moderis d itchcocks reoccuatio with the look or the gae what Willia otha calls the of the caera ca erfectly well e see in cojuctio with S artres cocer Sartres aalysis of the look i Being and Nothingness reads lie a critical coetary o itch at about experimental and avan t-garde lm ? ey didn't gure so prominently un til much later How did you come to make the leap om Hollywood to the avant garde?
Well the ook eded y ivokig Godard 1968 was the year whe Godard ade his deitive break with aistrea ciea ad set o o his log arch through the wilderess At the tie wrote the ook was ot yet very iliar with avatgarde l although was iterested i Steve Dwoskis work which still adire very uch) ad kew Piero elicer who cae out of the Warhol circle t was oly aer had ished the ook that really discovered the avat 57
Wavelength (Michael Sno, 1967)
e Gai savoir ean-Luc Godard, 1969)
garde thr throug ough h Nor North th American Structural Fil Film m Michael Snows S nows Wavelength was made in 196. Ken Jacobss Tom, Tom the Pipers Son was 1969. Hollis Framptons Zorns Lemma was 190. hen there was a timelag bere their impact was felt
158
across the Atla Atlatic tic ad a ew British avat avatgarde garde appeared Malcolm LeGrice's Berlin Horse was made i 1970 Chris Welsby's Wind in d Vane an e was 1972 Peter Gidal's was the same timelag with my ow ow work Room Film was 1 97 3 There was With your lm-making lm- making work o r with your yo ur theoretical work?
Both, but I was really thikig about the theory Structural Film demaded a iterest i theory, which earlier Udergroud Film had't Ad Godard's Le Gai lmthe oretical lm, lm, a lm about the ature of o f lmmakig lmm akig savoir was itself a lmtheoretical Pehaps Pehaps the time lag lag might also exp lain wh why y you needed n eeded to add a new Conclusi Con clusion' on' at the end e nd of of the 1 972 972 edition edition??
Exact Exactly ly The ew ew Coclusio' Coclusio ' to Signs reected the impact of post Signs and a nd Meaning reected 1968 Godard ad Structural Film It looked rward to the lms which I bega soo aerwards aerwards with Laura Mu Mulv lvey ey Penthesilea ad Riddles of the Sphinx ich also als o involv inv olved ed redeni redening ng your theo th eorry of of the lm l m text text if I can use the jargon of the time?
Yes, I had started to argue that ms were idetermiate ad that their evetual meaig meai g was was produced by the the viewer, viewer, uder certai coditios, co ditios, rather rather tha beig itrisic to them I was iueced by a somewhat strage combiatio of ideas ideas the Freudia traditio o f ucosciou uco sciouss meaig, meai g, Umberto Umberto Eco E co ad the ope text text eve Derrida's idea of dissemiatio' Yo u used Godard's Goda rd's lms lm s as m odel ode l examples for your you r theor theo ry
I looked o his post1968 ms as semiotic machies r makig viewers thik actively about the world i a ew way, rather tha as vehicles r commuicatig a lmmaker' lm maker'ss ow preexistig pr eexistig ideas to a passively passively receptive receptive audiece Yet you still stil l def defended end ed auteu au teurism rism didn't did n't you in spite ofyour you r admirat admi ration ion for for the new n ew Godard? Godar d? Do you see auteurism au teurism the same sam e way way today today or would wou ld you now give avant garde garde lm more mo re priori pri oritty?
I am still a auteurist I still give priority pri ority to to the avatgarde at a t does that reall real ly imply? imply? An old-s ol d-sttyle Cahiers auteurist? How would you form formu u late the th e question qu estion of auteurism au teurism today? today?
It is really a questio about the Movie Brats' atever do you mean by that? That isn't what I epected!
Well, the auteurist patheo was essetially a way of rakig Hollyood studio directors directors It was developed durig the closig clos ig years of the classical studio system 159
r
Bonnie and Clyde (Arthu Arthurr Penn, 1 967 967)) But it began beg an to mutate mutate almost as soo s oon n as it was mulated which was was aound ao und the time that the studio system began to cack he emphasis switched om Hawks and Htchcock to Sam Fulle and Ncholas ay boh of whom had become nde pendent lmmakes and ended up in Pais as the studios cumbled away unde he feet feet hat was the situaion as auteuism auteui sm enteed the 60s by which time the Fench Fen ch New Wav Wavee was alr already eady unde un de wa way y teuris rism m was tied to the fo ru runes nes of th thee old ol d stu studio dio system system So when wh en th thee New Cahiers a u teu Hollywood' came came alon along g
160
It went into crisis That's right As the 60s progresse, Hollywoo began to split apart between an Ol Guar an a New Guar, until the CoppolaLucas Spielberg generation of Movie Brats' showe how it coul be restabilise on a new basis n retrospect, we shoul probably se this in terms of the crisis of classical Forism an its replacement by a new postForist inustry, a reorganisation of the institution an its prouction process Again, it is interesting to look back to the time when the new Hollyoo starte, say, in 1967 That was the year of Bonnie and Clyde, but also of Wavelength, as well as Jim MacBrie's David Holzman's Diary, which was kin of miway between the two They al carrie the signs of an impening change I'd lie you to clari that. You're saying that two trends were running in parllel anti-Hollywood avant-gardism and the rejuvenation of Hollywood itse?
Exactly Look, 1 968 brought us not only Goar's Le Gai Savoir an One Plus One, but also Brian De Palma's Greetings an Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey In 1969 there was Goar's British Sounds, Ken Jacobs's Tom Tom the Piper's Son, Robert Kamer's Ice, Sam Peckinpah's The Wild Bunch an the ScorseseWaleigh uo o's at Knocing At My Door an Woodstoc Snow's experimental epic, La Rgion Centrle, an Hollis Frampton's Nostalgia came out in 197 1 the same year as Spielberg's Duel an Lucas's THX-1138 So the Hollywoo Brats' (Spielberg, Lucas, De Palma, Scorsese, etc) came to prominence at exactly the same time as Structural lm (Snow, Frampton, Jacobs) And Godard's turn to the avant-garde was a t the same time S o are you claiming that there was a connection beteen Hollywood and the avantgarde or was it just a co incidence?
see all those lms as representing a concerte eort to reinvent the cinema, whatever their genre was, whether they were mae insie the inustry or outsie it Similarly think Signs and Meaning in the Cinema coul be seen as part of the same cohort, because of the way in which it pays tribute to both Goar an John For, just as the Movie Brats i That's all very well but weren't those really quite contrdictory tendencies? e fact that they occurred at the same time doesn't mae them any more compatible with each other Sooner or later you had to choose didn't you?
It in't seem like that at the time o was to guess how wie the gap woul grow been Goar or Snow, on the one han, an Spielberg or Lucas, on the other? guess it's like the gap between revolutionary an reactionary Moernism Or in this case Postmodernism?
Postmoernism i emerge aroun the same time There coul be a connection, couln't there? But it's a slippery label 161
idds of th Shinx (Laura Mulvey, Peter Wollen, 977).
h ast Movi (Dennis Hopper, 97) 162
You still didnt quite answer my original question auteurism or avant-gardism? at about Pethesilea and Riddles of the Sphix the lms you made with Laura Mulvey at that very time? How did they relate to Star Wars
Well, as I have bee describig, there was a strage kid of trasitioal epoch, which started, say, aroud 1 966 ( Chelsea Girls, Masculin-Fminin, Youre a Big Boy Now, Blowup) ad edig somewhere i the mid70s, whe Yvoe Raier's Lives ofPerformers coicided with The Godfather, Jo Jost's Speaking Directly coicided with aws ad, yes, Riddles of the Sphinx coicided with Star Wars But, of course, while I recogise that Coppola ad Spielberg ad Lucas were udoubted auteurs, I am much more iterested i someoe like David Croeberg, who was rooted i 60s experimetalism I still think youre being evasive ich is it to be auteurism or avant-gardism? OK Cronenberg and Lucass THX1138 could be seen as an experimental lm Ill give you Hoppers The Last Movie too But the generl trend launched by Lucas and his group was towards the youth-market high-tech speed-and-action blockbuster which dominates the industry today Were you so eager to be rid of The Soud of Music that you welcomed almost any signs of change or are you claiming that there really was a change for the better ther than just for the bigger and brsher?
I thik there was a potetial chage r the better Hopper, yes; Walter Murch, maybe; but Lucas ad Spielberg, o, you're right I a utshell, Star Wars was The Sound of Music all over agai But I would like to rephrase my poit i aother way, if I ca This key period, om the mid60s to the mid 70s, was oe of ge uie reovatio, both r avatgarde lm ad r Hollywood I the avatgarde, the impetus ally draied away, although importat lms cotiued to be made, ad I thik the logterm result was the icorporatio of avatgarde lm practice ito the art world via video art I Hollood, the logterm result was a restabilisatio of the idustry, i which Spielberg ad Lucas emerged as key players ad Scorsese as a gnd matre who ever wo a Oscar For oe brief, excitig momet auteurism ad avatgardism made cotact look at Performance or Stereo ad the, of course, they broke apart agai Ievitable, but a tragedy Only a tgedy ifyou believed in it I would say
Well, I stl le to imagie there could be a eclectic ciema with that same kid of cotact oce agai Lets get back to lm theory Always a safe haven
So much less cotroversial! I have a question about the auteur theory Your version was unabashedly Structualist You took the politique des auteurs and gave it so to speak a Structurlist make-over Do you have the same reverence for Lvi-Stuss today?
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Well, I'm not a Structuralist today ut I'm not a PostStructuralist either So what ar you?
Let me go back to Structuralism rst The Structuralistauteurist chater in my book derives directly om the short critical essays which you wrote r Nw L Rviw The roblem with those ieces though, as I saw it in 1968, was that their theoretical amework was sulied by Lucien Goldmann and his concet of worldview' Then, not long aerwards, Structuralism and semiology hit ritain in a big way Claude LviStrauss and Roland arthes arthes's Elmnt of Smiology swet me o my et, rst when I read it in French in Communication and then when it came out in translation as a Jonathan Cae ocketbook arthes was stl a militant Structuralist and so I naturally turned back to reread LviStrauss, who I hadn't looked into since his great ethnograhic memoir, World on th Wan Rereading LviStrauss, I saw how your work could be recongured by using LviStrauss instead o Goldmann It wa a productiv ida at th tim I mut admit But what do you think about Structulim now?
Well, in the mid1970s, I went to work in the Linguistics Deartment at the University of Essex It was a strange exerience The culty members all had their own' languages, in which they were secialists, and I was viewed as the exert on a language called Film' though there was some interest in semiology there, the main reoccuation was with Chomsk's transrmational grammar and the battle over the revisionist critique of Chomsk which was raging at the time at wa all that about?
Montague logic, generative semantics, things like that In any case, I got a really thorough grounding in Chomsk's linguistics and the technical arguments r and against it So what wa th rlvanc of all that to lm tudi?
That's what I'd like to exlain The one thing that everyone agreed uon was that Structuralism was utterly irrelevant Saussure was dead as a doornail Jakobson was an honoured but suerseded ioneer There were no French linguists worth talking about, least of all Martinet, the leading French Structuralist In eect, everybody acceted Chomsk's arguments against Structuralism as taken r granted, however much they might dier about Chomsk himself and what should or should not come aer him I was stunned by their curt dismissal of Saussure, whose work was the ndamental startingoint r LviStrauss, arthes, Lacan and even r Derrida Suddenly, I discovered that Saussure wasn't taken the least bit seriously Chomsk's revolution had shied the nature of the whole eld His work was all about syntax and about sentences, about the rules which maed meaning on 164
to sentences through their hierarchy of clauses and subclauses, through word order and through the morphology of the constituent words Saussure hardly mentions syntax Neither do Barthes or Jakobson They assume that semantic content is mapped directly on to syntactic rm in a relatively unproblematic way Choms's demolition of Structuralism was summed up by his mous example of the inescapable dierence between John is easy to please' (in which John' is object of please') and John is eager to please' (in which John' is subject of please') The two sentences have the same surce appearance, but they have two quite contrary patterns of meaning, one in which John is pleased and the other in which he pleases The two sentences ay look te same but, in reality, they have these very dierent underlying structures There is no direct relationsip between signied and signier The deep struc ture is not mapped mechanically on to its surce structure Instead, there is a complex system of syntactic rules which transrm semantic input into surce output Saussure didn't deal with that at all Yet now the question became, What do the syntactic rules look like?' For the Structuralists, that question didn't even ase True but nobody has managed to come up with a successul theory o what the syn tax o cinema might look like have they? In act as ar as I remember you toyed with the idea o using adimir Propp's morphology o narrtive as the basis or a lm grmma but you never really explained how narrative came to be trnsormed into lm language.
You're implying that the linguistic model was doomed om the start, that it didn't lead anywhere, and that introducing Propp iled to save the situation I under stand why you might say that, but it's certainly not the conclusion I reached Yes, I was eventually rced to reject both Saussure and Choms as models, but I still believe that m has a grammar I began to be interested in the way creole lan guages develop Creoles are realworld models of how new languages are rmed on the ground, historically And that led me to Talmy Givon's work on nctional grammar I don't want to sound sceptical but what made you think you could solve these prob lems with yet another dose o linguistics? How does that relate to the role o narr tive?
Le any other language, lm language must have developed historically through a process of grammaticalisation With verbal language, we can see how this works in the development of creole languages out of pidgins And a similar kind of process must have taken place with te grammaticalisation of lm language The pressure to grammaticalise clearly had to come om the practical need to tell a story, which then explains why a theory of narrative was needed And what does that lead you to in practice?
Well, r example, if we look at the way in which verb rms develop, specically 165
in reltin t strytelling, s Givn hs described it, we nd tht they dierentite rst between tense, mde nd spect Tense signls deprture m the min timeline f nrrtive Mde indictes shi int th nnctul r dubtly ctul the subjunctive, the cnditinl, r even, in sme lnguges, the ture Aspect signls tht ctins re hbitul r nging, rther thn cmpleted events In the cinem, shbcks re tenselike; drem sequences re mdelike; mntge sequences re spectlike Film ls needed t develp wys in which the cse rles f prticipnts in n ctin culd be pinpinted, wys in which the semntic shpe f ctins r hppenings ws clried, thrugh the system f mster sht, medium sht nd clseup Clseups f ce, r exmple, shw the cse rle f experiencer rther thn the ctinrelted rles f subject' r bject s we cn see in erly Grith How does all this relate to Peirce? By choosing Peirce rather than Saussure as your semiotician of reference hadnt you already downplayed the importance of the lan guage model?
True, becuse even then I wsn't cnvinced tht the Sussuren mdel ws dequte r m Peirce sees lnguge s just ne f mny sign systems, ech perting with dierent nds f rules I think tht is plinl true f the cinem It hs dcumentry nd pictril spect s well s symblic r lngugelike spect I ws interested in the wy tht the three min trends in lm esthetics seem t run prllel with the three types f sign which Peirce hd islted the index, which is existentilly linked t its bject, le thermmeter reding; the icn, which signies thrugh resemblnce t its bject, like picture; nd the symblic, which hs n rbitrry reltin t its bject, like wrd Relist esthetics re prjectin f the indexicl, pictrilist esthetics re prjectin f the icnic, nd wht we might cll discursive' esthetics, with the stress n cnceptul mening, re prjectins f the symblic Fair enough A comprehensive aesthetic of the cinema certainly has to deal with all three pes of sign and the comple kinds of relationship which can eist between them I wonder whether there isnt the basis for a theory ofgenre here distinguishing documentary dmatic and essay lm
Well, I wuld rgue r cmbintin f ll three genres: dcumentry, drm nd essy, t use the ll ptentil f cinem Riddles of the Sphin ws intended exempli tht kind f experimentl pngeneric genre So the theoretical aspects of your book are directly relevant to your lmmaking as well as to lm study?
Abslutely At the time I wrte the bk, I still hd nt dne ny lmmking, but I ws writing scripts nd it ws denitely there n the gend And then the rrivl f the new Gdrd nd structurl lm nd experimentl nrrtive, like Yvnne Riner's Lives of Performers, r Chntl Akermn's e Tu Il Elle, ll set me thinng but lmmking in terms f the vntgrde rther thn the industry 166
I remember you had been involved in the industry
Yes In 1968 I was still involved with screenwriting, with my writing partner, Mark Peploe, and soon aerwards we wrote the script r e Passenger, which Antonioni directed Aer The Passenger went into production, I sort of thought I'd achieved whatever goals I ever had as r as the industry was concerned Antonioni, MGM, Jack Nicholson! So I turned to lmmaking myself, but as an experimental lmmaker, working with Laura Mulvey We saw our work as lmmakers as closely connected to our work as theorists Of course, Eisenstein was the distant model r this, even if he was defeated in the end Isn't there something defeatist about the whole idea of commitment to experimental lm an idea that the industry is fundamentally irrecuperble?
I am tempted to answer So be it'! at is wrong with a commitment to experimental lm? To me, the most exciting Hollywood directors always had an experimental edge What are the great Hollywood lms Grith's Intolerance, Keaton's Sherlock unior, Murnau's Sunrise, Sternberg's Morocco, Chaplin's Modern Times, Welles's Citizen Kane, Hitchcock's ope, Fuller's Shock Corridor, Kubrick's 2001, Ridley Scott's Blade unner They all have an experimental dimension I am a great admirer of the few lmmakers who have managed to balance a professional career in the industry with an ongoing commitment to experiment Like everybody else, I have some petty reservations about Peter Greenaway's lms but there is absolutely no doubt in my mind that he set a truly heroic example r others to llow Is Eisenstein's example still relevant? He taught in a lm school didn't he during the lean times of the 1 930s? Do you think theory and practice can be combined even in lm school?
Eisenstein taught directing in a way which included teaching theory But that's very rare In my experience, even the best lm schools keep the two apart They might argue that lmmaking simply doesn't leave enough time r serious study of lm theory, but I think that is just a way of avoiding the issue In an ideal world, production students would have a solid grounding in history and theory, just as academic students should have a grounding in production But it isn't going to happen The division between the two curricula gets more and more engrained each year that goes by It maers?
Yes, it does matter It really troubles me that most students who are doing academic degrees never get a serious chance to make a lm and vice versa, that production students don't have the time or the mindset to think seriously about lm theory at are you talking about? Separatism? Philistinism?
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The system simply oes not work in the wy it shoul Tht's why its so stonishing to re Eisenstein's clss lectures His irecting clsses i not simply rw on his prcticl experience, but were crmme ll of theory s well semiotics, esthetics, rt history How did that come about? I mean his interest in theory
Restless curiosity His bckgroun in experimentl thetre An then he must hve been inuence bythewyMrxism stresse the nee r theory s guie to prctice But he is unique even among Soviet directors
Yes but, if you look closely, you will n there is theoreticl imension to the wy in which mny gret irectors pproche their work, in Holloo s well s in Europe Eisenstein ws much more systemtic thn most, but there re scinting insights in the occsionl writings of Sternberg or Hitchcock, r instnce Acemic theorists on't py nerly enough ttention to Eisenstein, let lone the work of other lmmkers But they re well worth stuying Do you want to revise your account of Eisensteins career at all with the benet of hindsight?
Well, so much more of his writing is vilble now But I m not sure tht I wnt to revise the min lines of wht I si in Signs and Meaning It still seems ccurte to me n, in generl, it hs been conrme by ll the new publictions the only revisions I might mke re shis of emphsis rther thn shis of substnce But I think the min thrust of new reserch is still to come I woul ssume it will be in the re of politicl history n its impct on Eisenstein There must be n enormous mount of mteril burie in the rmer Soviet rchives which will throw esh light on Eisenstein's creer We shoul eventully be ble to reconstruct ll the subterrnen twists n turns of Soviet policy r the rts n the cinem We kow the public history of ll tht, but there must be secret history s well, which will slowly come to light s the les re nlly opene You drew a clear distinction between Eisensteins career in the 20s and his career aer the consolidation of Stalins rule when he was forced to make painful accomodations not only to continue working but presumably even to survive
Yes, I'm surprise he ws ble to work on Ivan the Terrible er proucing Wgner t the Bolshoi, uring the perio of the StlinHitler pct An then there re his pornogrphic' rwings (Slome, St Sebstin, the crucixion of Christ) How o they relte to his lms or to his homosexulity? How oes religion f in? Eisenstein's privte life is still very obscure it's not on the public recor It is ll mtter of necote n specultion e Mexican work may be crucial because it was less constrined he had dropped over the horizon so to speak
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Qe Viva Mexico! (S M Eisestei, 1931
Exactly t is a scinating p eriod i n his career and no only sexally William Harrison Richmonds book, Mexico Through Russia Eyes is ll of hoghpro voking material I shold like o know a lot more abot Eisensteins conversaions with Siqeiros ( in which Hart Crane also participaed) and the ways in which they inenced each other Those took place in Taxco in 932 and app arently hey discssed aesthetics, the role of art in politics and the role of lk art And am very intriged by Eisensteins working visit to the town of Tehantepec, where he shot part of Que Viva Mexico! ehuatepec?
The image of the Tehana woman, om Tehantepec in he soth, was a consant artistic preoccpaion in the Mexican Renaissance Aer his retrn om Paris, Diego Rivera was sen down to Tehanepec by Vasconcelos, he revolionary Minister of Cltre, in order to reassimilae himself into Mexican life, and Tehana women appear prominently in his great mrals in Mexico City Frida Kahlo adoped Tehana costme r her selfimage of choice, in selfportrait aer selfporrait Tina Modotti made the pilgrimage to Tehantepec to phoograph Tehana women Even Eisenseins caretaker on Que Viva Mexico!, Bes Magard, did a goache of a Tehana Perhaps my inerest is a bi exaggerated - I co craed a retrospective show of Kahlo and Modotti as well as writing abot Eisenstein b, a few years ago, I was cky enogh o see a grea show in Mexico City tracing the whole hisory of Tehana imagery in Mexican ar and it began to dawn on me how important it had been to Eisenstein He was miliar with a whole range of theories abot
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primitive matriarchy' (Bachofe, Egels, LvBruhl ad others) ad it certaily tied i with both his semiotic ad his cultura iterests. I thik it relates to his iterest i James Joyce's ysses too. Do you think Eisenstein's theories were themselves a kind of myth which he needed for his artistic work?
I do't thik myth' is the right term. I thik they might ll uder the headig of speculatios or hypotheses. But the you could say that about Barthes or Eco too. Semiology is still a ew eld of equiry ad cosequetly it has to be cocered with hypotheses, rather tha established truths. y ew disciplie is goig t be hypercojectural, i compariso with other, more established elds. But that is ot a shortcomig. It is a ecessity. Ad it's . And your use of Peirce in relation to the cinema is speculative too?
Look, oe of Peirce's books is actually etitled Speculative Grmmar I do't have ay problem with the speculative. It is a absolutely ecessary compoet of ay serious thought. Look at Freud ad Laca! You could't be more speculative! Speculatio provokes critique ad couterargumet ad rermuatio, which are all part of the process of theorybuidig. Peirce is very cear about this i his writigs o abductio which he sees as a ecessary part of theorybuildig, of equal weight with iductio ad deductio. bductio' is his term r the process of rig hypotheses ad cojectures. It ivolves a elemet of guesswork marshalled to explai a otherwise surprisig ct. Peirce beieved that guessig was a itrisic part of sciece, just as crucial as observatio or reasoig. You should look at the book mberto Eco put together with Thomas Sebeok. It is called The Sign of Three, ad it is subtitled Dupi, Holmes, Peirce'. That is the same Dupi we meet i he Purloied Letter'. Poe or Lacan? And the Holmes is Sherlock?
Precisely, my dear Watso. So you think theory advances by asking questions creating conjectures forming hy potheses by abduction testing them inductively by asking another question and so o n?
Yes. As Jaako Hitikaa put it, i The Sign of Three, we eed a sharp theory of the questioaswer relatioship'. Hitikaa sees questioadaswer sequeces as games played agaist ature' ature is our oppoet as we attempt to pry out ew bits of owledge, which we ca use to rmulate rther cojectures, which lead to more questios, i a chai of iterrogatio. I d this emphasis o questioig rather tha aswerig very sympathetic. Yes you would Aer all you made iddles of te Spix.
Absolutely. That's a lm structured etirely ar�s qestios which it 170
asks i order o challege Lacas assumpio ha laguage is primary a ehicle r he pariarchal Law, raher ha r he mariarchal iddle. Is abou how Lacas wriigs hemseles eed o be quesioed raher ha preseed as he Law bu we are probably srayig oo r om Signs and Meaning . . . which eeds o be quesioed oo ! Thas your job! You were saying earlier that Sigs a d Meaig should be read in conjunction with viewing your lms weren't you?
Very rue. Bu wriig books ad makig lms remai ery diere kids of discourse, each wih is paricular kid of quesioig. Maybe here is a reciprocal relaioship. Signs and Meaning asks he quesio, a kid of lm should we make? which Riddles aswers. The Riddles asks, a kid of heory should we wrie?. at kinds ofquestions do you think lm theory should be asking us now?
Quesios abou he aagarde. d he quesios we were alkig abou earlier lm pragmaics ad m laguage, he way i which lm became grammai calised. at do you mean by lm pragmatics'?
The way i which m laguage eoled i respose o pracical eeds ad problems. If we look a he deelopme of lm laguage durig he early years of he ciema, we ca see ha i respods o he pracical eeds of arraie. at drives the pragmatic development oflm language? Could you give a concrete eample om a particular lm?
I shall ry o. I ll choose a irly sadard example om he early years of ciema. Les ake a look a dr Gaudreauls essay o The Deelopme of CrossCuig i Thomas Elsaessers ahology Early Cinema Gaudreaul is discussig a wellkow Edwi Porer lm, Life of an American Fireman There are wo ex a ersios of his lm, oe wih ie shos, made i 1903, called he Copyrigh ersio, ad oe wih wey shos, called he Museum of Moder Ar ersio. They are ideical up o he las wo shos of he Copyrigh ersio, which were broke dow, i he Museum ersio, io hiree separae crosscu segmes. Cocreely, i he Copyrigh ersio, he ex o las sho (Sho 8) shows a coiuous series of miiees occurrig i he ierior of a upsairs room i a burig house (a ) a woma wakes o d her room lled wih smoke, (b) she goes o he widow, (c) she saggers back ad collapses o her bed, (d) a rema eers hrough he door ad breaks he widow, (e) he lis he woma up ad carries her hrough he widow, (f) he reeers he room ad picks up a child ad leaes agai hrough he widow, ad (g) wo more reme come hrough he same widow wih a hose ad exiguish he re. The, llowig ha, i Sho 9, he al sho, we see he same rescue sequece 171
ife of meric Firem (Edwin S. Porter, 1 903) om te exterior of te ose () te wom ppers t te widow, (b) rem eters te ose, (c ) reme pce ldder gist te ose, ( d) te re m crries te wom dow te ldder, (e) te rem remots te dder d te wom despirs, (f) te rem reppers wit er cild d te moter welcomes d gs er Bt, i te ter Msem versio, te sme resce seqece wic is sow i tese two sige sots (s iterior d exterior views) is broe dow ito tir tee tertig sots (seve om Sot 8 crossct with six om Sot ). Tis ltertig versio is geerly cosidered to be ter improvemet of the opyright versio, wic icorported te ew deveopmets i crosscttig wic we ssocite wit D Grith Gdret discsses tis m i prey temporl terms Te ey cocepts, r im, re simlteity d sccessio He rges tt tere re two simteos ies of ctio i tese shots d tt cross cttig wors becse it provides te mes to express simlteity by mes of sccessiveess Bt, i ct, ltog dieret spects of te evet my be simteos, tey re ot relly seprte lies of ctio Tret d resce my be cooccrret, bt te tret motivtes te resce d te more rget te tret, te more rget te resce bec omes Tere is ogicl reltiosip betwee tret d resce rosscttig cptres te compex logicl strctre prespposed by resce, wic ivoves sccessio of sb ctios, mltipicity of prticipts d ogoig seprtio of spces Te tempor logic of te evet is seqeti, bt te spces i wic it tes pce re discotios, ti we rec te hppy ed d te resce is cocded
2
You are saying that time an space are semantic features of the narrtive they shouln't be seen as inepenent ofit?
Exactly. Crosscuttig is a iguistic' device which grammaticalises a specic type of arrative actio. It gives priority to the itera morphology ad deveopmet of a actio i this case, the actio of rescue which itself presupposes, rst peril, the commuicatio, the physical movemet betwee two spaces ad two roles (rescuer ad rescued). The separatio of spaces ad the logica successio of subactios both derive om the uderyig sematic features of rescue om per. I ct, as crosscuttig deveoped, it discarded simutaeity. Short segmets of logically related actio aterate without overlappig at al. It seems that what you are oing is arguing own from an analysis of the whole nar rtive in Proppian terms to the morphology of each narrtive function subivied down into constituent actions an sub-actions.
That's right. Propp was correct to poit out that arrative is a logical rather tha a chrooogica system. d the each actio ad subactio has a iheret case structure or valecy'. Thus rescue = rescue of x by y om z i such ad such a pace or paces. Experiecer, patiet, aget, abative, locative. Each actio is broke dow so that its sematic cotours ad its case structure are cear. The re is aget' of peri. The reme are agets or subjects, of rescue. The damse i distress is the eeriecer' of peril ad the the patiet or object, of rescue. So the development oflm language can be viewe as a process ofproblemsolving how to clari the semantic an logical structure of each event within the nartive in the most economical way possible.
Precisely. If lm had deveoped i a dieret way as portraiture, or as ladscape, or as diary (al geres which est uder the geera headig of experimeta lm') , the the laguage woud have evoved dierety. That is why experimetal lms are dicult r people to grasp. The ct that they are oarrative meas that they employ, or imply, a dieret kd of m aguage. You have to lear it. Experimeta lms oe are abstracty aaytic i terms of space ad time, ad they are ot ecessarily storydrive. How oes this relate to what you sai about lm aesthetics? Going back to iddles it seems you wante to make a lm which was both story-riven an yet reacte against narrative syntax. Isnt that some kin of a paox?
Yes, it tells a story or more tha oe story but it does ot use the covetioal lm laguage. It uses a series of 3-degree pans each showing a single unbroken sequence containing one principal action
I a way, it was costructed like a ecklace as Eisestei said of Que Viva Mexico! 17
I ct, it wet rther tha Eisestei, because we subordiated the actio to amig ad compositio. We dedramatised eve rther. We saw the dramatic story a simply a uderlyig ble which echoed the Oedipus story as see through the les o Jacques Laca ad Maud Maoi. I suppose we wated to take Eisestei's idea o itellectual motage' ito aother dimesio, ito a eve more radical decostructio o maistream lm laguage. y? How do you elate this to you auteuism and you loyal pise of Hollywood cinema o at least you appeciation of Hollywoods antheon diectos?
There are two ways o aswerig that. The rst is to say that I llowed Godard i movig out o the Hollywood orbit aer beig rmed by it. The secod is to say that I was very iueced by Godard's example, but I also became icreasigly critical o it, as he bega to abado storytellig, or to miimise it. I wated to retai arrative, but to tell stories i a dieret kid o way. The rst lm I made with Laura Mulvey, Penthesilea, was i the rm o a palimpsest, tellig the same story over ad over agai, each time i a dieret mode or style. Juxtapositio rather tha cotiuity. So you ejected Hollywood but you could still etain an inteest in stoytelling and native?
I eel as i you are somehow rcig me ito mag a coessio. My ciephilia, my obsessive love o the great old Hollwood lms, ever ever le me. I could ot rid mysel o it, eve i I wated to. I the ed, it reasserted itsel. At some level, ciephilia simply trasceded the politics o art or the aesthetics o the avatgarde. That same ciephilia, aer all, was really the basis o my covictio tha ciema is a art, that aesthetics is more importat tha ideology. It explais why I ever liked the idea o culture or Cultural Studies'. I wated art ad aesthetics. Can you explain that a bit? How did you see the dieence between at and cultue? at was it about at that made it a pioity fo you and what was it that you dis tusted about the idea of cultue?
You ow, I have ever bee very explicit about this, but it has bee implicit i everythig I have ever writte about the ciema. I am iterested i art ad I am iterested i ideas, but I have ever uderstood the appeal o culture'. I will try ad aalyse it r you, but I am ot sure how successl I shall be. Persoal taste gets mixed up with itellectual history! As you must kow, the idea o Cultural Studies' comes om Eglad, ad it was eshried i the title o the Birmigham Cetre r Cotemporary Cultural Studies, uded by Richard Hoggart back i 1961 Hoggart was joied there by Stuart Hall, aer he resiged om the editorship o New Le Review Birmigham gave a istitutioal rm to the approach developed i Hoggart's ow The Uses of Litecy (1957) ad, o course, Raymod Williams's magisterial Cultue and Socie, which came out the ext year, i 1958 These two books promoted the idea o culture' as the expressio o a com 174
muity's way of life. I both cases, the writers drew o their ow childhood experiece, growig up i the workig class, explicitly with Hoggart, implicitly with Williams who was more explicit i his ovels. I suppose tis idea drew o T. S Eliot ad Leavis, the rst of whom was a radical coservative ad the secod a coservative radical. They both proposed the idea that culture was a way of life, which gave texture ad meaig to social exstece. They were both extremely suspicious of the commercialised mass culture of the twetieth cetury ad, i Leavis's case at least, there was also a deep seated resetmet of class privilege ad the idea of culture as the property of a lite rather tha te people as a whole. Hoggart's book articulated his attachmet to the workigclass culture i which he was brought up ad his cosio whe, as a result of the logawaited democratisatio of the uiversities, he ud himself iducted ito te privileged lite Williams's book, o the other had, traced the ways i which a battle r the cocept of culture' had marked British itellectual history, cocludig with a attack o mass commuicatios ad a reewed call r the revitalisatio of a commo culture a livig culture' based both o atural growth ad o its carel tedig. How dd you react? Negatvely?
I am aaid I came dow o the side both of aestheticism ad the mass media. Let's talk about the mass media rst specically, America ciema. Tis whole tred of thought rwell, Hoggart, Williams was explicitly ad implicitly ati America. The cultural commuity they wrote about was traditioal ad Eglish or perhaps I should say British, without tryig to uravel the distictio. They recogised that Britai was the coutry with the logest history of proletariaisa tio ad cosequetly with a workig class which had eoyed, if that's the word, the opportuity ad the legth of time ecessary to create a orgaic way of life ad its ow rich culture. This culture was ow threateed by a ew wave of commercialisatio, ot om withi, as with the rise of the mass circulatio press, but om without, with the ivasio of the Hollwood lm. Williams held the lie agaist Hollwood with teacity. He did ot deouce the ciema as such. I ct, he was a pioeer i itroducig lm ito the uiversity at Cambridge where he taught ad he eve cowrote a book about the ciema, Preface to Flm, with Michael Orrom, a ied who came out of the British documetary movemet. But he kept well clear of Hollwood except r Grith, I thik. Aer that he looked at Eisestei ad Pudovki, Germa silet ciema ad the o to Bergma ad evetually Godard. I had a completely differet view of Hollood. I eect, I felt that British culture was stiig, om top to bottom, across classes, ad my coclusio was that it eeded iput om abroad to break up its provicialism ad isularity. Hece, my iterest i Hollyood ciema ad Frech theory came om the same root. It was a kid of picer movemet low art om across the ocea, high theory om across the Chael. at s the burden of ths dstncton you are makng beween art' and culture'? Is t a clear dstncton or s there a knd of gdent between the two?
Well, if we accept Williams's deitio of culture, the art is clearly distict. Art 175
meas a body of texts rather tha a way of li. Actually, I am ot so r away om Wiliams i my views about art Wiiams looked o artworks as texts ad stressed the primacy of rm. Maybe he had a dieret iterpretatio of what he meat by text' or rm but the ecessit to distiguish art om culture i that kid of way was still implicit. Also, Williams was eager to reject orthodox views about taste ad quality. Oe of the thigs he especialy iked about I. A. ichards's work, r example, is that ichards woud give studets texts to read without telig them who the author was. He discovered that their aesthetic respose was quite dieret whe the caoica status of a work was ot sigaled by a authorial attributio. The, whe Wiliams wrote about Ibse, it tured out that he preferred Ghoss to A Doll's House ad vigorousy defeded this choice, whe he was chaleged, by arguig that the whoe mode of compositio' was more serious i Ghoss ad that its rm was much more sigicat, irrespective of whether it was more socially progressive. For Wiliams, art had a role withi cuture, but it clearly was ot the same thig as culture. Paretheticay, I shoud add that, r Wiliams, lm was a proogatio of drama, so that ergma was lowig i the otsteps of Stridberg. Film was a dramatic art. No a visual ar? a do you hink?
I thik m is plaily a polymorphous art. There is a limited sese i which lm is a visua art, but it is also a arrative art, a dramatic art, a kietic art, a auditory art, a perrmace art ad so o. It operates o multiple sesory bads optica, auditory, eve tactile ad with multipe sig systems. That is its great stregth as a rm. Tha i is polymorphously perverse
If you like. ut the poit I was makig is that art is deed by its rma qualities, by the way i which a te is structured. Film is rmaly distict om theatre though related to it. Withi the ciema, geres are rmay distict, ad so are movemets ike Expressioism or Poetic ealism or Structural Fm, ad so are auteurs. At the same time, art, as Wiliams poited out, is also the site of a kid of truth a imagiative truth' i his terms. A work of art is a vehicle r a way of viewig the word, a way of amig it thematically resituatig it, i a uique way, as what I called a heterocosm i the auteurism chapter of Signs and Meaning Thus, we ca ook at Hawks, r exampe, ad see recurret styistic qualities i his lms, but also recurret thematic preoccupatios, which together give his work its rm i Wiliams's sese of the word. Williams eds his book o drama by talkig about recht. He sees recht as havig created a ew ad origial dramatic rm. Agai, at this poit, there is a covergece. Wiliams argued that recht's iovatio was to trasrm aturalism by repacig the idicative mode by the subjuctive i ct, o this basis he evetually caled r a rechtia ciema or televisio) which i his words woud be the combiatio of three directios, the more mobile dramatic rms of the camera, direct relatioship with more popular audieces, ad developmet of
subjuctve actos'. That s ot so r om my posto, except that I woud terpret every sgle oe of those codtos a very deret way. Didn't you call fo a Bechtian cinema too? Wasn't that one ofyou watchwods when you wee witing in Scree
Yes, but Wams's dea was that camera mobty coud gve m the eedom of the ove ad the abty to move to ad through ope spaces, whe stl retag ts dramatc rm. But Riddles of the Sphinx our project was to use camera mobty to produce a estraged ook at the word, whch destroyed the possbty of empathy. Brechta, of course, but very deret om Wams. The dea was to use a popuar rm storytelg through m but drect t to wards specc subcultures, artstc, potca ad teectua. Fay, he dees subjuctve actos' as those whch ask the questo If we dd ths, what woud happe ext?' He s takg about outcomes possble worlds kd of thought expermets. But I thk you ca oy uderstad ths tactc of Brecht's cojucto wth hs theory of the estus' the dea that somethg was beg demostrated, that he was presetg the audece wth a kd of socopotca dagram, whch woud provoke them to rmulatg questos of ther ow. I would like to get back to Hollywood to mass cinema How does Becht t in with Hollywood?
Awardy, practce. I theory, there was a cose t. Brecht adored cheap popular cuture. For me Sam Fuer was the Howood Brechta. There was't ay drect uece. But Fuer had smar tastes to Brecht cheap popuar cuture, pulp ovels, tablod jouralsm whch he wated to redeem, f that s the word, by usg them as a meas of attackig cruca ad topcal questos of ethcs ad potcs, as Brecht dd. Fuer wet straght r the pressure pots. Hs ms are ke bes of our epoch, ad they ask questos. Run of the Aow actualy shes wth a uresoved plot ad a cosg subtte The ed of ths story wl be wrtte by you' drected straght at the audece. Fulle yes And I know thee is a kind ofBechtian agumentfo Sik And Becht him self admied Welles's wok in the theate But what about Stenbeg? O Hitchcock?
Sterberg s more o the sde of Breto tha Brecht. Shanghai Gestue mad ove, oersm. The other sde of Cahies taste aogsde a taste r B pctures ad pup cto was a taste r the derous. I aways oved ms le Shanghai Gestue, or Pandoa and the Flying Dutchman Maybe Charles Laughto somehow combes the two eemets hs Night of the Hunte That's a reay great m. He must have leared somethg om Brecht. And Hitchcock?
There s a surreast sde to Htchcock, r sure dream ms ke Vetigo, Manie, The Bids He kew a ot about surreasm ad he taked about t. 1
ight of the Hunter (Charles Laughton, 1954). And he hired Salvador Dal to work on pellbound
He was a master of the uncanny And like Welles he was scinated by magicians ile we are on Hitchcock, I should like to backtrack to the question of Hollywood lms and French theory How did that particular pairing come abo ut, in your view?
Well obviously the ink was Cahiers and bere that there was the whole post war rench scination with lm noir t takes us right back to the 20s to their scination with jazz and sscrapers and comic strips here was a real attraction to the underside of American culture in artres writings as well And artre was a key gure r me b ecause my interest in rench theory itself eads bac to artre and to Existentialism n Engand Laing and Cooper atched on to artre as a the orist and the scination with America showed up simultaneously in pop art and popular music On the subject of American popular culture there is something else should like to stress n England cinephilia ran concurrently with the discovery of American music mean Chuck Berry Little Richard Muddy Waters John Lee Hooker Howling Wolf Discovering Run of the Arrow and Underworld USA was the same kind of experience n the music world this led to the Rolling tones and the Beatles and all that n the art world it was the time of British pop art Richard Hamilton made conscious alusions to Holood And Pauline Boty he unlikely aspect of it was the way in which this Americanophilia leapt the tracks 18
om pop ito the New Le. New e Review covered Sam Fuller, as you kow, but also Joh Lee Hooker ad the Rollig Stoes ad eve William Burroughs. at's true I was partly responsible for that I think the point with the Rolling Stones was that they took what they got from black blues singers like ohn ee Hooker or Howling Wolf or Muddy Waters and then returned it to the United States in a new mutated form This never really happened with lm lm was too tainted with the idea ofa national cinema whereas popular music wasn't Although I suppose that if you looked back to the heroic days of British cinema to Carol Reed and Michael Powell you could argue that they were mutating' Hollywood and sending it back home in a new guise
I ay case, the Old New Le supported a cocept of a atioal ciema which rejected directors lie Michael Powell. If you look at the documetaries which Karel Reisz ad Lidsay derso made i the 50s, they were extremely hostile to trashy' opular culture ad especially to Hollwood. Anderson liked ohn rd for his sentimental nationalism and for his masculine sen timentality
Exactly. The shi oly came about aer the chage of guard i 1 962 whe Edward Thompso ad Raymod Williams ad the older geeratio departed ito the gloom. NR had a atioal ihilist' streak i those happy days, a woderl leaig towards dismissig everhig Eglish. You put a pantheon of ten Great Hollywood Directors Chaplin rd Fuller Hawks Hitchcock ang ubitsch Ophuls Sternberg Welles at the end of the rst edition of Sigs ad Meaig. It disappeared from the second edition y was that? Change of heart?
Death of the author? I a way, yes. Basically, I felt that Barthes's ad Foucault's mous prooucemets o this subject were, well, ridiculous. They were extreme tropes, geerated by their theories of text ad discourse. l the same, I still felt called upo to revise my ow sectio o auteurism ad give it a PostStructuralist gloss, poitig out the dierece betwee the maifest author' ad the latet author so to speak. The author became a d of eect of the text, which is ot so r wrog i itself, but also served to occlude the questio of the relatioship betwee the actual author ad the textual author eect'. I'm sorry about that. Sam Fuller may ot kowigly have become Sam Fuller but you could't have the latter without the rmer, ad there were real determiatios betwee the two. Biography is relevat to issues aroud authorship. But the so is textuality. at would your pantheon be now nearly 30 years later?
The old oe was too covetioal, was't it? Let's try somethig dieret, with a completely ew set of ames Sirk, Siodmak, Lupio, Tashli, Kubrick, Polas, Croeberg, Demme, De Palma, opper. d I seemed to have overlooked 179
Scorsese ad Joh Woo. I coud go o debatig the ist with mysef r moths. l the same, I sti thik that patheos are of value. Ad I am i vour of the idea of the cao, although aturaly I prefer revisioist ad dissidet caos. The cao shoud be ope to the lm maudit, the m without a ture. The Surreaist cao was a great iuece o me, whe I was sti at boardig schoo Swi, Sade, Poe, Desbordes Vamore . . . dow to Jarry, Vach ad oussel. I ever did check out o DesbordesVamore though. I st do't kow who he was. y do you like the idea of the canon?
It's simpy a shorthad r a methodical ad priciped taste. It seems perverse to me to rese to ask which work is good ad which is bad. e you make a lm, you ask yoursef whether a cut is good or bad, whether a way of deliverig a lie is good or bad, whether a camera movemet is good or bad. Productio maiy cosists of judgemets about vaue ad quaity. Critics ad theorists should't try to isuate themseves om a discourse which is so itrisic to art practice. Aer al, our atural respose aer seeig a lm at the ciema is to tak about whethr it was good or bad. O the other had, caos shoud't be oze. We shoud go o ghtig over them, i a passioate ad irmed ad reasoed way, but that is aother matter. I strogly beieve we eed to make judgemets of taste ad the defed them with ratioa argumets, as Shaesbury recommeded over two ceturies ago. Maybe that meas a ew aesthetics. Isn't the canon debate reall about identity politics?
Wel, it's about what has bee hidde om history'. A I wat to caim is that whe we set out to revise the cao, we should be abe to argue our positio o aesthetic grouds. Of course, we shoud reistate Dorothy Arzer ad Ida Lupio. We should ook agai at mmakers ike Bil Gu, who made Ganja and Hess i 1970. Ad we shoud look seriousy at hidde' areas of word ciema too Bombay ad Mexico City ad Cairo. Kama Amrohi's Pakeezah is a great master piece, comparabe at the very east with Max Ophus's Lola Monts I thik that Pau Leduc's Latino Bar, made i Veezuea, is the great lm of the last decade. d the there's Ousmae Sembee, Lio Brocka, Gauber ocha what more eed I say? And top ten lists are a kind ofshorthand for a shorthand?
Exacty. They are a kid of poemica codesatio of a cao which is a codesatio of a whoe aesthetics with a persoa twist, of course. Actualy, my vourite ist was the oe I was asked to do o sports ms r a Fiish lm magazie caled Filmihullu, which meas Fim Crazy'. I started with Hellmuth Costard's amazig otbal m, i which the camera stays o Georgie Best through the whole of oe match. He oy touches the ba a few times, but at oe of them he scores a goal. You do't see the ba go ito the et. You oly reaise what happeed whe his teammates throw themseves all over him. 180
Strangers on a rain (Hitchcock 951)
at were the others?
Satyajit Ray's chess lm Godard's Sauve qui peut which has some weird Swiss sport Greenaway's Drowning By Numbers Wait! Let me be a bit more classical! Hitchcock: Strangers on a rain And Hawks The Crowd Roars Now lets really change the subject New media Any closing com ments?
thin there is the same ind of excitement about new possibilities now that there was with experimental lm in the 60s and 0s am taling about the potentia of new media r generating new rms of art, of course am not interested in cyberspace, except as a mode of textuality What is its semiotic structure? at are its rms of discourse? Signs and meaning in the digital age?
he ultimate aermath of 968 the na disintegration of the Public Sphere perhaps he triumph of the Society of the Spectacle' he Situationists vindi cated! Well, vindicated negativey 968 was an embematic moment which spectacularised the idea of change itself, but, as always, history plays strange trics and the change which came wasn't the one that had been exected t was the end o f 18
Fordism, the ed of Keyesiaism, the ed of classic so cial democracy, the begiig of a ew world order, costructed aroud a strig of world cities liked by a lattice of electroic commuicatios which cilitated a sweepig recoguratio of world capital. Was Marx vindiated? And all his disredited theories about the organi omposition of apital and the immisertion of the proletariat proved orret?
It looks that way, does't it? And the links beeen aestheti and politial avantgardes?
We probably eed to ask whether there are ay avatgardes at all? I the public cosciousess, at least. less we wat to say that the avatgarde has mutated ito MV ad highstyle advertisig. So you have mixed feelings about urrent trends in art? at about urrent trends in the universities?
I have become much more attached to history ad to the writig of history. I ejoy readig Shaesbury ad Lessig ad Schiller. I reread Eisestei ad Kracauer ad Arheim. I do't cosider them irrelevat. Whe the ture i uclear, it's good to delve back ito the past ad see what looks ew amid the old, what ca be salvaged i a ueected way, what gives a ew twist to our perceptio of the preset. Signs and Meaning discusses Lessig ad emblem books ad medieval tituli hikig theoretically is iseparable om thikig historically. o was Shaesbury? at exatly an you learn om him?
Well, Shaesbury was a Eglish virtuoso who died i Naples i 1713 He was educated by Joh Locke, the philosopher, who was his tutor. Locke had bee the political adviser ad speechwriter r his ther. Shaesbury always isisted o the eed r a rigorous theory of taste. He was reactig agaist the doctrie of the je ne sais quoi, which he associated with Frech court aesthetics. He wated, as he put it, to dissect the je ne sais quoi Ad i his Seond Charters, which he was writig at the time of his death, he preceded Lessig i distiguishig bewee the semiotic systems of arrative ad visual represetatio. here is a clear lie which rus om Shaesbury to Lessig ad the o to Arheim's A New Laoon, which sets out to theorise the relatioship betwee soud ad image i the ciema. Fially, Shaesbury cosistetly stressed the liks betwee aesthetics, ethics ad democratic politics. And old lms are as important as old theories?
Yes. Why do you thik we have suddely become so iterested i early ciema? It's 182
more tha archaeology. It is to regai a sese of ciema as potetial, ot yet oze ito the word spectacle. It is to imagie a reaissace. But can cnema ever be as centrl as t seemed to be n the 60s? Debates about cn ema don't seem to be as mportant as they used to. Aren't dgtal meda gong to change everythng?
Not log ago, whe I was thikig about the rise of multichael televisio ad the ew media, I wrote a piece sayg that Hollywood lm might become a extict art like staied glass or esco or tapestry, which were oce domiat i their day. I thik I was beig overrhetorica. Digital techology is beig absorbed ito the ciema. For the time beig, at least, it has revitalised Hollyood, helpig to create more ad more actiopacked spectacle, a extravagat techological sublime. It has shied the ciema away om the idecal towards the icoic register, perhaps. That sounds rght. Awayom realsm and towards spectacle. le retanng narra tve as ts deep structure.
Retaiig it but speedig it up. Compressig duratio. I cotrast, i a kd of dialectical reversal, I expect to see ew experimets, ew cocepts, ew ciematic art rms, ew alteratives to Hollywood ad, to accompay them, ew modes of theory. I short, ew sigs ad ew meaig i a ew ciema. That must be the cue for your slow walk nto the sunset.
Music. Roll ed credits!
183
Index A bout de soue 122, 149 aesthetics 23, 30, 71, 79, 107, 1 1 1, 155, 156, 173-5 Bazin 86-92 Eisenstein 107, 168 Hume 110 Shaesbury 182 Stainist 36 agit art 21, 23, 29 Air rce 53, 55, 58 erman Chanta 166 Alexander Nevs 29, 37 geria 148 All a t Heaven Allows aegory 73, 103-4 Alphavilk 148 thusser Louis 155 Les Aman 1 31 Amrose S t 76 American cinema 6-7, 50-3, 60, 86, 92, 119 ee Hoywood erican cuture and thought 66, 70, 1078, 178, 179 Aericanism 17, 18 , 45 Arohi Kama 180 Anderson, Lindsay 179 Anderson, Perry 155 Anger Kenneth 108 Anisimov van 3 7 Annapurna 97 Antonioni, Micheangeo 132, 167 Apoinaire Guiaume 76 Appia Adophe 39 Armoured Train -5 Arnheim, Rudof 182 Arruza 134, 138 At Nouveau 76 Arts and Cras movement 76 Arzner Dorothy 180 Ascenseurpo ur 'chafaud 131 Attasheva Pera 20 auteur theory 5078, 11 4-17, 1 18, 155, 156, !59-60, 163, 174, 79 avantgarde 10, 11, 107, 108, 1 18, 157-9, 161, 163, 166, 182
Bachofen, Johann Jakob 170 Bazs, Ba 8 1 Bazac, Honor de 3 7 Bande a part 148 Bara, heda Bardot Brigite 131-2, 133 Baroque poets 76 Sternberg 145, 147 Barr Chares 37, 92 Barthes Roand 53, 156, 157, 170, 179 semioogy 79, 80, 81 , 82, 84, 1 01-2, 103, 105, 164, 165 Batleship Potemin 6, 24, 26, , 29, , 36, , 40, 93 Baudeaire, Chares, correspondances 2, 37 Bauhaus 76 Bayreuth 75 Bazin, Andr 53, 767, 93, 97, 123, 125, 126, 134, 135, 139 Resm 85-92, 104 Beche Sidney 1 8
Behaviourism 45, 47, 83 Beinsky, Vissarion 1 3 Bergman, ngmar 11, 153, 175, 1 76 Bergson Henri 1 1 1 Berkeey, Busby 77 GoldDiggers 8 Berin, Dadaism 20 Berlin Horse 159 Bernini, Giovanni 145 Bertoucci Bernardo 108 Best, George 180 Bicle ieves 87, e Big Sy 59 e Big Sleep 53 The Birds 102 , 1 41 Birmingham Centre r Contemporary Ctura Studies 174 e Birth of a Nation 1 19 Blacmail 140 Blade Runner 167 Blonde Venus 147 Blood and Sand 1 34 Blowup 163 The Blue Angel 144, 147 Boetticher Budd 8, 50, 3, 54, 56, 59, 78, 1339 Boshevi (journa) 29 Boshevik Revoution 3, 10, 17, 20, 45, 145 Boshoi Opera 39 Bonnard, Pierre 87 Bonnie and Clyde 6, 161 Boone, Richard 139 Borzage Frank 53 Boty Pauine 178 Boudu sauv des ea 124-5 Bouanger George 126 Breathless 122 Brecht, Bertot 2, 457, 5, 1 22, 1 50, 1767 Dreigroschenoper 6 Brecht George 7 1 Bresson Robert 90-2 Breton, Andr 177 Brigadoon 6 Bringing up Baby 53, 59 British cinema 8, 50, 78, 179 British cuture 175 British Fim nstitute 154 British Sounds 161 Brocka, Lino 180 Bro Harry Joe 134 Brute Force 51, 5 Bryusov VY 38 Buchanan Rides Alone 1 37 Buddhism 152 e Bullghter and the Lady 5, 1 34, 138, 139 Buue Lus 102, 107 Burroughs, Wiiam 179 e Cabinet ofDr. Caligari 6, 87, 93 Cahiers du Cinma 50, 78, 92, 123, 127, 134, 159, 160, 177, 178 Caot, Jacques 42 Cambridge Universiy of 175 Capital 3 1 Capraroa Farnese Paace 72-3 Les Carabiniers 148, 149, 150, 151, 153
184
Cardew Corneius 712, 74 Caro nibae 72-3 Le Carrosse d'or 78, 125-{ cartoons ee comic strips and cartoons Casablanca I 0 1 e Case of Lena Smith 145 Cassavetes, John 1 1 9 Cathoicism 85, 87, 143, 1512 Czanne, Pau 139 Chabro Caude 8, 140, 143 Chapn, Chares 50, 76, 86, 1 19, 167, 179 Chekhov Mhai 13, 17 Chelsea Girls 1 3 Cherkassov Nikoay 45 drawings Chernyshevsky, Nikoay 21 Cheyenne Autumn 66 , 69 , 70 China Gate 120 Chinese revoution (1927) 136 La Chinoise 4 7 Chomsky Noam 83, 84, 109, 164-5 Christianity 105, 152 cincub movement, France 50, 86 Cinema One series 154 cine ma theory and studies 154, 155, 1701 ee auteur theory cinma vrit I 08 CinemaScope 92 Cinmathque Paris 50, 86 Citizen ne 87, , 167 Ci Girl 8 Cassicism 40, 110, 111, 116 Couzot HenriGeorges 132 Cocteau, Jean 50 Cod War 37 Coeridge, Samue ayor 110 Comic Strip Hero 96 comic strips and cartoons 96, 105, 150 commedia dell'arte 17, 26, 75, 126 Communications 92, 164 Communist Party 123, 126, 152 Concrete Poetry 76 Congress of Soviet Writers, 1934 36 Constant, Benjamin, Adolphe 76 Constantine Eddie 1 3 1 Constructivism 10 , 13 , 20, 30, 40 Cooper, James Fenimore 78 Copenhagen, schoo of aesthetics 9, 102-3 Coppoa, Francis Ford 161, 163 Costard Hemuth 180 Courbet, Gustave 104 Craig Edward Gordon 39, 75 Crane, Hart 169 Le Crime de Monsieur Lange 126 e Crimson Kimono 120, Cronenberg David 163, 179 The Crowd Roars 57, 181 Cukor, George 51, 76 Cutur Studies 1745 Culture and Socie (Wiiams) 1745 Dadaism, Berin 20 Da Savador 178 Danton, Ray 138, 139 Dassin Jues 5 1 Daumier, Honor , 42
Davi Hozman's Diay 1 6 1 Davis, Mies 1 3 1 Dan Pato 55 , 58 Dans 18 De Matthaeis, Paulo 73 De Palma, Brian 161, 179 De Sica, Vittorio, Bice ieves 9 De Stij 76 The Deay Companions 56 Deborin, Abram 29, 30 Debussy, Claude 39 Decae, Henri 132 Degas, Edgar 87 e Djeune su 'hebe 1 26 Deleuze, Giles 156 Dela Volpe, Galvano 72, 105 Deluc, Louis 86 Demme, Jonathan 179 Derrida, Jacques 156, 159, 164 Diay of a Chambemai 126 Dickens, Charles 76 Dieterle, William 75 Dietrich, Marlene 94, 144, 145, 146 Dishonoue 14 7 Disney, Walt 39 Dobrolbov, Nikolay 21 D Coeie 126 D Stangeove 127, 8, 19 documentary cinema 97, 106, 107, 108, 1 79 Domarchi, Jean 6 Don Quote (book) 117 Donen, Staney 77, 78 On the Ton I 02, Donovan Reef9, 70 Douchet, Jean 140 Dreyer, Carl 92, 93 a ssion e Jeanne 'Ac 93, 9 Doning by Numbes 1 8 1 Duchamp, Marcel 74 , I I0 , 1 1 8 Duclos, Jacques 123 Due 161 Drer, Albrecht 8, 80, 103 Durkhem, Eme 79 Dwoskin, Steve 157
East European cinema 7, 8 East Win 1 17 Eco, Umberto 79, 159, 170 Eggeling, Ving 107 Egyptian art 92 Eisensten, Sergei , 87, 102, 12 5, 147, 156, 1734, 182 aesthetics 17 as cinema theorist 3, 167, 168 compared with Brecht 457 contrasted with Rosseini 923 drawings 9, , 168 early career 1 13, 168 ideas about language 29, 31, 47 ideas on syaesthesia 389 inluence of Kabuki theatre 34, 378 inluences of psychology 2 1 interest in geometry 40-2 later career 16870 Mecan work 20, 36, 42, 1 68-9 as modernist 107, 118, 157 notion of th e diaectic 2930, 40 Stainst attack on 3 7, 168 techniques 23, 76 theatre productions 1 11 , 21-3 theory of montage 2, II 1820, 23, 29, 30, 31, 34, 36, 87, 106, 1 74 typage 24 work wth and inuence of Meyerhold 10, 1113, 17, 32, 42, 45, 75 ee under m tites E Doao 58 Eena et es hommes 123, 125, 126 Eliot, .S. 175 Elsaesser, homas, Eay Cinema 171 e Empeo Wa
Engels, Friedrich 29, 1 70 English cinema 78 ee British cinema Enightenment, concepts 10910, 155 Espit 85, 8 6 Essex, University of 164 Euopa 152 Evreinov, Nikolai 1 7 Existentialism 87, 178 Expressionism 75, 87, 89, 93, 107, 129, 1 30, 176 Fairbanks, Douglas 17, 18, 9 iry tes 60, 61 Faconetti, Maria 9 Farnese Paace, Caprarola 72-3 Faulkner, Wiam 78, 157 Wi Pams 131, 149 FEKS (Factory of the Eccentric Actor) 17-18, 29 Une Femme Maie 4 7, 148, 149 Feu foet 130, 1323 Feuiade, Louis 87 Fim Cutue 1 19 f noir 178 Fim Quatey 92 Fimihuu 180 Fioetti 90 Fischinger, Oscar 107 Fisher, erence 8 Fitgerd, Scott 133 Foes ofSt Fancis 93, 15 2, 15 3 Fokne, Mikhai 1 3 Ford, John 6, 8, 50, 53, 56, 59, 66-70, 78, 11 9, 135, 16 1, 179 Fordism 161 , 182 Formalism 3, 9, 29, 60, 156 Forregger, Nikolay 17 Foucault, Michel 156, 179 Frampton, Hos 158-9, 161 France cin�club movement 50 Occupation and Vichy government 50 work on semiology of the cinema 8, 79, 155 Francis, St 152 Frazer, James 3 1 , I Freed, thur 78 Fench Cancan 123 French cinema 7, 8, 53, 175 ee New Wave French mpressionism 87, 104 French Symbolists 38 Freud, Sigmund 0, 107, 11 1, 143, 159, 170 Fuer, Samuel 8, 50, 76, 1 15, 1 1 9-22, 14950, 160, 167, 177, 179 Futurism 10, 13, 18, 21 , 30, I Gai savoi 58 , 15 9, 1 61
Gance, Abel 87, 106 Ganja an Hess 180 Garibdi, Giuseppe 152 Gasmass (play) 21-3 Gaudreaut, Andr 171, 172 Gauguin, Pa 74, 139, 148 e Genea ine 25, 26, 36, 37, 40 Geneva, University of 79 Gentemen Pefe Bones 53, 59, , German Expressionism 75, 107 German Romanticism 13, 17 Germany inuence of E.G Crag 75 Ni rege I 07 sient cinema 175 Sternberg in 144 Gemany Yea Zeo 102 Ghi, Ren 38, 42 Giambologna (Giovanni da Bologna) 73 Gidal, Peter 159 Gia 87
185
A Gi in Evey Pot 59 Givon, almy 165, 166 Godard, JeanLuc 50, 86, 127, 130, 13 1, 147, 14851, 153, 154, 159, 1 75 inuence and importance 8, 105, 108, 113, 11718, 161, 166, 174 see under m titles e Gofathe 163 Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von 1 3 1 Gogh, Vincent van 1 3 9 Gogol, Nikolay 1 8 GoDigge 8 The Goen Coach 150 Goldmann, Lucien 135, 136, 164 Gombrich, E.H 83 Gorky, Maxim, The oe Depths 126 Gramsci, Antonio 155 gan guigno theatre 18, 26 Grant, Cary 55 El Greco (Domenos heotocopoulos) 42, 80 Gee 88 Greek art 92 Green, . 8 Greenaway, Peter 167, 181 Geetings 1 61 Grith, D.W. 1 19, 166, 167, 172, 175 Grosz, George 20, 96 Gunn, Bil 180
Hal, Stuart 155, 17 Haliday, M.A.K. 109 Hamilton, Richd 178 Harrngton, Curtis I08 Hart, Wiiam 1345, 137 Hatai 55, 56, 59, Hathaway, Henry, To the ast Man 9 8 Hausmann, Raoul 20 Hawks, Howard 8, 50 , 53, 546, 70, 78, 11 5, 1 19, 156, 157, 160, 176, 179 Hearteld, John 20 Hegel, Georg Wihe Friedrich/Hegelian 29, 42, 47, 106 Heczer, Piero 57 He an High Wate 120 Hemingway, Ernest 76, 135 Heny V767, 7 Heston, Charlton 53 Hinduism, phosophy and yoga 13, 17, 152 Hioshima mn am ou 120 His Gi Fiay 58, 58 Hitchcock, ed 8, 50, 76, 1 19, 132, 143, 156, 5, 160, 168, 179 and auteur theory 78, 115 European grounding 7 , 5 1 inluence o f Surreaism 177-8 and Modernism 157 ee uder f tites Hjeslev, Louis 9, 60, 102-3 Hockett, Charles 72 Ho, Ernst 13, 17, 26, 42 Hogarth, Wili 80 Inust an Ieness 8 Hoggart, Rchard 1745 Hollywood 6-8, 87, 154, 157, 1 6 1, 163 an d auteur theory 8, 114, 118, 1590, 174 and Brecht 177 careers of European directors 5 1 , 53
and the perimenta 167, 183 and French cinema 50, 178 and Godard 106 hostity to 175, 179 postwar domination of cnema 107, 108, 175 and Sternberg 144, 145 Holmes, Sherlock 170 Homeier, Skip 139 Hooker, Jo hn Le e 178, 179 Hopper, Dennis 179 e ast Movie , 163
Hosey Coege of Art House of Bamboo 120 122 How Green Was My Valley 67 HoyningenHuene, George 7 6 Hume, E. 1 10 Hungar 14 Huston, John 96 I Claudius 14 I Confess 141 143 I Sho Jesse James 1 1 9 I Was a Male War Bride 9 bsen, Henrk 176 Ice 161 iconography of cinema 100-1 106 d pantng 72 Imiaion ofLife 102 mpressionism e French mpressionism nce, homas 13 137 India 102 I2 I3 e Informer 67 nkhuk (nstitute of Artistic Cuture) 39 nstitute of Cnematographic Studes (Sovet Union) 36 Inolerance 167 e Ion Hoe 13 taian cnema 7 8 92 I Neoreasm 87-9 90 12 6 pepum 7 tay and Godd 11 work on semioogy ofthe cinema 8 79 I Is Always Fair Weaher 102 Ian he Terrible 29 39 - 42 87 168
Jacobs, Ken 8-9 161 Jakobson, Roman 9 8 2 8 3 84 97-100 109 164 16 James, Wiam, psychoogy 17 Jannings, Emi 4 Japan, Sternberg 14 Japanese cnema 7 8 81 science ction 7 Japanese theatre 17 34 o Kabi teatre JaquesDacroze, Eme 17 Jaws 163 Je Tu Elle 166 Jennings, Humphrey 107 Jessua, an 96 Jones, nigo 74 Jonon, Ben 74 Jost, Jon 163 Joyce, James 34 36-7 118 Finnegan's Wae 1 1 7 ysses 36 117 170 Kabuk theatre 34 378 Kaa, Franz I6 Kao, Frida 169 Kdnsky, Wassy 39 110 Kant, mmanue 106 Keaton, Buster 26 167 Key, Gene 78 Kennedy, Burt 134 Keynesianism 182 anzhankov Studio 23 e Kille 76 Killer's Kiss 127 128 129 e Killing 129 130 kinopravda and knoeye, 24 ee, Pau 148 Kein, Wiam 76 Keist, Heinrich von 17 Kuge, Aexnder I 08 KonTii 9 97 Korda, Aexander 107 Korean w 120
Kozntsev, Grigori 17 18 Kracauer, Siegied 182 Kramer, Robert 161 Kriitsky, Georgy 17 Kubrick, Staney 76 127-30 161 179 Kueshov, Lev 3 234 30 87 La Rochee, Drieu 1 32 148 La Rue, Jack 9 Lacan, Jacques 164 170 171 174 Ladnier, ommy 18 Lady om Shanghai 102 La nd of he Pharaohs 3 8 Lang, Fritz 7 8 5 3 1 1 9 122 179 Meropolis 86 107 Nibelungen 87 Langois, Henri 86 anguage 79 97 104 109 Eisensteins ideas 29 31 47 of 164 16 171-3 Jakobson 98-100 Lacan 171 Saussure 80 96 97 words and images 801 106 ee o nguistics e Las Command 145 14 7 e L Hurrah 66 e Las Moie 6 163 Laino Bar 180 Laughton, Chares 14 77 Lavater, John Kaspar 26 Lawrence, D.H. 42 Leavis, R 148 175 Leduc, Pau 180 Lef, 11 18 20 23 24 e Lehanded Gun 56 135 ger, Fernand I 07 LeGrice, Macom 159 Lenin, Vladimir 17 2 9 3 0 Leonardo da Vinci 26 42 47 Lessing, Gotthod Ephraim 182 Laocon 2 38 45 103-4 LvStrauss, Caude 6 1 70 7 1 1 4 155 163 164 LBruh!, L. 31 170 Lewis, Oscar, Children ofSanche 23 Life ofan American Fireman 1712 inguistics 29 47 72 79 81 102 109 111 164 e so anguage Lissitsky, E (Lazar) 76 96 Lisen Moscow 21 23 e Lile Flowers I2 153 Lies of Peorme 163 166 Locke, John 182 Lola Mons 78 9 96 102 127 180 Lolia 127 128 129 London Schoo of Economics (LSE) 155 e Long Hard Year of he ie Rolls Royce 139 Loo (magazine) 129 Losey, Joseph 51 3 122 Louis King of France 152 Lubitsch, Ernst 179 Lucas, George 161 163 Lumire broters I I 106 153 poster 2 Lupino, da 179 180 Macao 145 MacBride, Jim 161 e Machine for erminaing he ced 152 Macise he Migh S Made in USA 6 Makaveev, Dusan 108 11 Maevich, Kasimir 6 I 0 Mainowsky, BronisawBronisav (anthropoogist) 31 Maarm, Stphane 76 Mae, Louis 1303 Mara, Andr so 86 135 136 138
186
Mamouan, Rouben 134 e Man om he Alamo 13 e Man o Sho Liber Valance 66 67-70 102 Manet, Edouard 87 Mankewicz, Joseph 76 Mann, Anthony 78 13 Mannerism, painting 723 Mannoni, Maud 174 Man Faorie Spor? 59 Marinetti, Fippo 76 Marinsky heatre 26 Mker, Chris 118 Marnie 142 143 177 La Mareillaise 123 126 Martinet, Andr 84 164 Marvin, Lee 13 9 Marx, Kar 6 182 Marxsm I 30 45 47 110 12 155 168 MasculinFminin 163 Massne, onide 17 May 1968 108 Mayakovsky, Vladmir 6 10 13 21 45 148 149 Mechanist schoo 29 Meise, Edmund 36 Ms, Georges 105 106 13 Le Mpris 132 Merrill Marauder 122 Meropolis 86 107 Metz, Christi 37 47 79 81 82 845 92 93 97 100 101 105 Mco Boetticher in 134 139 Einsteins work in 20 36 42 168-9 Meyerhod, Vsevood 10 1 1-1 3 17 34 42 45 75 theatre production of Dawn 8 A Midsummer Nighs Dream (Reinhardt) 75 M, John Stuart 105 Minnei, Vincente 6 77 e Miracle 152 Mrs Minier 9 Mr Wes in he Land ofhe Bolsheis 23 Mistinguett 18 Modern Times 167 modernism and the modern movement 76 107 108 11013 1 18 157 161 Modotti, ina 169 MohoyNagy, sz 74 107 Money Business 9 montage 86 108 147 Eisenstein 2 1 1 1820 23 29 30 31 34 36 87 106 Montagne, Miche Eyquem de 129 Moreau, Jene 133 Morocco 77 147 167 Morris, Chares 47 83 Morris, Wam 76 Moscow Arts heatre 13 45 Mounier, Emmanue 85 89-90 Moie Muvey, Laura 19 163 167 174 e Mummy 7 Murch, Water 163 Murnau, W. 87 167 Ci Girl BB music 712 74 80 107 17 8 179 My Bes Girl My Darling Clemenine 66 70 mhs 31 6 1 71 Nabokov, Vladmir, Lolia 129 Naturaism 13 24 4 1 1 1 176 Nazi regime, Germany 107 Neoreaism e e taian cinema, Neo reasm Neutra, Richard 8 New Le Reiew I 4 164 17 4 1 79 New Reasoner 154-
New Wae (nouvelle vague) 108 1301 133 160 Nibelungen 85 87 Night of the Hunter 177 8 North by Northwest 141-2 143 Nostalgia (Frampton) 161 NoweSmith, Geoey 53 70 TheNut
Prieto, Luis I 09 Proletcult heatre, Moscow 10 17 20 29 30 75 Propp, Vadimir 60 165 173 Proust, Marcel 97 e Prowler 51 Psycho 143 Pudokin, Vseolod 3 30 92 175
October 22 29 3 , 32-3 47 93 October Reolution 29 Oliier, Laurence 767 7 Olrik, Axel 60 On the Town 102 02 One Mysterious Night 134 One Plus On e 161 Only Angels have Wings 55 Ophus, M 179 o Lola Monts Orrom, Michael 175 Orsini, Fuio 72 Oel, George 175 Ostrosky, exander I 1 1 18 Oxford, Uniersity of 155
Que Viva Mico 20 2 , 31 36 42 47 105 169 69 173 Queneau, Raymond 131 The Quiet Man 67 70
Paese Ser 152 pantng 72 80 94 1 03 107 Pais 153 Paeah 180 Pandora and t he Flying Dutchman 177 Panofsk, Erwin 8 80 92 10 1 103 Paninio, Onophrio 72 73 Parade 18 Paris 0 8 Par Row 122 Pason, Pier Paolo 79 92 e Passenger 166 La Passion de Jeanne dArc 93 9 Pater, Walter 1 1 0 Paths of lo 127 129 Palo, an 17 2 1 23 3 0 38 42 47 P, Octao 117 Pecpa, Sam 56 161 Peirce, Charles Sanders istential raphs 83 semiology 82 86 93 978 100 102 103 105 106 166 Speculave rammar 83 170 Penn, Athur 56 135 Bonnie a nd Clyde 60 Penthesilea 159 163 174 Peploe, Mark 167 Performance 163 Personism 85 Le Petit Soldat 148 149 9 150 151 Petrograd 1 0 17 20 23 2 9 Peey, Josep 139 photographic iage 84 86 93 96 97 105 Picabia, Francis 76 Picasso, Pablo 17 Picup on South Street 120 Picord, Mary 18 00 O Pierrot le fou 148 150 151 Piscator, En 45 Poe, Edgar Alan 170 Poland, work on semiology of the cema 8 Polansk, Roman 179 Pommer, Eric 107 pop art 178 Pope, exander I 00 Popular Front, ad Renor 123 Porter, Edwn 171 Portrait of a Mobster 139 Posada, Jos Guadupe 42 Positiism 29 1 10 Postmodernism 161 Poststructurism 164 179 Pound, Ezra 76 Powe, Michael 8 179 Prague, school of aesthetics 9 PreRaphaelites 74 Premiger, Otto 53 12930
Radek, Karl 36-7 Rainer, Yonne 16 3 166 e Ranso m ofRed Chief59 Rauschenberg, Robert 96 Ray, Ma 107 Ray, Nicholas 8 160 Ray, Satyajit 181 Reaism 8 6 87-9 92 93 10 5 106 11314 152-3 166 176 e o tian cinema, Neo reaism; Sociaist Reasm Rear Window 1423 Rebecca 140 Red Ball press 135 Red Line 55 Reed, Carol 179 L Rgion Centrale 161 La Rgle du je u 78 9 123 24 125 126 Reich, Wihel 108 Reihardt, M 6, 75 A Midsummer Night Dream 75 Reisz, Karel 179 Renaissance art and artists 72-3 74 80 110 Renoir, Jean 51 70 87 119 123-{ o under ttes Resistce, Rossei ms 152 Resnais, Alan 120 Renolds, Joshua 103 Ricards, A 1 76 Richardson, ony 1 31 Richmond, Wam Harrison 16 9 Richter, Hans 24 107 108 Riddles of th e Sphin 159 62 163 166 17 1 173 177 Rmbaud, Athur 38 Rinin 47 9 Rio Bravo 53 55 56 57 58 The Rise and Fall ofLegs Diamond 56 134 138-9 tt, Martin 1 19 e River 123 Rera, Diego 169 Rette, Jacques 126 Roa d to lory 53 Roca, Glauber 108 1 18 180 Rodan Rodcheno, Alexander 20 24 Rogers, Buddy 00 Rohmer, Eric 140 142 143 Rolng Stones 178 179 Romanticism 13 17 73 97 110 I 114 116 L Ronde 102 Room Film 159 Rope 140 167 Rops, Felicien 146 Rosselni, Roberto 86 87 89 904 106 107 150 1513 Rothan, Wa 157 Rousseau, JeJacques 123 124 Run of theA rrow 12 1 122 1 3 177 178 Russel, Jane 59 62 Russel, Lee interiewng Woen 15483 writings in NLR 119-53 Russia Ci War 21
inluence o f E.G. Craig 75 mystical tradition 13 reolution Bolseik Reolution; October Reolution sociaist reism 107 o Soiet Union Russian moements ee Constructiism; Formaism; Futurism; Symbolism, Russian Ruttmann, Water 36 Ruwet, Nicolas 72 Sadanji, chkawa 34 e Saga ofAnatahan 94 9 96 144 147 Salvation Hunters 144 Sanders, Denis 1 1 9 Sansho Dayu 78 Sarris, Andrew 50 92 93 1 19 1 27 133 134 137 Sartre, JeanPaul 15 5 15 7 1 78 Saussure, Fernand de 7 82 Course i n eneral Linguistics 79-80 107 semiology 81 83 96 978 102 107 164 165 166 Sauve qui peut 1 8 1 Scales (reiew journal) 3 8 Scarface 53 59 62 e Scarlet Empress 146 1 Scarlet Street 5 1 5 Schiler, Friedrich 182 Schnitzler, Arthur 145 Scoio Rising I 08 Scorsese, Martn 16 1 163 180 Scott, Randolph 98 134 137 Scott, Ridey 167 Screen (magazne) 14 177 Scriabi, Alexander 39 e Searche 6 667 67-8 70 Sebeok, homas 72 170 e Seizure of Power by Louis X 1 5 1 Selers, Peter 129 130 Sembene, Ousmane 180 semiology 72 I II 1 13 18 1 54 164 Barthes 79 80 81 82 84 1012 103 105 164 165 of the cnema 8 79-1 06 08 Jakobson 84 97100 Metz 79 81 82 845 92 93 97 100 II Peirce 824 86 93 978 100 102 103 105 106 166 Saussue 81 83 96 97-8 102 107 164 165 166 semiotics 109 155 156 168 181 Serapion Brotherhood 13 Sergeant or 53 58 Seton, Marie 39 Seurat, Georges 8 Seven Man om Now 134 137 139 Shaesbury, Anthony Ashley Cooper, 3rd earl of 9 73 180 182 Shakespeare, Wiiam Hen V 77 136 sonnets 8 Shanghai press 147 e Shanghai esture 145 177 Sharaku 42 print 43 Sherloc Junior 167 Shinheie Monogatari 78 Shkosk, Victor 3 26 Shoc Corridor 122 167 Siegel, Don 7 50 51 76 L signo di Tui 78 signs 834 93 94 96-8 1045 109 166 1 76 ee lo semiolo sient ms 8 1 17 5 Silly Symphony 39 Sia, Hen 137 139 Siodmak, Robert 7 179 Siqueiros, Dad Alro 1 69
Sirk, Dougls 6, 7, 76, 78, 77, 79 Siuioniss 8 Skolimoski, erzy I 08 Smih, Henry Nsh, Vrgn Lan 66 Sno, Michel 5 89, 6 Socilis Relism 36 , 3 7 , 07 The Soun of Mus 63 Souhern, Terry 30 Soie Unio rs nd cinem in he 920s 3, 6 chnge in iude ords Eisensein 36, 68 ork on semiology o he cinem 8 ee o Russi Spartaus 27 Speang Drtly 63 Spelboun 43, 78 Spielberg, Seen 6, 63 he spiriul in cinem 902, 234, 5-2 mysicism 3, 39 in pining 0 Sck, Rober 39 Sl, Nicols de 4 Sin, oseph 08, 09, 68 Sinism 3, 20, 36, 37 Snissky, Konsnin 6, 3, 6, 7, 23
Star Wars 63 Seel, Kren 3 Steel elmet 20, 22 Stereo 63 Sernberg, oseon 78, 50, 7, 75, 77, 93-, 447, 67, 68 , 77, 79 La straa 89 Strange on a Trn 4 , , Srub, enMrie 8 Srinsky, gor 56 Stre 6, 2, 23, 2, 25, 29, 26, 27, 29 Srindberg, Augus 76 Sroheim, Erich on 87 Gree Srucurl Film 5 9, 6 , 76 Srucurlism 60-, 54, 63-5 Surges, Preson 50 Sulerzhisky, eopod 3 Sunrse 67 Surreism 0, , 77, 0 Symbolism 3, 42, 0 , 0 Russin 0, 3, 36, 37, 38, 3940, 0 synhesis nd syneshesi 2, 3, 3-9, 45, 47, 9-00
Tine, Hippoye Adolphe 0 Tales of oann, hericl dions 3 e Tall T 56, 34, 36, 37 Tarnshe Angels 32 Tshlin, Frnk 79 Tin, Vldimir 0, 23
Tylor, Sm, My est Grl I 0 Tylorism 7 L a ter trema 8 9 , 9 0 ex 23, 7-8, 59 Thberg, ring here design nd perrmnce 74-5 Theosophy 39, The Thng om Another Worl 53 The Thr Man 87 Thompson, EP 54, 55, 79 Thorez, Murice 23 X 6 Tiss, Edourd 26, 40 Tiin 03 To the Last Man 98 Tolnd, Gregory 78 Tolsoy, eo 3 Tom Jones 3 Tom Tom the Ppers Son 59, 6 Ton 26 Toulouseurec, Henri de 2, 6 Jane Avrl poser 2 Tourneur, Murice 7 Trde Union Moemen (CGT) 23 Truberg, eonid 7 Treyko, Sergei 2 , 2 3 , 24, 4 5 Trstm Shany (Serne) 76 Trub, Dlon 30 Truu, Frnois 8, 30 Turin, Hoy Shroud o 86 A Spae Oyssey 6 , 67 Tynyno, Yuri 3 bu Ro 8 Ulmer, Edgr 7 ner the anner ofMarxsm (mgzine) 29 Underground Film 59 nerworl 47 nerworl SA 78 Unied Ses o Americ nd Eisensein 36, 47 s prmoun in Fuller's lms 202 see so Americn cinem Americn culure nd hough Aericnism nve an Le Revew 55 The ses of Lter (Hggr) 7-5 Valyre (here producion) 34, 39 Vn Gogh see Gogh, Vincen n Vanna Vann n 52 Velzquez, Diego Rodriguez de Sil 5 Venezue 80 Verboten 20, 22 La Vrt 32 Vertgo 5 , 5, 02, 2, 3, 77 Vero, Dzig 23, 24, 07 , 8 KnPrava 24 Verve 86
Vidor, Chrles 87 Vidor, ng 53, 9 La Ve est a nous 23 Ve prve 32, 32 Vienn 7-8, 45 Vienm r 20, 8, 50 Visconi, uchino 8 9, 90 , 97, 26 Vishnesky, Vseolod 36 Vva Ltala 9, 52 Vva Mara 33 Vvre sa ve 8-9, 53 Voyage to taly 02 gner, Richrd I , 34 , 38, 45 , 75, 87, 68 Wagonmaster 67 lsh, Roul 6, 5 , 53, 7, 9 rhol, Andy 08, 57 rsho, Rober 37 Wavelength 589, 5, 6 Weeen 08 eil, Simone 52 eles, Orson 7, 50, 78, 87, 89, 02 07, 8, 9, 26, 29, 77, 78, 79 see so under lm ies ellmn, illim 78 elsby, Chris 59 es, Nhnie 30 eserns 34-7 nnel, ddy 54 Whos That Knong At My Door 6 The Wl unh 6 ilder, illy 50 illims, Rymond 54, 75, 757, 79 Wn Vane 59 Wngs ofEagles 70 The Wse Man 2, 7, 8, 20 ollen, Peer, inerieed by ee Russell 5-83 oo, ohn 80 ood, Robin 59, 5, 40, 42, 4, 49, 5 Woosto 6 orringer, ilhelm WR Mysteres of the Organsm 08 Wrtten on the n 02 The Wrong Man 4, 43 yler, illim 5, 78, 87 Mrs Mnver 9 Yordn, hilip 34 Young, mone 7 ou're a g oy Now 63 Yukeich, Sergei 7, 8, 20 Zae ans le mtro 3 Zorns Lemma 58-9 Zuccro, Tddeo 73
Acknowledgments e should like o hnk he Noosi Press Ageny r heir help in illusring he Eisensein chper: he phoogrphs o his producion o The Wse Man ere proided by hem, s ere he phoogrphs o Snisskys producion o Armoure Trn nd he se r Meyerhold's producion o Dawns, nd he porris o Snissky nd Mx Reinhrd They lso ge us heir permission o reproduce he ur drings by Eisensein The Trusees o he riish Museum kindly permied us o reproduce he Tououseurec poser, nd he prins by Shrku, Dumier nd Hogrh Ulsein ilderdiens proided he rech phoos The phoogrph o Kbuki here s kindly supplied by he pnese Embssy e should lso like o hnk he rious compnies, sills om hose lms pper in his book, especilly Anouchk Fims (La Chnos Mae n SA), riish ion (Saga ofAnatahan), Columbi ( Only Angels ave Wngs, s Grl Fray, Lay om Shangha), Conemporry ( Tme n the Sun, KnPrava, La Rgle u eu Ton), Gnon (Maste the Mgh), MGM M Mnver, On the Town), Prmoun ( The Devl s a Woman, Vertgo, atar, The Man ho Shot Lber Valane, The Emperor Walt, Donovans Ree To the Last Man), Rnk (enry V, The Mummy), Republic ( The ulghter an the Lay), 20h Cenury-Fox . ( Gentlemen Prefer lones, My Darlng Clementne), Unied Ariss ( The Prowler, Sarfae), Uniersl (All that eaven Allows), rners ( The Searhers, The se an Fall of Legs Damon, Lan of the Pharohs, Cheyenne Autumn, A Msummer Nghts Dream, GolDggers of , Ar re) Finlly, he uhor ould priculrly lie o hnk rin Dring r lloing him o look hrough his colecion o Esprt
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