Glassicfilm theory

and semiotics
AnthonyEasthope

Filmtheoryhad to strugglea surprisinglylong time obviouslycontaminated with unprocessed

sensation,
beforeit couldbecomea proper theory of film. Diffi- too liableto documentaryappropriation,too easily
cultyarose fromtheveryfeaturewhichensuredcinema turnedto usefulsocialpurposes.
itsuniversality: eversincethe earliestaudiencesflung
themselves out of the way of an oncomingscreen
locomotive, film hasstunnedus by its seemingcapa-
cityto reproducereality transparently,immediately,
Glassicfilm theory
directly. Becauseof this realism,seriousanalysisof
As Aaron Scharf(1969) shows in convincing detail, the
filmwascon{rontedfrom the first by antagonismfrom
early impact of photography on painting and notions
thesmothering inheritance
of Kantianaesthetics. of art was enormous. Although encouraging some
ln Ihe Critigueof Judgement(1790) Kantcontrasts artists into innovation and experiment, photography
sensation and contemplation, singularand universal, also servedto strengthenand substantiatethe opposi-
interested anddisinterested (usefuland useless).
Aes- tion between art and craft.the aestheticand the useful.
thetic experience isopposedto merelysensuous grat- As'moving pictures',produced when light is projected
ification (eating,for example)becauseit combines through strips of celluloid onto a screen, cinematic
sensation-th roughhearingandvision-with contem- images have a double intimacy with reality since they
plation. Theaestheticobjectisfocusedon as a singu- are both caused by it (light from these objects marked
larity,not as an instanceof a generalconcept,for its photosensitivefilm) and also resemble it. lt was only
ownsakeand not for any kind of usefulness or social too tempting to deny cinema a statusas art.
purpose. All thiskicksagainstwhatcinemaappearsto In the face of a seemingly incontestablenaturalism,
do best;its renderingof the real seemsjust too the labour of classicfilm theory was to designate the

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APPROACHES

specificvalue of cinema-what has allowed it to pro- which the photographed image originates.Yetthough
vide such a compelling representationof modernity. he argues that film exceeds reality,Arnheim does not
Forthis two main strategiesemerged. The creationists challengethe view that film is powerfully lnfluenced by
(orformalists),including RudolfArnheim, Sergei Eisen- its photographic resemblanceto reality.The realists,
stein, and 86la Bal5zs,defend cinema as an art form led by Andr6 Bazin, make that relation the essential
which goes beyond realism,while the realists,partrcu- virtue of the medium, as, for example, in this passage:
larly Siegfried Kracauerand Andr6 Bazin, apprecrate
The objectivenatureof photographyconferson it a quality
cinema just because it does provide such an exact
absentfrom allotherpicture-making.
of credibility In spiteof
representation of reality.
any objectionsour criticalspiritmay offer,we areforcedto
Creationism is wel I representedby RudolfArn heim's acceptas realthe existenceof the object reproduced,actu-
book Film (1933),which setsout'to refutethe assertron set beforeus, that is to say,in time and
ally re-presented,
that film is nothing but the feeble mechanical repro- space.Photography enjoysa certainadvantagein virtueof
duction of real life' (1958: 37). Arnheim points out first thistransferenceof realityfromthe thingto itsreproduction.
of all how the experienceof sitting in the cinema differs (Bazin1967:13-14)
from ourempirical perception of theeverydayworld. In
This passagemakes it clear that Bazin is aware that in
everyday experience the world is three-dimensional, 're-pre-
cinema filmed objects are not presented but
while in the cinema all we get is a flat screen;our life is
sented'. And elsewhere he exolains how he varues
lived colour with sound, while cinema is black and
cinematic reality because it has an almost Brechtian
white, and silent (or was, up to 1929); in our ordinary
effect in leaving the viewer free to criticize, when
world we can look whereverwe want within our field o{
more obviously constructed cinema (Eisenstein,for
v i s i o n ,w h i l e c i n e m a l i m i t s w h a t w e s e e w i t h i n t h e
instance) aims to manipulate the viewer's under-
maskedframe of the screen.
standing.
Formalisttheory (Arnheim)and realisttheory (Bazin)
Formalisttheory (Arnheim)and realist appear to oppose each other. But what is crucial,and
what marks off classicfilm theory, is the assumption
theory (Bazin)appear to oppose each they share. Formalist theory values cinema to the
other. But both positions suppose that 'the
extent that it is, in Arnheimt phrase, more than
cinema,basedas it is in the feeble mechanicalreoroduction of real life': realistthe-
'a
photographic process,must be ory values cinema to the extent that it adheres to
mechanical reproduction in the making of which man
assessedas in part a mechanical
plays no part', as Bazinsays(1967: 12). Both positions
reproduction,whether feeble or supposethat cinema, based as it is in the photographic
convincing. process, must be assessed as in part a mechanical
reproduction, whether feeble or convincing. lt was
'l
not until the 960s that this view-the naturalist,or
Arnheim celebratesthe many effectsthrough which
reflectionist,fallacy-began to be finally overthrown
cinema transforms and constructs a reality,including
in film theory.
cameraangles and movement, focus, lighting effects,
framing, altered motion, superimposition, special
lenses.And, in addition to these features pertaining
mainly to the single shot, cinema works through 1968 and after
sequencesof shots edited together, producing daz-
zling and significanteffects of contrast and repetition, Film theory was able to develop into a fully fledged
metonymy and metaphor. Editing makes something account of cinema because it staged what Stephen
availableto someone in the cinema that could never 'the
Heath refersto as encounter of Marxism and psy-
be seen by any empirical viewer of what was originally choanalysison the terrain of semiotics' (1916: 11). Of
filmed. these three theoretical interventions, semiotics (or
Arnheim is one of the first to codify the specific semiology)arrivedfirst. In a posthumouswork, Course
resourcesof cinema and the many ways it produces in General Linguistics,published in 1916, Saussure
meaningsbeyond anything present in the realityfrom introduced into the study of language a number of

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A N DS E M I O T I C S

dreoretical distinctions,of which two in particurar 'Yesterday

since bites man' is not a meaningful sen-
provedfruitfulwhen carried over into film theory. tence.
Fromancient rhetoric, Saussure revived the dis- In other words, it was possible to think of the syn-
tinctionbetween signifier and signified to analyse tagmatic axis as a consistent structure which would
'words'.
dre naiVeconcept of In any utterance the remain the same even when different paradigmattc
levelof the signifier is made up from the sounds terms were substituted along it. ln 1928 Vladimir
(phonemes)selected for use by a particular lan- Propp applied this principle to the analysisof narra-
guage,arrangedin a temporal order; while that of tive, discerning across 115 Russianfolk storiesa com-
the signifiedconsistsof the meanings assigned to mon structure consisting of thirty-one 'functions'.
anygroup of signifiers.Signifiers consist of entirely Thus, function (Propp 1968: 11), 'The hero leaves
arbitrary sounds related only to each other in an home', can be realized as easily by 'lvan is sent to
internally self-consistentsystem, and it is purely a kill the dragon' as by 'Dmitri goes in search of the
matterof conventionwhat set of signifiers give rise princess'.
to a certain meaning. In modern English, for ex- A semioticanalysisof film narrativewas initiatedwith
ample, the sounds represented by 'mare' can enthusiasmand some effect, notably by Raymond Bel-
openonto the meaning 'female horse' or possibly lour (1972)in his study of fhe Birds(USA,1963)and by
'municipal PeterWollen (1982),also discussingHitchcock, in his
leader' (mayor),while a very similar group
of signifiersin French ('mer'l'mdre') open onto the account of North by Northwest (USA, 1959). Bellour
'sea' 'mother'. discussesthe Bodega Bay sequence shot by shot,
meanings and
A principleis implied by Saussure'sdistinction,that while Wollen aims for a Proppian analysisof the whote
thematerial organizationof a language isontologically movie. Both examinations, plausible as they are in
priorto any meaning it produces. During the 1960s detail, suffer from what are now recognized as the
inevitable assumptionsof formal narrative analysis-
semiotics had a decisive impact upon film theory by
that there is only a single narrativeand not a number of
concentrating attention on the question what were the
simultaneousnarrativemeanings,that the narrativeis
specificproperties of film, its specifica differentia, dis-
fixed once and for all 'out there' in the text and not
tinguishing it from other forms of signification(novets
constructed in a relation between text and reader.
anddrama,for example).
Narrativeanalysisof film on the precedent of Propp
Thereare certain problems in detail, however. For
had the definite benefit of shiftingargument away from
whileSaussure's distinction between signifier and sig-
any question of the relation or correspondence
nifiedappliesperfectlyto a language, it is much harder
between a film and some real it might be supposed
t o g e t i t t o w o r k f o r av i s u a lm e d i u m s u c ha s f i l m . I n a n y
to reflect. lt focused on film as text but did so only by
famous sequence,such as that at the end of Ford'sfhe
incurring a concomitant limitation. Narrative is an
Searchers (USA,1956)when the John Wayne figure is
effect which runs across many different kinds of text,
leftoutside the door, what exactly takes the place of
so detailing it in films does not advance understanding
the signifierand the signified? This is a question
of what is specific to film. Nevertheless,the overall
addressed by the work of Christian Metz, as we shall consequence of semiotic attention to cinema was ro
weaken concern with the issue of realism ano
A seconddistinction put forward by Saussurewas strengthen attention to the cinema as a particular
alsoexpanded in film semiotics. Language works oy kind of textuality. After 1968 these tendencies were
movingfonnrardin time so that in English(asin Chinese; reinforced from a somewhat unanticioated ouarter.
syntaxcan draw simply on word order to make 'Dog Classic Maxism theorized that the economic oase
bitesman' mean something different from 'Man bites and mode of production determines the politicat and
dog'.Naming this linear axis of discourse as 'syntag- ideological'superstructure'.However, during the
matic',Saussurepointed out that at every point along 1960s the French Maxist thinker Louis Althusser nao
this horizontal axis terms were selected and rejected argued that notions of base and superstructureshould
froma potential corpus lying in a vertical dimenslon be rethought in terms of practices-economic, politi-
(the'associative'or'paradigmatic'). Thus, 'Snake' is a cal, ideological-each of which was'relativelyautono-
possible paradigmaticsubstitutionfor'Dog'or'Man' in mous', each with its own 'specific effectivity'.Carried
eitherof the previous examples but 'Yesterday'is not, over to the analysisof cinema after the revolutionary

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eventsof 1968(by,for example,the journalCahiersdu problemof decidingin the firstplacewhatconstituted

cin6ma),AlthusserianMaxism was as rigorous in an autonomousshotor segment.
excluding apparentlynon-politicalapproachesto From the wreckageof the grande syntagmatique,
cinemaas it was in rejectingfilm theorywhichbegan MetzMarkll turnedto the conceptof codes,describ-
from literary or theatricalmodels. As Jean-Louis ingsomeassharedbetweencinemaandotherkindsof
C o m o l l i a n Jd e a nN a r b o n i a s s ei rntC a h t e r s d cut n 5 m a representation(characterization and dialogue, for
in 1969, it isthe casethat'everyfilmispolitical' andthat example)and othersas specificto cinema(editing,
'cinemais one of the languagesthroughwhich the framing,lighting,and so on). Metz Mark lll is already
worldcommunicates itselfto itself'(1993: 45,46).To partlyanticipatedin his previousprojects,for he had
understand cinemais to understandfilm as film. nor madethe point,a littleenigmatically andwithoutproP-
'the imageof a house
somethingelse. erlydevelopingit, that in a film
"house",but rather"Hereisa house"'
doesnot signify
(1974a: 116).
Ghristian Metz The radicalimolicationsof this distinctiondo not
becomeapparentuntil Metz Mark lll pulls Lacanian
The interventionof both semioticsand Althusserian psychoanalysis into the orbit of his effortto theorize
film criticismbroughtthe narrativeof the developing cinema,notablyin hisessay'ThelmaginarySignifier',
discussion of film to a pointwhereit wasreadyfor the first publishedin 1975.Lacandistinguishes benveen
cavalrytorideoverthehillwitha moreor lesscomplete the ordersof the lmaginaryand of the Symbolic,the
theory.Thisrolewastakenby someonewhoseworkis lmaginarybeingthe world asthe individualego envi-
characterizedless by brilliant insightsthan by a sagesit, the Symbolicbeing the organization of sig-
dogged willingnessin a seriesof essayswrittenover nifiers which makes this possible (for this, see
nearlytwentyyearsto try,fail,and try again:Christian especiallyLacan's1964accountof vision;1977:67-
Meu (1974a,b, 1982).Althoughthe conscientious, 119).Lacan's accountenablesMetzto arguethat ima-
overlapping,and exploratorynatureof his projectis ginary presencein the cinematicimage must be
thus compromised,it is convenientto divide Metz's thoughtof as resultingfrom a signifierthat standsfor
writingsintothreemainattempts. somethingwhichisabsent.Cinemaprovides'unaccus-
The first, today perhaps better known through tomed perceptualwealth,but unusuallyprofoundly
refutationsthan in the original (see Cook 1985: stampedwith unreality': the more vividlypresentthe
229-31; Lapsleyand Westlake 1988: 38-46), was cinematicimageappearsto makeitsobject,the more
the theory of the grande syntagmatique.In the it insiststhat objectis actuallylacking,wasoncethere
'madepresent',as Metzsays,'in
searchfor a notion of film language,it became but isthereno more,
obviousthat cinema had no equivalentto the untr the mode of absence'(1982:44).
of sound (phoneme)which combined to make up Thatthe cinematicimage is an activemaking-Pre-
the particularsignifiersof a language.lmagesin the sentclarifies retrospectively the viewthatinthe cinema
'the imageof a housedoes not signify"house",but
cinema are as infinite as photographablereality.
Metzthereforedecidedto concentrateon the single rather"Hereisahouse"'.Whatthisaffirms, of course,is
shot and treat it as a primitivesentence,a state- the ontologicaldisjunctionbetweenperceivedreality
ment, on this basis consideringhow effectswere and anyrhingthatissupposedto be a representation of
built up syntagmatically by organizingsegments, it. Representation, regardless of whetherthat repre-
beginningwith the autonomousshot, into a hierar- sentationderivesby a photographicprocessfrom rea-
chy (he discriminates eight levelswithin this hierar- lity,isan intervention, an actof signifyingwhichreality
chy) (Metz 1974a: 1O8-46). itselfcannevermake.Althoughobviouslyyou haveto
To someextentMetzMarkI wasfollowingArnheim, know about housesin orderto recognizea shot as a
becausehe lookedfor the specificityof cinemain its shotof a house(justasyou haveto knowabouthouses
narrativization of what is photographed-the fact that to followa poemabouta house),photographic dertva-
'realitydoes not tell stories'.But objectionspile up tion is neitherherenortherein relationto the statusof
againsthisaccount-not onlythe difficulties facedby the cinematicimageas utterance, statement,a mean-
semioticnarratology in general(itsformalism,itsbelief ing introducedin a semanticcontext in which it is
'Hereis a . . .'.
thatthereisalwaysonlyone narrative), but crucially
the alwayssaying
 CTASSICFILM THEORYAND SEMIOTICS

Representation, regardlessof whether external reality but as an effect the text produced
that representationderives by a through a specific signifying organization.MacCabe's
first move is to concentrateon classicrealism,exclud-
photographicprocessfrom reality, is an
ing from his account suchtexts asthe novelsof Dicrens
intervention,an act of signifying which or the Hollywood musical.His next two moves specify
realityitself can never make. realism in terms of a discursivehierarchyand empiri-
'A
cism: classicrealist text may be defined as one in
which there is a hierarchy amongst the discourses
At the end of his famous 'Concluding Statement: which compose the text and this hierarchyis defined
Linguisticsand Poetics'(1960), Roman Jakobson tells in terms of an empirical notion of truth' (1993: 54).
thestoryof a missionarycompla ining about nakedness All texts consistof a bundle of different kinds of dis-
amonghisflock,who in turn asked him why he did not course: realism,MacCabe argues,arrangesthese into
wearclotheson his face and then told him thev were two categoriescorrespondingto the relation between
faceeverywhere. Similarly,Jakobson argues,'in poerry metalanguage and object language. Introduced by
anyverbalelement is converted into a figure of poetic Alfred Tarski,this philosophicdistinctionrefersto what
speech'(1960: 377).On a comparable basis,breakrng happens when one language discussesanother,as,for
withreflectionism, the achievement of film theory ro example, in a book written in modern English called
Metzis to establishthe principle that in cinema any Teach yourself Japanese. Japanese is placed as the
visualelement may be turned to expressivepurpose, object language and modern Englishas the metalan-
converted 'poetic
into speech'.This rendersthe whole guage, situated outside, as it were, and able to take
visual,aural,and narrative effect of cinema available Japanese as an object of study. In the classic realist
to inspectionfor its significance, the meaning it text, the words held in inverted commas (whatthe char-
produces. acters say to each other) become an object language
which the narrative prose (what is not marked off as
cited) promisesto explain as it cannot explain itself.
Thecritiqueof realism
An immediateconsequence of this theoretical brear- 'A classicrealist
text may be defined as
throughwasto reopen in a much more suggestiveand
radicalway the whole question of realism in the
one in which there is a hierarchy
cinema.While film theory was committed to a reflec- amongst the discourseswhich compose
tionistview that the text was to be assessedagainst the text and this hierarchyis defined in
someprior notion of the real, comprehensiveanalysis terms of an empirical notion of truth'
of realismwas blocked. The moment reflectionism
goes,the way is open to consider cinematic realism
essentiallyas an effect produced by certainkinds of the The relation between the two modes of dis-
text. course is said to be empiricistbecausewhile the object
RolandBartheshad alreadypointed in this direction. language is seen to be rhetoricallyconstructed-the
And so also, back in the 1930s, had Bertolt Brecht. partialityof the points of view of the representedchar-
Dismissing conventionalnaturalistor realisttheatre as actersis all too apparent-the metalanguagecan pass
Aristotelian, as finished, easilyconsumed commodity, itselfoffasthough itwere simplytransparent,the vorce
Brechtpromoted his own version of modernist, anti- 'The
of Truth: unquestioned nature of the narrative
'epic'
illusionist drama, on the grounds that this form discourse entails that the only problem that reality
waspoliticallyradicalbecauseitforced the audienceto poses is to go and see what Things are there'(1993:
confrontthe text and think for itself. 58). In realist cinema, MacCabe concludes, dialogue
Drawing on both Barthes and Brecht, Colin Mac- becomes the object language,and what we see via the
Cabe,in a wonderfully compact essay,'Realism and camera takes the place of the metalanguage by show-
theCinema:Notes on Some BrechtianTheses'(1974), ing what'really' happened. This effect invited the spec-
put forward an analysisof realism which was wholly tator to overlook the fact that film is constructed
'internal':
realismwas explained not with referenceto (through script, photography, editing, sets, and so

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CRITICALAPPROACHES

on) and treat the visual narrativeas though it revealed they are alwayspaft of, a processimplying change and
what was inevitablythere. Realismfor MacCabe (asfor which is the condition for any sense of coherence and
Brecht)is conservativein that this givennessnecessa- stability.
rily cannot deal with contradiction,which containsthe In these ways MacCabe and Heath intend to fulfil the
possibilityof change. promise of bringing together semiology and ideology,
Stephen Heath's(1976) discussionof realismas'nar- a close analysis of the fundamental operation of
rative space' follows on from MacCabe's theory. Heath cinema as a signifying effect with an understanding
begins with the system of visual representation on that cinema is always political.There is, however, one
which cinema, as photography, depends, that is, the imoortant difference between the two accounts.
Ouattrocentro tradition develooed to deoict three- Heath's argument is that realism and the effect of
dimensional objects on a flat surface in such a way narrative space try lo contain the process of significa-
that the image affectsthe viewer much as the natural tion, while for MacCabe realismeffacesthe signifierto
objects would have done (for a brilliant development achieve transparency.lt is arguable that MacCabe is
of this thesis, see Bryson 1983). Ouattrocento space still writing from an essentiallystructuralistconception
relies not only on linear perspective but on vanous in which realismis an organizationof the signifierwhich
strategiesfor placing the viewer at the centre of an necessarilyproduces certain effects on the viewer.
'impos-
a p p a r e n t l ya l l - e m b r a c i n gv i e w . Heath, in contrast,assertsthat transparencyis
'moving
Cinema, however, is pictures', a process sible' (1993: 82) and assumesfrom the start a concep-
which constantly threatens the fixity and centring tion of process as a process of the subject. Subjectivity
aimed for by the Western tradition of the still image. does appear in MacCabet account but is not integral
Figures and objects constantly move, moving in and to it as it is to Heath's. Heath, then, looks beyond
out of frame, likelythereforeto remind the spectatorof structuralismto a post-structuralismwhich draws on
the blank absencewhich actuallysurroundsthe screen. psychoanalysisto discusscinema in relationto subjec-
Mainstreamcinema seeksto make good this danger- tivity,including, in the work of LauraMulvey,gendered
ous instabiIity through narrative,a narrativizationwhich subjectivity.After Metz, after the redefinition of realism
'contains
the mobility that could threaten the clarityof as a textual effect, that is where film theory goes next.
vision' (1993: 76) by constantly renewing a centred
perspective for the spectator. Heath cites in detail the
proceduresadvised by the film manuals-use of mas-
tershot, the 180-degreerule, matching on action,eye- BIBLIOGRAPHY
l i n e m a t c h i n g ,a v o i d a n c eo f i m p o s s i b l ea n g l e s ' ,a n d
so on-and affirmsthat all of this is designed to ensure Arnheim, Rudolf (1933/1958), Film; repr.corr.as Fiim as
that
'the
spectator's illusion of seeing a continuous Art (London:Faber).
Barthes, Roland (1953/1968),Writing Degree Zero, trans.
piece of action is not interrupted' (Heath 1993: 80,
'1 AnnetteLaversand ColinSmith(NewYork:Hill& Wong).
q u o t i n g R e i s za n d M i l l a r 9 6 8 : 2 1 6 ) . *Bazin, Andr6 (1967), What is Cinema?,2 vols., trans.
A perfect example is the beginning of Jaws (USA, Hugh Gray,i (Berkeley:University of CaliforniaPress).
1975):'a beach party with the camera tracking slowly Bellour, Raymond(1969/1972),'TheBirds:Analysisof a
right along the line of faces of the participantsuntil it Sequence,trans. Ben Brewster(London: British Film
stops on a young man looking off; eyeline cut to a Institute).
young woman who is thus revealed as the object of Brecht, Bertolt (1964),Brecht on Theatre,ed. and trans.
his gaze; cut to a high-angle shot onto the party that John Willett (London:EyreMethuen).
shows its general space, its situationbefore the start of Bryson,Norman (1983),Vrsionand Palnting:the Logic of
the action with the run down to the ocean and the first the Gaze(London:Macmillan).
Comoffi, Jean-Louis,and Jean Narboni (1969/1993),
shark attack' (1993: 80). Through such narrativization, 'Cinema/ldeology/Criticism(1)', trans. Susan Bennett,
Heath maintains,conventional cinema seeksto trans-
in Antony Easthope (ed.), Contemporary Film Theory
form fixity into process and absence into presence by (London:Longman).
promoting (in Lacanianterms) the lmaginary over the Cook, Pam (ed.)(1985),The CinemaBook(London:British
Symbolic. An alternative or radical cinema would Film Institute).
refusethis kind of coherence;it would open its textual- Heath,Stephen(1976a),'Jaws, ldeologyand FilmTheory',
ity, compelling the viewer to experience the process TimesHigher EducationSupplement,26Mar.

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 C L A S S I CF I t M T H E O R Y
A N DS E M ] O T I C S

-(1976b, 1993),'NanativeSpace',in Antony Easthope -(1971a/1974b), Languageand Cinema,trans. D. J.

(ed.),
Contemporary Film Theory(London:Longman). Umiker-Sebeok ffhe Hague:Mouton).
Jrkobson, Roman(1960),'ConcludingStatement:Linguis- -(1977/1982), Psychoanalysis
and Cinema:The lma-
in T. A. Sebeok(ed.),Sty/ein Language
ticsandPoetics', ginarySignifiettrans.CeliaBritton(London:Macmillan).
(Gmbridge: Mass.:MIT Press). Propp, Vladimir (1928/1968),The Morphologyof the Folk-
fGnt,lmmanuel(1790/1952),The Critique of Judgement, taie, trans. LaurenceScott (Austin: Universityof Texas
tnns.JamesMeredith(Oxford:Oxford UniversityPress). Press).
Laon,Jacques(1964/1977),The Four FundamentalCon- Reisz,Karef, and Gavin Millar (1968),The Techniqueof
ceptsof Psycho-Analysis, trans.Alan Sheridan(London: FilmEditing(NewYork:HastingsHouse).
Hogarth). Saussure,Ferdinandde (1916/1959), Coursein General
rtapsley,Rob, and Mike Westlake (19BB), Film Theory:
trans.Wade Baskin(NewYork:Philosophical
Linguistics,
An lntroduction(Manchester: Manchester University Library).
Press). Scharf,Aaron (1968),Art and Photography(London:Allen
filacCabe,Colin (1974/1993),'Realismand the Cinema: Lane).
Noteson SomeBrechtianTheses',in Antony Easthope Wollen, Peter (1976/1982),'Northby North-West:A Mor-
(ed.),Contemporary Film Theory(London:Longman). phologicalAnalysis',Film Form, 1/1: 19-34; repr. In
rMetz,Christian(1971a/1974a1, Film Language:A Semio- Readingsand Writings(London:Verso).
ticsof Cinema,trans. MichaelTavlor(New York:Oxford
UniversityPress).
 Formalismand
neo-formalism
lanChristie

:
.''.

F o r m a l i s mi s t h e u s u a l ,i f s o m e w h a tm i s l e a d i n g n
, ame Shklovsky and Yuri Tynyanov found themselves not
of a criticaltendencywhichhas survivedforovereighty only theorizing the new forms of Soviet cinema, but
years, despite misunderstanding and even persecu- acutually working as scriptwriters and advisers. The
tion. Firstused by opponents, the label was reluctantly scene had been set for a dangerous slippage between
adopted by Russian exponents of 'the formal critical and political disagreement. When the Soviet
method'-although they protested that it was neither leadership began to regiment cultural life at the end
a single method, nor confined to what is normarry o f t h e 1 9 2 0 s ,' F o r m a l i s m ' - n o w m e a n i n ga n y c o m m i t -
considered'form'. But aside from these local disputes, ment to artisticexperiment, or resistanceto an author-
the tradition of Formalism could well be considered 'socialist
itarian realism'-became an all-purposererm
the twentieth century'sdistinctivecontribution to aes- '1
of abuse, and during the purges of the 930s it could
thetics. For itwas born, historically,of the desiretofind carry a death sentence.
an objective or scientific basis for literary criticrsm, Unsurprisingly, surviving Russian Formalists fell
partly in order to respond to the novelty of modern silent or recanted, and it was not unlike the 1960s,
art-specifically Futurist poetry-and at the same time amid renewed Western interest in the early Soviet
to revitalizeappreciationof the classics.In short, itwas era, that many key Formalisttexts were translated for
a critical position which uniquely responded to the the first time and began to exert a wide cultural influ-
peculiar challenge of the modern era; and one that ence. Once again,the linksbetvveenFormalistcriticism
would later be echoed by the American 'new critics' and cinema were revived, as semiotics became the
of the 1930s,as well as by structuralistsand semioti- basis for a new theorization of film-and for a revival
crans. of avant-gardefi lmmaking,wh ich partlydrew on Soviet
But if its focus was literature,how did Formalismfirst Formalist models. The Russianstructural or cultural
become involvedwith film? This is largelyexplained by semiotic movement which emerged in the late 1960s
the peculiar status that cinema acquired during the counted the Formalistschool as one of the influences
early years of the Soviet regime in Russia.With film- on its wide-ranging analysisof different cultural and
makerslike Dziga Vertov and Sergei Eisensteinmaking artistic texts; and this continues to produce valuable
large ideological claims for their work, film aesthetics work on cinema. Formalist critical tools are also still
became a subject of intense public debate, and even- used, under the banner of 'Neo-Formalism', by film
tually a political issue.In this heady climate of polemic theorists concerned with analysing the structure of
and innovation,leading Formalistcriticssuch as Viktor narrationand by criticswishing to sharpenour percep-

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 FORMALISM
A N DN E O - F O R M A L I S M

perception by a deliberate 'roughening' of normal lan-

guage. For Shklovskyand his fellow members of the St
PetersburgSociety for the Study of Poetic Language
(OPOYAZ), the poetic use of language involved a
whole range of techniques or 'devices' which are not
confined to poetry as such, but may also be found in
literaryprose. He tracesan inexorablemovement from
poetry to prose, from novelty to routine, as language
becomes automatic, and compares this with the way
old art is'covered with the glassyarmourof familiarity'
as we cease to experience it in a truly artisticway.
What is lost in this transition is ar1'scharacteristic
purpose of making the familiar screen strange (ostra-
nenie),or of 'defamiliarizing'what is normally taken for
granted-an influential idea which would later oe
echoed in Bertolt Brecht's'alienationeffect' in theatre.
Forthe Formalists,art is lessan object or a body of work
than a processby which perception is slowed down, or
even obstructed. Hence what the critic studies are the
forms and devices which achieve this effect. As
Shklovskyput it, provocatively; 'l know how a car is
made; I know how Don Quixote is made.'

For the Formalists,art is lessan object

or a body of work than a processby
which perception is slowed down, or
even obstructed. Hencewhat the critic
studiesare the forms and deviceswhich
achievethis effect.
(L9281underminesthe Tsaristinvocationof .Godand
octohet
country'
by showinEan otherwiseunmotivatedmontage
sequenceof incleasinglybizarrefolk-gods Although the Formalistsdrew much of their inspira-
tion from the contemporary energy of RussianFuturist
art, which they saw as typically'laying bare the device'
tion of-or in Formalist terms 'defamiliarize'-main- in its radical new forms, many of their most influential
slreamcrnema. analyseswereof the classicsseen from a revealingnew
angle. Shklovsky,in particular,delighted in drawing
examples from a wide range of sources,and his 'l 925
Thebirth of a poetics essayson Sterne'sTristramShandyand Cervantes' Don
Quixote (Shklovsky1990) establishedthe basic form-
Formalistpoetics developed rapidly in the highly alistapproach to fictional narrative.The crucialdistinc-
chargedatmosphereof Russianavant-gardeart in tion to be made in narrativeis between what Formalists
theyearsimmediately beforeand aftertherevolutions call fabulaand syuzhet,usuallytranslatedas 'story' and
of 1917. Futuristpoets were experimentingwith 'plot' (Bordwell
1985: 49-50 provides the clearest
inventedlanguagein an effort to return to the very modern definition of these as applicable to cinema;.
rootsof speech in sound and gesture,and Viktor However, these translationscan be misleading (and
Shklovskytook this as a particularly
vivid exampleof indeed contradictsome usesof these terms in English).
howartistsplaya vitalpart in sharpeningour habitual For fabula, in the Formalist sense, is an imaginary

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C R I T I C A LA P P R O A C H E S

sequenceof events narrated by the syuzhet,which attractedthe LeningradFormalistcriticYuriTynyanov

providesthe actualnarrativepatternof the worr, or to the irreverentFactoryof the EccentricActor (FEKS)
'story-as-told'.
Thus,in literature, Cervantes' and Ster- group.Havingalreadyworkedon the useof parodyby
ne'snumerousdigressions, abruptshiftsfonrvard and such writers as Gogol and Dostoevsky,he adapted
backwardintime,repetitions, andwithholdingof infor- Gogol'sTheOvercoatforFEKSin 1926asa polemical
mationareall deviceswhichconstitutethe syuzhet,or intervention, to pose'anewthe questionof "the clas-
plot; and the Formalistsregardedthe relationship sics"in cinema'.The film functionsas a radicalcom-
between Ihe syuzhetand fabula, ratherthan one or mentaryon the original text and its conventional
the other,asthe essenceof literaryart. accretions. And in the FEKS'ssubsequenthistorical
Such an analysisof the 'literariness' of literature films, SVDand New Babylon(1929),Tynyanovsaw a
clearly could be developed for other arts, and welcomechallengeto the merelypicturesquein the
Shklovskyled the way in applyingformalistanalysis elaborateuse of metaphoricaldevicesto produce
t o c i n e m a( S h k l o v s k1y9 2 3 )H. i sd i s c u s s i oonf C h a p l i n ironyand pathos.
notedthatthe samebasiccharacter, 'Charlie',
appears The culminationof RussianFormalistengagement
i n m a n yf i l m s ,a n dt h a tt h e s ea l l u s es i m i l acr i n e m a t i c w i t h c i n e m ac a m ei n 1 9 2 7 , w i hthh e p u b l i c a t i oonf a n
devices,whichare 'stunts'suchas the fall,the chase, anthology,The Poetics of the Cinema,whichincluded
and the fight. In eachfilm someof thesedevicesare BorisEikhenbaum's majoressay'Problems of FilmSty-
'motivated',
in that they appearto ariseplausiblyfrom listics'(Taylor1982).Amid manyshrewdobservations
the specificplot'scharacters or props,whileothersare which makethis one of the most sophisticated early
'unmotivated'-the
t y p i c a l ' C h a r l i e 'g e s t u r e sa n d textsinfilmaesthetics, Eikhenbaum focuseson Wvokey
actionswhose familiarityhad made Chaplina star. featureswhich can perhapsbe consideredthe filmic
The criticalissuefor Shklovsky was whetherChaplin equivalentsof fabula and syuzhet.From the French
would succeedin going beyond the self-referential criticLouisDelluche borrowedthe conceptof 'photo-
parodythat was alreadyevidentby 1921-2;and he geny' to describethe photographicraw materialof
predictedthat Chaplinmight movetowardthe'heroic cinema-what makesfilmed imagesof people and
comic'genre-which, in fact,he did in laterfilmssuch things intrinsicallyattractive-and from the Soviet
as TheGo/d Rush(19 25)and fhe Great Dictator (19 40). avant-gardehe takes'montage'as the fundamental
The Formalist insistence that poeticand prosaiclan- principleof syntaxfor combiningthese images(plot
guagearenot confinedto the literarygenresof poetry construction). Filmicutterancethen dependson the
and prosecouldalsobe appliedto cinema,with inter- creationof film phrases, whichrequirethe construction
estingconsequences. Amid the passionate debatesof of an illusory, yet convincing,impression of continuity
the earlySovietera betweenadvocatesof polemical i n s p a c ea n dt i m e .
fictionandthosewho opposedallfilm dramaasintrin- Eikhenbaum'smost original contribution is his
sicallyfalse,Formalists wereableto arguethatthe use answerto the question:what linksfilm phrases? Or, in
of 'factual'documentarymaterialby DzigaVertovdid Formalist terms,how do transitions appearmotivated,
not in itselfmakehisfilmsfactual.Havingrejectedthe ratherthan arbitrary?He suggeststhat the vieweris
fictionalstructuresof the novel and drama,he had promptedto supplylinksthroughinternalspeech,by
effectivelyfallen into those of poetry the lyric,and completingor articulatingwhat is implied by the
the epic:'red versewith the rhythmsof cinema'.Simi- sequenceof (silent)screenimages.This idea is most
larly,a Formalist comparison betweenChaplin's drama easily illustratedby examplesof visual metaphor.
A Woman of Paris(1923),Vertov'sOne Sixthof the Eikhenbaumquotes the sailorin The Devil'sWheel
World (1926), and Pudovkin'sfhe Mother (1926), (Chdrtovokoleso',FEKS,1926),who hasdecidedto
basedon the idea that poetry usesmore arbitraryfor- stayon shorewith hisgirlandentersa tavern,wherewe
maldevicesthanthe semanticonesof prose,suggesrs seea billiard-ball fal/intoa pocket,thustriggeringthe
that Chaplinis hereworkingin cinematic'prose'and ideaof his fal/from duty.Anotherexamplewould be
Vertov in poetry, but that Pudovkin had created a the famous'gods' montagesequencein Eisenstein's
hybrid form which moves between prose and poetry October(1928),in whicha seriesof imagesof increas-
( S h k l o v s k1y9 2 7 ) . ingly bizarrestatuesof folk-godsare intended to
This hybridquality,makingfull use of the 'poetic' underminethe Tsaristinvocationof 'God' by showing
devicesthat appearedin earlycinema,wasalsowhat thisto be a heterogeneous concept.

i
 FORMALISM AND NEO-FORMALISM

ql
rl fl.'

Sorfs
Eikhenbaum linked the falt of a billia.d-ball in the tavern scene in The Devtt'sWheel(L926) with the sailor's ,fall' from duty as an
crampleof inner speech'reinforcing filmlc metaphol

Appearingas it did on the even of the sound revolu- ClaudeL6vi-Strauss's useof it in hisstudyof myth,and
tion in cinema, Eikhenbaum's concept of internal consequently becamea corner-stone of the emergent
speech attractedlittle interest until the 1970s. In the structuralistmovement.In line with the Formalists'
wakeof ChristianMetz's (1982) combination of semi- ahistorical,scientificspirit,Propp'sanalysisof a booy
ologyand psychoanalysis, it was then taken up agatn, of Russian fairy-talestook as its model the biological
notablyby Paul Willemen (1974-5, 1994a), who ideaof morphology,or the studyof a plant'scompo-
argued that it need not be confined to silent cinema nent partsin relationto the whole.By identifyingthe
ortoexamplesof 'literalizing'metaphor as in the Dey- full range of fairy-talecharacters and their narrative
ilb Wheel example. Might not this discourse of functions,and determiningthe 'moves'whichconsti-
'thought
work' accompany a//filmmaking and viewing, tute each story Propp was able to show how these
he asked,and be subject to the same processes of could all be reducedto variationson a singlebasic
abbreviation, condensation, distortion, and the like formula.
thatFreudidentified in dreams, so that it could func- In adaptingthis structural approachto the studyof
tionas both a constituent and a product of the filmic a filmmaker's body of work, PeterWollen (1972:93)
text-a kind of unconsciousof the filmic system? notedthatthereisa dangerin mappingresemblances
Anotherbranch of RussianFormalist researcharso of reducingall the texts in question'to one, abstract
hadto wait nearly forty years before it began to be and impoverished'. He drawsa distinctionbetween
appliedto cinema, although Vladimir Propp's (1968) this result,as 'formalist',and the 'truly structuralist'
Morphology of the Folkta/e was already becoming aim of comprehending'a systemof differencesand
knownin the early 1960s through the anthropologist oppositions'. Thus,for Wollenand other structuralist

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C R I T I C AA
L PPROACHES

'transtextual'
film critics, a measure of success is to bring works artistic (this last expanded to cover
which may at first seem eccentric or deviant within allusion to other texts).
'opposi-
an enlarged system of recurrent motifs or Bordwell'smany detailed examplesof this enhanced
ti on s'. and systematized Formalism at work show how, for
Despite this rejection of morphology as a goal, the example, the typical operations of film noir and melo-
terms of Proppt narrative analysishave proved valu- drama can be distinguished in terms of different pat-
a b l e i n o t h e r w a y s t o o . L a u r aM u l v e y( 1 9 8 1 )r e c a l l s t h e terns of syuzhet and stylisticconstruction-gaps and
function of marriage as a means of narrativeclosure in retardation,the deliberate withholding of information,
all the tales studied by Propp in her discussion of different motivations-and how a broad sampling of
Oedioal oatternsin the western. But unlikethe Russian films made within certain production regimes can lead
folk-herowho rnustmarryto conclude the tale satisfac- towards a'formal ist' h istoricalclassification.Thus'clas-
torily,the western hero may choose not to marry for a sical Hollywood' (the subject of Bordwell et al. 1985)
different, though no less common, closure. Mulvey's can be described in more dynamic terms than usual,as
'normalised
explorationof these alternatives,discussedin terms of having options for representingthe fabula
The Man who Shot Liberty Valance (1962) and Duel in and for manipulating the possibilitiesof syuzhet and
the Sun (1947),again points away from Propp'sessen- style'. Art cinema, by contrast, can be defined by a
tially descriptive enterprise, but none the less draws oarticular set of orocedural schemata which underlie
upon its characteristicFormalistclarity. widely differing narrationalstrategies.
Both Thompson and Bordwell make use of the term
'parametric
cinema', adapted from Burch (1973) to
Neo-formalism take their neo-formalist analysesinto more challenging
terrain.This is defined as the foregrounding of an artis-
The most substantial and influential modern use of tic motivation in a systematic, structuring fashion.
Formalism in the film study has been that of David Examples discussed range from Jacques Tati's P/ay
Bordwelland KristinThompson, notably in the former! Time (1968), and Michael Snow's Wavelength (1967)
Narration in the Fiction Film (Bordwell 1985) and the (wherestylecompletely dominates syuzhetasthe film's
'essays vestigial narrative is subordinated to an overriding
latter's in neoformalistfilm analysis',Breaking
the G/ass Armour (Thompson 1988). In defending continuous zoom structure),and also include films by
'merely' Robert Bressonand Jean-LucGodard.
F o r m a l i s ma g a i n s t c l a i m s t h a t i t i s formal,
seeking to isolate theory from either detailed textual Like Shklovsky'sfamous comparison of literary his-
criticism or social and historical interpretation, Bord- tory to the knight's move in chess, Formalism'sinflu-
well and Thompson argue that, on the contrary only its ence outside its Slavic homeland has largely
basic tools can contribute to building an adequate depended on the erratic progress of translation and,
historicalpoetics of cinema. indeed, fashion. Thus, it was not until the 1980s that
Formalism, they believe, unlike some structuralist translationsbegan to appear of the long-neglected
and psychoanalyticmethodologies, crucially implies work of Mikhail Bakhtin and his colleagues,who were
an active spectator, and to supply this important criticalof the Formalistsin the late 1920s but can now
'constructivist' perhaps be seen as extending Formalism's range
subject Bordwell proposes a theory
which links perception and cognition. Drawing on through their critique of its ahistoricismand dogma-
cognitive psychology, he identifies a hierarchy of tism.
schemata by which the individual's perception is Bakhtin'smost influentialconcept is probably that of
'dialogism',
organized. Thus, following a film-like many other which emerged particularlyfrom his study
everyday yet complex activities-routinely involves of Dostoevsky's novels. Put at its simplest, in a 1929
the use of already learned prototype and template paper (Matejkaand Pomorska1978),this involvesdis-
schematato identify basic situations,characters,and tinguishingbetween an author'sdirect speech and that
'approach
e v e n t s . I n d i v i d u a lf i l m s t h e n i n v o l v e m o b i l i z i n g ( o r of his characters,which can the relationship
learning) procedural schemata, at the level of narra- between two sides in a dialogue'. Bakhtin's wide-
tive, and stylistic schemata. These art- or film-speci- ranging analysisof novels from many periods and cul-
'polyphony'
fic schemata correspond in part to the Formalists' tures reveals degrees of among the
concept of motivations as compositional, realistic,or discourses present and, by implication, validates

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 FORMALISM
A N DN E O . F O R M A T I S M

zuchdialogismfor its complexity and richness.From Tsivian'sevidence is drawn from journalism, litera-
hisworkon Rabelaiscomes another key concept, ,car- ture, and memoirs,and its extent showshow widely the
nivalism', denoting the persistenceof a 'folk tradition forms and devices of cinema had permeated Russian
oflaughter'andparody characteristicof the carnival. culture by the 1920s.Although this was alsothe culture
'dialogism' 'carnivalistic'
lf and have become quite that produced Formalism,his work has wider metho-
widely usedtermsof criticalapprobation in film as well dological rmplications.And togetherwith that of otner
asliterary and culturalcriticism,two of Bakhtin,sother contemporary cultural semioticians, Neo-Formalists,
contributions seem even more pertinent to cinema. In and assortedfellow travellers,it proves that the Form-
tackling the varietyof 'speech genres/ encountered in alistimpulse continuesto provide sharp,versatrletools
everyday as well as artisticdiscourse,Bakhtin showed for both criticaland historicalanalvsis.
howthese interact with literary genres to define a
'genre
memory'which sets limitsto each genre. lvanov
(1981)suggest that this is directly applicable to BIBLIOGRAPHY
cinema, as is Bakhtin'sconcept of the 'chronotype,.
Bakhtin. Mikhail (1929/1978),'DiscourseTypology in
Thisterm, takenfrom mathematics,is used bv Bakhtrn
Prose', in Problems of Dostoevsky'sArt (Leningrad);
(1981)to referto the specific interrelationshipof time t r a n s . R i c h a r dB a l t h a z aar n d l . R . T i t u n i ki n L a d i s l a v
andspacein differntforms of narrative.Thus, he iden- Mate;kaand KrystynaPomorska(eds.),Readrngs in Rus-
tifies'adventure time' and 'romance time, in the Greek sianPoetlcs(AnnArbor: MichiganSlavicpublications).
novel, withtheir characteristicelisionsand transitions; - (1981),TheDialogiclmagination(Austrn:University of
andlvanovproposesthat similar distinctions may be TexasPress).
madewrthinthe main film qenres. - (1986),SpeechGenresand Other LateEssays(Austin:
Despitethe promise of Bakhtin'sideas, it must be University of TexasPress).
*Bordwell, David (1985), Narration
admitted that relativelylittle has been done by non- in the Fiction Film
(London:Methuen).
Russian criticsto apply them widely or systematically.
-Janet Staiger, and Kristin Thompson (1985),The
Exceptions, however, are Robert Stam's (1989) survey
ClasstcalHollywood Cinema: Film Style and Mode of
ofthetraditionof reflexive,carnivalesqueworks from a
Productionto 1960(London:Routledge).
specifically Bakhtinianperspective, and the use paul Burch, No6f (1973), Theory of Film Practice(London:
Willemen (1994)makes of Bakhtin'sconcepts of dia- Secker& Warburg).
logue, otherness, and genre as'a fragment of collective lvanov, Vyacheslav(1981),'Functionsand Categoriesof
memory' in his work on Third Cinema. Within the Rus- F i l m L a n g u a g e 'i,n L . M . O ' T o o l ea n d A n n S h u k m a n
siantradition,Maya Turovskaya(1989) has used the (eds.),RussianPoeticsrn Translation, viii (Oxford 1976).
conceptof the chronotope to illuminate Andrei Tar- Lotman, Yuri (1976), Semiotics of Cinema (Ann Arbor:
kovskytidea of cinema as 'imprinted time,, and a M i c h i g a nS l a v i cC o n t r i b u r r o n s l .
- and Boris Uspensku(1984),The Semioticsof Russran
Bakhtinian influence is discernible in the work of yuri
Cu/ture(AnnArbor: MichiganSlavicContributions).
Lotman and his circle in culturalsemiotics(Lotmanano
Metz, Christian(1977/1982), Psychoanalysis and Cinema:
Uspenskij 1984).
The Im aginary Signifier, trans.Celia Britton(Bloomingron
One of Lotman's followers, Yuri Tsivian (j994), I n d i a n aU n i v e r s i tPy r e s s ) .
definescultural semiotics as studying 'texts as they Mulvey, Laura (1981/1989),'Afterthoughtson ,,Visual
areprocessed"through" people', so that faulty trans- Pleasureand NarrativeCinema"', in Visua/and Other
mission isas much its focus as'successful,communrca- P/easures (London:Macmillan).
tionwithoutinterference.Tsivian'spioneering study of Propp, Vladimir (1968),Morphologyof the Folkta/e(Aus-
theearlyreception of cinema in Russraranges from tin: University of TexasPress).
Shkfovsky,Yiktor (1923/1988), 'Literature
consideration of the architectureof cinemas and the and Cinema,,
practice of projection (includingmishaps),to the social extractsin Taylorand Christie1988.
- (1925/1990),Theory of Prose(Elmwoodpark, lll:
receptionof films as coloured by prevailing cultural
DalkeyArchivePress).
assumptions. Most radically,he arguesthatthe bouno- - (1927),'Poetry and Prosein the Cinema',in Taylorand
aryof the 'cinema text' is inherently unstable, since
C h r i s t i e1 9 8 8 .
non-{ilmic elements could, and often did, prove cul- Stam, Robert (1989), SubversiveP/easures:Bakhtin,Cul-
turallymore significant for spectators than the firms tural Criticismand Film(Baltimore:Johns HopkinsUni-
themselves. versityPress).
C R I T I C AA
L PPROACHES

*Tayfor, Richard(ed.l (1927/1982), The Poeticsof Cinema,

Turovskaya, Maya (1989), Tarkovsky: Cinema as Poetry
RussianPoeticsin Translation, ix (OxfordCompletetrans. (London: Faber).
of the originalRussiananthology,with essaysby Eikhen- W i l l e m e n , P a u l ( 19 7 4 - 5 ) , ' R e f l e c t i o n s o n E i k h e n b a u m t
baum, Shklovsky, Tynyanov, and other Formalists). Concept of Inner Speech in the Cinema', in Screen,
- and lan Christie(eds.)(1994),The FilmFactory:Rus- 15/4 (Winted, 59-70.
sianand SovietCinemain Documents1896-1939Qnd - ( 1 9 9 4 a ) , ' C i n e m a t i c D i s c o u r s e :T h e P r o b l e m o f r n n e r
edn. London:Routledge). Speech', in Looks and Frictions (London: British Film
Thompson, Kristin ('1988), Breaking the Glass Armor: Institute).
Neoforma/ist Film Analysis (Princeton,NJ: PrincetonUni- - (1994b1,'The Third Cinema Ouestion', in Looks and
versityPress). F r i c t i o n s( L o n d o n : B r i t i s h F i l m I n s t i t u t e ) .
Tsivian,Yuri (1994) EarlyCinemain Russiaand its Cultural Woffen, Peter (1972), Signs and Meaning in the Cinema
Reception(London: Routledge). (3rd edn. London: Secker & Warburq).

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 P O E T R YA N D P R O S E I N C I N E M A

Poetryand prose in cinema

from Viktor Shklovsky,'Poetryand Prosein Cinema',in RichardTaylorand lan Christie(eds.),The Film
VlKotShklovsky
Factory:
Russianand Soviet Cinema in Documents(revisededition London and New York, Routledge 1994).

In literaryart poetry and prose are not sharply differentiated for one of Grimm's fairy-tales, The Twelve Swans, and the
fromone another On more than one occasion students of story The Seven Viziers. But there may be another way to
proselanguagehave discovered rhythmic segments, the resolve a work, and this resolution is brought about not by
recurrence of the same phrase construction, in a prose work. s e m a n t i cm e a n s b u t b y p u r e l y c o m p o s i t i o n a lo n e s w h e r e b y
Tadeusz Zieliriskihas produced interesting studies of rhythm the effect of the compositional constant compares with that
in oratoricalspeech and Boris Eichenbaum has done a great of the semantic.
dealofwork on rhythm in pure prose that is intended to be
readratherthan recited, although it is true that he has not We find this kind of resolution to a work in Fet's verse: after
pursuedthis work systematically.But, as problems of rhythm four stanzasin a particular metre with caesura (a constant
havebeen analysed,the boundary bewveen poetry and w o r d d i v i s i o ni n t h e m i d d l e o f e a c h l i n e ) ,t h e p o e m i s
prosehas,it seems been confused rather than clarified. lt is resolved not by its plot but by the fact that the fifth stanza,
possiblethat the distinction between poetry and prose does a l t h o u g h i n t h e s a m e m e t r e , h a s n o c a e s u r a ,a n d t h i s
not lie in rhythm alone. The more we study a work of art, the p r o d u c e sa s e n s eo f c l o s u r e .
moredeeply we penetrate the fundamental unity of its laws.
Theindividualconstructional aspects of an artistic The fundamental distinction between poetry and prose lies
p h e n o m e n o an r e d i s t i n g u i s h e dq u a l i t a t i v e l yb, u t t h i s possibly in a greater geometricality of devices, in the fact
qualitativeness rests on a quantiative base, and we can pass that a whole series of arbitrary semantic resolutions is
imperceptiblyfrom one level to another. The basic r e p l a c e d b y a f o r m a l g e o m e t r i c r e s o l u t i o n .l t i s a s i f a
construction of plot is reduced to a schema of semantic geometricization of devices is taking place. Thus the stanza
constants. We take two contrasting everyday situations and in Eugene Onegin is resolved by the fact that the final
resolvethem with a third; or we take two semantic constants rhyming couplet provides formal compositional resolution
and create a parallel between them; or, lastly, we take w h i l e d i s r u p t i n gt h e r h y m e s y s t e m .P u s h k i ns u p p o r t st h i s
severalsemantic constants and arrange them in ranking s e m a n t i c a l l yb y a l t e r i n gt h e v o c a b u l a r yi n t h e s e l a s tt w o l i n e s
order.But the usual basis of plot (syuzhet)is story (fabula), a n d g i v i n g t h e m a s l i g h t l yp a r o d i c c h a r a c t e r .
i.e.an everyday situation. Yet this everyday situation is
m e r e l ya p a r t i c u l a ri n s t a n c eo f s e m a n t i cc o n s t r u c t i o na n d I am writing here in very generalized terms because I want to
we can create from one novel a 'mystery novel', not by point out the most common landmarksp , a r t i c u l a r l yi n
changingthe story but simply by transposing the c i n e m a .I h a v e m o r e t h a n o n c e h e a r d f i l m p r o f e s s i o n a l s
c o n s t i t u e npta r t s :b y p u t t i n g t h e e n d i n g a t t h e b e g i n n i n g o r e x p r e s st h e c u r i o u sv i e w t h a t , a s f a r a s l i t e r a t u r ei s
by a more complex rearrangement of the parts. This is how concerned, verse is closer to film than is prose. All sorts of
Pushkin's The Blizzardand The Shot were produced. Hence people say this and large numbers of films strive towards a
what we may call everyday constants, the semantic r e s o l u t i o nw h i c h , b y d i s t a n t a n a l o g y ,w e m a y c a l l p o e t i c .
constants,the situational constants, and the purely formal There is no doubt that Dziga Vertov'sA Sixth Part of the
featuresmay be interchanged with, and merge into, one World (USSR,1926) is constructed on the principle of poetic
another. f o r m a l r e s o l u t i o n :i t h a s a p r o n o u n c e dp a r a l l e l i s ma n d a
recurrence of images at the end of the film where they
A prose work is, in its plot construction and its semantic c o n v e y a d i f f e r e n tm e a n i n g a n d t h u s v a g u e l y r e c a l lt h e f o r m
c o m p o s i t i o nb, a s e d p r i n c i p a l l yo n a c o m b i n a t i o n o f of a triolet.
everydaysituations. This means that we resolve a given
s i t u a t i o ni n t h e f o l l o w i n g w a y : a m a n m u s t s p e a k , b u t h e When we examine Vsevolod Pudovkin! Iilm The Mother
cannot,and so a third person speaks on hls behalf. In The ( U S S R1
, 9 2 6 ) ,i n w h i c h t h e d i r e c t o r h a s t a k e n g r e a t p a i n s t o
Captain'sDaughter, for instance, Grinev cannot speak and create a rhythmical construction, we observe a gradual
yet he must in order to clear his name from Shvabrin! displacement of everyday situations by purely formal
s l a n d e r sH . e c a n n o t s p e a k b e c a u s eh e w o u l d c o m p r o m i s e e l e m e n t s .T h e p a r a l l e l i s mo { t h e n a t u r e s c e n e sa t t h e
the captain'sdaughter, so she herself offers Ekaterina an b e g i n n i n g p r e p a r e su s f o r t h e a c c e l e r a t i o no f m o v e m e n t s ,
e x p l a n a t i o no n h i s b e h a l f . I n a n o t h e r e x a m p l e a m a n m u s t the montage, and the departure from everyday life that
v i n d i c a t eh i m s e l f ,b u t h e c a n n o t d o s o b e c a u s e h e h a s intensifiestowards the end. The ambiguity of the poetic
t a k e na v o w o f s i l e n c e :t h e s o l u t i o n l i e s i n t h e f a c t t h a t h e image and its characteristicallyindistinct aura, together with
m a n a g e st o e x t e n d t h e d e a d l i n e o f h i s v o w . T h i s i s t h e b a s r s t h e c a p a c i t y f o r s i m u l t a n e o u sg e n e r a t i o n o f m e a n i n g b y

E
R E A D I N G :P O E T R YA N D P R O S E l N C I N E M A

"n:
:o':o T:" :l :1":': ::::::::
different methods, are achieved by a rapid change o{ frames T h e M o t h e r i s a u n i q u e c e n t a u r ,a n a l t o g e t h e rs t r a n g eb e a s t .
t h a t n e v e r m a n a g et o b e c o m e r e a l .T h e v e r y d e v i c e t h a t T h e f i l m s t a r t so u t a s p r o s e , u s i n g e m p h a t i c i n t e r t i t l e sw h i c h
r e s o l v e st h e f i l m - t h e d o u b l e - e x p o s u r ea n g l e s h o t o f t h e f i t t h e f r a m e r a t h e rb a d l y , a n d e n d s u p a s p u r e l y f o r m a l
K r e m l i nw a l l s m o v i n g - e x p l o i t s t h e f o r m a l r a t h e rt h a n t h e poetry. Recurringframes and images and the transformation
s e m a n t i cf e a t u r e s :i t i s a p o e t i c d e v i c e . o f i m a g e si n t o s y m b o l ss u p p o r t m y c o n v i c t i o nt h a t t h i s f i l m i s
poetic by nature.
I n c i n e m a a t p r e s e n tw e a r e c h i l d r e n .W e h a v e b a r e l yb e g u n
to consider the subjects of our work, but already we can I repeat once more: there exist both prose and poetry in
s p e a ko f t h e e x i s t e n c eo f t w o p o l e s o f c i n e m a ,e a c h o f w h r c h c i n e m a ,a n d t h i s i s t h e b a s i c d i v i s i o nb e t w e e n t h e g e n r e s :
will have its own laws. t h e y a r e d i s t i n g u i s h e df r o m o n e a n o t h e r n o t b y r h y t h m , o r
n o t b y r h y t h m a l o n e , b u t b y t h e p r e v a l e n c ei n p o e t i c c i n e m a
C h a r l i eC h a p l i n ' sA W o m a n o f P a r i s( U S A ,1 9 2 3 ) ,i s o b v i o u s l y o f t e c h n i c a la n d f o r m a l o v e r s e m a n t i cf e a t u r e s ,w h e r e f o r m a l
p r o s e b a s e d o n s e m a n t i cc o n s t a n t s ,o n t h i n g s t h a t a r e f e a t u r e sd i s p l a c es e m a n t i ca n d r e s o l v et h e c o m p o s i t i o n .
accepted. P l o t l e s sc i n e m ai s ' v e r s e 'c i n e m a .

A Sixth Part of the World, in spite of its government

s p o n s o r s h i p i, s a p o e m o f p a t h o s .

E
 lmpressionism,
surrealisffi,dnd film
theory:path
dependenGG, or
how a traditionin
film theorygets lost
RobertB. Ray

Filmtheory'stwo traditions than 'the crossroads of magic and positivism'?Or a

moresuccinctdefinitionof filmtheory'straditionalpro-
Inthefall of 1938,when the movieswere only 40 ject thanto 'breakthe spell'?
years old, Walter Benjaminreceiveda rejection let-
ter.Inspiredby LouisAragon'sSurrealistnarrativeLe
Paysan de Paris(1927) and by Soviet experiments What could be a more exact definition
withcinematicmontage, Benjaminhad conceived of the cinema than 'the crossroadsof
whathascome to be known as Ihe ArcadesProject, magicand positivism'?
a historyof nineteenth-century Paris constructed
primarilyfrom found material-texts, documents,
rmages-whose juxtapositionwould revealthe bur- As a technologicallybased,capital-intensive med-
ied originsof modern life. Benjamin had been ium, the moviesquicklydevelopedinto an industry
receiving financialsupport from Frankfurt's Institute keenly attracted by positivism'sapplications:the
forSocialResearch, relocatedin New York,ano ne Taylorist-Fordistmodels of rationalizedproduction.
hadsubmittedthree chaptersof a book on Bauoe- Indeed,as ThomasSchatz('l988) hasdescribed,the
laire,designedas a prologueto the more expen- Hollywoodstudiossetthe tone by explicitlyimitating
mentalwork ahead. But speakingfor the Institute, the organizational systemdevelopedin large-scale
Benjamin's friend Theodor Adorno said no. 'Your manufacturing. Mass production, standardized
study', Adorno wrote, in the now famous passage, designs,concentration of the wholeproductioncycre
'is located
at the crossroadsof magic and positi- in a singleplace,a radicaldivisionof labour,the routi-
vism.That spot is bewitched.Only theory could nizingof workers'tasks,even the after-hours surveil-
breakthe spell' (Adorno 1938/1980:129). lance of employees-all of these Fordistpractices
AlthoughAdorno cameto regretthis decision,his became Hollywood'sown. Thus, at the peak of its
formulation of it definesthe historyof film theory.For early1930spower,MGM could produceone feature
whatcouldbe a more exactdefinitionof the cinema film per week, a quota enabledby its standardized
 CRITICALAPPROACHES

genres, enormous physical plant, strict definition of Film history'sconceptual neatness depends on its
roles, and a star system whose performers remained dual provenancein those greatopposites, Lumidreand
as alienatedfrom theirtasks as any factory worker.And M6lids, documentary and fiction. 'Cinema', Godard
to guarantee this system'sreliability,L. B. Mayer kept famously summed up, 'is spectacle-M6lids-and
watch on his personnel'severy move. research-Lumiere,' adding (impatientwith the forced
And yet, for all of its commitment to the positivism choice) that 'l have always wanted, basically,to do
which Taylorand Ford had perfected, Hollywood was research in the form of a spectacle' (Godard 1972:
not making Model Ts.That asceticvehicle,a triumph of 181). Inevitably,film theory took longer to appeat
functionalism,had succeeded by avoiding any traces but after the First World War it quickly developed
of the irrational decoration that Ford portrayed as into two analogous positions, only one of which was
wasteful, inefficient,'feminine'. Strikingly, however, attached so neatly to a single name.
the Model T's decline (Ford abandoned the car in That name, of course,was Eisenstein.With his insis-
1927) coincided with Hollywood's ascendancy, as tence that filmmaking-as-an-artdepended on repu-
Ford's increasingly successful rival General Motors, diating the camera's automatic recording capacity,
Alfred Sloan began to demonstrate the enormous E i s e n s t e i na l i g n e d h i m s e l f n o t o n l y w i t h M 6 l i e s , b u t
seductive power of style (Wollen 1993; Batchelor also with pictoralism, the movement that sought to
1 9 9 4 ) . l nd o i n g s o , S l o a nw a s d e r i v i n ga n e x p l i c i tb u s i - legitimize photography by disguising its images as
ness practice from the crucial discovery intuiteo oy paintings. Eisensteinavoided that retrograde move
Hollywoodl moguls: the movies succeeded commer- while neverthelesssharing its fundamental premise:
ciallyto the extent that they enchanted. that a medium's aestheticvalue is a direct function of
Hence the inevitable question: could enchantment its ability to transform the reality serving as its raw
be mass-produced? The movies' most influential material. For Eisenstein,the means of such transfor-
form, Hollywood cinema (what Nodl Burch (1990) calls mation was montage, the ideal tool for deriving sig-
the InstitutionalMode of Representation),arose as an nificance (chiefly political) from the real details
attempt to address this problem. The calculus has swarming in his footage (see Kolker, Part 1, Chapter
alwaysbeen a delicate one: the temptations of ration- 2).
alization on the one hand, the requirements of As histheoretical
essays
appearedin the 1920s,
seduction on the other. As a result, anv commercial Eisensteinassumedthe role simultaneouslyperfected
filmmaking representsa site of negotiaiion between by T. S. Eliot-the artist-criticwhose writings create the
these conflicting positions. 'The cinema', Jean-Luc taste by which his own aesthetic practice is judged.
Godard once told Colin MacCabe, 'is all money, Eisenstein!sensationalfilms enhanced the prestige of
(MacCabe 1980: 27), but at any moment it can atso his theoreticalpositions,which quickly triumphed over
become, as Godard once wrote of Renoir! La Nuit du the alternativeproposed by the French lmpressionists
'l
carrefour (France, 932) 'the air of confusion . . . the and Surrealists.lf Eisensteinsawthe cinema as a means
smell of rain and of fields bathed in mist' (Godard of argument, the French regarded it as the vehicle of
1972: 63). revelation, and the knowledge revealed was not
Developed as the means for balancing filmmaking's always expressible in words. 'Explanations here are
competing demands, Hollywood's protocols became out of place,' Louis Delluc wrote about the 'phenom-
the norm of cinema. Increasingly,film history has sug- enon' of Sessue Hayakawa'sscreen presence, an ex-
gested that the key figure in their development was ample of what the lmpressionistscalled ph otog6nie.' I
less D. W. Griffith than MGM's lrving Thalberg. Far wish there to be no words,' Jean Epstein declared,
more than the independent Griffith, Thalberg spent refusing to translate the concept that he posited as
his days negotiating between L. B. Mayer'sinsistence 'the
purest expressionof cinema'(Abel 1988: 138-9,
on thrift and the popular audience'sdemand for gra- 243,315).
mour. In effect, he occupied Adorno's crossroaos, Theconcept
of photog6nie,
especially
intheSurre-
embracing both positivism and magic. Working at alists' hands, emphasized precisely what Eisenstein
the origins of the cinema'sdominant mode, a rationar- wished to escape: the cinema's automatism. 'For the
ist longing to be enthralled by his own productrons, first time', Andr6 Bazin would later elaborate, 'an
Thalberg, in fact, embodied the two tendencies of all image of the world is formed automatically,without
subsequentfilm theory. the creative invention of man' (Bazin1967: 13). More-

E
 IMPRESSIONISM
SU, R R E A T I S MF,I L M T H E O R Y

over,forreasonswhich the Frenchcould not define, the t h e p r e m i s eo f a l l s u b s e q u e n tc o m m e r c i a fl i l m m a k i n g ,

camerarendered some otherwise ordinary objects, including Eisenstein'swhich quickly attracted the
landscapes,and even people luminous and spellbind- attention of the Hollywood studios.(SamuelGoldwyn:
ing.Lumidre'ssimple, mesmerizing films had proved 'l've
seen your film Potemkinand admire it very much.
dratfact. Eisenstein anticipated Brecht's proposition W h a t l w o u l d l i k ei s f o r y o ut o d o s o m e t h i n go f t h e s a m e
that'lessthan ever does the mere reflection of reality kind, but a little cheaper, for Ronald Colman.')
reveal anything about reality . . . something must in A l t h o u g h M 6 l i d s h a d b e g u n a s a m a g i c i a n ,t h e f i l m -
{ac1be bui/t up, something artificial,posed' (Benjamin making tradition he inspired lent itself readily to the
1979:255). The French who followed Lumidre, how-
Taylorist procedures adopted by the American
ever,insistedthat just turning on the camerawould do
moguls. lt was Lumidre who had discovered the cine-
thetrick:in Ren6 Clair'swords, 'There is no detail of
ma's alchemv.
reality
which is not immediately extended here [the
cinema] into the domain of the wondrous' (Willemen
1994:125). And in his first published essay,LouisAra- Surrealistfilmwatching tactics,for
gonsuggestedthat this effect did not result from 'art'
example,were designedto reassertthe
filmsalone:
autonomyand ambiguityof images:
Allouremotionexistsfor those dear old Americanadven-
think, for example,of Man Ray'shabit
turefilmsthat speakof daily life and manageto raiseto a of watching the screenthrough his
dramaticlevela banknoteon whichour attentionis riveted, fingers, spread to isolate certain parts
a tablewith a revolveron it, a bottle that on occasion
of the screen.
becomes a weapon,a handkerchief that revealsa crime,a
typewriterthat'sthe
horizonof a desk,theterribleunfolding
telegraphictapewith magicciphersthat enrichor ruinbank- Second, by insistingthat film's essence lay beyono
ers.(Hammond 1978:29\
words, the photog6nie movement left even its would-
be followers with nowhere to go. As Paul Willemen
This response seems, in retrospect, an acute (1994: 131) has suggested, 'mysticism was indeed
description of the way movies are often experi- the swamp in which most of the theoreticalstatements
enced-as intermittent intensities(aface, a landscape, of the lmpressionistseventuallydrowned'. By contrast,
thefall of light across a room) that break free from the Eisensteinhad a thoroughly linguisticview of filmmak-
sometimesindifferent narrativeswhich contain them. ing, with shots amounting to ideograms, which, when
Why,then, was the lmpressionist-Surrealist approach artfullycombined, could communicate the equivalent
sorapidlyeclipsed by Eisenstein's?First,its emphasis of sentences.As the hedonistic 1920s yielded to the
onfragmentationpoorly suited the rapidly consolidat- intensely politicized 1930s, Eisenstein'spropositions
ingcommercialcinema whose hard-earned basis ray seemed a far more useful way of thinking about the
precisely in its continuity system. Both the lmpressron- cinema.
istsandtheSurrealists,in fact, often regarded narrative In fact, however, while photog6nie's elusiveness
asanobstacleto be overcome. ('The telephone rings,' caused the term to disappear gradually from film the-
Epsteincomplained, pointing to the event that so ory, other people were thinking about it-people like
often initiates a plot. 'All is lost'; Abel 1988: 242.) lrvingThalberg. Having perfected its continuity system
unealist filmwatching tactics, for example, were bythe mid-1920s,the Hollywood studiosturned to the
designedto reassertthe autonomy and ambiguity o{ great remaining problem. MGM's constant screen
images: think,for example, of Man Ray'shabit of watch- tests; its commitment to having the best cameramen,
ing the screen through his fingers, spread to isolate costume designers,and lighting technicians;its regu-
certainparts of the screen. Lyrical, contemplative, lar resortto previews-these practicesindicated Thal-
enrapturedby the camera'sautomatism, the lmpres- berg's obsessive quest for the photogenic actor,
sionistattitude derived more from Lumidre's way of location, or moment. MGM's pre-eminence during
workingthan from that of M6lids. The latter'scommit- this period suggeststhat Thalberg achieved, however
mentto fiction, and his willingnessto construct a nar- intuitively, what the lmpressionist theoreticians did
rativeworld out of discontinuous fragments, proved not: a formula for photog6nie.

E
C R I T I C A LA P P R O A C H E S

Currentfilm theory hasoften discredited lmpresston- ticket. But they were quickly surprised by their vrew-
ist-surrealistfilm theory by pointing to photog6nie's ers' fascination with individual players. For a brief
obvious connection to fetishism.Aragon's own expla- moment, the industry resistedthis unintended conse-
nation of the crnematic marvellous, amounting to a quence of the movies,this admiration for actors which
'overestimationof value', a fetishism. Pre-
precisedefinition of the fetishist'sgaze, confirms this seemed an
'To serving the players' anonymity, after all, had mini-
diagnosis: endow with a poetic value that which
does not yet possessit, to wilfully restrictthe field of mized their power and kept them cheap. lnevitably,
vision so as to intensify expression: these are two however, Hollywood came to recognize this fetishism
properties that help make cinemalic d6cor the ade- as a means of making money, and the star system
quate expression of modern beauty' (Hammond deliberately set out to encourage it (see Butler, Part
1978:29). 2, Chapter 9). In fact, although continuity cinema's
In itshistory,fetishismhasappearedmost prominently insistence on story often reduced the immediate
as knowledge'sopposite, as a meansof falseconscious- attraction of its components ('while an image could
'it
nessand disavowal.Max, for example,argued that the be beautiful,' one cameraman recalls, wasn't to be
'fetishism so beautiful as to draw attention to itself'), inadver-
of commodities'encouragesus to ignore the
exploitativesocial relationsthat such objects simulta- tently, as the lmpressionistsand Surrealistssaw, the
neously embody and conceal. The commodity is a movies glamorized everything: faces, clothes, furni-
'hieroglyph',
all right, but not one meant to be read. ture, trains.A dining-car'swhite, starched linen (North
It substitutesthe lu re of things for a curiosityabout their by Northwest, USA, 1959),a woman's voice (Margaret
production. Similarly,Freud posited fetishism as the Sullavan'sin Three Comrades, USA, 1938),a cigarette
resultof an investigation'sarest. Fearing the sight of lighter (The Maltese Falcon, USA, 1941)-even the
'castrated',
the mother's genitals, misunderstood as most ordinary objects could become, as Sam Spade
'the
the male infant stops at another place (a foot, an ankle, put it in a rare literary allusion, stuff that dreams
a skirt'shem), investingthis replacementwith libidinal are made of' (Ray 1995).
energy,but denying the sexualdifference his gaze has It is hard to know whether this effect was always
discovered. intended. Constant economtc pressures,the conver-
What film theory discredited, however, Hollywood sion to sound, and the absolute pre-eminence of nar-
skilfullyemployed. In fact, the development of clas- rative all encouraged Hollywood's tendency towards
sical narrative cinema finds its exact parallel in the Fordistproceduresand laconicfilmmaking.The Amer-
'fetish'.
etymology of the word As William Pietz ican cinema's functionalism, in other words, abetted
(1985) has shown, the problem of fetishismfirst arose the rationalisttheoretical tradition descending from
in a specific historicalcontext: the trading conducted Eisenstein.In this context, Thalberg's more compli-
by Portuguese merchants along the coast of West cated approach seems especially significant. For
Africa in the sixteenth and seventeenth centurtes.
Renaissance businessmen, the Portuguese were
looking for straightforward economic transactions.
Almost immediately, they were frustrated by what
'the
Pietz (1985: 7-9) evocatively calls mystery of
value'. For the Africans, material objects could
embody-'simultaneously and sequentially-reli-
gious, commercial, aesthetic, and sexual' worth,
and the balance among these categories seemed,
at |east to the Europeans,a matter of caprice. Espe-
cially troubling was the Africans' unpredictable esti-
mate of not only their own objects, but also those of
the European traders, which the merchants them-
'trifles'.
selves regarded as
Like the Portuguese traders, commercial film-
makers began naively by proposing an uncomPli-
cated deal: a story in exchange for the price of a An impressionlst moment, Greta Garbo in Grcnd Hotel (4932)
 I M P R E S S I O N I S M ,S U R R E A T I S M ,F I L M T H E O R Y

despiteMGMs production quotas, strict regimenta_

tern culture's longing for what philosopher Jacques
tion,andh ighlydeveloped divisionof labour,Thalberg
Derrida calls 'unmediated presence,. In a passage
oftenencouraged,orat leastallowed, moments of rne
often singled out for critique, Bazin (1971, OO),n.a
kindso admired by the lmpressionistsand Surrealists.
apparently earned this attack praising BicycleThieves
ln GrandHote/ (USA, 1932), for example, whose (ltaly, 1948) as 'one of the first examples
oro_ of pure
ductionhe closely supervised, the camera cut sud_
cinema': 'No more actors, no more story, no more
denlyto an unmotivated overhead shot of Garbo in
sets, which is to say that in the perfect aesthetic illu_
herballerina costume,alone for the first time, opening sion of reality there is no more cinema., In fact, how_
likea flower as she settled wearily to the floor. The
ever, behind Bazin'srealist aesthetic lay an intuition
nanative idled, enabling this instance of photoq6nie
about the cinema'smost profoundly radrcalaspect: its
to unfoldbecause,as Thalberg knew, the movie riould
automatism. With photography, Bazin kept insisting,
bethe better for it. The plot could wait.
an absolutely accurate representation of the world
could be produced, for the first time in history, by
accident. This miraculous revelatory power made
the Soviet or Expressionistimposition of subjective
Pathdependence meanings seem a kind of misguided vanity.
This argument, of course, amounted to a displace_
Oneof the most decisive moments in the history o{ ment of Bazin'sunrequited religiousimpu lse.But it also
filmtheoryoccurred during a span of twelve months involved a revival of the lmpressionists,photogenre
fromlate 1952 to early 1953. Having emerged from
and the Surrealists'automatism. In his own proposeo
the SecondWorld War alive, but with the teachinq
dictionaryentry, Breton (1972:26) had desiqnated this
careerfor which he had trained foreclosed to hiri feature of modern technology as Surrealisni'sdefininq
because of a stammar and poor health, Andr6 Bazin activity:
(Andrew1978)confirmed his commitment
to film cn_
ticismwith 'The Evolutionof the Language of Cinema, suRREALisM,n. Psychicautomatismin its pure state,by which
and'TheVirtues and Limitations of Montage, (Bazin one proposesto express_verbally, by meansof the writ_
1967,1971), essaysin which, for the first time, some_ ten word, or in any other manner-the actualfunctronrno
onesuggestedthat the two most prestigiousschoots of thought. Dictatedby thought, in the absenceof an!
of filmmaking(Soviet montage and Geiman Expres_ reason, exempt from any aesthetic or moral
:::::"J"tr
sionism) were wrong. The movies, possibilities.Bazin
insisted, were more radical than those wavs of work_ Breton had also made explicit the metaphoric connec_
inghad suggested.
tion between technology and the Surrealists,favourite
Bazin,of course,is famous for arguing that film,strue
game, describing automatic writing as ,a true photo_
destinyis the objective representation of realitv. ,The
graphy of thought' (Ernst 1948: 177). For the lmpres_
guidingmyth . . . inspiringthe invention of cinema,,
he sionists, photog6nie was untranslatable but
hadargueda few years earlier,,isthe accomplishment
intentional, the product of particularlytalented film_
ofthatwhichdominated in a more or lessvaque fashion
makers. For the Surrealists,on the other hand, it was
allthe techniques of the mechanical reprJduction
of often accidental,and thus capable of appearing any_
realityin the nineteenth century, from photography
ro where. Man Ray made the point provocatively: ,The
thephonograph,namely an integral realism,a recrea_
worst films l've ever seen, the ones that send me to
tion of the world in its own image, an image unbur_
sleep, contain ten or fifteen marvelous mrnutes. The
denedby the freedom of interpretation of the artisr
or best films l've ever seen only contain 10 or 15 valid
theineversibilityof time' (Bazin 1967:21).The Soviets
minutes' (Hammond 1978: 84\.
andGermans,according to Bazin
ea), had betrayeo Like the Surrealists,Bazin could occasionallvfind
thissacredpurpose by 'putting their faith in the image,
what he valued in forgettable movies. He devoted.
insteadof in reality,convulsingthe camera,sobjectivity
for example, a page-long footnote in ,The Virtues ano
with abstracting montages and grotesque mise_en_
Limitationsof Montage' to what he called ,an other_
scene.
wise mediocre English film', Where no Vultures Flv
Since about 1970 this position has been repre_ ( G B , 1 9 5 1 ) ,p r a i s i n ga s i n g l em o m e n t t h a t a b a n d o n e d
sentedas fantasticallynaiVe,another version of Wes_ 'tricky' 'banal
a and montage,to show parents, child,
CRITlCAL
APPROACHES

a n d a s t a l k i n gl i o n e s s ' a l li n t h e s a m e f u l l s h o t ' ( 1 9 6 7 : contingencies of mise-en-scdne' (Hiller 1985: 134). t€

49-50). In general, however, Bazin preferred to associ- Auteurism's basic problem, however, involved just n
ate his cinematic ideal with a particular set of strate- this kind of attribution. More than even most theore- o
gies deliberately employed by an elect group of tical groups, the Cahiers critics had a sense of them- e
filmmakers.Jean Renoir,Vittorio De Sica, F. W. Mur- selvesas a visionary,well-educated,sensitiveelect. As ir
nau, Robert Flaherty,William Wyler, and Orson Welles long as they were associatingthe delights of mise-en- r
t-
were great becausein relying on long takes and deep scdne with filmmakers like Jean Renoir, they could i(
focus, they had modestly permitted reality to speak for continue to insist on the conscious aspect of a direc- r

itself. tor's decisions.Renoir,after all, was aestheticallywell- r

bred, politically liberal, and personally sympathetrc.
But the auteuristposition increasinglyprompted them t
to celebrate directors who had often made bad films,
At the heart of the Cahiersposition lay a I
and who sometimes seemed neither particularly
privileged term that evoked both
smart nor especially nice. Directors, for example,
photog6nie'sineffability and the like Otto Preminger. Faced with this situation, the 1
Surrealists"objectivechance'.That Cahiers writers revised their praise, directing it less
term was'mise-en-scdne'. at individual filmmakers than at the medium itself.
Thus, the Cahiers'sAmerican operative Andrew Sarris
(1965: 13) could explicitly modulate la politique des
With this argument, Bazin was retreating from his auteurs into a revival of Surrealism's praise of
thought's most radical implication, his sense of the automatism:
fu ndamentaI d ifference betwee n previous representa-
'random
tional technologies and the new generators'
For me, mise-en-scdne is not merelythe gap betweenwhat
like the camera. In the hands of his followers,the Cah- we see and feel on the screenand what we can expressin
iers critics, Bazin's attitude towards intentionality words, but is also the gap betweenthe intentionof the
became even more ambivalent. La politique des director and his effect upon the spectator.. . . To read all
auteursseemed to renounce altogether the Surrealist sorts of poignant profunditiesin Preminger's inscrutable
'rea- urbanitywould seemto be the lastword in idiocy,and yet
faith in chance,celebrating even Bazint beloved
lity' lessthan the filmmaking geniuseswho could con- there are momentsin his films when the evidenceon the
sciouslysummon its charms. But at the heart of the screenls inconsistent with one'sdeepestinstinctsaboutthe
Cahiers position lay a privileged term that evoked directoras a man.lt is duringthosemomentsthat one feels
the magicalpowersof mise-en-scdne to get more out of a
both photog6nie's ineffability and the Surrealists'
'objective picturethan is put there by a director.
chance'.
'mise-en-scdne'.
That term was As the Cahierscritics
used it, mise-en-scdne'quickly left behind its conven- The roots of this move lay in Bazin'stacit renewal of
tional meaning ('setting')to become a sacred word, the lmpressionist-Surrealist branch of film theory. This
shared by friends who could invoke it knowing the achievementusuallygoes unnoticed, since Bazin,after
otherswould understand.ffhis point, and other impor- all, remainsfamous for so many other things: his cham-
tant contributionsto this chapter,come from Christian pioning of realismand the ltalianpost-war cinema, his
Keathley.)At first, it appeared to be simply another editorship of the Cahiers,his spiritualfathering of the
version of photog6nie, a way of talking again about Nouve/le Vague. Nevertheless, Bazin's ability to
'essence
the untranslatable of the cinema'. Hence, reroute film theory at least temporarily,amounted to
Jacques Rivette on Otto Preminger's Angel Face a rare instanceof a disciplineescaping from what eco-
(USA, 1953): 'What tempts lPremingerl if not . . . the 'path
nomic historianscall dependence' (David 1985;
rendering audible of particular chords unheard and Passell1995).
rare, in which the inexplicable beauty of the modula- Path dependence developed as a way of explaining
tion suddenly justifies the ensemble of the phrase? why the free market's invisible hand does not always
This is probably the definition of something precious choose the best products. Beta and Macintosh lose to
. . . its enigma-the door to something beyond intel- inferior alternatives,while a clumsy arrangement o{
lect, opening out onto the unknown. Such are the keyboard symbols (known as owERry for the first six

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 I M P R E S S I O N I S M ,S U R R E A L I S M ,F I L M T H E O R Y

letterson a typewriter's upper left) becomes the inter_ brio? Maybe this was a scene during which we had closed
national standard.Although an initial choice often our eyes.
occursfor reasonswhose trivialityeventuallybecomes
In many cases, this different critical strategy evolved
evident(momentary production convenience, fleet-
into filmmaking itself,with Godard (1972: j71) again
ing cost advantages),that decision establishes a
providing the explanation:
pathdependencealmost impossible to break. Super-
iorkeyboard layoutshave repeatedly been designeo,
butwith every typist in the world using owenry tney As a critic, I thought of myself as a filmmaker.Today, I still
haveno chance. think of myself as a critic, and in a sense I am, more than
before. Instead of writing criticism, I make a film, but the
Bazinrecognized that film theory was especially
c r i t i c a ld i m e n s i o n i s s u b s u m e d . I t h i n k o f m y s e l f a s a n e s s a y -
proneto path dependence. The vagaries of film
i s t , p r o d u c i n g e s s a y si n n o v e l f o r m o r n o v e l s i n e s s a yf o r m :
preservation,the industry's encouragement of
only instead of writing, I film them.
amnesia (before television, only a handful of firms
wereregularlyand widely revived), the small size of
the intellectualfilm community-these factors all The film theory sponsored by Bazin would receive its
encouraged theoretical consensus. While rne best explanation only after its own moment nad
lmpressionist and Surrealistfilms, with a few excep- passed.Writing in 1973, Roland Barthes (1973/198j:
tions,had disappeared from sight, Eisenstein,shao 44) proclaimed, 'Let the commentary be itself a text.
remainedin wide circulation, serving as advertise- . . . There are no more critics,only writers.'
mentsfor his position. (And vice versa: Jean-Marie Bazin'smoment lasted only fifteen years.The events
Straubonce observed that everyone thinks that of May 1968 discredited both his ideas and the critical
Eisenstein was great at editing because he hao practice he had fostered, stimulating different ques-
so many theories about it; Rosenbaum 1982.) As tions about the cinema'srelationshipto ideology ano
a result,Eisenstein'srationalist, critical branch of power.The post-1968period coincided with the oever-
opment of academic film study, and although auteur-
film theory had triumphed, establishing a path
ism briefly persisted as a way of doing film criticism
dependencethat Bazin challenged with all his
(aided by its explicit analogy to literaryauthorship),its
energy.
apolitical concern with aesthetics suddenly seemed
Bazin attackedon two fronts. First,he challengedthe
reactionary.Comolli and Narboni's 1969 Cahiersedi-
Eisenstein tradition's basic equation of art with antr-
torial'Cinema/ldeology/Criticism' (Nichols, 1976)
realism. Second, he encouraged, without practising
represented the transition, an attempt to preserve
himself, a different kind of film criticism: the lyrical,
the old auteurist heroes (Ford, Capra, et a/.) in terms
discontinuous, epigrammatic flashes of subjectivity-
of the new political criteria.But as film studies spread
cum-analysis that appeared in the Cahiersdu cin6ma.
through the universities,it organized itself around a
A f e wn o w f a m o u se x a m p l e sf r o m G o d a r d ( j 9 7 2 : 6 4 ,
theoretical approach having more to do with Eisen-
66)suggestthis form's tone:
stein than with Bazin.
That approach has come to be known as'semiotic',
Therewastheatre(Griffith),
poetry(Murnau),painting(Ros- using that term as a shorthandway of summarizingthe
dance(Eisenstein),
sellini), music(Renojd.Henceforth there structuralist,ideological, psychoanalytic,and gender
iscinema. And the cinemais NicholasRav.
theory it encompassed. Committed largely to a spe-
Never before have the characters in a film fRayt Bifter
cies of critique defined by the FrankfurtSchool, this
Victory,France, 19571 seemed so close and yet so far
paradigm accomplished wonderful things, above all
away.Faced by the deserted streets of Benghazi or the
alerting us to popular culture'scomplicities with the
s a n d - d u n e sw, e s u d d e n l y t h i n k f o r t h e s p a c e o f a s e c o n d
of something else-the snack-bars on the Champs-Ely-
most destructive, enslaving, and ignoble myths. lt
s6esa , girl one liked, everything and anything, lies, the taught us to see the implications of those invisible
t r e a c h e r oy f w o m e n , t h e s h a l l o w n e s s ,o f m e n , p l a y i n g t h e operations that Brecht had called 'the apparatus',the
s l o t - m a c h i n e s. .. . relation,for example, between Hol lywood's continuity
How can one talk of such a film? What is the point of system,apparently only a set of filmmaking protocots,
s a y i n gt h a t t h e m e e t i n g b e t w e e n R i c h a r d B u r t o n a n d R u t h and a world-view eager to conceal the necessity of
R o m a nw h i l e C u r t J u r g e n s w a t c h e s i s e d i t e d w i t h f a n t a s t i c choice (see Ray 1985).
CRITICALAPPROACHES

These gains did not come free of charge. The duce information, defined by information theory as a
lmpressionist-Surrealisthalf of film theory fell into function of unpredictability. (The more predictable
obscurity,banishedfor its political irrelevance.Indeed, the message, the less information it contains; Ray
'impressionistic' 1995: 10-12). Film studies, in particular,should ask
became one of the new paradigm's
most frequentlyevoked pejoratives,designating a the- these questions: (1) Can the rational, politically sen-
'untheorized' sitive Eisenstein tradition reunite with the lmpres-
oretical position that was either or too
interested in the wrong questions. The wrong ques- sionist-Surrealist interest in photog6nie and
tions, howevel frequently turned on the reasonswhy automatism? Can film theory in other words, imitate
people went to the movies in the first place, the pro- filmmaking and recognizethat, at its best, the cinema
blem so vital to the lmpressionists. In 1921 Jean requires,as Thalberg understood, a subtle mixture of
E p s t e i nh a d a n n o u n c e dt h a t ' T h e c i n e m a i s e s s e n t i a l l y logical structureand untranslatableallure?(2)Can film
supernatural.Everything is transformed. . . . The unl- theory revive the Cahiers-Nouvelle Vague experi-
verse is on edge. The philosopher'slight. The atmo- ment, learning to write differently, to stage its research
sphere is heavy with love. I am looking' (Abel 1988: in the form of a soectacle?American theoreticianGre-
246).ln the new dispensation,occasionalfilm theore- gory Ulmer (1994) has specified that this new writing
tician FredricJameson (Jamesonand Kavanagh1984: practicewould provide a complementto critique. ltwill
3-4) would acknowledge that the appeal of beautiful not be hermeneutics,the science of interpretation.lt
and exciting storytelling is precisely the problem: will look to photography, the cinema, television, and
'Nothing the computer as the sourceof ideas about invention.lt
can be more satisfyingto a Maxist teacher',
'than "break" 'heuretics'.
he admitted, to this fascinationfor stu- iscalled
dents'. Also rendered suspect was formally experimen- A heuretic film studies might begin where photo-
tal criticism, deemed irresponsible by rationalist g6nie, third meanings, and fetishism intersect: with
critique.The Cahiers-inspiredauteuristessayreceded, the cinematic detail whose insistent appeal eludes
as did the New Wave film, that hybrid of researchand precise explanation. Barthes maintained that third
soectacle.Lumiere and M6lids. meanings,while resistingobvious connotations,com-
'an
pel interrogative reading'. In doing so, he was
implicitly suggesting how lmpressionistreverie could
prompt an active research method resembling the
Can the rational, politically sensitive 'lrrational
Surrealists' Enlargement', a game in which
Eisensteintradition reunite with the players generate chains of associationsfrom a given
lmpressionist-Surrealistinterest in object (Jean 1980: 298-301 ; Hammond 1978: 7 4-8O).
photog6nie and automatism? Here would be the instructions for such a project:
Se/ect a detail from a movie, one that interests you
without your knowing why. Follow this detail wherever
Twenty-five years ago, Roland Barthes recognized it leads and report your findings.
what was happening to criticism. The semiotic para- Here is an example of what this lmpressionist-
digm that he himself had done so much to establish- Surrealist model might produce. Studying MGM's
'ittoo', Andy Hardy movies, I was struck by the occasional
B a r t h e s( 1 9 7 7 : 1 6 6 )l a m e n t e d , ' h a sb e c o m e t n
some sort mythical: any student can and does presence of a Yale pennant on Andy's wall. Following
denounce the bourgeois or petit-bourgeois character Barthes!'instructions',l'i nterrogated'th is object, pro-
of such and such a form (of life, of thought, of con- ducing the following response:
sumption). In other words, a mythological doxa has
been created: denunciation, demystification (or
ln Andy'sbedroom,onlytwo Pennants apPear:CarvelHigh
demythification), has itself become discourse, stock
and Yale.In the 1930s,whenthe bestof the Hardyfilmswere
of phrases, catechistic declaration.' The problem,
'Where made,Yale'stvvomostfamousalumniwere probablyCole
Barthes (1977a: 71) wrote four years later, is Porter (authorof the colleget football cheer)and Rudy
to go next?' In the next decade, the most imPortant 'The Whiffenpoof Song'). Andy
Vallee (popularizer of
debates in film theory will turn on the extreme path 'l've
Hardy'sPrivate Secretary[USA, 1941] gives Porter's
dependence Barthes saw constraining the human- Got My Eyeson You' to KathrynGrayson,who usesit to
ities. At stake will be our disciplines' ability to pro- satisfyAndys request(and the audience!)for something

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 I M P R E S S I O N I S M .S U R R E A L I S M .F I t M T H E O R Y

b s i d e so p e r a .B u t w i t h h i s u r b a n i t y , d a n d y i s m , a r i s t o c r a t i c -(1977b), R o l a n d B a r t h e s ,t r a n s . R i c h a r d H o w a r d ( N e w
w i t ,a n dc o s m o p o l i t a na l l u s i v e n e s s ,P o r t e r i s t h e H a r d y s e r - York: Hill & Wang).
i e s !a n t o n y m V. a l l e e ' sd e p o r t m e n t , o n t h e o t h e r h a n d - a Batchef or, Ray (1994), Henry Ford: Mass Production, Mod-
s t u d i ejdu v e n e s c e n c ed e p l o y e d t o c o n c e a l a p r i m a d o n n a ' s ernism and Design (Manchester: Manchester University
Eo-seems more like Rooney's own. In bursts of manrc Press).
Andy is given to expressions of self-satisfaction
exuberance, * B a z i n , A n d r 6 ( 19 6 7 ) , W h a t i s C t n e m a ? ,2 v o l s . , t r a n s .H u g h
to his bedroom mirrol pep talks descended from
addressed G r a y , i ( B e r k e l e y ,C a l i f . : U n i v e r s i t y o f C a l i f o r n i a P r e s s ) .
Franklin's Autobiography. Although the Hardy films unques- *- ( 1 9 7 1 l r ,W h a t i s C i n e m a ? , 2 v o l s . , t r a n s . H u g h G r a y , i i
t i o n i n g layc c e p tP o o r R i c h a r d ' sv u l g a r i z e d l e g a c y ( c h a m b e r s ( B e r k e l e y :U n i v e r s i t yo f C a l i f o r n i a P r e s s ) .
o fc o m m e r c eb, o o s t e r i s m ,f a i t h i n ' P r o g r e s s ' ) ,t h o s e v a l u e s Benjamin, Walter (1979),One-Way Street,trans. Edmund
w i l le v e n t u a l l yb e s a t i r i z e d b y e v e n p o p u l a r c u l t u r e , e s p e - Jephcott and Kingsley Shorter (London: New Left
ciallyin 1961s How to Succeed in Business Without Really Books).
Irying,whose hero-on-the-make serenades his own mirror Breton, Andr6 (1972), Manifestos of Sureaiism, trans.
'l
i m a g ew i t h t h e s h o w ' s h i t , Believe in You.' Making a R i c h a r dS e a v e ra n d H e l e n R . L a n e ( A n n A r b o r : U n i v e r s i t y
Mickey-Rooney style comeback, that play's costar, in the of Michigan Press).
p a r t o cf o r p o r a t i o np r e s i d e n t J . B . B i g g l e y , w a s R u d y V a l l e e . B u r c h , N o 6 l ( 1 9 9 O ) ,L i f e t o t h o s e S h a d o w s ( B e r k e l e y : U n i -
A n d y e t :w i t h t h e s e r i e s m a k i n g n o o t h e r m e n t i o n o f i t , versity of California Press).
'Clio
f r e c h o i c eo f t h e Y a l e p e n n a n t s e e m s p a r t i c u l a r l y a r b i - D a v i d , P a u l A . ( 19 8 5 ) , and the Economics of owrnrv',
trary.Andy, after all, eventually follows his father's foot- American Economic Review, 7 5/2: 332-7 .
'Wainwright
s t e p st o College,' whose plentiful coeds, Ernst, Max (1948), Beyond Painting and Other Wrrtings by
a c c e s s i b tl e a c h e r s , a n d i n t i m a t e s i z e r e p r e s e n t t h e l v y the Artist and his Friends (New York: Wittenborn Schultz).
League'sopposite. Obvious answers, of course, present Godard, Jean-Luc (1972),Godard on Godard, trans. Tom
'Yale'
themselves: as the best known college name, 'Yale' Milne (New York: Viking Press).
'class.' 'Harvard' 'Prince- *Hammond, Paul (ed.) (1978), The Shadow and its
a sa s i g n i f i e ro f Then why not or
ton'?lf we acknowledge instead another logic (more Shadow: Surrea/ist Writinos on the Cinema (London:
, o r e c i n e m a t i c ) ,w e m i g h t b e g i n t o s e e ' Y a l e ' a s
v i s u a lm British Film Institute).
a n u n u s u a l l yv a l u a b l e d e s i g n - b o l d ( t h e r a r e c a p i t a l ! , Hillier, Jim (ed.) (1985), Cahiers du Cin6ma. The 1950s:
c o n c i s e( t h e s h o r t e s t c o l l e g e n a m e ) , m e m o r a b l e ( t h e N e o - R e a / i s m ,H o l l y w o o d , N e w W a v e ( C a m b r i d g e , M a s s . :
l o c k s )a, v a i l a b l ef o r m u l t i p l e r h y m e s ( i n c l u d i n g h a l e , t h e H a r v a r d U n i v e r s i t yP r e s s ) .
i n e v i t a b lceo m p a n i o n o { H a r d y ' s n e a r - h o m o n y m ' h e a r t y ' ) . J a m e s o n , F r e d r i c , a n d J a m e s K a v a n a g h ( 19 8 4 ) ,
'The
F r o mt h i s p e r s p e c t i v e ,t h e Y a l e p e n n a n t s i g n a l s a r e l a x a - Weakest Link: Marxism in Literary Studies', in The Left
t i o no f f i l m m a k i n g ' sr e f e r e n t i a l d r i v e , a t u r n t o w a r d t h e Academy // (New York: Praeger).
p o s s i b i l i t i ei n
sherent in shapes, movements, and sounds. Jean, Marcel (ed.) (1980), The Autobiography of Surreal-
'Yale'suggests
I nt h e H a r d ys e r i e s , the cinema's revisionof ism (New York: Viking).
M a l l a r m 6 'fsa m o u s w a r n i n g t o D e g a s - m o v i e s a r e n o t MacCabe, Colin (1980), Godard: lmage, Sounds, Politics
m a d ew i t h w o r d s , b u t w i t h l m a g e s . ( R a y 1 9 9 5 : 1 7 3 - 4 ) ( B l o o m i n g t o n : I n d i a n a U n i v e r s i t yP r e s s ) .
Nichols, Bill (ed.) (1976), Movies and Methods (Berkeley:
U n i v e r s i t yo f C a l i f o r n i a P r e s s ) .
'Why
P a s s e l l , P e t e r ( 19 9 6 ) , the Best doesn't always Win',
BIBTIOGRAPHY
New York Times Magazine, 5 May: 60-'l .
tAbel, Richard (ed.) (19BB), French Film Theory and P i e t z , W i l l i a m ( 1 9 8 5 ) , ' T h e P r o b l e m o f t h e F e t i s h ' ,p a r t 1 ,
Criti-
cism, i: 1907-1929 (Princeton: Princeton Universitv Res,9:5-17.
Press). -(1987),'The P r o b l e m o f t h e F e t i s h ' ,p a r t 2 , R e s , 1 3 :
A d o r n o ,T h e o d o r ( 1 9 3 8 / ' 19 8 0 ) , L e t t e r t o W a l t e r B e n j a m i n , 23-45.
- 'TheProblem
(1988), part3, Res,16:
of the Fetish',
t r a n s .H a r r y Z o h n , i n F r e d r i c J a m e s o n ( e d . ) , A e s t h e t i c s
and Politics(London: Verso). 105-23.
Andrew, Dudley (1978), Andre Bazin (New York: Oxford
*Ray,RobertB. (1985),
A CertainTendency of the Holly-
UniversityPress). wood Cinema 1930-1980 (Princeton: Princeton Univer-
B a r t h e s ,R o l a n d ( 1 9 7 3 1 1 9 8 1 ) ,' T h e o r y o f t h e T e x t ' , t r a n s . sity Press).
Geoff Bennington, in Robert Young (ed.), lJntying the - (1995), The Avant-Garde Finds Andy Hardy (Cam-
Iext: A Post-Structuralist Reader (Boston: Routledqe & b r i d g e , M a s s . : H a r v a r d U n i v e r s i t yP r e s s ) .
'The
K e g a nP a u l ) . Rosenbaum, Jonathan (1982), Films of Jean-Marie
- (1977a), Image-Music-Text, trans. Stephen Heath Straub and Danielle Huillet'. in Film at the Public. Pro-
( N e wY o r k : H i l l & W a n g ) . gramme for a film series(New York: Public Theater).

E
CRITICALAPPROACHES

Sarris,Andrew (1965), 'PremingertTwo Periods:Studio Willemen, Paul (1994), Looks and Frictions: Essays in Cu/-
and Solo', FilmComment,3/3: 12-17. tural Studiesand Film Theory (Bloomington: IndianaUni-
Schatz,Thomas (1988),fhe Geniusof the System:Holly- v e r s i t y P r e s s ;L o n d o n : B r i t i s h F i l m I n s t i t u t e ) .
wood Filmmakingin the Studio Era(New York:Pantheon Wollen, Peter (1993), Raiding the lcebox: Reflections on
Books). Twentieth-Century Culture (Bloomington: Indiana Uni-
Ulmer, Gregory L. (1994),Heuretics:The Logic of lnven- versity Press).
tion (Baltimore:
JohnsHopkinsUniversityPress).
 psychoanalysis
BarbaraCreed

Psychoanalysisandthe cinemawerebornat the end of spectator relationship. Despite a critical reaction

drenineteenth century.They sharea common histor- against psychoanalysis, in some quarters,in the
ical,social,and culturalbackgroundshapedby the 'l
980sand 1990s,it exertedsucha profoundinfluence
forcesof modernity. Theorists commonly explore thatthenatureanddirectionof filmtheoryandcriticism
howpsychoanalysis, with its emphasison the impor- has been changed in irrevocableand fundamental
tance of desirein the life of the individual,has influ- ways.
enced the cinema.But the reverseis also true-tne
cinema may well have influencedpsychoanalysis.
Notonly did Freud draw on cinematlcterms ta Pre.197ospsychoanalyticfilm theory
describe histheories,as in 'screenmemories,,but a
number of his key ideas were developed in visual One of the firstartisticmovementsto draw on psycho-
terms-particularly the theory of castration, which is analysis wasthe Surrealistmovementof the 1920sano
dependent upon the shockregisteredby a close-up 1930s.Intheirquestfornewmodesof experience that
image of the femalegenitals.Further,as Freud(who transgressed the boundaries betweendreamand real-
lovedSherlock Holmes)was aware,his casehistories ity,the Surrealists
extolledthe potentialof the cinema.
unofold verymuchlike popularmysterynovelsof the They were deeply influencedby Freud'stheory of
kindthat were also adopted by the cinema from its dreamsand hisconceptof the unconscious. To them,
inceotion. the cinema,with its specialtechniquessuch as the
Thehistoryof psychoanalytic film criticismis extre- dissolve,superimposition, and slow motion, corre-
melycomplex-partlybecauseit is long and uneven, spondto the natureof dreaming.
partlybecausethe theories are difficult, and partly Andr6 Breton,the founderof the movement.saw
because the evolutionof psychoanalytic film theory cinemaasa wayof enteringthe marvellous, that reatm
afterthe 1970s cannot be understood without of love and liberation.Recentstudiesby writerssuch
recourse to developments in separate,but related as Hal Foster(1993)argue that Surrealism was atso
areas,suchasAlthusser's theoryof ideology,semiotics, bound up with darkerforces-explicated by Freud-
andfeministfilm theory.In the 1970spsychoanalysis suchasthe deathdrive,the compulsionto repeat,ano
became the key disciplinecalledupon to explaina the uncanny. Certainly,the filmsof the greatestexpo-
series of diverseconcepts,from the way the cinema nent of cinematicSurrealism, Luis Bufrel(Un chien
functioned asan apparatus to the natureofthe screen- andalou,France,1928;TheExterminatingAngel, Mex-

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 C R I T I C AA
L PPROACHES

ico, 19 62; and fhat Obs cu re Object of Desire, France, sisticego is formed in its relationshipto others. One of
1977), explore the unconscious from this perspective. the earliestworks influenced by Freud'stheory of the
Not all theorists used Freud. Others drew on the double was Otto's Rank's 1925 classic The Double
ideas of Carl Gustav Jung, and particularlyhis tneory which was directly influenced by a famous movie of
of archetypes,to understand film. The archetype is an the day, Ihe Student of Prague(Germany,'l 913). In his
idea or image that hasbeen centralto human exisrence later rewriting of Freud, Lacan took Freud'snotion of
and inherited psychicallyfrom the speciesby the indi- the divided self as the basisof his theory of the forma-
vidual. Archetypes include: the shadow or the unoer- tion of subjectivity in the mirror phase (see below),
s i d e o f c o n s c i o u s n e s st h; e a n i m a ,t h a t i s t h e f e m i n i n e which was to exert a profound influenceon film theory
a s p e c ti n m e n ; a n d t h e a n i m u s ,o r t h e m a s c u l i n ea s p e c t 'l
in the 970s.
i n w o m e n . B u t g e n e r a l l y ,J u n g i a n t h e o r y h a s n e v e r Sexualitybecomes crucial during the child's Oedi-
been widely applied to the cinema. Apart from Clark pus complex. Initially,the child exists in a two-way, or
Branson'sHoward Hawks:A Jungian Study (1987)and dyadic, relationshipwith the mother. But eventually,
John lzod's The Films of Nico/as Roeg: Myth and Mind the child must leave the maternal haven and enter the
(1992), critical works consist mainly of articles, oy domain of law and language.As a resultof the appear-
authors such as Albert Benderson (1979), Royal S. ance of a third figure-the father-in the child'slife,the
Brown (1980), and Don Fredericksen (1980), which child gives up its love-desire for the mother. The oya-
analyse archetypes in the film text. Writers of the dic relationshipbecomes triadic.This is the moment of
1970s who turned to Freud and Lacan-the two mosr the Oedipal crisis.The boy represseshis feelings for
influential psychoanalysts-were critical, however, of the mother becausehe fearsthe father wi || pu n ish h im,
what they perceived to be an underlying essentialism possibly even castratehim-that is. make him like his
in Jungian theory that is a tendency to explain sub- mother, whom he now realizesis not phallic. Prior to
j e c t i v i t yi n u n c h a n g i n g ,u n i v e r s atle r m s . t h i s m o m e n t t h e b o y i m a g i n e dt h e m o t h e r w a sj u s t l i k e
Many of Freud's theories have been used in film himself. On the understanding that one day he will
theory: the unconscious;the return of the represseo; inherita woman of his own, the boy represseshis desire
Oedipal drama; narcissism;castration; and hysteria. for the mother. This is what Freud describes as rne
Possibly his most important contributions were his moment of 'primal repression';it ushers in the forma-
accounts of the unconscious,subjectivity,and sexual- tion of the unconscious.
ity. According to Freud, large parts of human thought The girl gives up her love forthe mother, not because
remain unconscious;that is,the subject does not know she fears castration (she has nothing to lose) but
about the content of certain troubling ideas and often because she blames the mother for not giving her a
much effoft is needed to make them conscious.Unde- penis-phallus. She realizesthat only those who pos-
sirable thoughts will be repressed or kept from con- sessthe phallus have power. Henceforth,she transfers
sciousnessby the ego under the command of the her love to her father, and later to the man she will
super-ego, or conscience. In Freud'sview, repression marry. But, as with the boy, her represseddesire can,
is the key to understanding the neuroses.Repressed at any time, surface, bringing with it a problematic
thoughts can manifest themselves in dreams, night- relationship with the mother. The individual who rs
mares,slipsof the tongue, and forms of artisticactivity. unable to come to terms with his or her proper gender
These ideas have also influenced film studv and some role (activityforboys, passivityforgirls)may become an
psychoanalyticcriticsexplore the 'unconscious'of the hysteric;that is, represseddesireswill manifest them-
film text-referred to as the 'subtext'-analysing it for selvesas bodily or mental symptoms such as paralysis
repressed contents, perverse utterances, and evi_ or amnesia.Alfred Hitchcock'sPsycho(USA,i 960) and
dence of the workings of desire. Marnie (USA,1964)presentpowerful examplesof what
Freud's notion of the formation of subjectivity is might happen to the boy and girl respectivelyif they
more complex. Two concepts are central: division fail to resolvethe Oedipus complex.
and sexuality.The infantile ego is a divided entity. Freud'stheories were discussedmost systematically
The ego refers to the child's sense of self; however, in relation to the cinema after the post-structuralist
because the child, in its narcissisticphase, also takes revolution in theory during the 1970s. In particular,
itself, investsin itself,as the object of its own libidinal writers applied the Oedipal trajectoryto the narrative
drives,the ego is both subject and object. The narcis- structuresof classicalfilm texts. They pointed to the

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 FILM AND PSYCHOANATYSIS

faathat allnarratives appearedto exhibitan Oedipal inistfilmtheoristLauraMulvey,who contestedaspects

tajectory;that is,the (male)herowasconfrontedwith a of the work of Baudryand Metzby rebuttingthe nat-
in whichhe had to asserthimselfover another
crisis uralizationof the filmicprotagonist
asan Oedipalhero,
man(oftena fatherfigure) in order to achievesocial and the viewof the screen-spectator relationship
asa
recognition andwin the woman.In this way,film was one-wayprocess.
s€ento represent the workingsof patriarchaI ideology. The third stage involved a number of feminist
Inanearlytwo-partarticle,'Monstersfrom the lD' responses to Mulvey'swork.Thesedid not all follow
(1970,1971), whichpre-datesthe influences of post- the samedirection.In general,they includedcritical
sfucturalistcriticism,Margaret Tarrattanalysedthe studiesof the femaleOedipaltrajectory,masculinity
science fictionfilm. She argued that previouswrr- and masochism, fantasytheoryandspectatorship,and
ters,apartfrom Frenchcritics,all view sciencefiction womanas active,sadisticmonster.
filmsas 'reflectionsof society's anxiety about rts Thefourthstageinvolvestheoristswho usepsycho-
increasing technological prowessand its responsibil- analytic theory in conjunctionwith other critical
ityto controlthe gigantic forces of destruction it approaches to the cinemaas in post-colonial
theory,
possesses' flarratt 1970: 38). Her aim was to queertheory,and body theory.
demonstrate that the genre was 'deeply involved
withconcepts of Freudianpsychoanalysis and seen
inmanycasesto derive their structurefrom it' (38). Apparatustheory:Baudryand Metz
lnparticular, sciencefictionexploresthe individual's The notion of the cinema as an institutionor apparatus
repressed sexualdesires,viewed as incompatible is central to 1970s theory. However, it is crucial to
withcivilizedmorality.Utilizing Freuds argument understand that Baudry Metz, and Mulvey did not
thatwhateveris repressedwill return, Tarratt drs- s i m p l y m e a n t h a t t h e c i n e m a w a s l i k e a m a c h i n e .A s
cusses Oedipal desire, castrationanxiety, and vio- Metz explained, 'The cinematic institution is not just
lentsadistic male desire. the cinema industry . . . it is also the mental machin-
ery-another industry-which "accus-
spectators
tomed to the cinema" have internalized historically
1970spsychoanalytictheory and aftel and which has adapted them to the consumption of
films' (1975/1982: 2). Thus the term 'cinematic appa-
Oneof the majordifferencesbetween pre- and post- ratus' refersto both an industrialmachine as well as a
1970s psychoanalytic theorywasthatthe lattersawthe mental or psychicapparatus.
cinema asaninstitution or an apparatus.Whereasearly Jean-Louis Baudry was the first to draw on psy-
approaches, suchas those of Tarratt,concentratedon choanalytictheory to analyse the cinema as an insti-
thefilmtextin relationto itshiddenor repressedmean- tution. According to D. N. Rodowick, one 'cannot
ings,1970s theory,as formulatedby Jean-Louis Bau- overestimate the impact of Baudry's work in this
dry,
Christian Metz,and LauraMulvey,emphasized the period' (1988: 89). Baudryt pioneering ideas were
crucial
importance of the cinemaas an apparatusand later developed by Metz, who, although critical of
asa signifyingpracticeof ideology,the viewer-screen aspects of Baudryt theories, was in agreement with
relationship,
andthe wayin whichthe viewerwas'con- his main arguments.
structed' as transcendental during the spectatorial Baudryexplored his ideasaboutthe cinematicappa-
process. ratus in two key essays.In the first, 'ldeological Effects
Psychoanalytic film theory from the 1970sto the of the Basic Cinematographic Apparatus' (1970), he
1990s has travelled in at least four different,but argued that the cinema is ideological in that it creates
related,directions. Theseshouldnot be seenas linear an ideal, transcendental viewing subject. By this he
progressions astheyfrequentlyoverlap: meant that the cinema places the spectator,the 'eye-
Thefirststagewasinfluenced by apparatustheoryas subject' (1986a:290), atthe centre of vision. ldentifi-
proposed by Baudryand Metz. In an attemptto avoid cation with the camera-projector,the seamlessflow
thetotalizing imperativeof the structuralistapproach, of images, narrativeswhich restore equilibrium-all of
theydrew on psychoanalysis asa wayof wideningtherr these things give the spectator a sense of unity and
theoreticalbase. control. The apparatus ensures 'the setting up of the
Theseconddevelopmentwasinstitutedby the fem- "subject"
as the active centre and origin of meaning'

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CRITICALAPPROACHES

(1986a:286). Further,according to Baudry, by hiding emanatefrom the spectatorbut is constructedby the

the way in which it creates an impression of realism, apparatus. Thus,the cinematicinstitutionis complicit
the cinema enables the viewer to feel that events are with ideology-and other institutionssuch as State
simply unfolding-effortlessly-before his eyes. The and Church-whose aim is to instilin the subjecta
'reality
effect' also helps to create a viewer who is at misrecognition of itselfas transcendental.
the centre of representation. In his 1975 essay'The Apparatus',Baudrydrew
To explain the processesof identificationat work in furtheroarallelsbetween Plato'scave and the cine-
the viewing context, Baudryturned increasinglyto the matic apparatus.The spectatorsin both are in a
theories of Jacques Lacan. Baudry argued that the stateof immobility','shackledto the screen',staring
'images
screen-spectator relationship activates a return to at and shadowsof reality'that are not real
the Lacanian lmaginary the period when the child but'a simulacrumof it' (1986b: 303-4).Likespecta-
experiencesits first sense of a unified self during the tors in the cinema,they mistakethe shadowyfigures
'The
mirror stage. arrangement of the different ele- for the realthing. Accordingto Baudry what Plato's
ments-projector, darkened hall, screen-in addition prisoners-humanbeings desire-and what the
to reproducing in a striking way the mise-en-scdneof cinema offers-is a return to a kind of psychicunity
Plato'scave . . . reconstructsthesituationnecessaryto in whichthe boundarybetweensubjectand objectis
"mirror
the releaseof the stage" discovered by Lacan' obliterated.
(1986a:294). Baudry then drew connections between Plato's
'maternal
According to Lacan, there are three orders in the cave, the cinematicapparatus,and the
history of human development: the lmaginary the womb' (1986b:306).He arguedthat 'the cinemato-
Symbolic,and the Real.lt isth isareaof Lacaniantheory graphicapparatusbrings about a state of artificial
particularlythe lmaginary and the Symbolic, that is regression' whichleadsthe spectator'back to an ante-
central to 1970s film theory. Drawing on Freud'sthe- riorphaseof hisdevelopment'. The subject's desireto
ories of narcissismand the divided subject, Lacanpro- returnto this phaseis 'an earlystateof development
posed his theory of subjectivity. The mirror stage, with its own forms of satisfactionwhich may play a
which occursduring the period of the lmaginary,refers determiningrolein hisdesirefor cinemaandthe plea-
to that moment when the infant first experiencesthe surehe finds in it' ('1986b:313).What Baudryhad in
joy of seeing itself as complete, and imagines itself to mindby this'anterior phase'was an 'archaicmomentof
be more adu lt, more ful ly formed, perfect,than it really fusion'priorto the Lacanianmirrorstage,'a mode of
is. The self is constructed in a moment of recognition identification. which hasto do with the lackof differ-
and misrecognition.Thus, the self is split. entiationbetweenthe subjectand hisenvironment, a
Similarly,the spectator in the cinema identifieswith dream-scene modelwhichwe find in the baby/breast
the larger-than-life,or idealized, characters on the relationship' (1986b:313).
screen.Thus, as Mulvey (1975) later argued, the vrew- After discussingthe actual differences between
ing experience, in which the spectator identifies with dreamandthe cinema,Baudrysuggestedthatanother
the glamorous star,is not unlike a re-enactmentof the wish liesbehindthe cinema-complementaryto the
moment when the child acquires its first sense of self- one at work in Plato'scave.Withoutnecessarily being
hood orsubjectivitythrough identificatonwith an ideal awareof it,the subjectis ledto constructmachineslike
self.But, as Lacanpointed out, this is also a moment of the cinemawhich'reoresenthisown overallfuncrron-
misrecognition-the child is not really a fully formeo ing to him . . . unawareof the factthathe is represent-
subject. He will only see himself in this idealized way ingto himselfthe verysceneof the unconscious where
when his image is reflected back through the eyes of h e i s ' ( 1 9 8 6 b3: 1 6 - 1 7 ) .
others. Thus, identity is always dependent on media- In 1975 ChristianMetz publishedPsychoanalysis
tion. and Cinema: The lmaginary Signifier (translatedin
Forthe moment, the spectatorin the cinema istrans- 1982),which was the first systematicbook-length
ported back to a time when he or she experienced a attemptto applypsychoanalytic theoryto the cinema.
senseof transcendence.But in reality,the spectator is Like Baudry Me? also supported the analogy
not the point of origin, the centre of representatton. betweenscreenand mirrorand heldthatthe spectator
Baudry argued that the comforting sense of a unified was positionedby the cinemamachinein a moment
self which the viewing experience re-enactsdoes not that reactivated the pre-Oedipalmomentof identifi-
 FILM AND PSYCHOANATYSIS

cation-that is, the moment of imaginary unity in boundtogether.Thus,entryinto the Symbolicentails

which the infantfirst perceives itself as complete. an awarenessof sexualdifferenceand of the 'self'as
However, Metz also argued that the cinema-mirror fragmented.The very conceptof 'l' entailslack and
analogywas flawed. Whereas a mirror reflects back IOSS.
fre spectator's own image, the cinema does not. Metz When the boy mistakenly imagines his mother (sis-
alsopointedout that, whereas the cinema is essen- ters, woman) is castrated,his immediate responseis to
tiallya symbolic system, a signifying practice that disavow what he has seen; he thinks she has been
mediatesbetween the spectator and the outside castrated, but he simultaneously knows that this is
world,the theory of the mirror stage refers to the not true. Two courses of action are open to the boy.
pre-symbolic, the period when the infant is without He can accept her differenceand represshis desire for
language. unificationwith the mother on the understandingthat
Nevertheless,Me? advocated the crucial impor- o n e d a y h e w i l l i n h e r i ta w o m a n o f h i s o w n . H e c a n
tance of Lacanianpsychoanalytictheory for the cinema refuseto accept herdifferenceand continue to believe
andstressed the need to theorize the screen-spectaror that the mother is phallic. Ratherthan think of her lack,
relationship-not just in the context of the lmaginary the fetishist will conjure up a reassuring image of
butalsoin relation to the Symbolic. To address this another part of her body such as her breasts or her
issue,Metz introduced the notion of voyeurism. He l e g s . H e w i l l a l s o p h a l l i c i z eh e r b o d y , i m a g i n i n g i t i n
argued that the viewing process is voyeuristic in that conjunction with phallic images such as long spiky
thereis alwaysa distance maintained, in the cinema, high heels. Hence, film theorists have drawn on the
betweenthe viewing subject and its object. The cine- theory of the phallic woman to explain the femme
maticscenecannot return the spectator's gaze. fatale of film noir (Double lndemnity, USA, 'l 944;
Metzalsointroduceda further notion which became Body Heat, USA, 198'l ; The Last Seduction, USA,
thesubtitleof his book: the imaginary signifier.The 1994), who is depicted as dangerously phallic. E.
cinema,he argued, makes present what is absent. Anne Kaplan's edited collection Women in Film
Thescreenmight offer images that suggest complete- Noir (l978) proved extremely influential in this
ness, but this is purely imaginary.Becausethe specta- context.
torisawarethatthe offerof unity is only imaginary he is The Oedipal trajectory,Metz argued, is re-enacted
forced to dealwith a senseof lackthat is an inescapabre in the cinema in relationnot only to the Oedipal nature
partof the viewing process. of narrative, but, most importantly, within the specta-
Metzdrewan analogybetweenthisprocessandthe tor-screen relationship. Narrative is characteristically
experience of the (male)child in the mirror phase. Oedipal in that it almost alwayscontainsa male prota-
(Metassumes the spectatoris male.)When the boy gonist who, after resolving a crisisand overcoming a
looksinthe mirrorand identifiesfor the firsttime with 'lack',
then comes to identify with the law of the father,
himselfasa unifiedbeinghe is alsomadeawareof his while successfullycontaining or controlling the female
differencefrom the mother.She lacksthe penis he figure, demystifyingherthreat, orachieving union with
oncethoughtshe possessed. Entryinto the Symbolic ner.
alsoinvolvesrepression of desirefor the motherand The concept of 'lack' is crucialto narrativein another
theconstitution of the unconscious in responseto that context. According to the Russian Formalist Tzvetan
repression.(Here,LacanreworksFreud'stheories of Todorov, the aim of all narrativesis to solve a riddle, to
thephallusand castration.) Along with repression of find an answer to an enigma, to fill a lack. All stories
desireforthe mothercomesthebirthof desire:forthe begin with a situationin which the statusquo is upset
speaking subjectnow beginsa lifelongsearchfor the and the hero or heroinemust-in generalterms-solve
lostobject-the other,the little'o'of the lmaginary,the a problem in order for equilibriumto be restored.This
motherhe relinquishedin order to acquirea social approach seesthe structuresof narrativeas being in the
identity. service of the subjea's desire to overcome lack.
As the child entersthe Symbolicit acquireslan- Furthermore,the processesof disavowaland fetish-
guage. However,it must alsosuccumbto the 'law of ism which mark the Oedipal crisis are-according to
thefather'(thelawsof society)whichgovernsthe Sym- Metz-also replayed in the cinema. In terms of dis-
bolicorder.Entryinto the Symbolicis entry into law, avowal, the spectator both believes in the existence
language, and loss-conceptswhich are inextricably of what was represented on the screen yet also knows

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C R I T I C AA
L PPROACHES

that it does not actually exist. Conscious that the criticismcamefrom feministcritics,who arguedcor-
cinema only signifieswhat is absent, the (male)spec- rectlythat apparatustheorycompletelyignoredgen-
tator is aware that his sense of identificationwith the
i m a g e i s o n l y a n i l l u s i o na n d t h a t h i s s e n s e o f s e l f i s
based on lack. Knowing full well that the original
events, the profilmic diegetic drama, is missing, the
spectator makes up for this absence by fetishizinghis
P s y c h o a n a l y sfiesm
, i n i s ma, n df i l m :M u l v e y
love of the cinema itself. Metz sees this structure of Psychoanalyticfilm theorists, particularly feminists,
disavowal and fetishism as crucial to the cinemas were interested in the construction of the viewer in
representationof reality. relation to questions of gender and sexual desrre.
Apparatus theory did not address gender at all. In
assumingthat the spectatorwas male, Metz examined
Apparatus theory emphasizesthe way desire in the context of the male Oedipal trajectory.
the cinemacompensatesfor what the ln 1975 Laura Mulvey published a daring essay,
'Visual
viewing subject lacks;the cinemaoffers Pleasure and Narrative Cinema', which put
female spectatorship on the agenda for all time. As
an imaginaryunity to smooth over the
Mulvey later admitted, the essay was deliberately
fragmentation at the heart of and provocatively polemical. lt established the psy-
subjectivity.Narrative structurestake choanalyticbasisfor a feminist theory of spectatorship
up this processin the way they construct which is still being debated. What Mulvey did was to
redefine, in terms of gender, Metz's account of the
storiesin which the'lost object'(almost
cinema as an activity of disavowal and fetishization.
always represented by union with a
Drawing on Freudian theories of scopophilia, castra-
woman) is recovered by the male tion, and fetishism, and Lacaniantheories of the for-
protagonist. mation of subjectivity,Mulvey introduced gender into
apparatustheory.
In her essay,Mulvey argued that in a world ordered
Thus, apparatustheory emphasizesthe way the by sexual imbalancethe role of making things happen
cinema compensatesfor what the viewing subject usuallyfell to the male protagonist, while the femate
lacks;the cinemaoffersan imaginaryunityto smooth star occupied a more passiveposition, functioning as
over the fragmentationat the heart of subjectivity. an erotic object for the desiring look of the male.
Narrativestructurestake up this processin the way Woman signified image, a figure to be looked at, while
theyconstructstoriesin whichthe 'lostobject'(almost man controlled the look. In other words, cinematic
alwaysrepresentedby unionwith a woman)is recov- spectatorship is divided along gender lines. The
eredby the maleprotagonist. In her 1985essay'Fem- cinema addressed itself to an ideal male spectator,
i n i s m ,F i l m T h e o r ya n d t h e B a c h e l o M
r a c h i n e s 'i ,n and pleasure in looking was split in terms of an active
whichshe criticallyassessed apparatustheoryas the- male gaze and a passivefemale image.
orizedby Baudryand Metz,ConstancePenleymade
the tellingpointthat Metz's'imaginarysignifier'isitself
a'bachelor apparatus'-a compensatorystructure Mulveyargued that in a world ordered
designedfor malepleasure.
by sexualimbalancethe role of making
As Ihe lmaginarySignifierbegan to exert a pro-
found influenceon film studiesin many Amerrcan things happen usuallyfell to the male
and Britishuniversities, problemsemerged.Critics protagonist, while the female star
attackedon a numberoffronts: theyarguedthatappa- occupied a more passiveposition,
ratustheory was profoundlyahistorical;that, in its
functioning as an erotic object for the
valorizationof the image, it ignoredthe non-visual
aspectsof the viewing experiencesuch as sound;
desiringlook of the male.Woman
and that the applicationof Lacanianpsychoanalytic signifiedimage,a figure to be looked
theorywas not alwaysaccurate.The most sustained at, while man controlledthe look.

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 FILM AND PSYCHOANALYSIS

@, ... il

1|""1...

llatfeneDletrich (here admired by cary Grant) as fetishised spectacle (Blonde venus, L9s2)

Sheargued that, although the form and figure of plation, reinforced Mulvey'sargument about the
womanwas displayed for the enjoyment of the male fetishistic
look.
protagonist, and, by extension, the male spectator in WhereasFreudianand Lacanian theoryarguedthat
the cinema,the female form was also threatening the castrationcomplexwasa universal formationthat
because it invoked man's unconsciousanxietiesabour explainedthe originsand perpetuationof patriarchy,
sexualdifferenceand castration.Either the male oro- Mulveydemonstrated inspecifictermshowthe uncon-
tagonistcould deal with this threat (as in the films of sciousof patriarchal
societyorganizeditsown signify-
Hitchcock) by subjecting woman to his sadistic aaze ing practices,suchas film, to reinforcemythsabout
andpunishingher for being different or he could deny womenand to offerthe maleviewerpleasure. Within
herdifference (as in the films of Joseph von Sternberg thissystemthereisno placefor woman.Herdifference
andMarleneDietrich)and fetishizeher body by over- represents-to use what was fast becoming a notor-
valuinga part of her body such as her legs or breasts. iousterm-'lack'.However, Mulveydid not holdup this
Thenarrativeendings of films, which almost always systemas universal and unchangeable. lf, in orderto
punished the threatening woman, reinforced Mulvey's representa new languageof desire,the filmmaker
argument about the voyeuristic gaze, while the found it necessaryto destroypleasure,then this was
deploymentof the close-up shot, which almost always the pricethat mustbe paid.
fragmented partsof the female form forerotic contem- What of the femalespectator?In a secondanicle,

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C R I T I C A LA P P R O A C H E S

'Afterthoughtson "Visual Pleasureand Narrative on Freud'stheory of the primal sceneto explorethe

Cinema"Inspiredby King Vidor'sDuel in the Sun possibilityof a fluid, mobileor bisexualgaze;a third
(1946)'(1981),Mulveytook up the issueof the female concentrated on the representation and
of masculinity
spectator. Sincethe classicHollywoodtext issodepen- masochism; anda fourthapproach, basedon JuliaKris-
'abjectmaternalfigure'and
dent uponthe maleOedipaltrajectoryand malefan- tevas (1986)theoryof the
tasiesaboutwomanto generatepleasure,how does on Freud'stheoryof arguedthattheimageof
castration,
the femalespectatorexperiencevisualpleasure?To the terrifying,overpowering womanin the horrorfilm
answer thisquestion,Mulveydrewon Freud's theoryof and suspense thrillerunsettlespriornotionsof woman
the libido,in whichhe assertedthat'thereis only one asthe passiveobjectof a castrating malegaze.
libido,whichperformsboth the masculineand femi-
' 9 8 1: 1 3 ) .T h u s ,w h e nt h e h e r o i n eo n
n i n ef u n c t i o n s( 1
the screenis strong, resourceful,and phallic,it is The Oedipalheroine
becauseshe has revertedto the pre-Oedipalphase.
Accordingto Freud,in the livesof somewomen,'there Drawing on Freud'stheory of the libido and the
is a repeatedalternationbetween Periodsin which female Oedipal trajectoryfeministsextended Mul-
f e m i n i n i t ya n d m a s c u l i n i t yg a i n t h e u p p e r h a n d ' vey'sapplicationof the theoryto arguefor a bisexual
(quotedin Mulvey 1971:15).Mulveyconcludedthat gaze. PerhaPsthe spectatordid not identify in a
the femalespectatoreitheridentifieswith woman as r i t h h i so r h e rg e n d e rc o u n -
m o n o l i t h i cr ,i g i dm a n n e w
objectof the narrative and (male)gazeor mayadopt a terpart, but actually alternated betweenmasculine-
'masculine' position.But,the femalesPectator's'phan- activeand feminine-passive positions,dependingon
tasy of masculinisation is alwaysto some extent at the codes of identificationat work in the film text.
cross-purposes with itself, restlessin its transvestite In a readingof Hitchcock'sRebecca(USA,1940),
c l o t h e s('i nM u l v e y1 9 8 1: 1 5 ) . TaniaModleski(1982)arguedthat whenthe daughter
It is this aspectof her work that becamemost con- goes through the Oedipus comPlex-althoughshe
troversialamongst critics,such as D. N. Rodowick givesup her originaldesirefor her mother,whom she
(1982), who arguedthat her aPProach wastoo reduc- blamesfor not giving her a penis,and turns to the
tiveandthatheranalysis of the femalecharacter on the fatheras her loveobject-she neverfullyrelinquishes
screenandfemalespectator in the auditorium did not her first love. Freudalso arguedthat the girl child,
allow for the possibility of female desire outside a unlikethe boy, is predisposedtowards bisexuality.
ohallocentriccontext. The girl's love for the mother,although rePressed,
still exists.ln Rebeccathe unnamedheroineexPeri-
encesgreatdifficultyin mouldingherselfto appealto
Developments in psychoanalysis,
the man'sdesire.When she most imaginesshe has
f e m i n i s ma, n d f i l m achievedthisaim,the narrativerevealsthat sheis'still
"mother",still acting out the desire
Mulvey's useof psychoanalytic theoryto examinethe attachedto the
way in which the patriarchal unconscious influenced for the mother'sapprobation'(1982: 38). Recently,
film form led to heated debates and a plethoraof the notion of the female Oedipal trajectory has
articlesfrom post-structuralist feminists'Theorlsts been invoked in a seriesof articlespublished in
suchas Joan Copjec(1982),JacquelineRose(1980), Screen(1995) on Jane Campion'sThe Piano(New
and ConstancePenley(1985)arguedthat apparatus Zealand,1993),which suggeststhat these debates
theory,regardless of whetheror not it took questionsof are still of great relevanceto film theory.
genderinto account,was Part of a long traditionin Other work raisedrelated issues.In Ihe Desireto
Westernthought wherebymasculinityis positioned Desire (1987),MaryAnn Doaneturned her attentionto
as the norm,thus denyingthe possibilityof a place the 'woman'sfilm' and the issueof femalespectator-
for woman.Theyarguedthat therewas no spacefor ship.JanetBergstrom, in 'Enunciation and SexualDif-
the discussion of femalespectatorship in apparatus- ference' (1979),questionedthe premise that the
basedtheoriesof the cinema.Responses to Mulvey's spectatorwasmale,whileAnnetteKuhn,in ThePower
theoryof spectatorship followedfour main lines:one of the lmage(1985),exploredcross-dressing, bisexu-
approachwasto examinethe femaleOedipaltrajec- ality,andthe spectatorin relationto the film SomeLike
tory;anotherapproach,knownasfantasytheory,drew it Hot (USA,1959).

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 FILM AND PSYCHOANATYSIS

theoryand the mobilegaze

Fantasy is denied a look of direct access.The male is objecti-
fied, but only in scenesof action such as boxing. Main-
Theconceptof a more mobile gaze was explored oy
stream cinema cannot afford to acknowledge the
ElizabethCowiein herarticle'Fantasia'(1 984),in which possibility that the male spectator might take the
shedrewon Laplanche and Pontalis'sinfluentialessay male protagonist as an object of his erotic desire.
ol 1964,'Fantasyand the Origins of Sexuality'.
ln her book ln The Realm of Pleasure(1988),Gay-
Laplanche and Pontalisestablished threeoriginalfan- lyn Studlar, however, offers a completely different
tasies-originalin that eachfantasyexplainsan aspect interpretation of spectatorship and pleasure from
ofthe'origin'ofthe subject.The 'primalscenepictures the voyeuristic-sadisticmodel. In a revision of exist-
treoriginof the individual; fantasiesof seduction, the ing feminist psychoanalytictheories, she argues for a
origin
andupsurgeof sexuality; fantasies of castration, (male) masochisticaesthetic in film. Studlar'soriginal
freoriginof the differencebetweenthe sexes'(1964l
study was extremely important as it was one of the
1986:19).Thesefantasies-entertained by the child- first sustained attempts to break with Lacanian and
explainor provideanswersto threecrucialquestions: Freudian theory. Instead, Studlar drew on the psy-
Whoaml?"Whydo I desire?"Whyam I different?'The
choanalytic-literarywork of Gilles Deleuze, and the
conceptof primalfantasies isalsomuchmorefluidthan
object-relationsschool of psychoanalytictheory.
thenotionof fantasypermitted by apparatustheory
Object-relations theory derived from the work of
whichinevitablyand mechanistically returnsto the Melanie Klein and, more recently,D. W. Winnicott, is
Oedipal fantasy.The primalfantasiesrun throughthe
a post-Freudianbranch of psychoanalysisthat places
individual'swaking and sleeping life, through con-
crucial importance on the relationship between the
sciousandunconscious desires.Laplanche and Ponta- infant and its mother in the first year. Klein placed
lisalso
arguedthatfantasyisa stagingof desire,a form
the mother at the centre of the Oedipal drama and
ofmise-en-scdne. Further,the positionof the subjectis
argued for a primary phase in which both sexes
notstaticin that positionsof sexualidentification are identified with the feminine. She argued for womb-
notfixed. Thesubjectengagedin the activityof fanta-
envy in boys as a counterpart to Freud's penis-envy
sizing
canadoptmultiplepositions,identifyingacross
in girls. In particular, she explored destructive
gender, time,and space. impulses the infant might experience in its relation-
Cowiearguedthat the importanceof fantasyas a
ship with the mother and other objects (parts of the
setting,a scene,iscrucialbecauseit enablesfilmto be
body) in the environment. During this early formatrve
viewed asfantasy,as representingthe mise-en-scdne
phase, the father is virtually absent.
ofdesire. Similarly,the film spectatorisfreeto assume Focusingon the pre-Oedipal and the close relatron-
mobile, shiftingmodes of identification-asCowie
ship formed during the oral phase between the infant
demonstrated in her analysisof Now Voyager(USA,
and the dominant maternal figure, Studlar demon-
19421and fhe RecklessMoment (USA, 1949).Fantasy
stratesthe relevance of her theory in relation to the
theory hasalsobeen used productivelyin relationto
films of Marlene Dietrich and Joseph von Sternberg.In
science fictionand horror-genresin whichevidence
these Dietrich plays a dominant woman, a beautiful,
ofthefantastic is particularly strong.
often cold tyrant, with whom men fall hopelesslyand
helplesslyin love. Titles such as The Devil is a Woman
(USA, 1935) indicate the kinds of pleasure on offer.
Masculinity
and masochism
Studlar argues that the masochisticaesthetic has so
Richard Dyer ('l982) and Steve Neale (1983) both wrote many structuresin common with the Baudry-Metz con-
articles
in whichthey argued againstMulvey'sassertion cept of the cinematic apparatus,in its archaicdimen-
thatthemale body could not'bearthe burden of sexual sion,that it cannot be ignored and constitutesa central
objectification'(1975: 28). Both examined the condi- form of cinematic pleasurewhich had been previously
tionsunderwhich the eroticizationof the male body is overlooked.
permittedand the conditions under which the female Kaja Silverman also developed a theory of male
spectatoris encouraged to look. Neale explored three masochism in Male Subjectivity at the Margins
mainstructuresexamined by Mulvey: identification, (1992). Silverman's aim was to explore what she
voyeurism,and fetishism. He concluded that, while 'deviant'
describes as masculinities.which she sees
themale body is eroticized and objectified, the viewer 'perverse'
as representing alternativesto phallic mas-
CRITICALAPPROACHES

culinity. Drawing on Freudian and Lacanian theory invariablydescribedas'withouta voice',or asstanding

and concentrating on the films of Rainer Werner outsidethe Symbolicorder.
Fassbinder,she examined the misleading alignment Rejectingthe role of ideologyin the formationof
of the penis with the phallus and the inadequate subjectivity,some criticswere more interestedin the
theorizationof male subjectivityin film studies.Silver- actualdetailsof how viewersrespondedto whatthey
man explored a number of different forms of male sawon the screen.Giventhat 1970stheorydeveloped
masochism,from passive to active. Her analysis of partlyin reactionto thiskindof empiricism, it issignifi-
'male
lack' is parlicularlypowerful, and her book, in cantthat,in recentyears,therehasbeena renewalof
which she argued that the spectator can derive interestin the area.Thisisevidentin the workof David
pleasure through passivity and submission, made BordwellandNoelCarroll,whoseeditedvolumePost-
an important contribution to growing debates Theory(1996)setsout to challengethe dominanceof
around psychoanalyticinterpretationsof spectatorial 1970stheoryandto providealternative approaches to
pleasure. spectatorshipbased on the use of cognitive psycho-
logy.Theirinterestisthe roleplayedby knowledgeano
viewingpracticesin relationto spectatorship.Accord-
The monstrouswoman ing to Carroll,'Cognitivismis not a unifiedtheory.lts
Perhapsit was inevitable,given analysesof the maso- namederivesfrom itstendencyto lookfor alternative
chistic male, that attention would turn towards the answersto many of the questionsaddressedby or
monstrous, castrating woman. Feminist theorists raisedby psychoanalytic film theories,especially with
argued that the representation of woman in film respectto film reception,in terms of cognitiveand
does not necessarilyposition her as a passiveobject rationalprocesses ratherthanirrational or unconscious
of the narrative or of viewing structures. Mary Russo's ones'('l995:62).JudithMaynearguesthat,whilecog-
'Female nitivistshaveformulateda numberof imoortantcriti-
essay Grotesques' (1986), which drew on the
Freudiannotion of repression,was very influential.So, cismsof psychoanalyticfilm theory, 'the "spectator"
too, was the Kristevan notion of the abject as a struc- envisagedby cognitivismis entirelydifferentfrom
ture which precedesthe subject-object split. Drawing the one conceptualized by 1970sfilm theory'(1993:
on psychoanalytic theories of woman-particularly 7).The latteraddresseditself to the 'ideal spectator'
the mother-as an abject monster, writers such as of the cinematicprocess,while cognitivismspeaks
Modleski (1988),Lurie (1981-2),and Creed (1993) to the 'real viewer'.the individualin the cinema.
adopted a very different approach to the representa- Mayne arguesthat all too often cognitivists,such
tion of woman in film, by arguing that woman could as Bordwell,ignore the 'attemptsthat have been
be represented as an active, terrifying fury, a power- made to separate the subject and the viewer'
fully abject figure, and a castratingmonster.This was a (1993: 56) and recommendsthe writingsof Teresa
far cry from Freudt image of woman as 'castrated de Lauretisin Alice Doesn't (1984)as 'illustrating
other'. that the appeal to perceptionstudiesand cogniti-
vism is not necessarilyin radical contradistinction
from the theoriesof the apparatus(as in the case
Criticismsof psychoanalyticfilm theory with Bordwell and others), but can be instead a
revisionof them' (1993: 57).
Psychoanalysis exerteda powerfulinfluenceon mod- Second,psychoanalytic theory was chargedwith
els of spectatorship theorythat emergedduringthe ahistoricality.
As earlyas 1975ClaireJohnstonwarned
1 9 7 0 sa n de a r l y1 9 8 0 sO
. n e o f t h e d o m i n a nct r i t i c r s m s that 'thereis a realdangerthat psychoanalysis can be
of the apparatustheorywasthat, in all of its forms,it usedto blur any seriousengagementwith political-
invariablyconstructeda monolithicspectator.In the culturalissues'.Thegrandnarratives of psychoanalysis,
Baudrymodel the spectatoris male and passive;in suchas the Oedipuscomplexand castrationanxiety,
the Mulveymodel the spectatoris male and active. dominated criticalactivity in the 1970s and early
Psychoanalytic criticismwas accusedof becoming 1980s,runningthe realdangerof sacrificing historical
totalizingand repetitive.Film afterfilm was seen as issuesin favour of those related to the formation o{
alwaysrepresenting the male characteras in control subjectivityand its relationto ideology.Thesecritics
of the gaze,and womanas its object.Or womanwas proposedthe importance, not of the grandnarratives

E
 FILM AND PSYCHOANALYSIS

of subjectivity,but of 'micro-narratives' of social The entire thrust of 197Os

change suchas those moments when cultural conflict
psychoanalyticfilm theory was based
mightrevealweaknessesin the dominant culture.They
argued thatfilm should be studied more in its relation- on the fact that there is no clear or
shiptohistoryand societythan to the unconsciousand straightforward relation between the
subjectivity. consciousand the unconscious, that
Third,some attacked the centrality of spectatorship what is manifestedon the surface may
dreoryand its apparently exclusive interest in the
bear no direct relation to what lies
idealspectatorrather than the actual viewer. Specta-
torshiptheory did not take into account other factors beneath, that there is no cause-and-
suchas class,colour, race, age, or sexual preference. effect relation, which manifestsitself in
Nordid it considerthe possibility that some viewers appearance,between what the subject
mightbe more resistantto the film's ideological work-
desiresto achieveand what takes place
ingsthan others.Politicalactivistsargued that psycho-
analytic criticismdid not provide any guide-lines on
in reality. Only via psychoanalytic
howthe individual might resist the workings of an readingscan one explore suchthings as
ideologythat appeared to dictate completely the displacement,disguise,and
formationof subjectivity as split and fractured. transformation.
Furthermore, they argued, not all individuals are
lockedinto roles determined by the way subjectivity
isformed. Recent developments
Culturalstudieshas developed partly in responseto
dreseproblems.lt sees culture as a site of struggle. lt Although psychoanalyticfilm theory has been subject
places emphasis.not on unconsciousprocesses,but to many forms of criticismover the past tvventyyears,
on the historyof the spectator (as shaped by class, it continues to expand both within and outside the
colour, ethnicity,and so on) as well as on examinrng academy. This is evident, not only in the work of
waysin which the viewer might struggle against the cultural theorists such as Stuart Hall, but also in the
dominantideology. Whereas the cognitivists have relatively new areas of post-colonialism and queer
clearlyrejected psychoanalysis, the latter's status theory and in writings on the body. Scholarsworking
withinculturalstudies is not so clear as cultural crirrcs in these areasdo not use psychoanalytictheory in the
frequentlyutilize areas of psychoanalytic theory. totalizing way in which it was invoked in the 1970s.
Fourth,empirical researchersargue that the major Rather,they draw on aspects of psychoanalytic theory
problemwith psychoanalysisis that it is not a science, to illuminate areasof their own special study.The aim
thatpsychoanalytic theories are not based on reliable in doing so is often to bring together the social and
datawhich can be scientificallymeasured, and that the psychic.
otherresearchersdo not have access to the informa- Post-colonialtheorists such as Homi K. Bhabha and
tionpertainingto the case-studieson which the the- Rey Chow have drawn on psychoanalytictheories in
orieshavebeen formulated. their work. Whereas earlier writers on racism in the
Psychoanalytic theories reply that by its very nature cinema tended to concentrateon ouestions of stereo-
theoreticalabstraction cannot be verified by 'proof'. typing, narrative credibility,and positive images, the
Furthermore, the entire thrust of 1970s psychoanalytic focus of post-colonial theorists is on the process of
filmtheorywas based on the fact that there is no clear subjectification, the representation of 'otherness',
orstraightforward relation between the consciousand spectatorship, and the deployment of cinematic
theunconscious, that what is manifestedon the surface codes. In short,the shift is awayfrom a study of 'flawed'
maybear no direct relation to what lies beneath, that 'negative'
or images ('positive' images can be as
thereis no cause-and-effectrelation, which manifests demeaning as negative ones) to an understanding of
itselfin appearance, between what the subject desires the filmic construction of the relationship between
to achieveand what takes place in reality. Only via colonizer and colonized, the flow of power between
psychoanalytic readings can one explore such things the two, the part played by gender differencesand the
asdisplacement,disguise, and transformation. positioning of the spectator in relation f6 5g6f'1 lsnro-
CRITICAL
APPROACHES

sentations. Inordertofacilitatesuchanalyses, theorists SisterGeorge (GB,1968),havebeenre-examined, ano

frequentlydraw on aspectsof psychoanalytic theory. the historyof the representationof gaysand lesbians in
In 'The Other Ouestion',Homi K. Bhabha uses film is being rewritten.In somefilmsthe homosexual
Freud'stheory of castrationand fetishismto analyse and/or lesbiansubtext,previouslyignored,hasbeen
the stereotypes of blackand whitewhicharecrucialto reinscribed.
the colonialdiscourse.He arguesthat the fetishized Judith Butler'sGender Trouble(1990),which pre-
stereotypein film and otherculturalpractices worksto sentsa queer critiqueof the psychoanalytic concept
reactivate in the colonialsubjectthe imaginary fantasy of fixed gender identities,has exerted a strong influ-
of 'an idealego that is white and whole'(1992:322). enceon filmtheoristsseekingto analysethe represen-
Drawingon theseconcepts,he presentsa new inter- tationof gaysand lesbiansin film. Waryof the 1970s
pretation of Orson Welles'sA Touch of Evil (USA, approachto psychoanalytic theory,becauseit largely
1958).In hiswritingson the nation,Bhabhadrawson ignoredthe questionof the gayand lesbianspectator-
Freud's1919 essay'The Uncanny',in which Freud ship,film theoristshaveturnedto the work of writers
refersto the 'cultural'unconscious as a statein which suchas Butler,DianeFuss,Teresade Lauretis, and Lee
archaicformsfind expressionin the marginsof mod- Edelman(seeSmelikand Doty,Part1, Chapters14 and
ernity.BhabhaalsousesFreud's theoryof doubling,as 15).
elaboratedin 'The Uncanny',to examinethe way in A numberof essaysin How do I Look?aueer Film
which colonialcultureshave been coercedby their and Video(BadObject-Choices 1991)discussthe fact
colonizers to mimic 'white'culture-but only up to a that psychoanalytic approachesto the cinemahave
point. Difference-and hence oppression-must avoideddiscussions of lesbiansexualdesire.ln ner
always be maintained.Throughout his writings, article 'LesbianLooks' Judith Mayne criticizesthe
Bhabhausesmanyof Freud'skeytheories,reinterpret- way in whichfeministfilm theory hasemployedpsy-
ing them in orderto theorizethe colonialdiscourse. choanalysis whilealsodrawingon, and reinterpreting,
Thisapproachhasbeenadoptedby othercritics.In aspectsof psychoanalytic theoryin her own analysis.
Romance and the'YellowPeril'(1993), GinaMarchetti ValerieTraub'sarticle'The Ambiguitiesof "Lesbian"
focuseson HollywoodfilmsaboutAsiansand interra- Viewing Pleasure'(1991),on lesbianspectatorship
cial sexuality.Adopting a positioninformedby post- and the film B/ackWidow (USA,1987),providesa
colonialtheory, Marchettidraws on psychoanalytic good exampleof a queerreading.
theoriesof spectatorship and femininemasquerade, Anotherareain whichfilmtheoristshavedrawnon a
refiguringtheseconceptsfor herown workon race. rereadingof psychoanalytic theoryisthat of the body.
In a similarvein,film critics,drawingon queerread- Contemporaryinterpretations of the horrorfilm have
ing strategies,have carefullyselectedaspectsof psy- generallyfavoured a psychoanalyticreading with
choanalytictheory to analysefilm texts 'againstthe emphasison the workingsof repression.Sincethe
grain'.As in post-colonial theory,queertheoryrepre- mid-1980swritershave paid particularattentionto
sentsa methodological shift.lt, too, rejectsan earlier the representationof the body in horror-the gro-
criticalemphasison praising'positive'and decrying tesque body of the monster.Basedon psychoanalytic
'negative'
imagesof homosexual men and lesbiansrn theoriesof abjection,hysteria,castration,and the
film. lnstead,queer theory sees sexualpractices- uncanny,suchan approachseesthe monstrousbody
whetherheterosexua l, homosexual, bisexua l, autosex- asintendedpartlyto horrifythe spectatorand partlyto
ual,transsexua l-as fluid,diverse,andheterogeneous. makemeaningat a moregenerallevel,pointingto the
For instance,the practicesof masochism, sadism,or abjectstateof the social,political,and familialbody.
coprophiliamay be adoptedby homosexual and het- Other approaches to the body take up the issueof
erosexual alike:the beliefthat only heterosexual rela- the actualbody as well asthe cinematicbody.Steven
tionships(or any other type of relationship, for that Shaviro'sThe CinematicBody (1993) presentsa thor-
matter)aresomehow'normal'is patentlyincorrect. ough attackon apparatustheory,arguinginsteadfor
As a criticalpractice,queertheoryseeksto analyse 'an activeand affirmative
readingof the masochism of
filmtextsin orderto determinethewayin whichdesrre, cinematicexperience'(1 993:60).Drawingon the early
in its many diverseforms, is constructed,and how workof GillesDeleuze,he suggests thatwhat'inspires
cinematicpleasures are institutedand offeredto the the cinematicspectatorisa passionfor thatverylossof
spectator. Previously reviledfilmssuchasTheKillingof control,that abjection,fragmentation and subversion

E
 FILM AND PSYCHOANALYSIS

Ofself-identity
that psychoanalytic theoryso dubiousry de Lauretis, Teresa (1984), Alice Doesn't: Feminism,
dassifiesunder the rubrics of lack and castration' Semiotics,Cinema (Bloomington:Indiana University
57).Shaviro
{1993: is highlycriticalof what he seesas Press).
fieconventional useof psychoanalysis to constructa Doane, Mary Ann (1987), The Desire to Desire: The
distancebetweenspectatorand image; he wantsto Woman'sFilm of the 1940s(Bloomington:IndianaUni-
versityPress).
usepsychoanalysisto affirm and celebratethe power
Donald, James (ed.) (1990), Psychoanalysis
and Cultural
image,
ofthe andof thevisceral, to moveandaffectthe Theory:Thresho/ds(London:Macmillan).
viewer. Dyer, Richard(1982),'Don't Look Now: The Male Pin-Up',
I havereferred briefly to aspects of post-coloniar, >creen. z5/5-4: o I-lJ-
queer, and body theory to demonstrate that film the- Foster, Hal (1993), Compulsive Beauty (London: MIT
ory in its currentuse of psychoanalysis,has become Press).
moreselectiveand nuanced. While no one would Fredericksen, Don (1980),'Jung/Sign/Symbol/Film',
$,ggesta return to the totalizing approach of the Quarterly Review of Film Studies, 5/4:459-79.
1970s, it would be misleading to argue that applica- Freud, Sigmund (1919/1953-66), 'The Uncanny', in The
tionof psychoanalysis to the cinema is a thing of the Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works
of Sigmund Freud, 24 vols., trans. James Strachey
pst. lf anything,the interest in psychoanalyticfilm
(London: Hogarth),xxi.
dreoryis as strong as ever. And the debates continue.
fzod, John (1992), The Films of Nicho/as Roeg: Myth and
Mind (London: St Martin'sPress).
SIEtIOGRAPHY J o h n s t o n , C . ( 1 9 7 5 ) , ' F e m i n i n i t ya n d M a s q u e r a d e :A n n e
of the Indies', in Claire Johnston and Paul Willemen
&d Object-Choices (ed.) (1991),How do I Look?Queer (eds.), Jacgues Tourneur (Edinburgh: Edinburgh Film
Filn andVideo(Seattle:Bay Press). Festival).
Baudry,Jean-Louis (1970/1986a),'ldeologicalEffectsof Kapfan, E. Ann (ed.) (1978),Women in Film Noir (London:
theBasic Cinematographic Apparatus',in P.Rosen(ed.), British Film Institute).
Narrattve,Apparatus,ldeology (New York: Columbra *- (ed.) (1990), Psychoanalysis and the Cinema (New
University
Press). York: Routledge).
- (1975/1986b), 'The Apparatus: Metaphysical
Kristeva, Julia (1986), Powers of Horror: An Essayin Abjec-
Approaches to ldeology', in P. Rosen (ed.), Narative, tion, trans. Leon S. Roudiez (New York: Columbia Uni-
Apparatus, Ideology, (New York: Columbia University versity Press).
Press). Kuhn, Annette (1985), The Power of the lmage: Essayson
Benderson, Albert (1979), 'An Archetypal Reading of Representation and Sexuality (London: Routledge &
Julietof the Spirits',Auarterly Reviewof Film Studies, Kegan Paul).
4/2:193-206. Laplanche, J., and J.-8. Pontalis (1964/1986),'Fantasy
&rgstrom,Janet (1979),'Enunciationand SexualDiffer- and the Origins of Sexuality', in Victor Burgin, James
ence',CameraObscura,3-4: 33-70. Donald, and Cora Kaplan (eds.),Formations of Fantasy
thabha, HomiK. (1992),'TheOtherOuestion:The Stereo- (London: Methuen).
typeandthe ColonialDiscourse', in The Sexua/Subject: Lebeau, Vicky (1995), LostAnge/s: Psychoanalysisand the
A ScreenReaderin Sexuality(London:Routledge). Cinema (New York: Routledge).
Bordwell,David, and Noel Caroll (eds.) (1996), post- Lurie, Susan (1981-2),'The Construction ofthe "Castrated
Theory:ReconstructingFilm Studies (Wisconsin:Uni- W o m a n " i n P s y c h o a n a l y s i sa n d C i n e m a ' , D i s c o u r s e , 4 . .
versityof WisconsinPress). 52-7 4.
Branson, Clark (1987),Howard Hawks:A Jungian Study Marchetti, Gina (1993), Romance and the 'Yellow Peril':
(Santa Barbara, Calif.:CapraPress). Race, Sex and Discursive Strategles in Hollywood Ftctton
Brown,Royal S. (1980),'Hitchcock! Spe//bound:Jung (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California
versus Freud',Film/PsychologyReview,4/1 : 35-58. Press).
Butler,Judith (1990),Gender Trouble: Feminismand the M a y n e , J u d i t h ( 19 9 1 ) , ' L e s b i a n L o o k s : D o r o t h y A r z n e r a n d
Subversion of ldentity (New York: Routledge). F e m a l e A u t h o r s h i p ' , i n B a d O b j e c t - C h o i c e s ( 19 9 1 ) .
Copjec,Joan (1982), 'The Anxiety of the Influencing - (1993), Cinema and Spectatorshp (London: Routledge).
I/achine',October,23. *Metz, Christian (1975/1982), Psychoanalysis
and Cinema:
Cowie, Elizabeth(1984),'Fantasia', m/f,9:71-1O5. The Imaginary Signifier(London: Macmillan).
Creed,Barbara (1993), The Monstrous-Feminine:Film, M o d l e s k i , T a n i a ( 19 8 2 ) , ' N e v e r t o b e T h i r r y - S i xY e a r sO l d ' ,
Feminism and Psychoanalysis (New York: Routledge). Wide Anole.5/1:34-41

E
C R I T I C A LA P P R O A C H E S

M o d e f s k i , T a n i a ( 1 9 8 8 ) ,T h e W o m e n w h o K n e w t o o M u c h : Screen (1995), 36/3: 257-87. Articles on The Piano.

Hitchcock and Feminist Theory (New York: Methuen). S h a v i r o , S t e v e n ( 19 9 3 ) , T h e C i n e m a t i c B o d y ( M i n n e a p o l i s :
*Mulvey, Laura (1975), 'Visual Pleasure
and Narrative U n i v e r s i t yo f M i n n e s o t a P r e s s ) .
C i n e m a ' , S c r e e n ,1 6 / 3 : 6 - 1 8 . 'Masochism
Silverman, Kaja (1981), and Subjectivity',
- ( 1 9 8 1 ) , ' A f t e r t h o u g h t s o n " V i s u a l P l e a s u r ea n d N a r r a - Framework, 12:2-9.
tive Cinema" inspired 6y Duel in the Sun', Framework, - (1992), Male Subjectivity at the Margins (New York:
15-17:12-15. Routledge).
N e a l e , S t e v e ( 19 8 3 ) , ' M a s c u l i n i t y a s S p e c t a c l e ' , S c r e e n , Sobchack, Vivian (1992), fhe Address of the Eye: A Phe-
24/6:2-16. nomenology of Film Experience (Princeton: Princeton
P e n l e y , C o n s t a n c e ( 1 9 8 5 ) ,' F e m i n i s m , F i l m T h e o r y a n d t h e U n i v e r s i t yP r e s s ) .
B a c h e l o r M a c h i n e s ' , m / f , 1 0 : .3 9 - 5 9 . Studlar, Gaylyn (19BB), ln the Realm of Pleasure: Von
Rank, Otto (1925/1971), The Double: A psychoanalytic Sternberg, Dietrich, and the Masochistic Aesthetic
S t u d y ( C h a p e l H i l l : U n i v e r s i t yo f N o r t h C a r o l i n a P r e s s ) . ( U r b a n a : U n i v e r s i t yo f l l l i n o i s P r e s s ) .
Rodowick, D. N. (1982), 'The Difficulty of Difference', T a r r a t t , M a r g a r e t ( 19 7 0 ) ,
'Monsters
from the ld', part 1,
Wide Angle,5/1: 4-15. Films and Filming (Nov.-Dec.), 38-42.
- (19BB), The Crisis of Political Modernism: Criticism - ( 1 9 71 ) , ' M o n s t e r s f r o m t h e l d ' , p a r t 2 , F i l m s a n d F i l m -
and ldeology on Contemporary Film Theory (Berkeley: ing (Jan.-Feb), 40-2.
U n i v e r s i t yo f C a l i f o r n i a P r e s s ) . 'The "Lesbian"
Traub, Valerie (1991), Ambiguities of View-
'The
Rose, Jacqueline (1980), Cinematic Apparatus: Pro- i n g P l e a s u r e :T h e ( D i s ) a r t i c u l a t i o n so f B l a c k W i d o w ' , i n
b l e m s i n C u r r e n t T h e o r y ' , i n T e r e s a d e L a u r e t i sa n d S t e - J u l i a E p s t e i n a n d K r i s t i n aS t r a u b ( e d s . ) ,B o d y G u a r d s : T h e
phen Heath (eds.), The Cinematic Apparatus (New York: Cultural Politics of Gender Ambiguity (New York: Rout-
St Martint Press). ledge).
Russo, Mary (1986), 'Female Grotesques: Carnival and Wiffiams, Linda (ed.) (1995\, Viewing Positions: Ways ol
Theory', in Teresa de Lauretis (ed.), Feminist Studies/ Seeing Film (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University
Critical Studies(Bloomington: Indiana UniversityPress). Press).
 Post-structuralism
and deconstruction
PeterBrunette

Post-structuralismis a rathervague generic name for a lf the missionand focus of film studies is seen as the
hostof disparatetheoretical developments that have formal and thematic interpretationof individual films,
followedin the wake of structuralismand semiotics. deconstructionhas little to offer. Deconstructionis not
Thetermhasbeen applied occasionallyto the work of a discipline or, even less,a methodology, but rather a
Michel Foucaultand the later Roland Barthes,but most questioning stance taken towards the most basrc
especially to the challenging and innovative revision aspectsof the production of knowledge. Like Lacanran
of Freudpropounded by the French psychoanalyst psychoanalysis,it tends to concentrate on the slip-
Jacques Lacan,and to the work of Jacques Derrida, a p a g e s i n m e a n i n g ,t h e g a p s a n d i n c o n s i s t e n c i e st h, a t
'anti-philosophy'that
kindof has come to be known as i n e v i t a b l ym a r k a l l u n d e r s t a n d i n g .A s s u c h , d e c o n -
deconstruction. Since the Guide contains a separate struction has been seen by its critics as part of the
(by BarbaraCreed, Part '1, Chapter 9) detailing
article 'hermeneutics
of suspicion' that has developed out
thecrucialinfluenceof Lacanianpsychoanalysison film of the anti-foundationalist investigations of Freud
studies,this chapter will concentrate on the applica- and Nietzsche.
tionof Derrideanthought to the cinema. The specific application of deconstruction to film
has been far less evident than that of Lacanian psy-
choanalysis,but Derrida's influence on such thinkers
as (to name but two) Judith Butlel a gender theorist,
a n d H o m i B h a b h a , a s p e c i a l i s ti n p o s t - c o l o n i a ls t u -
Deconstructionis not a disciplineor, dies, has been profound. These theorists have in
evenless,a methodology, but rather a turn had a tremendous impact on recent writing on
film, and thus, in this sense, it is probably correct to
questioningstancetaken towards the
say that the application of Derridean thought to film
most basicaspectsof the production of has been important but largely indirect. A further
knowledge.Like Lacanian complication is that some on the left have denounced
psychoanalysis,it tends to concentrate deconstruction because it tends to call a// thinking
on the slippagesin meaning,the gaps into question, even that which presents itself as pro-
gressiveand liberatory.In fact, Derrida'swritings can
and inconsistencies,that inevitably be seen as thoroughly political in nature when they
markall understanding. are properly understood as a critique of the out-

E
CRITICAL APPROACHES

'logocentric'
moded thinking that has led to numer- structionhasbeento reverseand-since a mererever-
ous political impassesnow and in the past. salwould not disturbthe underlyingbinarylogic-to
Nevertheless, several key deconstructive notions displacetheseostensible oppositionsaswell.
have been applied directly to film by a number of Sincedeconstruction buildsupon the insightsand
theorists in France and elsewhere. For example, a terminologyof semiotics, one of the firstbinaryoppo-
deconstructiveperspectivecan challengethe historio- sitionsthat is calledinto questionis that foundingdis-
graphical assumptions that allow us conveniently to tinctionbetweensignifierand signified.Froma post-
divide film history into specific, self-identical move- structuralistperspective,it is easyto seethe latterasa
ments such as German Expressionism,ltalian Neo- transcendent, almostspiritualentitythat is privileged
R e a l i s ma, n d s o o n . T h e n o t i o n o f f i l m g e n r e a s w e l l i s over the 'merely'materialsignifier,which is usually
vulnerableto a deconstructiveanalysis,as is auteunsm, seenas a dispensable containerwith no effecton the
and authorial intentionality,already much challenged contained.Derrideanthoughttendsratherto focuson
anyway (see Crofts, Part 2, Chapter 7). Most impor- the'freeplay'betweensignifierandsignifiedthat con-
tantly, perhaps, deconstruction challenges the very stitutesall meaning,andto showthat the marksof the
basisof interpretationitself,revealingthe institutional materialsignifierneverreallydisappearin the faceo{
and contextualconstraintsthat necessarilyaccompany thesionified.
all attempts at reading.
Deconstructioncan be approached from any num-
ber of different directions,but perhaps it can be most Derrideanthought tends rather to focus
easily seeri as a radicalizationof the basic insights, on the 'free play' between signifier and
developed around the turn of the century, of Swiss
signifiedthat constitutesall meaning,
linguist Ferdinand de Saussure.Saussure,considered
the father of structuralismand semiotics,argued that and to show that the marks of the
'no materialsignifierneverreallydisappear
there are positive terms' in language; in other
words, that meanings do not stem from something in the face of the signified.
inherent in the words and sounds themselves, but
rather from their difference from other words ano
s o u n d s .T h u s , a l l a l o n e , t h e s o u n d ' p ' c o u l d n e v e r o e Furthermore,deconstruction,like Lacanianpsycho-
functional, nor could the word 'truth' carry any mean- analysis,points out that meaning effects occur as a
ing, but only in so far as they differed from 't' or'r' or's' result of the sliding within chains of signifiers,rather
on the one hand, or'error', say,on the other. lf this isthe than becausea signifierleads inevitablyto a signified.
'error' After all, when one looks up a word in the dictionary
case, it becomes clear that is, in some strange
way that defies traditional Western logic (which, Der- what is found is not a fixed signified, but rather more
rida claims,is based upon a'metaphysicsof presence'), signifiers,which must be looked up in turn. Despite this
part and parcel of the meaning of its supposed oppo- similarityin viewpoint, Derrida has criticizedLacanfor
site, truth. Paradoxically,in other words, truth cannot the impermissibleoriginary grounding that he seems
be thought, and thus cannot even exist, without error. to offer in his founding triad of the lmaginary the
Erroristhus both there and notthere'within'truth, both Symbolic, and the Real.(For deconstructionists,there
present and absent,thus casting doubt upon the prin- can be no fixed ground or origin, since such concepts,
ciple of non-contradiction (the very basis of Western once again, are symptoms of the metaphysicsof pre-
logic),that a thing cannot be A and not-A at the same sence.)For the same reason,deconstructivetheorists
time. have also tended to agree with the feminist critique of
It can easilybe seen that Western thought has,srnce Lacanianfilm theory concerning its privileging of the
the beginning, relied upon a set of self-identicalcon- p h a l l u sa s t h e p r i m a r ys i g n i f i e rf r o m w h i c h a l l m e a n i n g
cepts that align themselvesas binary oppositions,such arises.
as truth-error, good-evil, spirit-body, nature-culture, ln his early work, especially in Of Grammatology
man-woman, and so on. In each case, one term is (1967), Derrida concentrates on deconstructing the
favoured or seen as primary or original; the second symptomatic binary opposition that privileges,
term is regarded as a (later) perversion of the firsr, or throughout the historyof Western philosophy,speech
in some way inferiorto it. The principalwork of decon- over writing. In this book, Derridashowsthat asfar back
 POST-STRUCTURALISM
ANDDECONSTRUCTION

Platoand as recentlyas Saussureand Claude L6vi- saidthatthe imageisthusfundamentally'incoherent,,

speech has been associated with the livinq sinceanyattemptto makeit coherewill alwaysneces-
and the speaker's'true' meaning, guaranteed sitatea more or lessviolentepistemological effortof
herpresence,whereas writing has been seen as repression of 'secondary' meanings.
misleading,alwaysthe sign of an absence.This Thinkingof film as a kind of writing also compre-
largely
the resultof the curiousbioloqicalfact that mentsthe anti-realist biasof recentfilm theory,for it
we speak(and listen),meaning seems to be an worksagainstthe ideathatfilm caneverbe a 'copy,of
blematic,'natural' event with no intermediary. its referent.Andr6 Bazin and other realisttheorrsts
Signifier
and signifiedmerge effortlessly,whereasrn insistedupon the intrinsicrelationshipor similarity
writing
theirrelationshiop isalwaysmoreproblematic. betweenrealityand itsfilmicrepresentation, but from
NaiVelywe seemto feel that if we could onlv have a a deconstructiveperspective.once it is admitted that
writerspeakingto usin person,in otherwords,present, realityand its representationmust alwaysbe different
wewould knowexactlywhatshe meant.Derridashows fromeachother(aswellassimilar), thendifferencenas
inthisbookthatthe supposedimmediacyand direct- justasmucha claimassimilarity to beingthe 'essential,
ness of speechis a fiction,and that all the neqative relationbetweenthe two.
features associated with writing are characteris-ticof Moregenerally, deconstructive thinkingcan leadus
peechas well. In a familiarmove, he reversesthe awayfrom a conventional ideaof cinema,and its rera-
hierarchy,puttingwritingbeforespeech,and then dis- tion to reality,asan analogical one basedon similarity,
placesthe hierarchyaltogetherby rewritingthe term to an ideaof cinema,as Brunetteand Wills(1989:88)
'writing', 'Writing',
as with an expanded, purposely have put it, as 'an anagramof the real',a place of
ontradictory meaningthat encompasses both writing writingfilled with non-naturalconventions that allow
(intheconventional sense)and speech.As such,tne us to understandit as a representationof reality.
termjoinsa host of other key terms that Derridahas Broadlyspeaking,cinema itself is, as a medium,
developed over the last thirty years,includingtrace, clearly produced through negation, contradiction,
hinge, hymen,supplement.and diff6rance(he purpo- and absence.lt dependsfor its effect on the absence
selymisspells this Frenchword to highlightits differ- of what it represents, whichis alsoparadoxically pre-
ence fromitself,a differencethat is reflectedin writing sentat the sametime in the form of a 'trace'(whichin
butnotin speech)-termswhich attempt to name an the originalFrenchalsomeans'footprint', thuscarryrng
impossible'space', to expresspresenceand absence the simultaneous senseof absenceand presence).
simultaneously. without, however,becominq a new Similarly,the photographic processisbasedon a nega-
ground.In a (to some extent quixotic) attempt to tion whichis reversedin a positiveprint.And through
circumventthe metaphysics of presence, Derrida the application of the (nowpartiallydiscredited) notion
declaresthat these terms are neither 'words nor con- of the persistence of vision,we canunderstand thatwe
cepts'. literallycouldnot evenseethe cinematicimageunless
Thisnewlyexpandedsenseof Writingcan be easily it were, through the operationof the shutter,just as
appliedto film,since,afterall,the word cinematoqra- oftennotthere.(Onefilmtheoristhaspointedout that
phyclearlypoints to its 'written' nature. Like wrilen the screenis completelydark about halfthe time we
words,whosemeanings,accordingto Derrida,are arewatchinga film.)The screenitself,as a materialof
always 'disseminated'
in multiple directionsrather supportof the image,mustalsobe thereand not tnere
franbeingstrictlylinear,the imagecan neverbe con- atthesametime,for if we canactuallyseeit,we cansee
strained to a singlesetof meanings.ln fact,meanings nothingelse.
thatarelocated/constructed will inevitablvbe contra- Deconstruction alsocallsinto questionthe 'natural,
dictory.
Norcanauthorialintentionality, alieadynotor- relationbetweenoriginaland copy (forexample,we
iouslyweakin film, be said to anchormeaning,for neverspeakof an'original'of a document,unlessthere
intention will alwaysbe divided,nevera unity.In fact, is alsoa 'copy' in question;thus,in a sense,the copy
filmitselfisfundamentally splitbetweena visualtrack can be saidto createthe original),and this hasa pro-
andan audio track,which actuallyoccupy different found effecton a mimeticor imitativetheoryof artistic
physical locationson the strip of celluloid,but which representation. lt isclear,forexample,thata documen-
areartificiallybroughttogetherto achievean effectof tary though it ostensibly'copies'therealityit focuses
wholeness and presence.In all thesesenses,it can oe upon,alsohelpsto individuate thataspectof reality,ro
C R I T I C AA
L PPROACHES

bring it specificallyto our attention,and thus to 'create' fact, it makesas much senseto base a film aestheticson
the cut (absence) as on the individual image (pre-
This is closely related to another idea that Derrida sence).
has explored at great length, the notion of iterability In any case,this idea of the frame is obviously para-
(repeatability).Here, he has pointed out that each m o u n t i n f i l m a s w e l l , a n d , t h o u g h f o c u s e di n a s o m e -
repetition of the 'same' must, by definition, also be what different manner, just as ambiguous. What is
different(otherwise,it could not be individuated).Simi- curious about this word in its cinematic usage is that
larly,each time something is quoted, it has a different it means two opposite things at the same time (and
meaning depending on its context, something that thus can be added to Derrida'slist of key words): it is
Derrida has shown is never fully specifiable.Here the 'outside' 'frame-
both the boundary (one speaksof the
idea of the 'graft', which is closely related to Rotand line'),and the entire inside of the image as well (God-
Barthes'snotion of intertextuality,is also important.All 'truth
ard said that cinema is twenty-four frames per
texts are seen as being made up of innumerablegrafts second').More widely, the film frame can also be seen
of other texts in ways that are never ultimately trace- as that set of understandingsof genre, or of the so-
a b l e . F o r e x a m p l e ,w h e n w e s e e a n a c t o r i n a f i l m , o u r 'real
called world', or of cinematic conventions,and so
responseis inevitablyconditioned by h is or her appear- on, that we bring to a film-in other words, that con-
ances in other films; yet in a conventional,logocentric text, ever changeable,that both allows and constrains
form of criticismsuch meanings would not be consid- meaning.
ered part of the film, properly speaking, and thus This frame, this image that is framed, can, further-
'imorooer'.
more, be seen both as heterogenous (think of how
This leads to another crucial binary distinction that many discrete elements within it must be repressed
deconstruction challenges, that between the inside 'interpret'
in orderto it) and graphic (again,in the sense
and the outside. During the heyday of formalist literary that it is written),as well as pictorial. Much of Derrida's
analysis,Marxistand Freudiancriticswere chastisedfor later work has been involved with exploring the pictor-
'importing'
discoursesthat were seen as 'extrinsic'into ial nature of writing (in the conventional sense)ano,
a poem or novel. In regard to film, we might ask, for conversely,the graphic nature of the image, and these
example, whether the opening or closing credits are investigationsare directly applicable to a study of how
'in'the
f i l m ,t h u s a p a r t o f i t , o r ' o u t s i d e ' t h ef i l m p r o p e r , meaning is created in film. (SeeespeciallyThe Truthin
external to it. (ls a book's preface-usually written P a i n t i n ga n d U l m e r 1 9 8 5 , 1 9 8 9 ) .
last-part of the book proper or not?) Similarly,one The most important work done thus far in relating
wonders whether Alfred Hitchcock'sfamous cameo Derrida and film has been that undertaken by the
a p p e a r a n c e si n h i s f i l m s m e a n t h a t h e i s a c h a r a c t e ri n French theoretician Marie-Claire Ropars-Wui Ileumier,
them. Our inability to answer these questions points notably in her book Le Textedivis6 (1981).There, inter
preciselyto a problem in the logic of inside-outside a/ia,she brilliantlycompares Derrida'sdiscussionof the
b i n a r yt h i n k i n g i t s e l f . hybrid form of the hieroglyph (which is made up o{
The larger question here, one that is explored at phonetic, that is, graphic marksthat representspeech,
great length in Derrida's book fhe Truth in Painting as well as pictorial elements) with Eisenstein'sdevel-
(1978),isthe question of the frame. In Derrida'sfamous opment of montage theory. In both, meaning is seen as
formulation in that book, 'there is framing, but the a complicated operation that comes about partially
frame does not exist' (1978/1987 81; translationmod- through representation,but also through the very dis-
ified).This meansthat the location of the frame (both a ruption of the image itself in the form of juxtaposrtron.
physical frame, say, of a painting, or an interpretive (For a provocativeapplication of Derrida to television,
frame or context, or any sort of boundary marker)can see Dienst 1994.)
never be preciselydetermined, though its effects can Perhaps the most far-reaching consequence of a
b e s e e n .I n f i l m ,t h e c u t i s s i m i l a r l ya f u n c t i o nw i t h c l e a r deconstructive perspective on film concerns the act
effects,but no physicalexistence.Becauseit is a kind of of interpretation. Ultimately, deconstruction shows
relational absence rather than an explicitly present that it is, strictly speaking, impossible to specify what
entity, it too servesto call into question the metaphy- 'valid'
a interpretation would look like. (See Conley
sics of presence. With this ambiguity in mind, some 1991 for the most adventurousapplication of th is prin-
deconstructivefilm theorists have suggested that, rn ciple to the interpretation of individual films.) In this

E
 POST-STRUCTURALISM
AND DECONSTRUCTION

sense, it might be said that deconstruction,s mosr economic or social 'base'. As such, its influence will
importantwork hasbeenthe investigation of the insti- continue to be powerful, if subterranean.
tutionsthatboth allowand restrictreading,or mean-
ing-making of anysort.lt isimportantto note.however,
thatDerrida himselfis no propounderof an ,anything
goes'theory of reading,despitethe impression given BIBLIOGRAPHY
byhisdetractors and some of his more enthusiastrc
followers.Instead,he has alwaysinsistedupon the *Brunette, Peter, and David Wills (1989),
Screen/play:
double natureof hiswork:to pushbeyondthe bounos Derridaand Film Theory(Princeton:PrincetonUniversity
ofconventional logic, all the while remainingrigor- Press).
ouslylogical. Conley, Tom (1991),Film Hieroglyphs:Rupturesin Ciassi-
cal Cinema(Minneapolis: Universityof Minnesotapress).
Derrida, Jacques (1967/1976),Of Grammatology, trans.
It might be said that deconstruction,s Gayatri Spivak (Baltimore:Johns Hopkins University
Press).
mostimportant work has been the - (1978/1987),The Truth in Painting,trans. Geoff Ben-
investigationof the institutionsthat ningtonand lan McLeod(Chicago:University of Chicago
both allow and restrict reading, or Press).
Dienst, Richard(1994),Still Lifein RealTime: Theory after
meaning-making of any sort. Television(Durham,NC: Duke Universitypress).
Ropars-Wuilleumier, Marie-Claire(1981),Le Textedivis|
(Paris:PressesUniversitaires
de France).
Asfilmstudiesevolvesmore fully into culturalstudies,
Ulmer, Gregory (1985), Applied Grammatology (Balti-
deconstructionwill provide a corrective by revealingthe more:Johns HopkinsUniversityPress).
ultimately
metaphoric nature of much of the termino- -(1989), Teletheory: Grammatology in the Age of
logythatsurroundsthe relating of cultural artefactsto an Vrdeo(London:Routledqe).
 F i l ma n d
postmodernism
J o h nHi l l

The conceptof 'postmodernism' is a notoriouslypro- cal assumptionsof earliertheory(asin the theory of 'the
blematicone, giventhe diverseways(in both acade- subject' which has underpinned much psychoanalytic
mia and populardiscourse) in whichit hasbeen useo. and feminist film theory). Moreover, the interest in
Thetermitselfhasbeenappliedto an almostbewilder- postmodernism as an object of study has often been
inglywiderangeof economic,social,andculturalphe- directed towards cultural shifts which go beyond a
nomena,with the resultthat manycommentators on narrow attention to film, and if film has commonly
postmodernismare not necessarily referringto, or been linked with the experience of moderniry then it
focusingupon,the samethings.Moreover, the epithet is generallytelevision,ratherthan film, which is seen to
'postmodern'
is used not only to identifyparticular embody the postmodern.
socio-culturaland aestheticfeaturesof contemporary In order to locate some of the ways in which ideas
life, but alsoto designatenew forms of theorization about the postmodern have influenced the study of
whichare held to be appropriateto makingsenseof film, it is therefore helpful to distinguish three main
the new'postmodern'condition.5o, while postmod- strandsof thinking about postmodernism. Hence, the
erntheoryand the analysis of postmodernism maygo term can be seen to have been used in philosoohical
handin hand,it isnot necessary thattheydo so.Fredric debates concerned with the scope and groundings of
Jameson,for example,is one of the most influential knowledge; in socio-cultural debates concerned to
analystsof postmodernism; but he himselfis nor a assessthe significanceof economic and social shifts
postmoderntheorist,given his commitmentto con- in contemporary life; and in aesthetic debates con-
ventionalforms of social analysisand explanation cerned with the changing characterof artisticpractices
(especially Maxism). 'decline'
in the wake of the of modernism. These three
It is alsofairto saythat in relationto film, postmod- sets of debates are not, of course, unconnected, but
ernismhasnot ledto a theoretical approachor bodyof they are sufficiently distinct to make it useful to con-
criticalwritings in the way that other theoretical sider them separately.
perspectives,such as psychoanalysis of feminism,
may be seento have.Thisis becauseit is in the char-
acter of postmodernism to be suspiciousof unified Philosophical debates
theoreticalframeworksand, if postmodern ideas
havehad an influenceon film study,it hasoften been In philosophy,
debatesabout postmodernism may be
throughunsettlingthe knowledgeclaimsor ontologi- seen to demonstratea growing suspiciontowards
 F I L MA N DP O S T M O D E R N I S M

'universal' 'realities'
or all-embracing systems of thought and cultural and identities as well as the imoos-
explanation. An influentialsource, in this respect, has sibility of any unified, or comprehensive, account of
beenJean-FrangoisLyotard's The Postmodern Condi- them. As such, postmodernism is often seen as, and
'the
tion(1979).For Lyotard postmodern condition' criticized for, embracing both a relativism which
maybe defined in terms of a growing 'incredulity' accepts the impossibilityof adjudicating amongst dif-
towards what he calls'les grands r6cits' or 'metanarra- ferent accountsof, or knowledge claims about, reality
tives'ofWesternthought (1979/1984, p. xxiv). In this 'idealism' 'conventionalism'
and an or which acceots
respect,the'modern'which the'postmodern' isseento 'reality'
the impossibility of gaining access to other
besuperseding is notthe artisticmodernism of the late 'discourses'through 'realities'
than via the which are
nineteenth and early twentieth century but the 'mod- constructed.Moreover, it has also been a tendency of
ern'system of thought associatedwith the Enlighten- many postmodern argumentsapparentlyto belie their
ment(andphilosopherssuch as Voltaire, Locke, and 'universalize'
own precepts and their claims concern-
Hume)and its association with a project of 'scientific' ing the
'postmodern
condition' or erect preciselythe
explanation and masteryof the naturaland socialworld. 'grand 'modernity'to
narratives'of the transitionfrom
For Lyotard,the idea of progress characteristic of 'postmodernity'
which it is otherwise argued are no
Enlightenment thought is no longer tenable, and he longer possible. As Gregor Mclennan suggests, 'the
argues that it is now impossible to believe in either 'an
progressivedecline of the grand narratives'is itself
theprogressive advancement of thought-the eman- alternativegrand narrative'(1989: 17 7). ln th is respect,
cipationof reason-or the social and political emanct- it may be helpful to distinguishthe scepticismtowards
pationtowhich itwasonce believed such reasonmight grand theory which is a feature of postmodern philo-
'What
contribute. kind of thought', Lyotardasks,'is able sophy from the more substantivesociologicaland cul-
tosublateAuschwitz in a general . . . processtowardsa tural claims which have been made concerning the
universalemancipation?' (19 86: 6). character of postmodernity and postmodern culture,
Lyotard'swork, in this respect, may be linked to even though these are often interlinked(asin Lyotard's
more general strains of post-structuralist thinking work, which is both an investigationinto the status of
andto sharewith them a number of features. In gen- knowledge in post-industrial society and a polemic
eralterms,these may be seen to include a suspicion againsttotalizing theory).
of totalizingtheories and explanationswhich attempt
to offercomprehensiveand a Il-embracingaccountsof
socialand cultural phenomena; an anti-foundational- Socio-culturaldebates
ismthatrejectsclaimsto'absolute' or'universal'foun-
dations for knowledge; a rejection of the 'false Thus, in sociological debates, postmodernism has
universalism' of ethnocentric or Eurocentric systems been used to identify the emergence of what is often
ofthought;and an anti-essentialismthat rejects both believed to be a new economic and socialorder.This is
'depth' 'oost-industrialism'
epistemologieswhich seek to lay bare'h idden' sometimes linked to the idea of
or'essential' realitiesaswell as ideasof a fixed notion of (Rose1991) and designated as either 'postmodernity'
identityor human 'essence'.In this last respect, a cri- (Lyon 1994) or'postmodernization' (Crook et al. 1992).
tiqueof Enlightenmentreasonis likenedto a critiqueof 'Postmodernism' (or 'postmodernity')
is, in this
theunifiedself which was assumedto underpin it and respect,seen to be following a period of 'modernity'.
provideit with its foundations.Thus Stuart Hall draws a However, this is a term which is itself disputed and
distinctionbetween'the Enlightenment subject', whose periodization is not alwaysagreed. Thus, while
whichis based upon 'a conception of the human per- 'modernity'
may be seen to have emerged with the
sonasa fullycentred, unified individual,endowed with 'tradition' (and
break with feudalism) represented by
the capacitiesof reason, consciousnessand action', the advent of caoitalismin the fifteenth and sixteenth
and'thepostmodern subject',which is conceptualized centuries, it is more commonly identified with the
'no
ashaving fixed, essential or permanent identity' economic and social changes characteristicof the
'different
butratheras assuming identities at different nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, and espe-
times' (Hall 1992: 277). cially those ushered in by industrialization,urbanrza-
Postmoderntheory, in this regard, lays stressson the tion, and the emergence of mass social movements.
heterogeneity and fragmented characterof socialand 'post-
Accordingly,the main features of the emerging

E
C R I T I C AA
L PPROACHES

modern'socialorderare usuallyidentified in terms of a key, reality for the modern citizen. The controversial
transitionfrom an old industrialorder to a new 'oost- French theorist Jean Baudrillard is particularly asso-
industrial' one which is, in turn, characterized by a ciated with this position.
number of features: a decline in manufacturing ano In common with post-industriaI theorists,Baudrillard
the increased impoftance of service industries (be identifiesa transitionfrom an old industrialorder based
they businessand financial or heritage and tourism); upon labour and the production of goods to a new
the replacement of old models of standardized, or social reproductive order based upon communication
'Fordist',
massproduction by new flexible and geogra- and the circulation of signs (Bauddllard 1975). How-
phically mobile forms of 'post-Fordist' production ever, for Baudrillard, this change also provides the
involving batch production and the targeting of spe- basis of a new cultural condition. lt is not simply that
cific consumer groups, or market segments; a decline we live in a world increasinglydominated by images
in the traditionalworkingclassand the growth of white- and signs, but that these have become our primary
collarworkersand a 'serviceclass'(whoseattitudesand reality.We now live, he suggests,in a world of simula-
tastes, some accounts claim, postmodernist culture tions,or hyperreality,which has no realitybeyond itseli.
expresses);and therefore a diminution of the signifi- l n d e e d ,f o r B a u d r i l l a r d( 1 9 8 3 : 4 1 ) ,i t i s ' n o w i m p o s s i b l e
cance of classidentitiesand divisionsand an increaseo to isolatethe processof the real,orto prove the real':all
importance of other forms of social identity such as that we have accessto are signs and simulations.This
those related to age, gender, sexual orientation, eth- provocative line of argument was pushed to extremes
nicity,and region. In this respect, the shift away from w h e n , i n 1 9 9 1 , B a u d r i l l a r de x a m i n e d t h e r e p r e s e n t a -
the politics of mass movements towards a 'politics of tion of the Gulf War as a 'virtual' event and decrareo
difference'may be seen to link with postmodern argu- 'the
that Gulf War did not take place'. Although it is
ments concerning the increasing contingency and possible to read this as an argument about the
fluidity of social identities in the contemporary era. changed character of contemporary warfare in the
Such shifts are also identified with the growing postmodern era, it also suggests some of the weak-
importance (and convergence)of the new computing nessesof a postmodern perspective that both displays
a n d c o m m u n i c a t i o n st e c h n o l o g i e st o t h e c h a n g i n g an indifferenceto the actuality of events beyond the
economic and socialorder. Media output and informa- 'simulacrum'
a n d , u n d e r t h e g u i s eo f r a d i c a l i s ms, i m p l y
tion servicesnot only provide a major'force of produc- joins a lengthy tradition of social commentary in attri-
'post-industrial'
tion' of the economy, but also buting an exaggerated power and effectivity to media
increasinglyexemplify'post-Fordist' economic prac- imagery.
tices (Lash and Urry 1994). Even more importantly, Although the Baudrillardianvision of a media world
the media and the new technologies are seen to be of simulationsis undoubtedly overstated,it does none
significantlyreshaping social experience and subjec- the lessdirect our attention to the omnipresencewithin
tivity. Two main themes can be identified. First, the contemporary culture of media signs and images and
speeding up of the circulation of information and their increasing detachment from exterior realities.
images through computer-linked systems and satel- However, it is television-given its continuous avail-
lites, for example, has been seen as responsible for ability and presence within contemporary culture-
an increasingcompression of time and space, a 'de- that is most commonly associatedwith the postmod-
territorialization'of culture and the construction of ern condition rather than film. Thus, for Kroker and
forms of identity which are no longer strongly identi- 'in
Cook it is television that is a very literal sense,the
fied with place (Harvey 1989; Meyrowitz 1985).These real world . . . of postmodern culture, society and
processesmay in turn be linked to arguments about economy' (1986/1988: 268). This is not, of course, to
'globalization'
a n d t h e m i x i n g , a n d p l u r a l i z a t i o n o, f say that argumentsabout film have not been informed
culturalperspectivesand influenceswhich the acceler- by postmodern ideas. However, they have tended to
ated flow of people, goods, services,images, ideas, be applied to individualfilms ratherthan, in the caseof
and information is presumed to permit (albeitthat this t e l e v i s i o nt,o t h e m e d i u m a sa w h o l e ( a l b e i t t h a t h i sh a s
is still characterizedby acute imbalancesof power). A then led to grossgeneralizationsabout the functioning
second theme emerging from the analysisof postmod- 'in
of television general').At this point, it is therefore
e r n i s m c o n c e r n sh o w t h e m e d i a , a n d m e d i a i m a g e s appropriate to look at the artistic context in which
and signs,are increasinglyidentified as a key,if not the debates about postmodern film have occurred.

E
 F I L MA N D P O S T M O D E R N I S M

Aesthetic
debates analogousto other arts.Andreas Huyssen(1986), how-
ever,suggeststhat the emergence of postmodern an,
lf postmodern philosophymay be linkedto a failing especially in the United States, may be linked to a
confidence in 'universal
reason'and ideasof progress, certain kind of failure, or 'exhaustion',of modernism
itisalsopossible to seecertainkindsof culturalprac- (or, more specifically,the version of modernism which
tice--designated as'postmodern'-emerging as a became institutionalizedin the United States in the
response to a growinglackof confidencein the value 1950s).Postmodernismin this regard may be seen as
or progressiveness of modernismin the arts and a response to what Russell Berman (1984-5: 41)
design.Muchof the earlydebateabout postmodern- describes as the 'obsolescenceof shock' and the cor-
ism waslinkedto a considerationof architecture,
and it responding loss of modernism'stransgressivepower.
isinrelationto architecture
that some of theseideas Due to its incorporation into the art market and its
emerge mostclearly. institutionalizationas 'high art', modern art, it is
Puttingit in general terms, modernism in architec- argued, has lost its capacityto challenge and provoke
fure(as,for example, in the work of Le Corbusier, the as well as its capacity to communicate to a public
Bauhaus group, Mies van der Rohe, and the Interna- beyond a small 6lite.
tionalStyle)has placed a particularemphasison func- For Huyssen,the origins of this challenge may be
tionand social utility. Modern architecture, in this found in pop art of the 1960s with its reaction against
respect, may be seen to have demanded a 'truth to the dominant aestheticof abstract expressionismand
challenging of conventionalnotions of art through the
function', involvinga rejection of ornament and dec-
incorporation of elements from popular culture. As
orationin favour of a laying bare of the materials
such, pop art may be seen to embody a number of
employed and clear display of their purpose. These
features which are now commonly associated with
architectural principles were also linked to 'modern'
postmodern cultural practice. These may, loosely, be
social objectivessuch as the provisionof mass housing
identified as eclecticism, an erosion of aestherrc
(even if they were not always implemented by politi-
b o u n d a r i e sa, n d a d e c l i n i n ge m p h a s i su p o n o r i g i n a l i t y .
ciansand planners with the appropriate degree of
Thus,just as postmodern philosophy and postmodern
financial investment)and seen, as in the Internationar
'universal' culture have been associated with pluralism, so the
Style,to be in application. For Charles
most commonly identified feature of postmodernism
Jencks, postmodernistarchitectureshould be seen as
has been its eclecticism-its drawing upon and mixing
a responseto the failure of this modernist project.
of different styles, genres, and artistic conventions,
Indeed, he associatesthe 'death' of modern architec-
including those of modernism. Postmodernism, in
turewith sucheventsas the collapseof the RonanPoint
this regard,isto be understood as a movement beyond
towerblock in 1969 and the blowing up of high-rrse
modernism which is none the lessable to make use of
blocks in St Louisin 1972. Such events, he argues,not
modernist techniques and conventions as one set of
onlysignalledthe failure of modern architecture as
'mass stylisticchoices amongst others. lt is in this sense that
housing', but also its failure to appeal to, or
Featherstone describes postmodernism as demon-
communicate with, its inhabitants (Jencks 1986: 19). strating'a stylisticpromiscuity'(1988: 203),while other
Thus, for Jencks,postmodernist architectureseeksto critics have placed an emphasis upon its strategiesof
reconnect with its occupants by rejecting the function- 'appropriation' 'hybridization'(e.9.
and Wollen 1981:
alismof modernism, making use of decoration and 1 6 8 ; H a s s a n1 9 8 6 : 5 0 5 ) .
ornamentation and mixing styles from different peri- A central component of this process has been a
odsand places (including the vernacular).As such, mixing of elements from both 'high' and 'low' culture
Jencks definespostmodernism in terms of the concept (whichmay in turn be seen as an example of 'de-differ-
'double 'the
of coding', involving combination of mod- entiation', or the breaking down of boundaries,which
erntechniqueswith something else (usuallytraditional has been identified as a feature of postmodernism
building) in orderto communicatewith the public and a more generally).As Jameson has argued, artists of
concerned minority,usuallyother architects'(14). 'postmodern'
the period have displayed a fascination
Jencksacknowledges that while 'double coding with popularforms of culture such as advertising,the B
maybe a feature of postmodern culture more gener- movie, sciencefiction, and crime-writing.He suggests,
'failure'
ally,the of modern architectureis not directlv however,that postmodern art does not simply 'quote'
CRlTICALAPPROACHES

popular culture in the way that modernist art once did, dist' mass production (the studio system)to the more
'flexible'
but that this quotation is incorporated into the works to forms of independent production (the 'New
the pointwhere olderdistinctions between'modernist Hollywood' and after) characteristicof 'postmodern'
and mass culture' no longer seem to apply (Jameson economies, while the incorporation of Hollywood
1 9 8 8 : 1 1 3 ) . l t i s w o r t h n o t i n g , a g a i n ,t h a t t h e ' b r e a k ' i nto media con glomerateswith multiple entertainment
between modernism and postmodernism is in this interestshas been seen to exemplify a 'postmodern'
sense relativerather than absolute.Thus, as a number blurring of boundariesbetween (or'de-differentiation'
of commentators have noted, many of the features of) industrial practices, technologies, and cultural
associated with postmodernism (such as the appro- forms (Storper and Christopherson 1987; Tasker
priation and juxtaposition of diverse materials)were 1996).Second, films have, in variousways, been seen
also a characteristicof modernism even if they did to exemplify postmodern themes orto offer'images of
not possessquite the same significancefor the work postmodern society' (Harvey 1989: 308-23; Denzin
a s a w h o l e ( e . 9 . C a l l i n i c o s1 9 8 9 : 1 2 - 1 6 ; W o l { f 1 9 9 0 : '1
991). Thus, the dystopian character of the contem-
e8-9). porary science fiction film might be seen to be con-
Finally,the borrowing of stylesand techniques char- 'postmodern'
nected with a loss of faith in the idea of
acteristicof postmodern art may be linked to a declin- progress or the changing film representationsof men
ing premium upon originalityand the personal imprint with a breakdown of confidence in the 'grand narra-
o f t h e ' a u t h o r '( w h o ,i n p a r a l l e w
l iththe'Enlightenment tives'surrounding masculinity and patriarchaI authority
subject', is seen to have undergone something of a ( K u h n 1 9 9 0 ; M o d l e s k i 1 9 9 1 ) .F i n a l l yf,i l m s h a v e b e e n
'death').
Thus, for Dick Hebdige, the postmodern use seen to display the aestheticfeatures (suchas eclecti-
'parody,
of simulation, pastiche and allegory' may be cism and the collapseof traditional artistichierarchies)
'to
seen deny the primacy or originary power of the that are characteristicallyassociatedwith postmoder-
"author"',
who is no longer required to 'invent' but nist cultural practice. However, the identification and
'rework
simply the antecedent' or rearrange the assessmentof such aesthetic features has not been
'already-said' (Hebdige
1988: 191). However, the without its comolications.
opposition between modernist originality and post- This is partly to do with the diversityof films to which
modernist appropriation and replication is not as the label has been attached (including both main-
clear-cutas it is sometimesargued and, even in popular stream Hollywood films as well as 'independent' or
'author' 'experimental'
culture, the has remained curiously resilient. film and video) and partly to do with
T h u s , w h i l e a f i l m l i k e B l u e V e l v e t ( U S A 1 9 8 6 )c l e a n y the difficulty of clearly differentiating a 'postmodern'
exemplifies such postmodern features as eclecticism, filmmaking practice in relation to an earlier 'modern'
the mixing of avant-garde and popular conventions, one (especiallyin the case of Hollywood). These pro-
and an ironic play with surfacesignifiers,it hasstill been blems have been furthercompounded bythe differing
very much in terms of the presumed 'author', David interests that have conventionally underpinned the
Lynch,that the film has been put into circulation,dis- concern to identify postmodernist film. On the one
cussed,and interpreted. hand, the idea of postmodernism has been used to
carry on a tradition of ideological criticism which has
sought to identify the social conservatismof the aes-
thetic conventionsemployed by postmodern cinema.
Postmodernism
and film On the other, it has been used to discussfilms which
may be seen to continue the 'oppositional' or 'trans-
However,while individualfilmssuch as Blue Velvetand gressive'traditionof 'political modernism' butthrough
Blade Runner(RidleyScott, 1982) have figured promi- a deployment of what is regarded as more culturally
nently in debates about postmodernism and film. the appropriate (i.e. postmodern) means. In this respect,
identificationof what constitutespostmodern cinema discussionof postmodern cinema may be seen to fol-
has not been straightfon,rard.Three main kinds of con- low in the wake of earlierdistinctionsbetween a 'reac-
cern have been in evidence. First,the organizationof tionary postmodernism' and a 'postmodernism of
the film industry itself has often been taken to exem- resistance'(Foster 1983: p. xii) or between a socially
plify'postmodern'features. Thus, it has been argued conservative'affirmative postmodernism' and an
that Hollywood has undergone a transition from 'For- 'alternative postmodernism
in which resistance,cri-
 F I L MA N D P O S T M O D E R N I S M

tiqueandnegation of the status quo were redefined in be plausibly identified as 'postmodern', given their
non-modernist and non-avantgardist terms' (Huyssen self-consciousnessabout film history and film tech-
1984:16). nique, extensive use of reference and quotation, and
Thesetensionscan be seen at work in the ways in 'high'and 'low'art
mixing of conventions(suchas those
whichHollywoodfilms since the 'l 970s have been of the European
'art'
film and the Hollywood genre
addressed. Since the emergence of the New Holly- film). Similarly,although there has been an undoubted
woodin the late 1960s it has been common to note rn return to the 'classical'conventions of narrative and
Holly,vood films an increasingstylisticself-conscious- characterin many post-New Hollywood films, this has
ness, use of references to film history, and quotation also been accompanied by a continued (and, indeeo,
fromotherstyles (e.g.Carroll 1982).The significanceo{ growing) use of quotation and mixing of genre ete-
frisdevelopmentis, however, contested. For Fredric ments.
Jameson, in his ground-breaking essay 'Postmodern- Fredric Jameson'sdistinction between parody and
ism;or,TheCulturalLogic of Late Capitalism'(1984), it pastiche may be helpful in this regard. Although both
isclearlytobe read negatively. Jameson defines post- parody and pastiche are conventionally associated
modern culturein terms of a'depthlessness'represen- with postmodernism, Jameson argues that, within
'a
btiveof new cultureof the image orthe simulacrum'; postmodern culture, it is pastiche which is dominant.
a newkindof spatializedtemporality and consequent ForJameson,while parody involvesa senseof criticism
'weakening
of historicity';and the creation of a 'new or mockery of the text or texts which are being paro-
typeof emotionalground tone' which he describesas died, pastichesimply consistsof 'blank parody': a'neu-
'awaning
of affect' (1984: 58-61). In seeking to sub- tral mimicry without parodyt ulterior motives' (1984:
stantiate thesepoi nts, J a meson poi nts to the' n osta Ig ia 64-5). Although it is not an unproblematic distinction,
film'ofthe 1970s(suchasChinatown (USA. 1974)and it does have some heuristic value in discriminating
EodyHeat(USA,1981)).He argues that, as a result of between the films of the New Hollywood and after.
fieiruseof pasticheand 'intertextual' reference,sucn Thus, while a New Hollywood film such as Robert Alt-
filmsmay be seen to exemplify a characteristically man's lhe Long Goodbye (1973)quotes from film his-
postmodern loss of historical depth. Such films, he tory and reworks genre conventions with obvious
claims, are unable to re-createa 'real' past but only a parodic intent-to debunk the myth of the private
simulation of the past based upon pre-existing repre- eye and the valueshe represents-the use of film quo-
sentations and styles (67). tations and referencesin a 1980s 'event' film such as
In this respect,Jameson! analysislinks with other The Untouchables (Brian De Palma, 1987) is largely
critiques of recent Hollywood cinema for both its'emp- characterized by the use of pastiche (as in the clever,
tiness'and ideologicalconservatism.Thus, it has been but politically and emotionally'blank', reconstructton
common to see the formal invention and social ques- of the Odessa steps sequence from the revolutionary
tioningof the New Hollywood films of the late 1960s Russianfilm Battleship Potemkin, 1925). As such, tne
and1970sas giving way to a more conventional and film's use of pastiche offers less a critique of the male
conservative Hollywood cinema from the mid-l970s hero (as the Long Goodbye does)than an 'alibi' for the
onwards, especiallyin the wake of the successof Star film's ideological conservatismby inoculating the film
Wars(USA, 1977)(e.9.Ryanand Kellner 1988).This has against being read too straight (in much the same way
inturnbeen associatedwith a decline in what Kolrer as the more recent lndependence Day (1996) also
hasreferredto as 'the modernist project' of New Holly- invests its conservativemilitarism with a measure of
woodfilmmaking and its replacement by the 'post- ton gue-in-cheekknowingness).
modernAmerican film' which 'has done its best ro What this suggests is that the use of 'postmodern'
erasethe traces of sixties and seventies exoeriment- conventionsin Hollywood cannot simply be read offas
ation'(Kolker1988: pp. x-xi). In this respect, Kolker ideologicallyuniform (or.indeed, that Hollywood films
maybe seen to link postmodernism with a kind of are all usefully labelled as 'postmodern' given the
anti-modernism(or'reactionary postmodernism') degree of aestheticdiversitywhich characterizescon-
involving a return to the 'classical'conventions or 'a temporary Hollywood filmmaking). Thus, for Linda
linearillusioniststyle' (p. xi). However, it is not entirely H u t c h e o n ,J a m e s o n t ' b l a n k e tc o n d e m n a t i o no f H o l l y -
clearwhether the distinction he draws is so clear-cut. wood' is overstated and fails to take into account the
For,clearly,the New Hollywood films may themselves 'oppositional
and contestatory'potential of postmod-
CRITICAL APPROACHES

Hollywoodpostmodernism-
David Lynch's Blue Velvet
(1986)

ernism which may be found in certain Hollywood films have been most firmly located. Despite its extensive
( H u t c h e o n1 9 8 9 : 1 1 4 ) .U n l i k eJ a m e s o n ,s h e h o l d s o u t 'allusion',
use of Noel Carroll(1982)argues againstthe
the possibilityof Hollywood films making use of irony application of the 'postmodern' label to Hollywood
and parody both to address history (as in Woody filmmaking and, in a subsequentessay,identifies'post-
Allen's Zelig, 1983) and to 'subvert' Hollywood from modern' film with the avant-garde, and specifically
within by their challenge to audience expectations with various reactions against structural filmmaking,
concerning narrative and visual representation(even 'deconstructionism,
such as the new talkie, punk film
in such a 'light' film as De Palma's Phantom of the the new psychodrama,and the new symbolism' ('l985:
Paradise, 1974). Nevertheless, Hutcheon atso 103). In this 'alternative' tradition of filmmaking, the
acknowledgesthat postmodernistfilms are not always reworking of old materials and representations by
'challenging
in mode', that they are ofren likely to be postmodernism is interpreted not simply as a kind of
'compromised',
and that, as a result of their reliance surfaceplay (or'depthlessness'),but as part of a critical
upon irony. they may also be 'ideologically ambiva- project to
'deconstruct'
and subvert old meanings as
lent or contradictory' (1989: 107). Hence, most of her well as'construct' new ones through the repositionrng
examples are actually films which are outside the of artistic and cultural discourses.Thus, Laura Kipnis
mainstreamof Hollywood production (Zelig, The Pur- explainspostmodernism in terms of a cultural practice
ple Rose of Cairo, (1985), The French Lieutenant's ' r e - f u n c t i o n i n g('1 9 8 6 :
of 3 4 ) ,w h i l e J i m C o l l i n sa r g u e s
Woman (1981) or not Hollywood films at all (Suzanne it involvesthe use of 'juxtaposition'as a mode of inter-
Osten's The Mozart Brothers, Sweden, 1986), Maximi- r o g a t i o n ' ( 19 8 9 : 1 3 8 ) .T h u s , f o r C o l l i n s ,t h e b r i n g i n g
lian Schell'sMarlene (West Germany, 1983),and Peter together of different discursivemodes in a film such as
Greenaway's A Zed and Two Noughts (UK./Nether- Hans-Jurgen Syberberg's Parsifal(1984) consists of
lands, 1985)). Indeed, more generally it is typical of more than just pastiche, or the aimless plundering of
writing concerned to identify a 'critical'strainof post- past styles,but both a questioning of earliertraditions
modernism within Hollywood that it focuses on films of representationand 'a way of making sense of life in
which tend to be unusual in Hollywood's terms (e.g. decentered cultures'(1989: 140).
Bladerunner,Blue Velvet, Thelma and Louise(.l991)) ln this respect, the critical engagement with prior
rather than ones which can be seen as typical. representationshas been seen as especially attrac-
Accordingly,it has often been outside of Hollywood tive to filmmakers who wish to challenge the tradi-
'adversarial'
that the qualities of postmodern cinema tional ways in which parlicular social groups or

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 F I L MA N DP O S T M O D E R N I S M

bthers'(such as blacks,indigenous peoples, women, ual orientation, and diasporic identity, and embrace
andgays)have been represented and to do justice to what they call'anthropophagic, parodic-carnival-
$e complexitiesof identity in the postmodern era. esque, and media-jujitsu strategies' (Shohat and
Thus, for Janet Wolff, the 'promise of postmodern- S t a m 1 9 9 4 : 1 0 ) . I n a l l o f t h e s e c a s e s ,f i l m m a k e r si n
ism'forfeminism is that, by employing the tactics of the Third World are seen to make use of First World
'pastiche,
irony,quotation, and juxtaposition', femin- techniques and conventions but for politically sub-
istcultural practice may engage directly with 'current versive ends. Thus, it is argued that, 'in their respect
images, forms,and ideas, subverting their intent and for difference and plurality, and in their self-con-
(re)appropriating their meanings' (1990: 88). Simi- sciousness about their own status as simulacra,
larly,Kobena Mercer identifies the work of black and as texts that engage with a contemporary,
Britishfilmmakers in the 1980s as constituting 'a mass-mediated sensibilitywithout losing their sense
kindof counter-practicethat contests and critiques of activism', the 'jujitsu' strategies of such films as
the predominant forms in which black subjects the Aboriginal Babakiueria(Don Featherstone,Aus-
becomesociallyvisible in different forms of cultural t r a l i a , 1 9 8 8 ) a n d t h e P h i l i p p i n eM a b a b a n g o n g B a n -
representation' (1988: 8). Despite the use of the term gungot ('Perfumed N ightmare', Kidlat Tahi m ik, 197 7)
'counter-practice'
by Mercer, such filmmaking should, exemplify Foster'snotion of a 'resistancepostmodern-
nevertheless, be differentiated from the Godardran ism' (1994: 332). However,the appropriatenessof the
'counter-cinema'(or 'political
modelof modernism') conceptualizationand periodization of postmodern-
andits apparent prescription of one 'correct' way of ism in relation to non-Western cultures remains con-
making p o l i t i c a lc i n e m a w h i c h i s u n i v e r s a l l ya p p l i c - troversial,as does its relationshipto the concept of the
able.Rather,Mercer argues that such films as leri- 'post-colonial',
the debate around which has now
tories(1984) and Handsworth Songs (1987)employ a effectively overshadowed earlier arguments about
postmodern strategyof 'appropriation'wh ich,through the postmodern.
a reworkingof pre-existing documentary footage,
foundsound,quotations, and the like, involves botn
're-articulation' 'given
a'dis-articulation' and a of sig- Gonclusion:postmodernism
and film
n i { y i negl e m e n t so f h e g e m o n i cr a c i a d l iscourse'(1988:
studies
1 1 ) l.n d o i n g s o , h e a l s o i n d i c a t e s h o w s u c h w o r k
represents 'syncretism' 'hybridity'
a or which, he Although the debates about postmodernism have led
argues, is appropriate to the 'diasporean
conditions' to variousdiscussionsabout the usefulnessof the term
o ft h eb l a c kc o m m u n i t i e si n B r i t a i n( 11 ) . in relationto film, it is lesseasy to identify a distinctive
Inthisrespect,Mercer'swork interlinkswith postmo- postmodern film theory. Postmodern ideas, in this
dernand post-colonialemphases on the 'anti-essenti- respect, have tended to inform other film theorres,
alist'natureof social and cultural identities and wnar rather than develop as a body of theory in their own
EllaShohatdescribes as 'the mutual imbrication o{ right. In this respect,postmodern polemicizingagainst
"central" "peripheral"
and cultures' in both the 'First' 'universalizing'
and
'totalizing'theory
has led to a cer-
and'Third Worlds' (1992/ 1996: 329).Although Shohat tain refocusingof intereston the local and the specific
warns againstany simple celebration of post-colonial which may be detected in the turn away from 'Screen
hybridity, which she argues assumesdiverse and ideo- 'l
theory' of the 970s towards historical research,cul-
logicalvaried forms, she also suggests how hybridity tural studies,and an interest in the social and cultural
canbe usedas 'a part of resistantcritique' (331).Thus, specificities of non-Euro-American cinemas (and a
sheandhercollaboratorRobertStam echo a numberof 'multicultural' 'dialogistic'approach
more and to their
postmodernthemes (such as the breakdown of con- study).One illustrationof this may be found in feminist
fidencein'grand narratives'andthe problemizationof film theory.
representation) in their discussion of how the 'post- Although feministfilm theory was cruciallyimportant
ThirdWorldist'fi lms has moved'beyond' the anti-coto- i n t h e m i d - 1 9 7 0 si n i n t r o d u c i n gq u e s t i o n so f g e n d e r
n i anl a t i o n a l i s m a n d p o l i t i c a lm o d e r n i s mo f f i l m s s u c h into the previously sex-blind 'apparatus theory' (see
asBattleof Algiers (Algeria/ltaly,1966) and Hourof the 'l
Creed, Part , Chapter 9), it itself became criticized
Furnaces (Argentina, 1968) to interrogate nationalist 'essentializing' 'female
for an conceptualizationof the
discourse from the perspectivesof class,gender, sex- 'the
spectator' which failed to do justice to multiple

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 CRITICALAPPROACHES

and fluid nature'of the female spectatorwho,may oe, *Featherstone,Mike (1988),'ln Pursuit
of the postmod-
and/or be constructed as, simultaneouslyfemale and ern:An lntroduction', Theory,Culture andSociety,S/2-3:
black and gay' (Kuhn 1994: 2O2). As a result, Kuhn 195-215.
argues that 'the future for feminist work on film would
*Foster, Hal ('1983/1 985),'Postmodernism: A Preface,, in
appear to lie in micronarrativesand microhistoriesof Foster (ed.), The Anti-Aesthetic:Essayson postmodern
the fragmented female spectator rather than in any Culture (Port Townshend:Bay Press);repr. as postmo-
dern Culture(London:Pluto).
totalizing metapsychology of the subject of the cine-
Fraser, Nancy, and Linda J. Nicholson (1988/1990\,
matic apparalus' (202). In this respect, the conver- 'Social
Criticism without Philosophy:An Encounter
gence of feminism and cultural studies around the
between Feminismand Postmodernism', in Nicholson
question of audienceshas alreadymoved in that direc- (ed.) Feminism/Postmodernism (London:Routledge).
tion. However. as Nancy Fraserand Linda Nichorson Hafl, Stuart (1992),'The Ouestion of Cultural ldentity,,in
(1988)have argued in their discussionof the relations Stuart Hall and Tony McGrew (eds.),Modernity and its
between feminism and postmodernism, while posr- Futu res(Cambridge:Polity Press).
modern feminism may sharea 'postmodernistincreou- Harvey, David (1989), The Condition of Postmoderni!
lity towards metanarratives', it 'must rematn (Oxford:Blackwell).
theoretical' and hold on to some 'large narratives,if Hassan,lhab (1986/1987),'Pluralismin Postmodernper-
'the spective',Criticallnquiry,12l3 (Spring),503-20; repr.in
social-criticalpower of feminism' is to be main-
The Postmodern Turn: Essaysin PostmodernTheoy and
tained. ln this respect, their recommendation that
Culture(Ohio: Ohio State UniversityPress).
postmodern feminist theory should be 'explicitly his-
Hebdige, Dick (1988),Hiding in the Light: On tmagesand
torical' and 'attuned to the culturalspecificityof differ- Things(London:Routledge).
ent societies and periods and to that of different Hutcheon, Linda (1989), The Politicsof postmodernrsm
groups within societies and periods' (1988/1990: 34) (London:Routledge).
would seem to be a good recipe for 'postmodern, Huyssen, Andreas (1984), 'Mapping the Postmodern,,
analysismore generally. New GermanCritique,33: 5-52; repr. in After the Great
Divide: Modernism, Mass Culture and postmoderntsm
( L o n d o nM
: acmillan).
*Jameson,Fredric (1984/1991),'Postmodernism;
BIBLIOGRAPHY or, The
CulturalLogicof LateCapitalism', New Left Review,146:
Baudrillard,Jean (1975), The Mirror of production(St 53-92; repr. in Postmodernism:Of the CulturalLogic of
Louis:TelosPress). Late Capitalism(London:Verso).
- (1983),Simulations, trans.PaulFoss,Paulpatton,and - (19Bg),'The Politicsof Theory:ldeologicalpositionsin
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