Film in the Pocket

It's Comin'

noreply@blogger.com (Taylor) — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 17:45:00 +0000

A quick update, todos. I've been super sick lately, and if not that than working, so my serious reading has been lagging because I can't seem to think too hard while I'm ill. I'll be back to posting in the next couple of days, but in the mean time, if you wanna watch The Girlfriend Experience (Steven Soderberg, 2009), it comes highly recommended and I'm quite sure it will provide the meat we might carve with theory and rabid speculation in the next post. Ciao!

Ivan Can't Always Be Terrible, or 'Signifiance'

noreply@blogger.com (Taylor) — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 18:38:00 +0000

Before moving on let's take a step back, because speaking about these issues in English is problematic. The primary reason being my mOther tongue does not make distinctions made in other languages that help to explicate this most basic division between the signifier and the material letter. The French word signifiance, for instance, proves so helpful we'll take a moment to acquaint ourselves. Signifiance (notice the missing 'c'?) is markedly difference from the English term 'significance' and connotes an interest not in the signified, the meaning of the signifier, but just the signifier, the act of signification itself. Thus, to read a text for its signifiance is to forget what the text intends to communicate in meaning and see the words or image for what they may provide materially, as Julia Kristeva would say, bodily.

If studying a written text this equates to a focus on the sound and rhythm of the written. Think of all the pleasure you might get out of Joyce or Shakespeare. Without knowing what their words mean all of the time a specific enjoyment (what the French would refer to as jouissance) is derived from the music of the language and the play of often obtuse meanings or incongruous juxtopositions that spark new metaphor. In a medium as polymorphic as cinema (I'm recasting the word I know) what one may focus on in regard to just the signifier is multiplied, not only do we have the rhythm of language in the dialogue spoken on screen, but the rhythms and textures of the image as provided for by everything that makes that specific motion-image: the mise-en-scene, lighting, shot choice, lens choice, camera movement, sound effects, music choice, and of course editing.

Barthes provides a reading of Eisenstein's Ivan the Terrible (1944) for its signifiance in Image/Music/Text and the product is wonderfully subjective. We can say this because to read for signifiance is to read against the signified, to unhinge the text from what it means and focus on the materiality of how it presents itself, the act of signification as opposed to the product, that is, the transmission of some predetermined meaning.

To take a turn we might say that any reading of signifiance, subjective by design, is merely a window into the Lacanian letter, a focus on the medium as opposed to the meaning, as opposed to the signified. The opposing end would be a reading of a text for its significance, or as Saussure would have it, the 0-1 transmissive qualities of the word (or in our case image). In this instance the work of metaphor is nearly foreclosed, the word "tree" only and forever refers to that leafy object and not life, not nature, not comfort or any other swirling connotation a tree as symbol might imply to the individual reader. Significance refers to the transmission of meaning, signifiance to the material of the signifier itself or, the letter.

With a definition of signifiance out of the way and these distinctions hopefully made just slightly clearer, tomorrow, or the next day, we'll leave our discussion of Lacanian signifiers for a moment and in stead turn exclusively to the materiality of the letter, and with the help of Julia Kristeva's work regarding ambivalent or poetic art and the body, push these ideas further. Until then . . .

The Signifier (v.) The Letter: Round I

noreply@blogger.com (Taylor) — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 17:18:00 +0000

It strikes that Lacan may offer a useful way of breaking down the work of the moving image in his splitting of the signifier from the letter. Gaining nuances during his later work on sexuation, Lacan would stress the difference between the concrete nature of the signifier and the malleable materiality of the letter as early on as his “Seminar on the Purloined Letter.” Lacan links the signifier with what he defines (perhaps problematically and having no bearing on biological sex) as a male psyche and its constant push and pull away and toward object (a), that remainder of the real that causes and satiates our desires. In converse fashion, the letter is connected to the female psyche (again problematic and non-biological), or that which finds itself split between the satisfaction offered by a desire for object (a) and the satisfaction offered by way of Freudian sublimation: painting, sculpture, religion, music, etc. (Which are all a giving up of oneself to the Other in a one sense or another. But let's not get ahead of ourselves).

In Lacan's logic of the signifier, the signifier is by definition binary and static. In order for a signifier to exist it must have an opposite by which it can be measured. If every moment were night and every color pitch black the word wouldn't exits. In order for black to have meaning there must be some conception as to white, and further, in order for both meanings to carry any weight they must remain fixed in their relation to one another. This fixity on its grandest scale allows for the interconnectedness of signifiers that provides for message transmission in language. I know a door knob is not a knocker because a knocker is not a door knob, but if those meanings were unmoored the latticework of meaning would be undone and the transmission of meaning in language would cease.

Lacan's conception of the letter is something different. As opposed to the signifier the letter may be manipulated; it is a material that comes from the Other like the signifier, but may be fashioned into whatever the subject desires. Standardized religion, language, musical convention, they all exist before us, but the glory of creation in these arenas remains our ability to make what we will out of those standards and conventions, alone and for ourselves. We are able to, and these instances are special, tailor the Other that existed before us to ourselves.

That is not to say words cannot be manipulated, made to mean what they don't or nothing at all. Poetry wouldn't exist if this were the case. This manipulation however is not a manipulation of the word as signifier, but a (re)articulation of the materiality of the letter. The letters, sounds, and even meanings bridge with other letters, sounds, and meanings to create something profoundly new, a metaphor never brought into existence before. In this action the separation between the signifier as that which connotes meaning and the letter as that which designates the material capacity of a medium is made perfectly clear as one passes up the potential transmissive quality, the fixity of the signifier, for the ambiguous capacity, for the sublime materiality of the letter.

So now we've got a base for the Signifier (v.) the Letter. How do we turn these conceptions to cinema? Tune in tomorrow to find out!!!

Open for Business

noreply@blogger.com (Taylor) — Tue, 10 Jun 2008 21:13:00 +0000

I’ve decided to make a go at this blog thing. I have no idea what I’ll be putting up here or how often, so I’m reluctant to tell you what to expect aside from what you can already glean from the site. That is, umm, I like movies, and this here spot will be dedicated to filling a little space about them. I may post some writing on new movies I’ve seen and the same with old ones that are inevitably new to me. There might be a few two-line rants, but I’ll try and keep those to a minimum. What I’m really looking forward to is working out a few larger more interesting ideas I never seem to write about. I’ve gotten things going with an example of the slightly more ambitious variety just mentioned as well as bit of a review. Keep in mind these are all arguments in process, so get back to me and say you think I’m WRONG! But you have to say why.

Later.

Cinema Should Suffer

noreply@blogger.com (Taylor) — Tue, 10 Jun 2008 20:44:00 +0000

I feel the stilt of the air, the damp limp of that soiled T-shirt, the dust at my feet, in my lungs, or some greasy, wrung hair. I notice these qualities in other movies, but in a select group I feel them, sensation takes. Why? Why does it seem that in some work one notices what’s on screen and what it’s meant to communicate – that character’s destitute, this character’s dirty, etc. – and in others one is made to perceive the existential reality of the physical object on screen at the peak of their physical ability? Why is the texture of Brando’s oily cascading hair in Last Tango in Paris (Bertolucci, 1972) more affectingly tactile than all the coiffure in Grease (Kleiser, 1978) combined? As admittedly personal as these questions are, so will my answers be. But take a moment and apply these ideas to those movies that make you feel, and I wonder if you won’t find the same relationships at work.

Truffaut, in 1970, already had a concept in mind for the kind of film about which I am speaking. In his eulogy for Jean Vigo, Truffaut wonders whether Vigo’s should be considered, in the best possible sense, a “cinema of smells.” He cites negative reviews dating from the twenties that refer to Vigo’s work as “verg[ing] on scatology” or “like water out of a bidet,” and quotes Bazin who spoke of Vigo’s “almost obscene taste for the flesh,” all the while making a case for this gross quality as being among Vigo’s primary and most enduring traits. These critics were not just taken aback by the vulgarity of the action, but I believe experiencing something of the heightened tactile reaction reference above. Just take a look at Zero de Conduite (Vigo, 1933). See how long it takes you to start edging toward discomfort once you realize this is not a “typical” boys’ school, once the disrepair and grime of the classroom and dormitory set in and the clammy hands of the fat school teacher lay on a young boy’s. (And at the same time yours as well?) Zero de Conduite is the first film I’ll cite in this short list, but I can’t lay claim to placing it in the category because Truffaut’s done it for me. It’s a film whose texture and feel, and the audience's relationship with both these components, is of primary importance; without it the film would be devoid.

When Roma città aperta (Rossellini, 1945) was released the critical community marveled at the “sexiness” and “carnality” of the characters, particularly Anglo-American critics at the time so unaccustomed to the “fiery” and “bawdy” Italians. This, however, is not only due to cross-cultural interpretation. Rossellini’s film is yet another that provides for the kind of heightened tactility found in Vigo’s work. The heat of the those summer days in Rome, we see it in Magnani’s inimitable body language, the weary and vain attempts at keeping her hair from her face. Think of her character, Pina’s, destruction by the Nazi’s, her scraping fall, and Marcello kicking and screaming to get to his mother.

On the same level of affect that I recall the emotion of these actions I also recall, to an acute extent, the tactility of that image. I remember Pina’s body hitting the ground and Marcello’s body thrashing because I had lived the same in those moments. The dust left by the Nazi transport is of emphasis in my mind’s eye. I want to cough right now.

But, to describe the effects of these films is easier than trying to get at what makes them different from any other film that involves bodily violence, grime, or a textural attention to detail. That is, the why of the questions I asked earlier. The answer comes down to suffering.

Vivian Sobchack was a founding influence on this piece (anyone familiar with her work will find that no surprise), but rather than quote her I figured I would paraphrase her ideas on the capability of evoking the passion in cinema, a suffering that breaks down the barriers between object and subject, not to the point of any sort of dissolution, but a perfect and disturbing equilibrium. In films such as Zero and Roma, the use of suffering in the narrative places the character on the level of matter, and in converse fashion, matter on the level of the character. The character is made an object in suffering. He or she is capable of taking damage, and absolutely incapable of inflicting it. As agency is removed man is degraded to the point of matter, and matter, in all its perceptibility, is forced to the fore. A narrative of true suffering, that which cannot be treated, forces the audience to recognize the passive quality of the one who suffers; the subject is further aligned with the matter of the inanimate, the inanimate made further a character/object to be perceived. In summation of this crazy idea, maybe I will quote: “…the passion of suffering brings subjective being into intimate contact with its brute materiality and links it, as well, to the passive, mute, and inanimate objects of the world.”

It’s this intimate contact that film can inspire with the use of suffering, a contact that heightens our perception of the objects in that world and augments our perception of character; we are made to perceive and feel rather than interpret. In the process the textural and tactile is made as important as action, if not more so. This connection, intimate contact with the material as sparked by suffering, is what had critics using the words scatology, carnality, and sexiness. It’s this link between the passion of life and the realities of our powerlessness as nothing more than matter that creates a cinema of smells.

In thinking about all this, before having nearly any idea what I was getting at and before I had thought to use the idea of suffering, I came up with a few titles that all gave me the same sensation, scraped up feelings of grossness and discomfort from my insides by way of their tactile effects. The list I came up with was started with the first two films, Zero and Roma, but I went on to add Los Olvidados (Buñuel, 1955), Last Tango in Paris, and Gummo (Korine, 2002). It was only after doing a little thinking that I realized that suffering was the cinematic pharmakos in question, the quality that made me feel each one of these movies, made me want to watch each one of them again, and made me shudder at the idea.

All five of these films rage in the tactile. If it’s not the meat Pedro’s mother offers him in a dream: “quivering like a dead octopus,” (thank you Bazin) it’s the sweat, wool overcoat, and aforementioned oily hair in Last Tango, or the acne ridden, unintelligent and soiled children in Gummo.

These five films are clear examples of a varied cinema of smells. They all invite the use of the senses in production design, make-up, etc., but the quality that each one of these pictures shares, that which sets them apart from millions of hours of narrative film and creates a cinema the piques the senses, is the suffering of their primary characters. Sometimes the suffering is explicit, as in Zero or Roma where characters are held under the sway of a particular party, teachers and Nazi’s respectively. Other times the suffering is implicit. We know that the children in Los Olvidados and Gummo suffer, but there is no dumb body to blame. In stead their suffering is more diffuse, and while perhaps not as oppressive it is utterly nihilistic. There is no hope of the world returning to normal in Gummo, the kids in Los Olvidados are done for.

Last Tango stands as an interesting example because the suffering is entirely emotional. Brando’s character is the martyr to a relationship he didn’t understand and will live within that passion for the rest of his life. For the duration of the film he is stuck, wanting to scream and cry like nearly every primary character in every film I’ve mentioned. This is his suffering, not wrought by any army or schoolmaster, but a controlling force just the same, irrevocable emotion.

True suffering, the passion, is found again in a case that forces a heightened response to texture, Jeanne’s huge fur coat, soft curled hair, or the cobblestones of Paris.

So the moral is this. Suffering places the subject on the same level as matter in more ways than one. By rights this brings matter to equal standing with the subject in the eyes of the audience. Should we not be surprised then that film in which suffering is the primary agent may take advantage of an excessive sense of materiality if they so choose? In asking this question I presuppose that suffering within plot, and so the viewer’s mind, begets a heightened sense of matter. You’re right. But that’s because that’s the conclusion I’ve come to. I have no other explanation for my feeling the rain so acutely in Gummo, the heat and hay in Los Olvidados.

And So Does Gertrude Stein

noreply@blogger.com (Taylor) — Tue, 27 May 2008 04:33:00 +0000

I have a movie in mind that's not for everyone. That said, if you have every wondered what it would be like to watch a biopic in which Woody Allen “freaks out” in ’68, as played by Peter Sellers, have I got the picture for you! Not only that, but you may learn a little bit about feminism in the process. I Love You, Alice B. Toklas! (Hy Averback, 1968) is the story of Harold, a straitlaced New York lawyer, an over-stressed and slightly neurotic man. On the verge of his wedding to Joyce, a “square” he likes but doesn’t necessarily love, he meets Nancy, a hippie to save his life who eventually turns him into a love spouting, hair growing, thirty-five-year-old bohemian.

To see Peter Sellers work a Long Island whine the way he does in the first quarter of the film can’t help but recall that silly orange hair, those pedophilic fingers of Woody Allen. Nevertheless, within a half-hour we’re given a plot turn that Allen wouldn’t dream of: feeding pot brownies to his ever-present mother. Everybody loves the brownies and it's the release they provide, along with the beautiful hippy-chick (that’s classic jargon, not sexism), that provides Sellers with the motivation to cast off the shackles of his former squaredom and embrace the love. A few weeks later he will dump his fiancé at the alter and take to the streets in his hippy-dippy, technicolor Lincoln. But I digress; and my main point here has more to do with Sellers than screaming the praises of ridiculous, fantastic 60’s pabulum.

So to the point. Peter Sellers may be the most gifted performer ever to flicker across my cortex. I hope to write something more in depth on him later, but the point can be made in something as utterly trivial as a film whose primary plot element is a tray of Alice B. Toklas brownies. Even if this isn’t your kind of film, take a moment and watch the scene in which Sellers leaves his fiancé at the alter. Watch him thinking while facing the priest and standing next to she who loves him. Watch him blink before calmly turning his head, his body, and taking off his yamika. His voice will be soft, completely sincere, and utterly sorry when explaining his situation, his leaving her. He speaks not to the room, but the woman he’s about to rend, heart from body who stands in front of him. Joyce stays quiet (perfect direction in this), and Sellers does not lift her veil, but takes an awkward pause and kisses her through it. The final, weak and quiet: “I’m sorry,” his last words before taking his hand from her elbow and leaving the alter, hit as hard as any moment of emotion I’ve seen this year. There is nothing but Sellers working on screen, and we believe, despite this nearly complete farce of a film, in this relationship and in this painfully, unexpectedly inspired moment. I’m not saying this flows with the rest of the movie, on the contrary, it sticks out like a rather emotional sore thumb. It is however, the kind of instant that remains tantalizing in reference to what Sellers would have been able to do in the right role(s). It also shows his most particular quality, what will always link him to Chaplin in my mind, the ability to resonate in motionlessness. Sellers's control of mannerism, tone, and pace of diction creates a tranquility in time that finds itself juxtaposed to the situation at hand, in this case a wedding, creating a moment that devours attention.

Later on we’ll watch as Sellers’s character bounds about the sets, running after cops and asking for hugs and other such madness, but the fact remains that in the small moments, such as his driving a car in the opening montage, he creates a complete person. So much so that you are bound to believe his antics, even those within the “hair-growing” montage…which is totally groovy.

The film’s title comes from Gertrud Stein’s lover/cook/muse, Alice B. Toklas, a woman that ended up buried next to her famous significant other in near anonymity. That said, it would have been complete anonymity had she and Gerty not love the greens. You see, in the fifties, Alice B. Toklas, with a fantastically ironic name, would publish the first recipe for everyone’s favorite marijuana edible, the pot brownie, and forever cement her place in the glaucoma hall of fame. That, and she would find herself attached to super-groovy movie, and its even groovier theme song. The melody, provided by Elmer Bernstein thank you very much, is a sitar infused gem with chorus singers that seem straight from an Al Hirt album. This is lightning in a bottle my friend, sweet, sticky, stoney, lighting in a bottle.