Psychoanalysis in Cinema, Art, and Society

Nighthawks, Edward Hopper 1942

"(...the function of the sexual instincts, the second of ego libido...) 

Both are formative structures, mechanisms not meaning. In themselves they have no signification, they have to be attached to an idealization. Both pursue aims in indifference to perceptual reality, creating the imagized, eroticized concept of the world that forms the perception of the subject and makes a mockery of empirical objectivity." 

On Psychoanalysis, Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema, Laura Mulvey

I find the psychoanalytic theory - phallocentrism in the patriarchal society - so very critical in coming to understand not only the cinema but also arts and society. It is quite fascinating to examine its significance; the idea of phallocentrism serves as an essence that underlies as well as connects two separate films (for example Rear Window and King Kong), various different genres of cinema (Ceddo of the Third Cinema and mainstream films), a vast range of arts (cinema and visual art - painting, sculpture, and music - salsa), and disparate aspects of society. 

While the cinematic theories and examinations are intriguing (voyeurism - fetishism, optical colonialism, three looks, etc.), the underlying fundamental - psychoanalysis - serves as an origin from and to which one comes back to understand the audience's perspective, the director's choice of the camera's views and of the characters' actions. For me, when I tried to decode the metaphors and suggested meanings of the props used in the Rear Window (for example, paintings on the wall, broken camera) or of the angles of the shots, characters' manners and presentation (Jeff versus Lisa), I rather stepped back and tried looking at the bigger picture and what may lie in the foundation - the concept of sexual instincts and ego libido. 

I would like to suggest - regard the painting Nighthawks by Edward Hopper, 1942. (Rear Window was produced in 1955) Obviously there are certain magics, wonders, and depth that only cinema could achieve as argued by many. However, I think it's worth viewing this particular piece in relation to Rear Window; many of the ideas discussed for the film are resonant in the piece such as voyeurism, interaction between opposite sex, situation in urban setting, the female character's unequivocally distracting presence (or outstanding?), solitude ("lonely hearts" of Rear Window), the role of lights, and not to mention, windows. Also note that the "three looks" discussed in Mulvey's article can be also applied to this piece as well: the look of a viewer (audience), the frame shot as if it is a moment stopped or captured in continuous flow of events (camera), and an artist who chooses the manner in which the actions are carried, the ambience is created - sexuality, politics, society-, and message is delivered (director). 

Gazes in Rear Window

In Mulvey's analysis of gazes in film, she says that in classic Hollywood women are the objects of gazes rather than simply the subjects, and that the viewer engages in scopophilia when viewing women on film. She looks for ways that the pleasure of scopophilia in viewing film can be destroyed. Rear Window presents a possibility of achieving this that is similar to Roland Barthes' suggestion on how to destroy myth. Barthes says that the only way to destroy a myth is to mythify it, that is, to use it as the signifier for a higher level myth. In the transformation of Lisa from the object of the gaze in Rear Window to one of the gazers, something similar is accomplished.

When Lisa first arrives in Rear Window, she is basically the center of attention. Jeffries has his neighbors to look at, but at this point their actions are generally mundane and uninteresting. Both the viewer and the camera would prefer to focus on Lisa rather than anything else. This is then a scopophilic gaze where Lisa is the object. In relation to myth, the camera, Jeffries and the viewer are one side and Lisa is the other, forming a gaze.

Eventually, Jeffries convinces Lisa that something fishy is going on with his neighbor, and they decied to investigate it together. At this point Lisa changes from being the object of the gaze, to, along with Jefferies and the viewer, being the gazer of something more important. Like a higher level myth, all the participants of the first gaze become simply the viewers in a higher gaze, in which the mysterious and bizarre actions of Thorwald are the new images to be viewed. In this way, Lisa has escaped from being the object of the gaze, just as one myth can lose its history by becoming the signifier in a higher myth. This suggests that a spectacle or something out of the ordinary can destroy the scopophilic gaze of the viewer by offering a gaze of a higher level.

Private Optical Colonialism

Something that really interested me with Rear Window was a tension between the public and the private, or perhaps more accurately, a tension between what we perceive as public and what we perceive as private. Doyle accosts Jeff for his voyeurism:

“That’s a secret and private world you’re looking into out there. People do a lot of things in private that they couldn’t explain in public.”

When Doyle delivered this line, all I could think of was the stipulation in the Fourth Amendment about objects in plain view, and my high school government teacher’s subsequent (and slightly sarcastic) warning against any attempt to grow marijuana in our backyards if we had low fences.

Rear Window seems to explore the possibilities of what happens when a variety of seemingly private actions occur in plain view; does plain view constitute as public? Either way, this ambiguity seems of particular relevance to documentary film, television news and photography in general, if we are reading Jeff’s voyeurism as Hitchcock’s commentary on the nature of cinema itself. In documentaries, news, and images of people rather than images of characters, what is being preyed on and peered into is reality itself. What are the boundaries of a camera’s freedom? The camera has the ability to capture images and events that transcend its own physical presence - in that a lens can capture and reveal very distant places and things - and to reveal these images and events to individuals who were elsewhere. The camera transforms the voyeurism of one into the voyeurism of a thousand, well, more than a thousand, but I don't know the exact number of spectators in the world.

The phrase “optical colonialism” from Sneads’ article is of particular relevance. As spectators, we follow the camera’s venturing to and from distant lands and relish in the foreign visual souvenirs it has collected. To what extent should the camera enter private lands, however? Doyle would undoubtedly say to no extent whatsoever. But the law, while not condoning trespassing, would probably support the documentation of whatever is in plain view. A camera allows us to trespass without ourselves physically trespassing; it essentially allows us to legally trespass. When a scandal occurs, we tend to think and question less of how the news came to be and more of the news or the scandal itself.

As a completely different topic, the concreteness and absolute terms got me searching for a contradiction. I was thinking of Ceddo in particular; how do you think Mulvey would perceive Dior? She belongs to a patriarchal society, she more or less effectively castrates a man (by killing him). I'm not quite sure I understand where she fits into Mulvey's theories.

Looking at Anne

Throughout King Kong, the portrayal of Anne as a helpless, sub-human character really disturbed me. Anne is nothing more than a pretty girl. Her beauty is essential to the story, yes, but her mind is essentially non-existent. Anne, it seems, has no capability to speak for herself, or even to simply stand up and run when Kong is pulling her near. During her first encounter with Jack, she does not find his immediate slap in the face at all perturbing. She laughs it off and says something cute, for fear of breaking the to-be-looked-at-ness that is so essential to her character.

After watching the movie, I was comforted by a few things. Firstly, King Kong is an old movie, released in 1933. This was a very long time ago... perhaps this caricature is not still applicaple... secondly, it is only a movie-- and Anne was, like I said, a caricature. Anne's lack of identity--her unability to express herself in any way-- is necessary to juxtapose with Kongs forceful, larger-than-life-like presence.

However, this to-be-looked-at-ness still exsists, and is in full-force today in modern cinema. We are often told that "sex sells", and this seems to be true. The public is often unwilling to participate in a viewing if they do not have something beautiful to look at. I wonder if the camera as a window helps to create this iconic relationship between beauty and helplessness. I also wonder if we are anywhere closer to abolishing this strict to-be-looked-at-ness-- that strips the woman down and objectifies her-- than we were in the first half of the 20th century.

Grace Kelly is To-Be-Looked-At.

Charlotte’s post mentioned some confusion about how and why Lisa became a subject only after appearing in the neighbor's window, when the separation of the window turned all of the neighbors into objects. I had some difficulty with the subjective/objective thing myself, but interpreted the Lisa issue as follows: when Lisa was behaving like his girlfriend, showing up at his apartment in pretty dresses, he was unable to identify with her. She was only something perfect to look at—perfect not only in physical appearance, but in social appearance as well, because she is successful, well-liked, well-mannered, and she always seems to know how to create the perfect evening. He sees her only as an object, and not really as a person.

It was not just the act of appearing in the window that granted Lisa subjectivity—she was behaving as the protagonist, the (usually male) hero of the film that was being acted out in the window before Jeff’s eyes. He himself was immobilized and could not investigate the salesman’s apartment. So Lisa did it for him. Much in the same way as when we watch a traditional detective film, we ourselves cannot leave our seats in the auditorium to investigate the scene of the crime, so we identify with the detective as he does it for us. By assuming this (traditionally male) role of detective, Lisa became a subject to Jeff.

The other thing that struck me about Lisa (I mean, the other academic thing, because mostly what struck me about Lisa was that she looked fantastic in every scene, which, I suppose, is a point in and of itself) was that she very literally interrupts the narrative with her to-be-looked-at-ness. On the evening when the dog dies, Jeff has spent almost all of their evening together staring out the window, and nothing she says can distract him. Until she comes out dressed in her nightgown. That one moment in which he is distracted by her beauty is precisely the moment when the woman across the way screams because her dog has been killed. Lisa distracted the eyes of both Jeff and the audience from an important development in the plot.

Jeff's Massive Camera is Sketchy

Along the lines of what Jason said, I noticed too that Jeff's switch to a camera view was rather awkward, but in line with Mulvey's theories it's kind of hilarious. If you think about the castration complex, Jeff, in a sense, becomes symbolically castrated by his encasement. Throughout the film it is this sense of vision, seeing without being seen, that becomes power and dominance...and what else can Jeff do but whip out his massive camera and put it on his crotch to compensate for loss of phallocentricity...

I wish, too that we had compared Rear Window with Keeney's readings only because the correlations are so obvious, but the panopticon image again popped into my head, I think I had mentioned my theory of the reverse panopticon in which the jailer himself could be locked in and therefore be in the same situation as the prisoners...I think Jeff's predicament is the prime example of this because he himself has all the power but at the same time is incapable of wielding it.

But more to the topic, the women in the films fit Mulvey's theories perfectly. Though Jeff is emasculated and imobile, Stella is in a state of servitude, she is an object, a tool for the recovery of Jeff, a tool of investigation, and in a literal sense a comedic tool. Lisa, too is an object though in a more concealed sense. She is a model, her profession is to be looked at, to be beautiful and ultimately be an object to the world, whereas in direct contrast, Jeff is a photographer, his job is to objectify subjects. And the showcase of Torso is rather obvious. Hitchcock uses Jeff's condition to switch gender roles, Lisa becomes the hero when she gets the balls to go into the salesman's apartment and gather the evidence inflamed by her love for Jeff and thus earning his love in the end(totally reversed right?), she becomes "uncastrated" in a sense? In this way it is not her being seen that makes her subjective but her switching from the scopophilic object to the (typically male) ego.

In King Kong, women are gifts to what can easily be interpreted as the greatest symbol, the mirror, of masculinity and Anne becomes his one and only weakness, she metaphorically strips him of his power and he dies due to his obsession with the castrated, guilty object(who constantly needs saving because of her beauty). King Kong is the embodiment of male ego and Anne is the Scopophilis object (this changes only once in the film, when they show him at the theatre, but switches back when he escapes), this is especially obvious when Kong de-clothes her suddenly for no reason what so ever which directly supports Mulvey's statement:

"The presence of woman is an indispensable element of spectacle in normal narrative film, yet her visual presence tends to work against the development of a story line, to freeze the flow of action in moments of erotic contemplation"(203).

 Anne is only a device for the pleasure of the audience, and that Kong dies because of her almost indicate that women are the inevitable destruction of male ego and should be treated as such...

So I guess my question why is it that in all types of cinema, woman is an image and man is always the bearer of the look with extremely small exceptions? 

I agree with Jason that Rear Window is significantly more interesting when approached from a theoretical standpoint rather than from a passive one.  This is probably because it is so reflexive, being largely a film about film, and if you aren't reading it in that way, there is not much going on.  I do not think the vignettes which Jeff looks at are particularly interesting in and of themselves, not even the salesman/wife killer story.  The problem with the scenes in the apartments is that the residents lack subjectivity, as they are mere spectacles for Jeff and for us, the audience.  We do not identify with them, even if we sympathize.

This question of subjectivity vs. objectivity was confusing to me in Jeff's relationship with Lisa. The problem in their relationship is that she is an object to Jeff, who appears perfect and therefore somewhat undesirable and uninteresting.  How is it that when she is seen through the window, she acquires subjectivity, even though no one else as seen through the window does?

Bringing in the castration complex now, is it possible that Lisa possessed a kind of subjectivity within Jeff's apartment that threatened him and made him not want to marry her, but through the window she was merely an object, over whom Jeff had power and would thus not feel threatened by?

I guess I have two questions: 1) why does being looked at grant Lisa subjectivity, and 2) how does this supposed possession of subjectivity make her more attractive and LESS threatening to Jeff?

King Kong

Reading Snead's article about King Kong, I was struck by a few things.  His article made many assumptions, one of which I find to be particularly important because I feel that most of the articles on film we have read so far rely on this assumption: that of a viewer who enjoys and is engaged in the film, but who does not watch it critically.  In the instance of King Kong, Snead makes many arguments that rest on this assumption--such as his assertion that we identify with Denham despite his negative qualities, and are thus implicated in his optical colonialism (and later, his abduction of Kong).  Watching the movie, I did not feel an ounce of sympathy or identification with Denham--I found him to be a rather unlikeable person, and one who I very much did despise.  

In addition, another problem I have with Snead's argument is that he does not address the fact that the white male characters in the movies, and not just the "others" he speaks of, are complete stereotypes.  Denham is the embodiment of capitalistic greed, and a desire for adventure.  Driscoll is the archetypal man, heroic and brave, but emotionally immature and rather sexist.  While the stereotypes of the black tribespeople, Ann, and Charlie are more apparent because they are so blatantly offensive and negative in nature, in reality, the white characters in the movie are no less stereotypes--they just happen to be positive, or at least not negative, stereotypes.  

These two ideas are rather connected: the reason Snead does not recognize characters such as Denham or Driscoll as being stereotypes is because he assumes a viewer who has internalized the mainstream myths.  If the viewer indeed does identify with these archetypal roles, then these characters will not seem like one-dimensional stereotypes, but rather as the embodiment of the "hero."  I guess the problem I had in general was that Snead made an implicit assumption that the viewer agrees with the standard social myths--and while that may be true in many cases, it is not necessarily, and I feel like Snead ignores that fact.  Granted, he does mention that a black viewer would probably be more inclined to identify with Kong--however, in that statement, I feel he was making the same error he accused the movie of making: he is making an assumption about black viewers.  Now, that assumption does make a lot of sense, as it would be far more likely for a black viewer to notice the racism and hypocrisy of the movie.  However, it is not the person's race that determined their negative reaction to the movie, but rather their lack of acceptance of the standardized societal myths.  Black people, being an "other" in our society, often find that these standardized myths are detrimental to them, and are therefore far more likely to reject them.  The fact they black people are more likely to identify with Kong is a larger result of the fact that they have rejected the social norms, not of their blackness itself .  Thus, it could be said that any viewer who is critical and does not necessarily accept social norms will identify with Kong more than say Driscoll--a fact which Snead ignores.

Spectators

"Oh dear, we've become a race of Peeping Toms. What people ought to do is get outside their own house and look in for a change. Yes, sir. How's that for a bit of home-spun philosophy?"--Stella in Rear Window

I must begin by saying that this week's screenings were very enjoyable. (Despite the fact that I completely forgot two movies meant almost four hours). My favorite connection among them was the character's prying curiosity mixed with the need for visual pleasure. As Cowie says, “[it] invokes the specifically sexual pleasure of looking that is identified as exemplary of classical Hollywood." (492)

It's true we love watching other people and sometimes for no good reason. Jeff had been sitting in his apartment for six weeks and considering that he nicknamed all his neighbors, he must have done nothing but look out that window. Looking gave him a pleasure that hypnotized him one way or another.

"Rear Window explores the limitations such voyeurism produces in our relations to others. Instead, it demands that we recognize our implication, and pleasure, in voyeuristic looking and what this makes us blind to." (492)

This visual pleasure does blind us to our surroundings. Take for example the scene where King Kong is being photographed by reporters. The audience just loved looking at the drama and did not become aware of the danger they were in.* Or just Carl’s curiosity about King Kong, and how that led to him capturing King Kong, despite the fact that King Kong had killed half the crew.

Which this all just leads my mind to Third Cinema. If we weren’t yearning for more drama then maybe we’d realized that those stories are based on real facts that need to be solved.




*(Did King Kong's rage at being photograph not remind anyone of Britney Spears and her umbrella?)

Panoptic Neighborhoods

So I haven't gotten to the response readings yet, but I want to talk about a few thoughts on my mind coming from tonight's screening. I'm going to mostly focus on Rear Window, but I've got a few things to say about King Kong too (outside of smarmy humorous remarks).

I'm wondering why we didn't screen Rear Window against Keenan's article, except that it's extremely relevant to Mulvey's work too (but than again, what movie isn't?). The window in Rear Window sets up various displays, frames, narratives; the lives of the people inside are given narratives by their framing, a sort of cinematic Mulveyian display. The people become a sort of language, their actions carrying meaning to the spying LB. Barthes talked about how images signify on the level of connotation; in Rear Window the lives of LB's neighbors become images to be seen and received as language. That image only exists if light passes from within the window to the outside (the darkened window or room carries no meaning, a projector that is not turned on). That language of window images transmit troubling information, and if anything Rear Window demonstrates a panopticon where it's inhabitants do not realize that they are being watched.

Honestly the first time I saw Rear Window it bored me out of my mind. Now, I still enjoy all the other Hitchcock films I've seen so far more (doesn't mean they are better), but Rear Window is much more interesting to me now, just because of my theoretical background maybe. Perhaps what is exciting to most people who see the film didn't excite me, which is watching an audience construct a narrative out of performances happening outside their own encapsulated private world. It was only when LB's world transgressed upon the private home of another, and when the Salesman transgressed onto LB's home was a really interested the first time I saw the film. And any sort of transgression or travel outside of LB's home is done by females. The first time I saw LB pull out his camera lens I couldn't help but notice how he lay it right down on his crotch. Rear Window is almost (or perhaps just outright is) parodying the way phallus is tied to vouyerism, yet it is female bodies that must perform actions for the male. Although this includes making him a sandwich in the kitchen, this also includes investigating, bringing about justice, and doing things that LB is powerless to do. In a sense, he is emasculated. After all, with that huge cast covering his crotch I imagine sex is very hard to do.

These are my scattered thoughts about the film (it's almost 3AM so perhaps I'm not in the best of shape to be replying currently) but I want to see what people think. The fun thing about King Kong was that at the time it was a film of technical brilliance, and the fun of the film was to try and almost figure out the apparatus behind the picture, to see how it was made. Now it's quite obvious how that works, but it removes a level of reading that can be made, which is when we realize that the actors really are "standing in front of and watching a screen" during sequences where stop-motion occurs in the background and live action in the foreground. Again, windows stare out at King Kong, and King Kong has the power to break past those windows and reach into the private domain for his woman. In short, the questions I want to ask are these: In what ways does this film support or deny Keenan's thesis? To what extent is the window also a cinematic screen - in both Rear Window and King Kong? At first in King Kong, we objectify the women, tribals, and monsters but is there a moment perhaps where we empathize with each of them, or resist the classic notions of cinema? In Rear Window, the woman is clearly in the position of the to-be-gazed according to Mulvey's theories, but at the same time that awareness is made clear through the woman inserting herself into the narratives behind the windows LB watches, and also as a sort of physical extension of the man (just as the camera lens, wheelchair, flash bulb, and binoculars become mechanical/cyborg extensions of LB). Does Rear Window somehow resist classic cinema portrayals or reinscribe them in a new way?

If I have any responses to the readings I will post those also.

Mandabi by Ousmane Sembène, 1968

For any of you who is interested in Sembène's works, Mandabi is a good film to try - perhaps a bit more accessible and relatable, in my opinion. Sembène, the Senegalese filmmaker who passed away just an year ago, is often said to be "the father of African cinema." He was a significant figure not only in post-colonial cultural awakening, but also in the Négritude as a radical, uncompromising critic. (*a literary and political movement developed among the Francophone African world to promote black heritage against French intellectual domination.) I watched this film for a french literature course last year titled The Francophone World; the film, compared to Ceddo, is a bit more modest in delivering its narrative and in addressing issues that may be slightly more relevant to the general audience. (largely in regarding social injustice, post-colonial political issues, gender issues, etc.) 

Mandabi ("Money Order") 1968

Quite humorous, powerful and effective in its message and aesthetics. Enjoy!

"A Filmmaker Who Found Africa's Voice"

The New York Times article on Ousmane Sembène, June 12 2007

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/12/movies/12semb.html

3rd Audience

I professed last week (when I mixed up sections) that I am a Barthes fanboy, and this week I want to expand on that claim a little bit by tying in some of the ideas of the participatory and interactive media from lecture today with the discussion of Barthes and Benjamin these past two weeks. I remember distinctly in Walter Benjamin's essay that he claimed that eventually through the media of mechanical reproduction would allow the audience to take the role of producer: "Thus, the distinction between author and public is about to lose its basic character. The difference becomes merely functional; it may vary from case to case. At any moment the reader is ready to turn into writer" (232). Barthes also would become an advocate of the reader's ability to "write" text, and although we covered his pre-Death of the Author writings last week, his own method of disassembling and reassembling myth (the process of connotation) involves some level of reader creativity instead of absorbent passivity. Thus, it piqued me in today's lecture to hear Philip Rosen discuss how 3rd Cinema was an active event, something made "from the bottom" that got people potentially arrested and involved...well, involvement from the viewer. This is much different than Benjamin's discussion of the bored passivity of the public in his assessment of the film, but I think both Solanas/Getino and Benjamin are concerned with the possible participatory and revolutionary potentials of cinema. Are the writers of 3rd Cinema trying to respond to the commodification of film (the reinscription of aura into the film) by talking about this revolutionary cinema as a possible solution to the failures of Benjamin's visions for machine reproduced film? Is 3rd cinema created by a rebellious audience that refuses to consume 1st and 2nd cinema? Where does that line between producer and audience lie for something like 3rd cinema? Finally, looking at today's YouTube, DIY Video, grassroot media, and other participatory free exchange/information media groups that exist, where does their cinema fall?

Media: Windows To Another World

The subject that struck me most throughout the assigned articles is how different media presents images of war. In the aspect of mass media, Keenan illustrates Instant Media and News to be this powerful body which through interpreting images of war can effectively initiate humanitarian effort by causing emotional uprising in individuals and somehow bypass law and government and rationality. Keenan then goes on to say that this body tends to overexert itself with image to the point where its movements become so predictable that it can be manipulated into doing the exact opposite of its goals:

"images...can shame governments into action, armies will undertake humanitarian rescue missions for the publicity value alone, and publicity can bring the missions to an end" (108)

Keenan's argument about how the predictability of the media and its power lulls the audience into a state of comatose maybe because they believe that obviously something is being done already, that I myself need not take action, image overload overwhelms and desensitizes because of the displacement of reality film inherently possesses. Keenan's Panopticon popped into my head, the prisoner who guards themselves by constructing an inner prison. A thought: Is a person who watches One Tree Hill guarding themselves by indulging in a completely false reality (looking through a one way window) as opposed to a person who watches CNN who is watching interpreted images that represent a true reality, a still filtered reality (essentially a two way window)? Or are they both the trapped in the panopticon cell because light can only come through the TV as manipulated, filtered, images? Keenan argues that the interpreted image will always have more power than the uninterpreted image and this is where I disagree with Keenan, I believe the uninterpreted image is the key to reality and freedom, though definitions of "power" and "interpretation" come into discussion.

This is where Third Cinema and Ceddo come into play because Keenan's Media ascribes to the laws of First Cinema and Western aesthetics. When we watch the news we see professional, unnaturally good looking, unnaturally well spoken people (thats why its fun when they mess up their cues) with colorful banners and music, like its a movie in itself. Professionalism seems to detract from reality and this is what makes Third Cinema and Ceddo so incredibly powerful. Ceddo is full of unknown and not great actors, bad edits, in and out sound, slow subtitles, an at times incomprehensible plot, and cultural references to which I was certainly oblivious...and because of this I loved it. It was so cultural, so unorthodox, and so goofy that the message was emboldened. Its unprofessionalism  added a sense of rawness and reality to Ceddo for me. Again the image of war appears with the two nobles who attempt to kill the rebel Ceddo, they are images of war in a traditional (aesthetic?) sense with their traditional war attitudes, colors, and jewelry (Big Budgets?) including the mirror, which is slightly blingish though meant to blind the enemy...when put into practice all these aesthetic qualities are meaningless (First Cinema?), they are dominated by experience and a reality of the situation (Third Cinema?), although the end of the film promotes a return to tradition...

What is so revolutionary about the "True" unbiased Documentary is that it is designed to be a clear window to the outside your self prison of manipulated beliefs. Third Cinema is also designed to be a clear window, the director wants you to look out of yourself so that you may see the true cell which encloses you.

Third Cinema

One of the topics that I found most interesting about third cinema was the ways that it presents alternative histories. Philip Rosen comments on this as specifically related to Ceddo. Twice in the film, characters have visions of alternate realities. First, there is the imagined scene of the Catholic mass. Next, when Dior's kidnapper is killed she has a vision of offering water to him. Rosen says that these examples are "cinematically coded as subjective." The audience knows that these events do not actually occur in the narrative of the film. However, Rosen also notes the final scene, where Dior kills the imam, signifying the unity of the old nobility and the ceddo. This event actually happens in the world of the film, so it is different than the imagined scenes. However, Rosen shows that this is another alternate version of history, because this unity of the nobility and ceddo is not something that happened in Senegalese history. In terms of revolutionary cinema, this "objective" change of history is more useful, because it is presented as a real event. It also promotes active viewership, because the audience is forced to remove themselves from the world of the film in order to see this ending as an alternate history.

The notion of the audience being active in the watching of a film was also intriguing. Solanas and Getino note how different mainstream cinema is from third or revolutionary cinema in terms of the viewers. When watching a mainstream film, the viewer is ultimately passive. In contrast, Solanas and Getino state that the act of simply attending the screening of a revolutionary film makes one active, because the viewer is there with full knowledge that his attendance is not condoned by the system. Because of this the audience of a revolutionary film is a political community, and the film will be the beginning of debate and potentially other revolutionary actions. As viewers of mostly mainstream cinema, is it possible for us to become active viewers, or is the act of watching mainstream films inherently passive?

Is the public indifferent to reality or "reality"?

In reading Solanas and Getino’s “Towards a Third Cinema” and Keenan’s “Publicity and Indifference,” I was interested in the two articles’ differing accounts of the role an audience plays.

“Towards a Third Cinema” describes Hollywood cinema is making man a “passive and consuming object” (64). The way in which Keenan describes the public in his article somewhat implies a consuming entity; the way in which a camera “[waits] patiently for things to happen [at] particularly dangerous crossroads” (107) made me think of journalists as using elements of reality to create a product. Keenan admits that “the camera” effectively “[mutates]” what it normally “means for [an] event to occur” (107).

When I think of the broadcast news that Keenan describes as having a cinematic counterpart, documentary cinema is what first comes to mind. Solanas and Getino view documentary cinema as the “main basis of revolutionary filmmaking,” which is of course itself the antithesis of the consumerist world of Hollywood cinema. There is a blatant distinction between the depiction of real events which Solanas and Getino describe and that which Keenan describes.

Additionally, a certain quote from “Towards a Third Cinema” seemed to have much resonance in light of Keenan’s article.
“There is no knowledge of a reality as long as that reality is not acted upon, as long as its transformation is not begun on all fronts of struggle” (69). How does this quote affect Keenan’s arguments? If the news audience failed to act upon events in Sarajevo, does this mean they are interpreting the events as a not-quite reality? Is the audience’s response – or lack thereof – indicative of an understanding of their own consumerism, an understanding of the fact that things are happening in dangerous locations where cameras “coincidentally” and patiently lurk?

Third Cinema and Accessibility

"In our times it is hard to find a film within the field of commercial cinema, including what is known as 'author's cinema'-- in both the capitalist and socialist countries-- that manages to avoid the models of Hollywood pictures. The latter have such a fast hold that monumental works such as the U.S.S.R.'s Bondarchuk's War and Peace are also monumental examples of the submission to all the propositions imposed by the U.S. movie industry (structure, language, etc.) and, consequently, to its concepts."

This statement, and most of the other material we read about Third Cinema, suggests that cinema can only be truly revolutionary if it completely breaks away from the standard conventions of film-making. But whatever the content of the Third Cinema piece, this seems to me to be a dubious strategy for igniting the masses with revolutionary fervor. The sad truth is that the common person is so accustomed to the "Hollywood" film's method of communication, that a film composed in a completely unfamiliar way becomes quite inaccessible. I actually found Ceddo to be an extremely difficult film to watch. After it was over, I was able to think about the issues it raised and feel I took something away from the story that was told, but while I was watching it, every half minute felt like five. I seriously doubt I would have sat through it if I weren't studying it for a class. So, how do you get the everyman to watch a movie like that?

I guess my question is this: What would you lose if you allowed your political film to conform to the Hollywood model, as opposed to using an alternative, Third Cinema style of narration? Why is it important for some stories to be told specifically in this way (the Rosen article talked about how Ceddo's long takes and minimal editing mimicked African oral storytelling)? What is more important to a film seeking to effect actual change-- this Third Cinema integrity or accessibility to a wider range of people, who have probably already been conditioned by Hollywood to expect certain film conventions?

Effects of Third World Cinema

Third cinema rejects the ideas of Hollywood, and the idea of film solely as a means of profit. Third cinema came about as a way for the 'other' to speak, instead of having their story told as a narrative from an outsiders point of view. I wonder, though, who is truly able to give a completely objective portrayal of the insiders point of view.
Also, by rejecting the idea of cinema as a means of personal expression, does third cinema lose its ability to evoke the emotions necessary to stir up a change, or to sway the viewers opinion on anything-- and is emotional imagery necessary to do these things? I wonder if this idea of influencing the viewer is the most important aspect of Third Cinema, or if it is simply the true portrayal of the 'other'-- the portrayal of the past from the bottom, instead of as a narrative-- that is important.

I wonder if Gabriels is not simply creating yet another myth by his portrayal of the Ceddo. By telling their story, is he not putting up yet another frame around their story? What really constitutes a true insiders point of view, devoid of mythology?

Third Cinema as a Window of Vulnerability

I find the sense of vulnerability of "windows" resonant in the Third Cinema.

In the text "Windows: of Vulnerability," Keenan describes a house of a particular film as an object of vulnerability, imposed by the lighting, scenes, camera, etc. While Keenan's idea stems from the humanist window, it is certainly applicable on a much broader term, such as a form of signification - the Third Cinema itself.

Third Cinema is a different form of language, or a mode of production, that is created in the context of "struggle" of neocolonization. While it strives to serve a certain function - such as to bespeak the desire of national liberation -, to what extent is it a complete picture, a reliable source for understanding the situation? Consider that the Third Cinema's role parallels to that of "window" in a sense that it provides a view of interior to the outsider.  Then, (in Keenan's words,) "when a window 'gives a light [donner de la lumiere],' what happens? What is the force of the gift, and what arrives with this light?" (Keenan, 125)


Consider the following ideas on "windows":

"...what if the opening of the aperture that allows sight were to become uncontrollable, if the regulated light that makes seeing possible were to overexpose the interior? ... the opening risks the more violent opening of the distinction between inside and outside, private and public, self and other." (Keenan, 124) "the excess of windows both opens the house to surveillance from the exterior and allows interior scenes to be shot with all the brightness of the open sun."

"Human knowledge stems from the gaze, and the window perhaps even more than the mirror gives form to this tenacious ideologeme." (Keenan, 126)

How do we come to realize the ultimate reality, as opposed to the one introduced through Third Cinema that is in the end a kind of a filter or a representation? What ensues - when one "gives light or let the gaze pass through?" (Keenan, 127) According to Rosen, "the third a cultural code, the embodiment of a sociocultural function. ... connotes a public act, hence the performative, theatrical, proclamatory nature of speaking in Ceddo." (Rosen, 730) As said above, the window can hold a stronger signification - a product/ created image through a filter - to disseminate knowledge to the audience. However, how do we, as a spectator, perceive the message, when the depicted scenes are of "the performative, theatrical, proclamatory nature of speaking?"   I just attended a reception of an art exhibit titled "A Varried Terrain" in Providence.  In dealing with the role of human beings/ individuals situated in an ever changing environmental/ industrial community in the age of globalization, the show suggests to the audience that the community, when exposed to stimulation, faces the necessity of change.  What position do the subjects of the Third Cinema take, for example the community depicted in Ceddo? By being captured in the scenes, their struggles are shown but coincidentally they become an object of a representational image. Then what does the Third Cinema become, fulfilling its purpose but with issues that ensue subsequently? A window through which the inner world is shown, and yet because of such accessibility it takes a nature of vulnerability? 

Third Cinema today

All three articles this week talked about the definition of Third Cinema, and it's motivations and ideologies.  Some of these descriptions got me wondering about movies today, and if any could be classified as Third Cinema films--or, more accurately, as being Third Cinemaesque.  One movie that immediately jumped to mind as fulfilling many of the criteria for Third Cinema is Spike Lee's Do the Right Thing.  While it is an American film, and not from the third world or a postcolonial society, it was made by a member of an oppressed minority, and is very much about the struggles of African Americans, and more largely about racial tensions between groups in general.  There was even much speculation at the time that there would be riots in New York when it was released (even though there did not end up being any).  In addition to being made for a similar purpose as Third Cinema, it shares many other aspects that were talked about in the articles.  For example, it does not have a normal plot structure by any means--honestly, there is very little plot, with the only important action occurring in the last ten minutes or so of the movie.  In addition, while there is a main character--Mookie, played by Spike Lee himself--the story does not seem to revolve around him, but is much more focused on the idea of community.  It focuses largely on the different groups, and the tensions both between the groups, and within them.  It is not about Mookie's personal journey, it is about the journey of the community he lives in (which he happens to be a part of).

So then, can it be said that Do the Right Thing is an example of Third Cinema?  While technically it would not exactly be accurate (the concept of Third Cinema is tied with liberation movements and postcolonial struggle, and a specific period of time), would it be fair at least to say that it very much embodies the spirit of Third Cinema (i.e., the ideology and technique), if not it itself?

On a similar note, here's another question: what would embody Third Cinema better, a film such as Do the Right Thing, which borrows many of the devices of Third Cinema but takes place in a different (if similar) context, or a film that is made in the third world today and still speaks of postcolonial struggles--i.e., in a more literal sense is closer to Third Cinema--but does not emphasize many of themes that the articles attributed to Third Cinema (community, oral tradition, closeness with land, etc.)?

Windows: sight v. glare

Keenan posits in his "Windows: of vulnerability" that windows are either a means of sight, or a means of light, as he calls it, "glare". He states that

The more light, the less sight, and the less there is in the interior that allows 'man' to find comfort and protection, to find a ground from which to look. The light, while not exactly absent or available for representation, is not present either--it surprises and blinds the present, disrupts teh space of looking and opens an interior, opens it to a force over which it can exert little control (127).

What draws me towards Keenan's discussion of windows and public, is his dichotomization: he claims that looking is owning, but being shown something is to be owned. How can these be mutually exclusive, and how is there no interplay?

His later discussion of framing, and the media in "Publicity and Indifference" also seems to contradict this initial division. If "no image speaks for itself" (113), it follows that the viewer must take an active role in understanding and interpreting the image. At least part of the framing must be subjective. Ultimately, is it up to the audience to decide how much glare and how much image any window presents?

Some Problems?

I noticed a couple of potential contradictions in this week's reading/viewing.  

First of all, Rosen emphasizes how a major difference between Third Cinema and mainstream cinema is that while mainstream cinema tends to be individual and psychological, Third cinema is community and collective oriented.  This seemed to hold true throughout Ceddo, with dialogue being not just between characters but between groups.  At the end, however, when Dior shoots the imam, I really got the impression that she was acting out of her own agency.  While I understand that she was essentially uniting the nation (regardless of class divisions) against the muslim foreigners, she made this decision not by committee vote, but seemingly based on her own, personal, psychological choice.  I wonder what the significance of this is for the understanding of women in the film, as well as for individual agency in general.

On another note, the Keenan Sarejevo on Television article takes the position that perhaps the problem with televising horrors is that we (the public) wrongfully assume a connection between knowledge and a specific, fitting political action/response.  The more the public became exposed to images of Sarajevo, the more they assumed something MUST have been being done to help.  How can Third Cinema, which relies essentially on the same medium and techniques of exposing horrific, disturbing, emotional images avoid this pitfall?

News in Your Television

"Giles Rabine, reporting live for France 2 from Sarajevo just after the fall of Srebrenica, on 13 July 1995 commented simply that, after thirty nine months of televised siege, "the Sarajevans have had enough of being interviewed, being filmed, being photographed; they've had enough of us watching them die, live, without trying to do anything to save them. And who's to say they're wrong?" pg 110 Publicity and Indifference (Sarajevo on Television).

This particular paragraph made me stop in my tracks, grab a pen, and write "Wow!!" right next to it.

Just hours before reading "Publicity and Indifference" in my first year seminar, we were discussing the disappearence of over 50 Americans in Nuevo Laredo, Tamaulipas, a border town. Not many people are aware of the on going drug war in Nuevo Laredo, let alone the many Americans who continue to be missing. After a long discussion through the eyes of my La Frontera/The Border class, these Americans of Mexican decent were concluded to be seen by the American society and by television networks as not "American enough" to make headline or any type of news in American television.

Of course, that is coming from 20 students who have been studying segregation in the border, and can possibly not think without these facts popping into their heads. Now what if we take the same situation and look at it through the eyes of Screen and Projections? Why isn't this horrible situation making news?

Keenan mentions the cliche that things don't happen unless a camera is there. The images reporters gather around the world "shame governments into action, armies will undertake humanitarian rescue missions for the publicity value alone, and publicity can bring the mission to an end." (108) So I'm left wondering if the underexposure of this situation, makes the situation unexistent to the public?

We could search the web for news instead of our televisions, but how would we know if that information is even real? If it's not regulated by some network, then it's most likely inaccurate in one way or another (not that it wasn't before). Our only hope is Third Cinema. Some neglected film maker must make a movie for us to be exposed and become aware of what is truly happening among us. But then in order to make a movie, won't this have to be regulated?

Perhaps the film maker can remain true to the cause, get the message across, and start some sort of revolution, but if his movie becomes too Hollywood-ized then we can have hope that the situation won't ever reach our televisions and that we will never have to feel guilty about something we don't know is going on.

Ceddo, "Third Cinema," and Keenan

For the week of September 22nd, we’ll be discussing Ceddo, the articles on “third cinema,” and Keenan. For the articles on “third cinema,” in particular, you should try to relate the readings to scenes or sequences that you found relevant in Ceddo. That is also true for the Rosen essay, which is a great place to start for any analysis of the film. Finally, think of what Keenan’s observations about the nature of TV images might mean for the kind of revolutionary action that “third cinema” advocates. How does Keenan’s theory complicate the relationship between revolutionary ideology and revolutionary film and video aesthetics?

Mythologies

The one topic that confused me the most was when Barthes started talking about the difference between Left-Wing myth and bourgeois myth: "Yes, myth exists on the Left, but it does not at all have there the same qualities as bourgeois myth. Left-wing is inessential." This is where I went from kind of getting it to being completely lost. Presumably Barthes is talking about the left wing of of politics in France at the time he was writing this. Is the left wing the same as the poor that Barthes mentions who also have inferior myths? If myth is a social fact, how can myth as used by some people be more important or essential then when used by others? Does he mean that while bourgeois myths like the wedding become naturalized, left wing or poor myths do not? It seems to me that categorizing the linguistics and myths of an entire class of people as inferior is a very broad generalization. Can't the working class have their own myths separate from the bourgeoisie?

The Subjective Nature of Myth

When reading Barthes' Mythologies, I was somewhat confused about the nature of myth, particularly whether or not it is subjective.

On page 116 when describing the picture of the French soldier, he writes:
"On the cover, a young Negro in a French uniform is saluting, with his eyes uplifted, probably fixed on a fold of the tricolour. All this is the meaning of the picture. But, whether naively or not, I see very well what it signifies to me: that France is a great Empire, that all her sons, without any colour discrimination, faithfully serve under her flag, and that there is no better answer to the detractors of an alleged colonialism than the zeal shown by this Negro in serving his so-called oppressors."

His use of the first-person pronouns "I" and "me" brings forth a few questions. The signified is what Barthes describes as his personal perception; the language he uses made it difficult for me to view the signified as an objective entity (As a side note - the whole emphasis on language and connotation in these readings gives me intense anxiety regarding my word choice). Barthes then uses the words "signified" and "concept" interchangeably, but in the language the concept is more concrete than the abstract and mental signifier.

I guess my question is if a myth is so largely composed of what we perceive as the signified, then how can a myth be as objective as Barthes seems to insist that it is? From my reading, the myth seems to be entirely more subjective, more mental, affected by so many more variables than language. The myth seems to be somewhat metaphysical by nature, which, Barthes states, semiology is not (112).