Subversive Enunciation: Challenging Audiences Through Cinematic Discourse

Trinh Minh-Ha’s 1983 film Reassemblage acts in two ways; firstly to communicate an understanding of people in Senegal and secondly, most importantly actually, to comment on conventional documentary methods. Just as Kiss Kiss Bang Bang participated in an auto-critique of film genres, Reassemblage participates in an auto-critique of documentary film. The difference however is that the former does so through narrative/story and the latter does so by means of enunciation/discourse. In "When I Project it is Silent" a written interview with Trinh, she describes how the “strategies of Reassemblage question the anthropological knowledge of the “other,” the way anthropologists look at and present foreign cultures through media, here film” (228).Her methods challenge audiences and filmmakers alike to broaden their scope of understanding cultures outside of the established documentary norms.

Trinh's work actually lets the viewing of this culture happen without a preconceived storyline or ideology guiding the actions of those in the film, the intentions of the music, or camera movements and angles. Her methods are free and natural. They come across as such with shots that seem too close or too far, multiple jump cuts within singular instances, silence at times, and music that matches the actions in others. Even her narration is unorthodox. She speaks softly with her words sometimes repetitive and having little to do with the actions of the film at that moment. Take this clip for instance.



Trinh says “one of the intentions of my film is to suggests that you don’t know a culture better by approaching it with an institutionalized or professionalized background” (229). As shown in this clip, would an audience really know this Senegalese culture better if they knew what each of the men were making or what the children were doing? Do descriptions of cultural artifacts make a culture? Is it possible to observe a culture and learn as much from that objective observation as one would with guided commentary and narration? These are questions that Trinh wants audiences to ask themselves before approaching documentary films. She says in the clip that “reality is delicate” and there is a “habit of imposing a meaning to every single sign”. Perhaps her unfamiliar methods seek to avoid attaching a prescribed meaning to the culture that accompanies traditional documentary strategies.

In order to free audiences from the customary ethnographic expectations, they must first understand that there is more than one way to view and understand a culture. Much knowledge about both these Senegalese people and documentary discourse can be gained from watching this film. Experimental discourse, like that which Reassemblage exhibits, may be the only way to accomplish the goal of demonstrating the usefullness of, and increasing the receptiveness of documentary films that do not follow conventional methods.

Story & Discourse: A Cinematic Marriage

Siegfried Kracauer expresses in his work "The Establishment of Physical Existence" that films have an extremely important role in society. In his words, “they represent reality as it evolves in time; and they do so with the aid of cinematic techniques and devices” 302. His view of what films do actually describes the two primary processes of film, Story and Discourse. These two dynamics work together to make the cinematic experience fulfilling. After reading my classmates blogs however there is a central question they seem to be asking. Does the conscious realization of discourse take away from the film’s story?

Is Christian Metz correct in his essay, “Story/Discourse: Notes on Two Kinds of Voyeurism" when he says that a film is successful when “abolishes all traces of the subject of enunciation"? In films where the discourse is obviously shown such as History and Memory the class seems to agree that this cinematic form (bringing discourse to the forefront) actually makes the story and meaning of the film more dynamic. This is a situation where the discourse makes the story amazing. It aids in the telling of the story  As we discussed in our section, the constant switching from viewing photos, to propaganda videos being made, to acted out scenes, and then to actual videos from the time create a great compilation of film strategies to poignantly convey Rea Tajiri’s recollection of the Japanese Americans’ experience during World War II.

So now considering films in which the discourse is subtle, do we still think that

the perception of the discourse, in these instances, spoils the viewing experience? Some believe it does, others disagree. Take Belle for example and her experience with the film Hero. She describes how the production devices that,created the action-packed scenes of Hero, actually seems to counter the idea of spectators being sutured into the Film. She says “Jet Li (Nameless) and Tony Leung (Broken Sword) share an epic battle while practically defying gravity as they fly over the water. Not only that, but the water itself serves as a balancing board for them to regain their battling composure. It's stunning! Yet as soon as the spectator starts questioning how the shot was made the illusion of the story is gone and discourse comes to the forefront.” This is very true. But seeing as though we are now critical film viewers, we must ask ourselves…is this focus on discourse really such a bad thing? I do not believe so. 

If anything we are now aware of the intricate processes that go into the production and enunciation of cinematic stories. After we view a film we can see it as more than just “good” or “bad” we can say more than “I liked it” or “It sucked”. Take how Tyler feels about the film Triumph of the Will for example. Though she and the rest of the class agree that the film was a bit boring, she notes that "[t]he film is a brilliant example of propaganda in cinema, and its execution is nearly flawless in its attempts at persuasion." Tyler refers to the exorbitant amount of shots with Hitler shot from low angles to convey his amazing power, and the wide shots of crowds of thousands of soldiers marching in unison. She and many students of cinema appreciate films more now due to the simple fact that we can notice discourse—editing techniques, lighting, mise-en-scene, and countless other cinematic tools. It is important that spectators not only see a divide between story and discourse but rather, understand the undeniable reliance of the two on each other to make films great. The better we realize what is going on in a film, the more we appreciate the film for what it is, says, and does.

Lessons on Autocritique: Kiss Kiss Bang Bang

If one were to ever try to venture out of the norms of society and commence a pervasive act of autocritique, many lessons could be learned from the film Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, Directed by Shane Black in 2005. This film, in a pronounced, unadulterated, and quite tongue-in-cheek manner, performs an autocritique of society’s essentialist manifestation of films in terms genres. It highlights the domination of the institutionalized public and film industry’s discourse on the “characteristics” of a genre. By this I mean that Kiss Kiss Bang Bang takes bits and pieces from various established genres, molds them together, and puts them on display in a way that debunks the rationale behind genre formation, and the use of genre in terms of classification.

Kiss Kiss Bang Bang’s main focus is to make fun of what Steve Neale in his work “Questions of Genre” calls the “generic images”. These images are “providing labels, terms and expectations which will come to characterize the genre as a whole” (p. 49). With this idea of specific images and themes leading to a prescription of a specific genre, a lot of the enjoyment of film is lost. There are two ways is which this happens:

1. When someone is told that a movie he/she is going to see is a Chic Flick. One automatically thinks that the film will include a man and a woman. These people will probably be separated or have a hard time finding each other. But don’t worry! They will find each other in the end. There will be a happy ending that will probably be represented by a final shot with two lovers embracing in a kiss.

2. The film that someone has just seen involves a lot of scenes with fast-paced movements, people are jumping off of building, running through the streets, and getting shot left and right. So what happens after? This person leaves the theater and tells people they have just seen the best action film all year.

The problem with both of these scenarios is that by either associating a film with a genre or describing a film as within a specific genre, you are detracting from the subtleties and uniqueness of the films you see. The genre specific mentality is basically a huge oversimplification of films.

So in efforts to avoid being oversimplified and reduced to generic expectations formed by “the level of expectation, the level of the generic corpus, and the level of the ‘rules’ or ‘norms’ that govern both,” Kiss Kiss Bang Bang misuses and points out flaws in common genre specific formats and characteristics (Neale p. 56).  One example is when the protagonist Harry (Robert Downey Jr.) does a narrative of harmony’s life seen here. (Around 8:30 min. mark) He points out how he screws up the narration...he hates how that happens, so he goes back for “our viewing pleasure.” As if his critique of genre could not go any further he amazes us again in the end with the clip of him in the hospital scene (Around 7 min. mark) when he interrupts the scene with his narration.

Here again Harry shows his disgust at the way creators of films, confined by genre’s parameters and audience’s expectations will mold their films into what is pleasurably predictable. This furthers the fact that the entirety of Kiss Kiss Bang Bang thrives on its ability to be unpredictable, unclassifiable, and still pleasurable. There is some merit in letting films just be what they are without associations, predictions, and specific characterizations. Because like what I think Alex said in class, the only way to describe this film is by saying it is “Badass”. 

The Spectacle Turned on the Spectator: Flashdance

The 1983 film Flashdance is a wonderful depiction, and play on, the role of the spectator viewing spectacle within film. There is a very evident stance the film takes on transforming the ideas of both the portrayal of the spectacle and the control of the gaze--particularly the male gaze. Laura Mulvey describes in “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema” how “woman is displayed as sexual object is the leitmotif of erotic spectacle…she holds the look, plays to and signifies male desire.” Flashdance’s subversive narrative undergoes a full transformation throughout the film from the passive status of the woman within cinema into an active protagonist. The film “builds on the way she is to be looked at into the spectacle itself” (Mulvey 208).

The first and most popular dance scene during the film demonstrates the dominating nature of the male gaze. Alex Ownes (Jennifer Beals) dances on stage, poars water on herself, and all the while males in the audience seem mesmerized. The film picks at this historic cinematic “reliance” on the male to control cinematic actions—“the bearer of the look of the spectator” (Mulvey, 204). There are direct point of view shots from the male perspectives. However, the final dance scene of Flashdance nullifies the gaze and the importance of the audience’s spectatorship is embellished over that of the male character gaze. This is done by emphasizing the “shifting tension between the looks on either side of the screen” (Mulvey, 203). The spectator is forced to distinguish between their own point of view, that of the subject, and that of the other characters in the film.

The central theme of Flashdance personifies the relation between the actor/subject and the spectator. Graeme Turner describes in his book “Film as Social Practice” how Freudian theory views the role of spectator as a voyeur and their “voyeuristic look is one of the pleasures an audience finds in the cinema.” However Turner believes that “this may not be entirely accurate because actors “know that they are to be watched. So they exhibit themselves to the spectator rather than unwittingly reveal themselves” (pg 150). The dancers that work in Mawby’s Bar know they are on display and take full control over their performance. The film spotlights the fact that the girls, and their dances, prop, music, and theatrics are the defining factors in charge of directing attention. The camera follows their lead rather than the traditional lead of the male gaze. One prime example is the dance scene with Tina Tech (Cynthia Rhodes) dancing to “Manhunt”.

 

This specific scene addresses a major question posed by Christian Metz in “The imaginary signifier”. If the camera does not take the point of view of the male gaze or of the main character, “with what , then, does the spectator identify during the projection of the film? For he certainly has to identify” (pg. 46). The anxiety with this lack of identification is exactly what Flashdance wants to create. The more questioning by the spectator, the more aware the spectator will be of their role as viewers of cinema and more specifically spectacle.

 

 

"The Realistic Off-screen"- A response to my classmates blogs about Cache

“I might never figure out "whodunnit" but that's what makes the film so compelling, not to mention realistic!”

 

Bel D 

Bel and other viewers most likely associate Cache with being “realistic” because it contains the whole of reality. Cache utilizes off-screen space because in reference to Pascal Bonitzer’s “Off-screen Space,” “it is the identity of off-screen space and screen space which assures the effect of reality in cinematic fiction and the possibility of all its dramatic manipulations,” such as knowing that when a character exits the screen space he still exists (296). This representation of what happens off screen extends our knowledge and reinforces the film’s realistic depiction. But where does Cache’s unconventional method to portray realism take us as an audience? Here is a quote from Laura K's blog. It is the description of Michael Haneke's establishing shot and it’s consequential affect:

There is minimal action in the frame, and we hear dialogue, but never see where it is coming from. The audience feels odd because they have been waiting to be sutured into the film for so long by now. Only after what feels like an eternity, do we realize we are watching a tape when the mysterious voices rewind it. The camera hardly ever moves. When we are (finally) let in the living room where they are watching this tape, we still do not get pulled into their conversation. 

The directors withholding of suture translates into a lack of inclusion between the audience and the happenings of the film. We as an audience are left feeling displaced and uncomfortable with the cinematic features of the film. The most profound understanding of Haneke’s intentions for the provocations of these feelings may be found when Bonitzer describes how “’[K]eeping a distance’ is a necessary moment in representation, one which allows us to anticipate, tolerate and overcome failures in ‘credibility’” (292). This holds true when we as an audience are challenged to accept the film as reality while we are constantly bombarded with flashbacks, dream sequences, and scenes that are not actually happening but just the revealing of the secret tape footage.

Cache’s distance from the viewer definitely “plays the game of a representative scene” (Bonitzer, 292). The film constantly straddles the line between the representative and the represented. The best explanation for this concept is apparent in how Michael J. talks about the absence of the shot reverse shot in his blog,  and how in classic cinema we trained to be unaware of the camera. However in contrast to the classic form, Cache conditions the audience throughout the entire film to be aware of the function of the camera, to be cognizant of off-screen interaction, and to question whether what we see is the “representative” of the film or just another “represented” apparition of the secret tapes. So is our sense of Cache’s realism a function of natural audience response and summoned affect by means of emphasis on off-screen space?  Possibly.

 

 

Narrative Space: Sleepless in Seattle

The concept of narrative space, coined by Stephen Heath remains so simple yet profound in terms of those who study film. At first glance one could deduce that this term, which clearly describes the space within a film in which a narrative is told. Mark Garret Cooper more eloquently states in his Narrative Spaces that the combining of narrative and space describes "cinema's unique contribution to modern representational form" (139). The intricacies however, come about once one focuses into a specific film and picks apart its "space". The narrative space within a film includes places, positions, movements, conditions, and vision. A perfect example of a film utilizing narrative space from the establishing shot to final scene is Sleepless in Seattle.

This particular film tells the story of how a lonely widower Sam Baldwin and a woman named Annie Reed are connected by the efforts of Sam's son Jonah, who broadcasts on the radio that he wants a new mom for himself and also to make is father happy again. Annie by chance happens to hear this radio show and feels an instant connection with Sam. It is there that the story begins of these two characters separated by thousands of miles of space come to find each other and the love that both had been missing.  To (quite bluntly) depict their physical distance from one another the director points out throughout the film each characters placement on the United States map. In order to more poignantly establish the continuum of the narrative spaces the director subdivides "that abstract, putatively empty space into concrete, bounded places in which narrative events occur" (Cooper, 139).

One must pay close attention to the structure and shots of the scenes in Sleepless in Seattle. Within those scenes the harsh feelings of distance are portrayed so well. Einstein said it well in his statement that "'the shot is by no means an element of montage. The shot is a montage cell'" (142). What Einstein meant by this is that "the contents of the frame provide their own principles of division, conflict, and articulation" in such a way that the setting, objects within the shot, character movements and gaze, all combine to create a specific meaning. The assertion of separation by numerous circumstances are most readily noticeable when the two characters view each other throughout the film. When sam first sees Annie, in a close slow motion shot in the airport, she is quickly immersed in the bustle of people people walking, until finally she is lost in the crowd. One of the most significant scenes that further illustrates their continuous separation by means of implying "relations of depth apart from perspectival codes" is the scene where the two first see each other across a highway (Cooper, 146). This scene shifts back and forth between Annie and Sam's perspectives. Their gazes towards one another are halted by the shots of oncoming traffic.

Both the rush of people in the airport, and the dangerous oncoming of traffic are actions within the film that intensify the prolonged disconnection between Sam and Annie. Their gaze here clearly becomes the key factor of the movie. This film utilizes the "character looks to establish a dialectic between form and content" (Cooper, 147). Therefore it is clear that their not articulated  feelings for one another will only become aware when the two are involved in a mutual gaze within an uninterrupted setting. This "utopian space" for lovers in Sleepless in Seattle happens to occur on top of the Empire State building. It is here that for the first time Sam and Annie are depicted in a space devoid of people and interruptions. This unique space provides the best setting for the characters to be involved in such an intense bond that their line of eyesight is hardly ever broken. It's "as if an invisible thread connects them and draws them together across the space" (Cooper,149). This narrative space is the perfect culmination of the film's story of lovers separated by immense distance, circumstances, and situations, finally uniting with one another.

Film's Unconscious Perspective

The movie "Fight Club" is a film that is creatively engineered and perceptually intriguing. The story line of  "Fight Club" is what sets it apart form other movies. Although the reality of the film becomes clear by the end ,or throughout upon the second and third times of watching it,  the main affect of the film is its shifting perceptions that are visible to the viewer yet imperceptible to the characters. During the film, viewers have a special insight into the mind of the narrator played by Edward Norton who interacts with Tyler Durden - his minds alter ego.

To explain how this insight comes about, Walter Benjamin describes in his article, "The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction" within section VIII that film is all about the camera in that "the audience's identification with the actor is really an identification with the camera." This seems to be very true in terms of "Fight Club" because the audience is subject to what the camera, not the character, allows one to see. The characters in the film are not privy to the distinction in personalities between the Narrator and Tyler Durden. They only see one person who may act differently in different situations and settings. As an audience with the unique perspective connected through the lens of the camera, we are given insight into the minds of the characters. 

Though I feel like I did have a special insight into the Narrator, this knowledge did not present itself until the end of the film. It was only then that I was shown that Tyler Durden did not exist in reality as a separate person from the Narrator. The majority of the film - which does hint at the fact that Tyler does not exist - actually deceives, confuses, and intrigues the viewer. This film does an incredible job of exemplifying what Benjamin says when he describes how within film "a different nature opens itself to the camera than opens to the naked eye - if only because an unconsciously penetrated space is substituted for a space consciously explored by man" (VIII).

We as the audience enter the unconscious mind of the Narrator. We see how he views himself in terms of his dependence on objects rather than self-understanding. His world centered around IKEA, the workspace, and confinement are (in his mind) completely separate from the introspective, intense, and free spirit of Tyler Durden. I think that is why at the end of "Fight Club" we as the audience understand the character better than any other characters in the film could have. This film is important in depicting what film in general is able to do for perceptions and understanding. Through the means of film, the camera, narration, scenes, and shots, we are able to enter a realm outside of the conscious and reality.