On Delueze’s Cinema

Cinema is like a science lab. Within the time the directors change their methods to make connection between audience and the film. As it can be understood from the text of Delueze directors produce according to their beliefs and each film tries another method on audience. In Deleuze’s Time and Image he indicates that there is a thinkir inside of us and by sublime this thinker wakes up. According to my idea this could mean that while we are experiencing motor sensory in cinema we are not that aware of what is going on. Inside of us another “I” starts thinking by the shocks. The whole process is like a machine working, means in a systematic. After the film we realzie that we got something from the film, there are notions that the film awakens within us.

In most of the points it is clear that eleuze refers to Hegel’s ideas. The whole occurs in the process of image to thought and thought to image. According to Hegel, too, truth can be grasp from the interconnection of two things. The truth is neither in the mediator nor in the mediated, its in the mediation, means comes from the relation between mediator and mediated. Whole is, too, neither in the image nor in the thought, but in the connection of the two.

On the other hand, as I understood metonymy and metaphor are the activators of the thought. Thinker gets the shocks from those two in order to give them a meaninig and make the image clearer thinker has to start thinking about the images and their indicators. With metonymy and metaphors thinker goes beyond the action-image and gets the thought. In this aspect in order to have a whole (image-thought-image) cinema has to contain metonymy or metaphors.

In the third stage in which the image and thought have co-existence, Deleuze writes “ the concepts is in itself in the image, and the image is for itself in the concept” (p.161). The important points in here are being in itself and for itself. Although image and concept coexist, one has a hierarchical superiority. Concept is in itself within the image, however the image is for itself within the concept. Image’s existence looks like dependent to the concepts exisetence. In my opinion the whole can be found here as the in itself and for itself come together and make a unity. Cinema by using images gives us the phenomenon of its concept. In this manner, I think concept as being in itself has a hierarchical superiority over image.

Deleuze, Time-Image, 2009, Contunuum

Godard on Godard

Revolutionary project of Godard , Histoire(s) du Cinéma, uses powerful juxtapositions in order to show the contrasts between art history in general and the story of the cinema or in Godard's words; the story of speech. Godard's progressive speech on concept of history makes me consider Histoire(s) du Cinéma as a documentary which exhibits its political discourse in an explicit manner. The underlying issue in Godard's use of text and cinematography within a political discourse is decontextualization of linearity in the narration of history.

In this case, Godard's answer to a question about the role of cinema in a development of politics is highly delusive and provocative for me through its contradictory structure. (sorry but I'll just copy this part from the book*, because even the english version is not the original one, so I think, this way it will be easier to avoid any kind of "lost in translation")

S: Sinemanın politik gelişim üzerindeki etkisinden söz eder misiniz?

C: Böyle bir şeye hiç inanmadım. Bir görüntünün ya da görüntüler dizisinin bir şeyleri doğrudan değiştirebileceğini sanmıyorum. Ve giderek buna daha az inanıyorum, çünkü insanların ilgisini görüntülerden çok lafların çektiğini düşünüyorum. Bu durum değişebilir ama sanıyorum ki insanlar şeyleri görmekten korkuyolar, önce sözünü edip daha sonra görmeyi yeğliyorlar… Görüntü, bir davada ileri sürülen kanıt gibidir. Benim için film yapmak, bir kanıt getirmek gibidir. Eğer yanlış bir kanıt getirirsem, bu tartışılabilir ve işte o anda yeni bir kanıt oluşturabilmek için sözcüklerden yararlanılabilir. Bir bilim adamı böyle çalışır. Ben kendimi bilim adamlarına çok yakın hissediyorum, onlar da ben de şeylere yaklaşımlar oluşturuyoruz. İşte bunu için şu sıralarda eleştiri üzerine çalışmıyorum, işin uygulamadas aldığı biçim yüzünden : O alanda öncelik hep sözcüklerde.

For my perspective, his words are highly open to debate, for instance, his ideas about "words" may seen as a cue for the reason behind his way of mixing words and images in his films. In addition, he identified himself with a scientist and because we are not familiar with the conjunction of these two terms (art&science) it produces completely novel aspect on this area.

In addition to our class discussion on history, the ideas about the role of politics on cinema directs my attention to the main theme of 16th Festival on Wheels as coup d'état (Darbe!). You can find detailed information in the festival's official website http://www.gezicifestival.org/. Lastly, Meyerhold's thoughts on the unity of art and politics as well as John Grierson's view on cinema as a platform and means of propaganda encourage my ideas on power an influence of cinema on common sense, perception mind and public consciousness.

ps. Film and Revolution by James Roy MacBean is a great source for whom interested in Godard's cinema and its relation with politics. Especially the "Godard/Gorin: Rethinking the Function of Art in Society" chapter is specified with various examples of Godard's films and has a great contribution on understanding the relationship between cinema, history and politics.

* Söyleşiler: Godard Godard'ı Anlatıyor (1991) Metis Yayınları

Defne

Cinema As A Reflection Of History...

''Everything speaks.''
-Novalis

In Histoire(s) du cinema, Godard attempted to write history for cinema by using metaphorical montages including scenes cut from movies, paintings, sounds, captions... Behind this attemp, his motive was accomplishing the duty which he thinks cinema didn’t fulfill, showing his dissapointment because of cinema did not show what there was, especially in war time, but served its capacity only for scenarios, artificial facts.

We may find some reasons behind the fact that why didn’t cinema used its technology to show what there was and question if cinema literally ignored the reality?

Firstly, we should consider the issue in a retrospective perspective in order to understand what kind of circumstances cinema was under. Exceptional times such as war may change people’s perception to a great extent. Traumatic aspects of war ranges and denial of reality, ignorance of the stressor are common consequences. So, maybe cinema wrote history, but in a different way, not about the facts but rather the influence of facts on people.

Moreover, accomplished presentation of a fact requires extensive knowledge about it. In war time, people may not recognize what really is going on: how many people died, how many bomb-attacks occured etc. So editting a war scene without complete knowledge may cause an underestimated or overestimated conclusion of the real facts. Since cinema is a very powerful instrument to reach the society, taking the task to inform people may end up informing, but not in a comprehensive way. So, maybe cinema prefered not being the messenger rather than being an insufficient one.

Furthermore, Marc Ferro, who is a historian, answers the question whether cinema can be considered as a source of history in his book ″Cinema and History″: he mentions that at the beginning of 1960’s showing cinema as a source for history was improper, due to the common conception of the cinema, just as a tool to amuse and entertain people with artificial images so an unrealiable source for history. On the other hand, Ferro shows his opposition to this thought by suggesting that what a historian does is not so different than editting a film; choosing the documents, gathering them up, using them properly causes, kind of a similar effect that film does. He proceeds by saying that if historians legitimately resort to work with unwritten sources (i.e. folklore, traditions etc.) besides written sources, then, cinema is also a source of history.

Eventually, cinema may be grasped as a source of history whatever it shows or on what purpose.

As Marc Ferro says:

″Film, be the image of reality or not, either a document or a fiction, be reality or wholly imaginary scheme, it is history; our postulation is: the thing that didn’t take place (or why not, likewise, the thing that took place), beliefs, intentions, imaginaries of people are also history as much as history.″ *

Notes:

* The translation from Turkish to English is made by me.

Reference:

Ferro, Marc. 1995. Sinema ve Tarih. İstanbul: Kesit Yayıncılık.

Sublime and the Ethics of Representation

The question is: How can a representation be ethical? It seems that in a representation, the question is aesthetical, yet some would argue that even a movement of a camera is an ethical act. Of course the ethical is not in the actual movement of the camera but in how the camera, by way of recording, represents reality. However, the aesthetical and ethical are never that far apart. Kant’s discussion of sublime is a good starting point for discussing The Holocaust since it is an event of immense proportions.

Sublime is contrasted with beautiful. The experience of beauty creates feelings of desire, calm and pleasure in the subject and it is always about the qualities of objects i.e. judgments of beauty refer to particular objects. Pleasure we get from the sublime is negative, it is about the quantity of events and objects; this experience is negative because of the gap between our faculties of reason and understanding (roughly perception). By way of reason, we can grasp the magnitude of the event but our senses are unable to come to terms with the greatness at hand. It is a very important point that the feeling of sublime can only occur when we are safe since it is only when we are safe we can contemplate on the event: feeling that it is impossible to resist it and at the same time find inside us a power that can be a match to it; and it is with this power that we find we come to consider ourselves as above nature, as moral subjects. Therefore sublime is a way more powerful feeling than beauty because in it we are faced with something inside us i.e. sublime does not refer to a particular object.

The connection between the Holocaust and the sublime is a matter of representation: is it possible to represent such horror? And the ethical question is whether to turn away from that representation or try anyway. I think everyone would agree that what we experience as the Holocaust can never come near to actually being there. There is impossibility here (echoed again in the impossibility of representing, writing or even thinking about death (which I think is the absolute sublime)) in the sense that no concept, image or text is able to stand for “the event”. So what to do?

Here we may compare Lyotard’s arguments about sublime against Kant’s. In Kant, subject is able to bridge the gap that sublime creates by way of its faculty of reason positing itself as a moral agent transcendent to nature. But its transcendence implies yet another gap between the phenomena (reality constructed by the faculties of the subject) and the noumena (as unknowable reality in itself). This gap mirrors the absence of an object in the feeling of sublime. In the face of such great events as earthquakes, genocide or death, we cannot point to an object to connect our reasoning with what we perceive. We are unable to describe that feeling in us, not because it is not represented in our mind because we feel the sublime, but there is no object for it. Lyotard argues that in the end, it is art that tries to reconcile this absence. Art is not about trying to capture this absolute object of the sublime (since there is none): there can be no representation for it. It is rather about finding ways to make indirect references to the impossibility of representing the sublime and the sublime object itself.  Here is the concept of limit showing itself: there is a limit to our approach to the sublime. There are no final answers on some issues. Let us take the example of death. It is the end of everything, the point of no return, nothingness. All these lousy descriptions say nothing about death itself. But some existentialist philosopher may argue that it is the only question that matters. It is in our approach to the limit of the issue of death we are faced with the unspeakable, the objectless. The point is not that there can be no talk about death; but rather there can be no final talk about death in the sense that we can never find an objective anchor point in reality where the issue of death may be resolved definitely. There is a limit to human reason.

So here comes the ethical part: to give an image, an idea or a theory as the only possible answer to these questions is being fascist. Lyotard argues that these are totalizing systems. Death is and always will be beyond our senses and we have to come to terms with our limits on these issues. Inability to do so results in metanarratives. Lyotard’s argument is that the post-modern condition is one of skepticism towards metanarratives which rely on universal truths. This means that we don’t buy into pure hearted heroes, Marxism, progress or the universality of reason. What Lyotard proposes instead are petits récits: small scale narratives instead of meta-ones.

Spiegelman’s Maus is a perfect example of petits récits. It contains many small narratives, recursively (there is a comic inside which deals with Artie’s (a second-generation mouse) reaction to his mother’s suicide) and side-by-side. Moreover, it tells the story of the Jews as both victims and murderers: the story of the Jews called kappo who collaborated with Nazis. It succeeds in answering Lyotard’s criticisms and is also an example of the kind of narrative that we discussed in the class as showing us the grey instead of just black and white. My experience of reading Maus was incredible to say the least. After finishing the book I dreamt about Nazi Germany for three nights in a row. Schindler’s List is a Hollywood bore-fest compared to the elegant, intricate and thoughtful way that Spiegelman represents “the event”. Reading Maus is a unique experience. It is after all a black-and-white comic book which represents Nazis as cats and Jews as mice. There are maps, titles, instructions and little notes everywhere. It disarms you by its childish allegorical representations. Which is the very thing that shot in Kapo fails to do. Is there a reading of that shot that doesn’t scream: “a crime against humanity”?

That movement of camera is an attempt to point to the object of the sublime: the horror of the death, of concentration camps, of crimes against humanity. It is this act of pointing to a particular which does not exist - an object that is supposed to stand for the non-representable in the human experience - is the overstepping of the limit. It is not simple manipulation on the side of the director or rather it is not what Daney is criticizing. The tracking shot is a blunt representation of an ideology. It is purely ideological because as we have seen there is no object to point to in the case of the sublime. It is this pure reduction to the level of ideas which betrays the actual significance of The Holocaust.

-----------

http://www2.iath.virginia.edu/holocaust/spiegelman.html

http://bit.ly/dtE83V

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metanarrative

http://everything2.com/title/The+Ethics+of+the+Sublime%253A+Part+One

I got the power!!

When I read the article on mise-en-scéne criticism, I suddenly thought that I is not that hard to read a movie. It is not always easy to understand what the director depicts through his work. Every one of us can name several successful directors but how do we know that they are successful? For me, I guess it was kind of an instinct. However, even after one article I feel like I have the power, now I can give more specific reasons for why I like those directors.

Ok let’s skip my personal issues and come to mise-en-scéne crticism.

While I was reading the article I was trying to visualize what I have read by the help of movies that I have watched so far. When I came to the mise-en-scéne method in the readings, I came across with the term expressivist and commentative heuristics. What is heuristic? I think it is the most enjoyable toy that you can play while you are watching a movie. It will give you the feeling of finding a track of a rabbit in the forest, or revealing a crime or mystery. It enables us or lets say film critic to identify patterns of coherence in a film. In the expressivist heuristic meaning is taken from core to periphery. As I understood, setting and act of the characters should reflect the filmic discourse and vice versa. On the other hand, in expressivist heuristic director or lets say an outside force do something and create a meaning. By the help of those information, I suddenly realize that the film “Sleuth (2007)” can be read by using expressivist heuristics. In setting of the film, we see a house with 2 floors. Bedroom is on the second floor and there is an elevator. Of course it is not all about the setting however these element would help me to explain my point. I realized that when 2 characters talk in a calmer way, they are on the first floor. Then tension goes up, they take the elevator and when they are upstairs, boom!! climax. In the movie characters both literally and metaphorically go up and down. Physical act is kind of a symbol of psychological state of the characters.

After I realized that Sleuth has expressivist heuristics, and since text suggest that expressivist heuristic is more suitable for classical mise-en-scéne, I tried to look from that point of view and analyse the film even better. Sleuth is a movie based on Anthony Shaffer’s award winning play. Therefore, it is a very theatrical movie I can say. Movie is based on characters’ dialogues and dramatic developments. According to the article, I can also say that Sleuth is a classical mise-en-scene movie. Narrating and the showing is in balance, stylistic devices in the film are keyed closely to its dramatic shifts and thematic developments.

I think we should also look at the first movie that had been shot in 1972. I haven’t watched that version however when I look at the reviews I get that 2 versions are really different. Critics say that new Sleuth is not the remake of the 1972 version. At that point I was a bit confused. I thought that play is the same play so director should add something to it in order to make it that different. However I find out that sceenwriter Harold Pinter creates his own type of Sleuth. I should admit that this info was a big relief for me=) Otherwise all of my observations about sleuth would be rubbish.

Watch this movie!!

Highly recommended.

Is this the real life? Is this just fantasy?

The ways of naming, accepting, questioning, perceiving, classifying, rejecting "reality" and the "reality" itself (even this doesn't make sense at all) are highly open to question. Many different research fields are attracted to this particular topic and specifically, visual studies, in terms of both theory and practice, is one of the major areas that are concerned with "how reality is created" ? By the development of technology, the photorealistic sense of creating makes it way to beyond-life realism. With the help of artificial and supernatural features of films, questioning reality becomes one of the highlighted tools of filmmakers and spectators. However, instead of pointing out how spectacular the concept of reality is, focusing the necessity and meaningfulness behind questioning it may present us a new aspect of this discussion.

As mentioned in Thomas Elsaesser's article, "reality checking" is one of the the mental activities that we are get involved while we're playing films. Without depending on the genre, we are mostly able to be a part of the plot and by this way, the constructed reality of the film is reflected in our minds. In this way, we become able to internalize and actualize the film's reality, which depends on our own subjective perception, whether in mind or in action. New generation of media and consumerism mostly allows us to actualize it by creating a by-products of films, producing DVD editions, decorate our desktops etc.. But the confusing part is if we can really actualize the reality what is given in the film by creating our own reality system, or those these things are separate from each other. I wonder what Elsaesser really meant by saying "reality check" and what he tended to compare with what. For me, by many ways, questioning reality is a bit paradoxical, but still it may work to connect us with films, mostly puzzling ones. Questioning what is real or what is not can be considered as a brain-storming activity and in general, it's possible to do this by means of unconventional mind-game films.

For my very personal point of view, Haneke is the best director who has impressive examples of puzzle films (Caché, Funny Games) in such an unconventional way. His way of playing with our conscious and conscience mostly, amaze me with all its' illusionary connection with reality. His characters haunted by things that mostly they trust in, for instance, in Caché his conscience is the leading character's enemy, and in Funny games, the family is haunted by the concept of secure life and their definition of security. However, he did not choose to show these inner ghosts explicitly, instead he attributes these mental ghosts to a more concrete, more "real" agents. Haneke uses his camera and features of editing, which are the prominent components of his films, as a remote control and he play with us. There are several examples that Elsaesser repeated through his very informative article and his organized way of categorizing mind-game films are enlightening, but still, another conceptions about these types of films are possible for me. If the mind-game films are about confusing our minds, introduced us with other possible worlds, minds and realities, for example, can we consider Woody Allen as a director, whose films cover the major characteristics of mind-game films ? Although the way we progress his storytelling style and the overall impact of his films are too different from what Trier, Jonze or Fincher make with their films, is it possible to mention a distinct boundary between them ?

I also want to put an emphasis on a term that Elsaesser used in his article, as "possible worlds". Mind-game films completely embrace this idea with its concept about various forms of "possibility". One of the most common approach to creating different possible words or possible ways to defining reality, is to use particular pathologies. The author choose to call them as "productive pathologies" because these pathologies may serve to construct another perspective and again, may help them to attain some meaningful resolutions to gain new types of knowledge or to create different way of interaction with the world. However, pathology itself, is highly open to debate because what we define today as pathology is defined by American Psychiatric Assosiation (APA). They create a kind of Bible, as named DSM-IV (5th edition is coming up with "possible pathologies" on 2013) and it labels even natural worries as pathology, so I'm not sure what we mean by pathology can be really considered as pathology. So within these conditions, making a reality check wouldn't be clear enough to have a conclusion about the terms fiction and reality, even the meaning lay behind this questions are not based on something meaningful. But anyways, the process itself is worth to experience and as far as I got introduced with different paths of mystery, through any kind of mind-game film, I felt that the way I think about certain subjects had significantly changed and lastly, seeing this change and being a part of this kind of thrill is such a joy.

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