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relationship.Therewill be interactionsbetween
men, but not on a sexuallevel. It is about the
possibilityof livingtogether,aboutpossessiveness, about envy, the envy a man can feel for
otherwaysof life.
Do you sometimeshavesuchfeelings?
Yes. Also because often, even without
admitting it or doing it consciously, a man
thinks back upon his own life and makes his
reckoning. These are natural examinations
that one undertakes, and inevitably certain
things in your past don't exactly please you
totally. It doesn't necessarilyhappenoftento me it occursveryinfrequently-but whenit
does, one gets the feeling of there having
been other possibilities. On the other hand,
the past is a cadaver.Experienceis a limited
tool only. Also, it can make you sterile or
distract you. I really believe that one must
annihilateexperience.Get free of it. Otherwise it luresyou, ties your hands,makesyou a
victim of false promises. It robs you of that
instinctivenesswhich to me is the most beautiful thingin humanbehavior.
Recorded in Rome on July 22nd, 1982. Copyright @ 1982 by
Gideon Bachmann.
BRIAN
HENDERSON
Tense,
Mood,
and
Voice
in
Film
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because Straub has omitted most of the signals that cue viewers as to time shifts.* He
uses straightcuts to go to the past and to return;
there are no optical devices and no music cues.
Voice-over is used for the past material itself,
but not to bridge present-past shifts. Plot
context and period detail are probably what
viewers most rely upon to construct the narrative order of a work. Here too Straub withholds orientation: he makes his thirties shots
and his fifties shots virtually indistinguishable
in dress, environment, gestures, mode of
speech, etc., which is also a thematic statement. (Some of the World War I-era shots
have period flavor.) Also, there is never enough
context provided to know with certainty which
shots belong to which period, let alone how
the various events depicted relate to one another. It is only upon multiple screenings or
*The film begins with a three-second shot of a man playing
billiards, saying to a bellboy, "Tell me what, boy?", which is
followed by eight shots with voice-over concerning boys involved
in political conflicts at a high school. Then there is a shot of the
billiard player ordering a cognac and five shots of the bellboy
going to get it, including two flashbacks concerning his life at
the hotel. A shot back in the billiard room, in which the bellboy
asks if there is more to the story, is followed by twelve more
shots, with voice-over, of one of the schoolboys being beaten,
being smuggled out of the country, etc. At this point, less than
seven minutes into the film, first- and even second-time viewers
have no idea where they are and have no way to regain their
footing for the rest of the film. For a fuller treatment, see Richard
Roud, Jean-Marie Straub (New York: Viking, 1972), which
remains the best introduction to its subject.
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LE PETIT SOLDAT
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How
Which afternoon is "this," since the voiceover has been describing the typical activities
of many days but of no particular day? Thematically one might call this a fall into time:
out of the frequentive mode, which is preserved, as in Proust, from the ravages of time,
into the singulative mode, the order of irreversible time and change, in which the family
will be dispersed and the valley destroyed.
The fall into time is also a fall from grace,
corresponding to Huw's first love attachment
outside of the family as well as to his brother's
marriage, the first actual division of the
family.
Most interesting, theoretically, is how and
why such a slippage is possible in cinematic
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press a wish or state a condition (the subjunctive), etc. Admitting that he is extending the
linguistic metaphor, Genette argues that within
the indicative there are differences between
degrees of affirmation as well as different
points of view from which an action may be
looked at. One can tell more or less what one
tells and one can tell it according to one point
of view or another; this capacity and the
latertitle, and we see an impatientfingerringing and ringing. Under the pressureof the
title, these images are iterative:they narrate
once what happenedmany times; but in the
scenes that follow each image, singulative
events occur. One might say that the doorbell
imagesare iterativeand the rest of each scene
singulative;or better,that the doorbellimages
have a dual status, belongingboth to an iterative constructionand to a singulativeone.
There is also the opposite problem, what
Genette calls "a sort of contaminationby
the iterative"of a singulativescene. In Proust
this is producedby a few iterativesentences
scenes presented,particularlyby their wording in within a singulativepassage. In cinema, as in
the imperfect,as iterative, whereastheir richness the other
performing arts, there are many
and precisionof detail ensure that no readercan
seriously believe they occur and reoccur in that ways to suggest habit, frequency of occurmanner,severaltimes,withoutanyvariation.
rence, and typicalitywithin a singulativeconThis happens occasionallyin Proust; in cin- text. Indeed,how manyplaysand films, from
ema it is pervasive because "richness and King Lear to On the Waterfront,open on a
precision of detail" seem to be inherent in scene of habitualorderjust as it is aboutto be
photographyand sound recording,at least in changedirrevocably.
those practicesof them engaged in by most
films. Thus Donald Crispand companywalk
Genette'schapterson mood and voice painto the pay window in preciselythis way only stakingly and brilliantly distinguish them.
once, as recordedin the take includedin the Perhapsfor that reason, his treatmentof the
releaseprint of the film. Some might take an two topics is very much intertwined.Strictly
ultra-literalposition and say that this makes speaking, the mood of narrativestatements
the iterativeimpossiblein cinema;its images can only be the indicativesince the function
and sounds are always singulative. But, as of a narrativeis to reportfacts, realor fictive,
noted, cinema is a "complex system"; it is not to give an order (the imperative),to ex-
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modalitiesof its use are what Genette'scategory of narrativemood concerns. Thus the
chief subcategoriesof mood are distanceand
perspective.The narrativecan furnishmoreor
fewerdetails,renderedin a more or less direct
way, and can thus seem to keep at a greater
or lesserdistancefrom what it tells. That distanceneednot be fixed throughouta narrative
but may vary accordingto the knowledgeof
one or more participantsin the story, adopting what is usuallycalled their point of view.
Thus the narrativeseems to take on, with
regardto the story, one or anotherperspective.
Genette'sdiscussionof distance entails an
extended contrast between mimesis and diegesis. Mimesisis directimitation,as are words
and actionson a stage. Writtennarrationcannot be mimetic since it presents words and
actions described by an intermediary, the
author or, more correctly,the narrativediscourse itself. An exception is direct speech,
presentedin the mannerof drama, in which
the mediation of the narratorseems to disappear.Genettecleverlyshowsthatthe interior
monologue, which he prefers to call immediate speech, pushes mimesis to its limit by
"obliteratingthe last traces of the narrating
instanceand giving the floor to the character
rightaway." Someanalystshavecalledcinema
or particularfilms or passagesmimetic,others
havecalledthemdiegetic;sometimesthe terms
areusedmoreor less interchangably.
Genette's
definitionsmight make possible a new clarity
regardingcinematicinstances,although,again,
cinema is a more difficult case because it is
a "complex system." Films usually present
the directimitation of speech and action but
do so in a mediated, or diegetic way. Films
may combine mimetic and diegetic elements
in a largevarietyof waysand may also oppose
them through slight discrepanciesor gaps,
as in Bresson's Diary of a Country Priest
(1951).
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the winds of the narrative;their voices resonate but they are hollow. An importantpart
of their function is to mimic the novelistic
voice, the guarantor of experience, subjectivity, and seriousness,with its "I remember"
and "I suffer." In fact these inflated "I"s
of classicalcinema"open" for the mainstory;
they are second-rateacts that warm up the
audiencewith their sonorities.They are ludicrousstand-insfor the novelistic"I" because,
though they wind up elaborately,they have
Reviews
THEKING
OFCOMEDY
Director:
Martin
Scorsese.Script:PaulD. Zimmerman.
Producer:
ArnonMilchan.
Twentieth
Century-Fox.
The King of Comedy was already in preproduction at the time of the shooting, but
it can hardlyescapeits own context. Its audacityliesbothin its comictreatmentof obsession
and in its refusal to offer any explanation
for its characters'behavior-any explanation,
that is, outside of the domain of images and
their effects. Unlike Taxi Driver, which tries
in a very literalway to examinewhat kind of
nut would drivea cab in New York, TheKing
of Comedyavoidsethnographyby challenging
the distancebetweenaudienceand character,
by centering its story on the relationship
between spectator and fiction. Unlike the
exotic Travis Bickle, firmly categorizedas a
psychopathic Other, Rupert Pupkin shares
with his audiencean intense desireto look at
images, participatein them, and be gratified
by them. Instead of being a nut-out-there,
Pupkin is very specifically a nut-in-hereas
far as the audienceis concerned.Whatpushes
him overthe brinkis his compulsionto extend
his vicarious participation in an on-screen
worldinto action. Scorseseand Paul Zimmerman, the screenwriter,steadfastly refuse to
pry into Rupert's psyche and, by so doing,
controlhim. His fantasiesare not tracedback
to some psycho-sexualmisfire and are therefore not packagedaway. Withoutthis explanatorygestureand the moralismit wouldentail,
the joke of TheKingof Comedy-an aspiring
comediankidnapsand threatensto kill a talkshow host unlesshe, the comedian/kidnapper,
gets a spot on the show-is playedfirst on the
comedian,then on the victim, and finally on
the spectator. If Pupkin is the brunt of the
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