THE ESSAY FILM

Thesis submitted to Middlesex University

in partial fulfilment of the requirement

for the degree of

Doctor of Philosophy

Joram ten Brink

School of Art, Design and Performing Art

Middlesex University

1999
 THESIS
CONTAINS
VIDEO
Still from the film 'The Man who Couldn't Feel' and Other Tales
CONTENTS

THE FILM : `The Man Who Couldn't Feel' and Other Tales
16mm, 54min, Colour.

THE THESIS : THE ESSAY FILM

Volume

ABSTRACT 6

CHAPTER ONE : INTRODUCTION 7

CHAPTER Two THE LITERARY ESSAY

:

Introduction 14

Content 18

Structure and Style 20

Aesthetics 29

Michel de Montaigne 35

Conclusion 45

CHAPTER THREE : THE ESSAY FILM

Introduction 48

Existing theories of the essay film 49

The avant-garde roots of the essay film 57

1
 Montage 61

ModernistAmerican poetry 69

Conclusion - definition of the essay film 74

CHAPTER FOUR : `The Man Who Couldn't Feel' and Other Tales -
TEXTUAL ANALYSIS

Introduction 79

Thematic content 73

Autobiography 82

Travel 85

Film structure 88

Narrative 'tales' 92

Archive material 97

Non-narrative structuresand editing 100

Conclusion 102

CHAPTER FIVE : ESSAY FILMS BY CAVALCANTI,

VERTOV AND MARKER.

Introduction 105

Alberto Cavalcanti's Rien que les Heures 107

Dziga Vertov iii

The Eleventh Year 114

2
 The Man With the Movie Camera 115

Enthusiasm 128

Chris Marker 130

Letter from Siberia 132

The Koumiko Mystery 136

Sunless 137

CHAPTER SIX : CONCLUSION 155

BIBLIOGRAPHY 151

FILMOGRAPHY 185

Volume Two

APPENDIXES

APPENDIXONE: Shot Analysis of the Film `The Man Who Couldn't Feel'

and Other Tales 1

TWO :
APPENDIX `The Man Who Couldn't Feel' Text 54

THREE :
APPENDIX 'Good Morning Mr. Jones' Text 57

FOUR:
APPENDIX 'The Lover's Gift Regained' 60

APPENDIX
FIVE : Meditation Text 61

3
APPENDIX
SIX : US Air Force Pilots' Interviews 62

APPENDIXSEVEN :A Personal Story 64

APPENDIXEIGHT : Italian Song Text 68

APPENDIXNINE : List of the Film's Cinema Screenings 73

4
When I started editing, six years ago, the film

`The Man Who Couldn't Feel' and Other Tales,

I had one film in mind - Sunless by Chris Marker -

as an inspiration to try and make a `different' type of documentary.

Whilst writing the thesis, I have discovered another masterpiece -

The Man With the Movie Camera - by Dziga Vertov.

To both, this thesis is dedicated.

5
ABSTRACT

This thesis on the essay film is written from the film maker's point of view,

following the production of the film The Man Who Couldn't Feel and Other Tales,

(54 min, 16mm). The film and the thesis together form the PhD submission.

Examination of the completedfilm led to the definition of the essayfilm as an avant-

garde, non-fiction film genre. The thesis rejects the current positioning of the essay

film as a part of the documentary genre. The essay film creates an aesthetic

coherence through the use of image and sound fragments, narrative and non-

narrative structures,`methodically unmethodically' edited together. The essayfilm

follows Vertov's and Astruc's stepsin 'writing' fragmentsas they occur to the film

maker, which are in turn put together using the editing traditions of the film avant-

garde and modernist poetry. The film maker's presence in the essay film results in

the cinematic 'text' becoming the 'reflective text' - the mediating medium between

the film maker and the spectator. Beside its avant-garde roots, the genre owes much

to the literary essay tradition established since Michel de Montaigne. Many of the

literary essay's aesthetic, thematic and structural elements are to be found in the

essay film genre. Each and every essay film is unique in its structure, and the genre

as a whole does not conform to a pre-determined cinematic construction.

Nevertheless, the thesis charts some useful characteristics and definitions for the

establishment of an independent essay film genre.

6
CHAPTER ONE : INTRODUCTION

This thesis on the essay film is written from the film maker's point of view,

following the production of the film `The Man Who Couldn't Feel' and Other Tales,

(54 min, 16mm) made over a period of four years. The film and the thesis together

form the PhD submission. The aim of the study programme at the outset was to

investigate the main trends of non-narrative documentary cinema so as to define more

closely the `essay' form of documentary. Producing the film and subsequently

reflecting on the film making practice and on the wider context of non-narrative

structures led to the writing of this thesis. The thesis rejects the position that the

essay film is a part of the documentary genre and demonstrates that the essay film is

an independent genre and that it owes more to avant-garde and literary essay

practices than to the documentary genre. The advantage of establishing a film theory

from inside the work itself, rather than bringing it in from 'the outside', has proved

to be immense and very rewarding.

My work as a film maker has developed from my early interest in anthropological

film making and the conventional documentarytradition, very much influenced by

the work of the French film maker Jean Rouch. After producing several
1, ý
documentaries, I proceeded in my work to look to 'open
up' the documentary form

of film making. I explored a form that is neither fiction

nor documentary in my

7
film, Jacoby (Holland, 1988). This film points to the possibilities of creating a film

structured from separate sequences - some constructed with the help of actors and

sets,some traditional documentarysegments,others altogetherabstract. It enabled

me to try for the first time to break down traditional linear narrative structure. The

experience of working with fragments and self-contained scenes was, in hindsight,

extremely valuable upon embarking on `The Man Who Couldn't Feel' and Other

Tales.

Fourteen years ago I travelled to mainland China with 70 rolls of Super 8 film (with

no sync sound). My purposewas not to make a documentaryfilm about China. I

collected images that were powerful as independent images and contained within

themselves an idea that stayed with me longer than the passing impression of travel.

Those images were not chosen as representing life in China but as containing within

them more general, abstract readings on different levels. Later, I proceeded to

collect images from around the globe on subsequent travels. In addition, I brought

together, for the purpose of creating the new film, archive material I have collected

over the years, musical recordings I made in the past and written texts I have

gathered from various sources during my work as a film maker. Conventional

editing methods were completely unsuitable in constructing a non-narrative film. I

compiled all the rushes randomly into large reels and, throughout the viewing and

later the editing process, I kept the material

unclassified and resisted grouping it in an

8
order or form. I started editing, not from a theoretical perspective or according to a

pre-determined structure, but from within the material itself - images, sound

fragments and music. The theory would come later. Examination of the completed

film - `The Man Who Couldn't Feel' and Other Tales film that was intended
-a

originally to be a non-narrative documentary, led to the definition of the essay film as

an independent genre and not as part of the documentary discourse.

This thesis demonstrates that the essay film is a unique genre, creating an aesthetic

coherencethrough the useof image and soundfragments,put togetherin a variety of

narrative and non-narrative structureswithin a film, `methodically unmethodically'

edited together to create an aesthetic unity. This is bound together with the notion

that film maker is present inside the work and introduces it to the audience, asking

them to take part in the construction of the film's meanings. As a result, the

cinematic 'text' becomes the 'reflective text', the mediating medium between the film

maker and the spectator. The essay film follows Montaigne's, Vertov's and

Astruc's steps in 'writing' fragments as they occur to the writer, or the film maker.

Thesefragmentsare in turn edited togetherassociatively,relying on poetic metaphor

and juxtaposition.

A detailed look at the essay film form and a full structural analysis of the film `The

Man Who Couldn't Feel' and Other Tales reveals the linear
and non-linear structural

9
elements within the genre, and the use of the avant-garde montage and poetic film

metaphortechniquesto achievea coherentform basedon the fragmentarycinematic

text. Beside the avant-garde roots of the essay film, the genre owes much to the

literary essay tradition as recognised in modern European literature since the

publication of Michel de Montaigne's essays. Many of the literary essay's aesthetic,

thematic and structural elements are to be found in the essay film genre. The strong

avant-garde elements of the cinematic language within the essay film, together with

its links to the literary essay, point to the definition of an independent film genre - the

essay film. Each and every essay film is unique in its structure, and the genre as a

whole doesnot conform to a pre-determinedcinematic construction. Nevertheless,

the thesiswill chart some useful characteristicsand definitions for the establishment

of an independentessayfilm genre.

The thesis starts in Chapter Two by discussing the literary essay as one of the

fundamental and essential principles for the examination of the essay film. It

considers in detail the content, style, structure and aesthetics of the modern Western

tradition of the literary essay,with somereferenceto an earlier, fascinating,Japanese

medieval tradition of essaywriting. This chapter defines the literary essayform in

general and looks in particular at Michel de Montaigne's essays. Beside Montaigne,

this chapter discusses in detail Theodor Adorno's concern with the relationship

between the essay and art, and his major contribution to the debate on the aesthetics

of the essay. In recent times, the French writer Roland Barthes has created a

10
renewed interest in the essayform. Barthes' writings on the subject of the essay

and Reda Bensmafa's writings on Barthes are extremely important to this thesis, as

are Graham Good's more general overview of the essay and Richard Sayce's

discussion of Montaigne. The second part of Chapter Two examines closely

Montaigne's writings as the basis for the comparison between the literary essay and

the essay film. A detailed textual analysis of one of Montaigne's essays shows that

the writer's personal experiences, coupled with the apparent formlessness of the

essay, the associative movement between several ideas and the extensive use of

quotations, achieve a unity in diversity through association. It represents directly

what Adorno praises as the strongly experimental, 'methodically unmethodically',

approachof the essay. Thesestructural and aestheticalconsiderationsare examined

further in Chapter Three in the discussion of the essay film form.

Chapter Three begins by discussing and rejecting the existing theories of the essay

film, mainly by Michael Renov and Carl Plantinga, who place it inside the

documentary genre. Chapter Three then proceedsto define the essayfilm genre.

The essay film form is not new. Dziga Vertov's work and writings, early this

century, had already 'shown the way' for the genre, as is the case,to some degree,

with Alexander Astruc's 'camera-stylo'theory. Recently, Nora Alter's writings on

some aspects of recent German essay films point toward a better definition of the

essay film genre by placing the Russian avant-garde traditions and Adorno's

11
aesthetics of the literary essay under one roof. A similar attempt is made by Susan

Howe in her discussion of American modernist poetry and the essay film. In order

to understandin full the avant-garderoots of the essayfilm, ChapterThree proceeds

to consider in detail the use made by Russian formalism and American modernist

poetry of associative techniques and their influence on avant-gardefilm montage

through the use of poetic metaphor and film metaphor in the context of symbolic

association and montage.

After defining in the two previous chapters the literary essay and the position of the

essayfilm as an avant-gardegenre, Chapter Four turns to the film `The Man Who

Couldn't Feel' and Other Tales and discussesit, through a detailed textual analysis,

as an essayfilm. Both origins of the genre- the literary essayand the avant-garde-

are identified in this chapterin the discussionof the film. ChapterFour arguesthat

the film is not a documentary film as there is no central theme or single story within

it. Nor does it contain a linear structure. The film analysis shows that, as in a

Montaignean essay, the multitude of visual and sound sequences and short 'stories',

often repeatedand interwoven, are 'methodically unmethodically' structured by the

use of avant-gardefilm techniques. Chapter Four looks at the film as a 'camera-

stylo' film and highlights the structure of the film which relies heavily on montage

techniquesused by the early Soviets and by the Modernist poets. [A complete shot-

by-shot breakdown of the film appears in Appendix One to this thesis].

12
Chapter Five looks at a range of essay films, previously defined as documentaries or

as 'difficult to define' films, in order to broaden the definition of the essay film

beyond my work and to apply it to that of other film makers. This chapterdiscusses

Alberto Cavalcanti'sRien gue les Heures(France,1924),but concentratesmainly on

Dziga Vertov's and Chris Marker's essayfilms as the most important and striking

examples of the genre. Vertov's films - The Eleventh Year (USSR, 1928),

Enthusiasm (USSR, 1930) and in particular The Man With the Movie Camera

(USSR, 1929) - are discussed as early examples of the genre. Marker's films -

Letter from Siberia (France, 1958), The Koumiko Mystery (France, 1962), and his

most famous film Sunless (1982) - which differ in some ways from Vertov's

approach, are also analysed as essay films.

The Conclusion to the thesis is followed by nine Appendixes which contain a shot-

by-shot analysis of the film "The Man Who Couldn't Feel' and Other Tales', the

complete texts of the film's sound track and a list of the film's cinema screenings to

date.

13
CHAPTER Two : THE LITERARY ESSAY

Introduction

This chapterwill discussthe main characteristicsand featuresof the literary essayas

a basis for the discussionof the essayfilm. Frequently, the literary essayis studied

as an offshoot of, or as a footnote to, other literary works, or as an appendix to an

analysis of a writer's output in other literary genres. An historical examination of

the essay is useful when the focus of study is literature, but is less useful here,

where the focus of study is the genre itself, its structure and its potential relation to

the essay film. The main contributors to the discussion of the structure and the form

of the essayall attempt to reacha definition of the essay,whilst acknowledging that

the essaycannot be categorised,identified in precise terms or 'boxed into' a genre.

Nevertheless, we do need some working definition of the form with which to begin

our analysis. This chapter will attempt to define the essay form in general and will

look in particular at Michel de Montaigne's essays and analyse the form as it appears

in his work. A close examination of Montaigne's writings will form the basis for

the comparison between the literary essay and the essay film as I believe this

comparison will contribute to an accurate definition of the essay film.

The literary essay in modern European literary history started with Michel de

Montaigne (1533-1592) - the `father' of the genre and often treated as the writer of

14
 the 'definitive' essay. During the past three hundred years, a large body of study

relating to his essays has evolved. The enormous variety of issues which appear in

his texts are used to support many and often contradictory theories in literature,

philosophy, history or psychology. These contradictions are of course inevitable,

when one looks closely at the form, the range, the variety and the style of his essays.

For a long time, Montaigne was also unique because of writings included both

essays and reflections on the writing of the form itselfl.

A major contribution to the study of the essayas a form in the German-speaking

world during the first half of the twentieth century, came with György Luckäs

(1885-1971) who was followed by Theodor Adorno (1903-1969). Both are

concerned mainly with the relationship between the essay and art, and they pose the

question whether the essay is an art form. They base their analysis on nineteenth

century and early twentieth century German literature. Curiously, neither discusses

Montaigne nor any of the studies related to his essays.

The person who createda renewedinterest in the essayform was the French writer

'For a complete translation of the three-volumes(nauned"Books") of Montaigne's essayscontaining all 107

individual essays,seeMontaigne, M. de, Frame,D (trans.) The works: Essays:Travel Journals:
Complete
Letters, 1958b,London: Hamish Hamilton. All referencesin this thesis to Montaigne essaysare taken from
this edition and are in this form: Montaigne, 1958b: `EssayTitle', pagenumber.
For extensivebibliographical referencesto the study of Montaigne through the ages,seeGood, G. Mm
Observing Self. Rediscovering the Essay, 1988,London: Routledge,and Sayce,R The Essaysof Montaigne=A
Critical Exploration., 1972,London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson.

15
Roland Barthes (1915-1980). R. Bensmaia and S. Sontag both offer an overview

of the development of the essay from Montaigne to Barthes. Sontag, in her

introduction to a volume of translations of Barthes' essays, describes Barthes' work

as the culmination of both the French (Montaigne and Gide) and the German

(Nietzsche) traditions. Bensmaia, throughout his extremely detailed study of

Barthes' essays,declaresBarthesto be the new Montaigne. Both regardhim as the

true follower of the sixteenth century writer (see Sontag, 1982: xxxiii), and the

person who rediscovered the essay form and pushed it toward new boundaries and

possibilities.

The essay can be described as the triangular relationship between the 'self(the

writer), the 'text' (the writing itself) and the reader, who is drawn into the essayto

play an active role in its reading via the text's structural forms. The essay develops

its own aestheticsand style, which may be loosely describedor defined but which,

paradoxically, are easily recognised by the reader. For the purpose of a general

discussion of the essay form, G. Good offers a useful and clear introduction with

which to begin. According to Good, the following general points are essential in the

definition of the essay:

" The essay is normally written in prose. Its language stressesthe accuracy of

representation, rather than the elaboration of literary style, as is the case with

narrative fiction or scholarly study.

" The essay'slanguageis relatively informal, often factual and colloquial. Both

16
Montaigne and Bacon, the first English essayist, chose French and English

respectively in preference to Latin, the common written language of their times.

9 The essay is flexible in length. Short and long sentencesare often alternated.

The length of a paragraphis as variable asis the overall length of the essayitself.

" The essay presentsknowledge, but does not offer a complete, systematically

organised scholarship. The essayist needs to be an independent observer, rather

than a specialistin any field of knowledge.

" The essayist is prepared to face a world in which nothing is known for certain.

The essay seeks diversity and the personal and avoids the disciplines of knowledge.

In contrast, disciplined modes of study or writing seek unity and use a particular

methodology,where accessto the thesisis often limited to the specialistsin the field.

" The essayconcentrateson raw, crude and unsorted material or on experiences

which are often unclassified and undefined within a discipline. The essay is not a

'study' which contributes to the general system of knowledge, but is a process of

self-learning.

" Quotations in an essay are used as a form of dialogue between the writer and the

reader and are not intended to lend authority to the work, as is the case in a

disciplined study. Quotationstakenfrom sourcesin the pastare not put in the essay

to reinforce the present experience of the writer, but instead they are part of the

current experience itself. The modern essay, as established by Montaigne, broke

with the previous practice of relying heavily on authoritative ancient texts. Using

17
quotations, though, was one of Montaigne's only concessions to the previous

generation's tradition of writings and to the authority of the `giant' writers of the

past, such as Virgil, Horace and Seneca (Good, 1988: ix-x, 1-9).

Content

Regarding the content of the essay,without proffering a rigid categorisationof the

essay'ssubject matters and accepting the fact that many essaysare nearly always a

mixture of all or some of the following features, we are able say that an essay may

comprise:

"A letter addressed to the reader, or addressedto a real or fictional friend.

"A series of descriptive sketches, in fictional or non-fictional prose, which relate a

story or an incident.

9A discussion of a moral issue, but not a complete study of ethics and morality.

In face of big or small moral questions, the essay emphasisesthe lack of moral

coherenceand perfection in the human moral stand, accepting the fact that human

behaviour often escapesfrom a system of values and is erratic by nature. The essay

will include contradictory ideas from time to time as its charts its route through a

series of fragments. Montaigne, after writing essays for sixteen years, makes this

point clearly:

The world is but a perennial movement. All things in it are in constant

motion (...) I do not portray being (...) I portray passing (...) I may indeed

18
 contradict myself now and then (...) if my mind could gain a firm footage, I

would not make essays, I would make decisions; but it is always in

apprenticeship and trial (Montaigne, 1958b: `Of Repentance', 611).

"A travelogue which highlights a particular location or an experience during

travelling. But the essayis not a completetravel book, charting the entire experience

of the trip; it is a mixture of self-preoccupation and observation by the traveller.

Chance plays an important role within the travel element in an essay. In an analogue

to walking, the essay is constantly changing pace and direction, laying itself open to

digression,deviation, deflection and wandering.

9 Autobiographical elements play an important role as subject matter in the essay.

But again, as in the case of the travel feature within an essay, an essay does not chart

a complete and systematic account of the writer's life, but instead concentrates on an

episode or a single experience (Good, 1988: vii - xiii).

The essay is not about the 'self only, as J.M Cohen, one of Montaigne's modern

English translators,claims (1958: 9). The essayis not a confessioneither. It is a

medium of communication to a friend, no more and no less. For example,

Montaigne's essays started as a result of his wish to `communicate' to his closest

friend, Etienne de la Boetie, who had died a short while earlier. A definitive system

of presentation of a series of experiences is substituted in the essay by the realisation

that everyone's experienceis mixed, varied and divergent in a similar way. As P.

19
Lopate states: "At the core of the personal essayis the supposition that there is a

certain unity to human experience" (1994: xxiii). The essayist's truths are 'for me'

and 'for now, personaland provisional. The essayis as close to the experienceof

the individual as a diary. But the essay,in contrast to the diary, doesnot presenta

chronological,systematicandcompleteaccountof the writer's daily experiences.

Structure and Style

We have seen from the above definitions of the literary essay that one of the crucial

elements of the essay is the flexibility with which the writer treats his/her

experiences. S/he doesnot impose a systemon them. Judgmentsand assumptions

may be put forward, but they are not usedas fundamentals. When conclusions are

presented in an essay they are not foregone conclusions: "Knowledge and truth can

lodge in us without judgement, and judgement also without them, indeed the

recognition of ignorance is one of the fairest and surest testimonies of judgement that

I find" (Montaigne, 1958b: `Of Books', 297). In fact the essay's 'conclusions' (if

one can use the term at all) often contradict eachother and cannot be usedas a basis

for a further future study. "Intrigued with their limitations, both physical and

mental, they (the essayists)are attractedto cul-de-sac", claims Lopate (1994: xxvii).

Nothing in an essay is carried over. An essay starts every time afresh from a new

beginning. An essay offers knowledge of the moment, no more, no less. The

essay does not claim to present a definitive study or a properly laid down chain of

arguments. Its authority is not in the systematic presentation

of the outcomes of

20
learning but in the experience presented by the writer.

E. Moore in her comparative study of Max Frisch's Sketchbook and Kenko's Essays

in Idleness stresses the Japaneseconcept in which the author's experience is

consideredto be the historical truth (1988: 168). Furthermore,the Japaneseliterary

tradition acceptsthat the truth "lies within the perceptionof the perceiverin his ability

to express this reality in an aesthetically persuasive manner" (Ihid: 169). Thoughts,

meditations, perceptions and reflections stay close to the objects and ideas put

forward in the essay. The truth in an essay is limited, and it does not claim to be all

embracing. The essay is a provisional and tentative reflection. Scepticism from the

writer's point of view, as it is presented to the reader, is crucial in the understanding

of an essay. Montaigne's essayscan be seen as the most striking in the genre,

precisely becauseof that feature. In contrast to Montaigne, Francis Bacon, his

contemporary, projected a great deal of confidence in his assertion that humans

possessclear ability to progress in their understandingof the world (Good, 1988:

43-54).

Ideas within an essay are developed through things, objects or associations and not

through a direct line of argument. In a narrative, a presentation of a catalogue of

events or a logical argument,one event follows another,often as a result of a cause

and effect relationship. In an essay, event and reflection, object and idea are

21
interwoven and limit each other's development. Adorno uses the colourful

metaphor of the woven carpet to describe the process (1984: 160). This

characteristic of the essay stands is a stark contrast to the linear structure of the

scientific study or the narrativestory.

Crucial elementsin attempting to define the essayare the selection processand the

techniques of ordering issues, ideas and events. An essay is based on the premiss

that issues and ideas are selected as they have occurred to the writer, and not as they

generally occur. The writer's experience or perception of the 'what, who, where

and why' of the subject matter is crucial. It does not mean, though, that the essayist

examines his/her navel in an endless anguish and self-interest. S/he speaks freely to

the reader about events, hopes, ideas and fears. M. J. Miller in her comparative

study of the Japanese autobiographical genre and Montaigne's essays defines the

particular nature of the autobiography in the essay:

Of course, the recreation of this personality or character, as revealed by the

views expressed in the essays, is dependent on the reader: the organization

of the material is such that the personality is implicit in the work, implicit in

what is expressed and in the way it is expressed. The reader recreates for

himself a senseof the writer, a portrait that is basedon theseimplications"

(1985: 246).

22
Although the essay includes some direct autobiographical elements, it cannot be

studied as an autobiography. Montaigne wrote: "Everyone recognises me in my

book, and my book in me" (1958b: `On Some Verses of Virgil', 667), and in

another place: "I have no more made my book than my book has made me" (Ibid:

`On Giving Lie', 504). D. Frame in his introduction to his translation of

Montaigne's work declaresthat "the book is the man" (1958: v). He seesthe'self

as the dominant element in discussing the essay. The same is true of the other

modern English translator of Montaigne, J. M Cohen, who calls the work `an

autobiography', although he proceeds immediately to qualify his definition, pointing

to the essay as a very unusual autobiography (1958: 9). Both translators' views are

somewhatlimited. G. Defaux highlights a very important element in the study of

the essay. He rejects the idea that the study of Montaigne is the study of the man

himself. The 'self of the text is not the same as the 'self' f Michel de Montaigne.

He wholeheartily embraces Barthes' emphasis on the text, as it seems fruitless now,

centuries later, to go on and speculate about the writer's life (1983: 73-92).

The 'self' in the essay, either visible or obscured, is often only a reference point.

The mixture of elements,events and reflections can only be held together with the

concept of the 'self. R. Bensma*fa,in his study of Barthes, emphasises the notion

of the essay as a practice of writing. The essay is a text, generated from fragments

which exist outside established classifications. These fragments 'refuse' a fixed

23
centre or an over-arching scheme. M. Richman in her introduction to Bensmaia's

book on Barthes observes that : "their composition consists of heterogeneous series

of ideas `hinged' together by a `mot-bas-tant' a `sufficient word', the most common

being le corps - the body" (1987: xi). Bensmaia uses throughout his book the

term `the reflective text' to point to the overwhelmingly personal character of the

essay in its relation to the 'self. The `self and the 'text' are inseparable. The

writer stands in the centre of an often eclectic and fragmentary text. The essayist

establishes himself as the primary intellectual subject for the variety of digressions,

instead of using external stimuli on which to `hinge' the essay (Richman, 1987: x).

Barthes' writings, in particular his hook S/Z and the four books that followed - The

Pleasure of the Text. Roland Barthes by Roland Barthes. A Lover's Discourse. and

Camera Lucida. contain fragmentary texts and offer an example of a matrix of

different genres. But the essay is not the `mtllange of genres', but the genre of

`self-generation', emanating from the 'self' (Richman, 1987: xvii). Barthes

himself, in the section entitled `Step by Step', describes this process in detail. He

states that one must first of all renounce structuring the text according to the

principles of classical rhetoric, as they are taught from secondary school onward:

"Everything signifies ceaselesslyand several times, but without being delegated to a

great final ensemble, to an ultimate structure" (1975: 12). The writer needsto break

down the `single text' to the last detail, by working back along the multitude threads

of meanings. The `single text' is not used to create a unified model but is an

24
"entrance into a network with thousands of entrances" (Ibid. ). He describes the

process as the step-by-step method, elevating digression to a system. As a result,

the text is presented to the reader directly, instead of through an assembled

methodical structure. According to Sontag, Barthes' writings have, in the final

analysis, one great subject: writing itself (1982: vii).

Richman sees the use of the digression method as a way to abolish the distance that

separates the producer of the text from the reader. Barthes' text does not belong to a

generic category. It creates a strong, close relationship between the writer and the

reader and it demands that the reader becomes a producer and not a consumer of the

text (1987: xviii). This relationshipbetweenthe text and the readeris mentionedby

M. Miller in her discussion of Japanese essay form: "The reader recreates for

himself a sense of the writer, a portrait that is based on these implications" (1985:

246). The same effect on the reader had already been noted by Montaigne's earlier

commentators. Frame offers two examples: Emerson commented: "it seems to me

as if I had myself written the book (...) so sincerely it spoke to my thought and

experience" (quoted in Frame, 1958: vi) and Pascal remarked that: "it is not in

Montaigne, but in myself, that I find all that I see in him" (Ibid). Frame describes

this as a `mystery': "no one has explained this" (Ibid). Barthes' notion, years later,

of the reader as the producer of the text, offers an explanation of that `mystery'.

A fascinating footnote to the study of Montaigne's essaysand his influence on the

Modernist movement in literature earlier this century, and especially on Virginia

Woolf, is presented by D. Marchi. Woolf herself, in her essay dedicated to

Montaigne in the volume of essayscalled The Common Reader, writes of Montaigne

as `the first Modern'. Woolf went `on a pilgrimage' to France, to Montaigne's

castle and visited his study in the tower of his estate. The visit moved her greatly.

Shedescribesthe effect of Montaigne's essayson the readerasbeing like standingin

front of an old painting:

But this talking of oneself, following one's own vagaries, giving the whole

map, weight, colour, and circumference of the soul in its confusion, its

variety, its imperfection this art belongedto one man only: to Montaigne.
-

As the centuries go by, there is always a crowd before that picture, gazing

into its depths, seeing their own faces reflected in it, seeing more the longer

they look, never being able to say quite what it is that they see (1925:

84).

Coming away from the visit she reflects on the art of writing in light of Montaigne's

essays:

There is, in the first place, the difficulty of expression. We all indulge in

the strange, pleasant process called thinking, but when it comes to saying,

even to someoneopposite, what we think, then how little we are able to

convey! The phantom is through the mind and out of the window before

we can lay salt on its tail, or slowly sinking and returning to the profound

26
 darkness which it has lit up momentarily with a wandering light. Face,

voice, and accent eke out our words and impress their feebleness with

character in speech. But the pen is a rigid instrument; it can say very little;

it has all kinds of habits and ceremonies of its own. It is dictatorial too: it

is always making ordinary men into prophets, and changing the natural

stumbling trip of human speech into the solemn and stately march of pens

(1925: 85).

Marchi charts the direct line of influence of the Montaigne essay on Woolf via

Gournay, Montaigne's editor and the first feminist writer in France, and via the

writer Walter Pater, Woolf's mentor. Although Woolf refers directly to Montaigne

only once, the Frenchman's scepticism, personal style, historical and cultural

diversity and even his ambiguous treatment of gender have contributed dramatically,

according to Marchi, to Woolf's work and in particular to A Room Of One's Own

and Orlando. Marchi goesas far as to suggestthe link betweenMontaigne's father's

surname - Eyquem = Oakham (in English) - and the poem "The Oak Tree" at the

centre of the narrative of Orlando. More interesting still is Marchi's assertion that

Montaigne's essays, Pater's Gaston and Woolf's Orlando are all "prototypes of the

open,scriptible text of Barthes- embodyingthat provisional mode of literature which

always demands further analysis" (1997: 16)

27
P. Lopate, in his discussion of the literary essay as an introduction to the essay film,

raises an important question regarding style: "It is not enough for the essayist to slay

a bull; it must be done with more finesse than butchery" (1996: 245). The self-

exposure,the doubts, the scepticism, the honesty and the 'rough ride' betweenideas

and conceptscan only be convincing and meaningful for the reader if they project

authority, using a style full of surprises and containing freshnessand originality.

For the readers to become the true producers of the text, to appreciate the

`digressionary', in Barthes' terms, and the `methodically unmethodically' shape of

the essay as described by Adorno, the essay has to possess a flair so as to take the

reader along the bumpy road of turns and twists. The essay "reflects a childlike

freedom that catches fire, without scruple, on what others have already done"

(Adorno 1984: 152). According to Sontag, `writing itself' s essentialto the essay,

style and, in particular, the `excessive, playful, intricate, subtle, sensuous language'

must play a role in the establishing the form (1982: xxii).

M. J. Miller in her comparison between the tenth century Japanese collection of

sketches by Sei Shonagon, The Pillow Book, and Montaigne's essays observes that:

An interesting parallel betweenthe two authors (is) their common love of

writing for the joy of it (... ) Both Montaigne and Sei Shonagon,

perhaps because they invest so much in writing itself, seem free of any

negative egotism, for all the introspection. The delight in the world around

them and in the play of their own wit in recording their reactions seems at

28
 times almost as unselfconscious as that of a child (1985: 261).

In an elegant and concise manner, fusing the two elements of the 'self and style,

Sontag puts two quotes at the beginning of her essay on Barthes: The first is by the

American poet Wallace Stevens in a journal dated 1899: "The best poetry will be

rhetorical criticism". The second, "I rarely lose a sight of myself", is by the French

writer Paul Valery (1982: vii). In his final question, `What then is the Essay?',

Bensmaia evokes the art of the Sophist as described by Plato:

This art of contradiction which, by the ironical part of an art founded on a

mere opinion, belongs to mimicry and (... ) is concerned with the making of

images; this part, not divine but merely human, of the art of production,

having discourse as its particular province, fabricates its illusions (Plato,

quoted in Bensmaia, 1987: 92).

The aesthetic question raised by Bensmaia at the end of his study of the essay form is

also the one which forms the centre of Adorno's discussion of the essay.

Aesthetics

Theodor Adorno's `The Essay as Form', written between 1954 and 1958, reflecting

on the shape of the essay form in Germany, comes to the conclusion that in the past

it had not fared very well, nor received a 'good press'. He positions the essay

between the scientific and the artistic forms. Adorno claims that the essay:

mirrors what is loved and hated, insteadof presentingthe intellect (...) Luck

29
 and play are essentialto the essay. It does not begin with Adam and Eve

but with what it wants to discuss; it says what is at issue and stops where it

feels itself complete - not where nothing is left to say (1984: 152).

Gybrgy Luckäs in his letter to Leo Popper which opens his book of essays, tries to

describe the essay as a well-defined art form: "Only now may we write down the

opening words: the essay is an art form, an autonomous and integral giving-of-form

to an autonomous and complete life" (1974: 18). Adorno disagrees. He fails to

seethe traditional aestheticconstraintsof the form, preferring to describethe essay's

purpose as breaking free from any form in pursuit of its truth. Furthermore,

referring to the opposite end of the spectrum, Adorno also disagrees with positivism,

which claims total separation between form and content. Adorno does not accept the

possibility that a discussion on the subject of aesthetics can be done unaesthetically.

In fairly strong language, Adorno claims the right of the essay to break free from any

system of organised knowledge, from `the violence of dogma' (1984: 158).

Adorno puts forward the notion that personal experience based on a personal

consciousnesscannot be separatedfrom the experience of humanity and history.

The individual's life experience, as reflected in the essay, is as valid as traditional

theory in describing the social history of humanity. Adorno sees the value in the

essay form which seeks to discover its subject from within, rather than by bringing

in other disciplines and theoriesto make senseof the subjectwith which it is dealing.

30
This opens the way to free associations of ideas. Without relying on outside

theories,the essay'sindividual conceptssupport each other.. This can be related to

Bensmaia's concept of ideas being 'hinged' together, described above. Of course

conceptsare necessary,accordingto Adorno: "Even languagethat doesnot fetishise

the concept cannot do without concepts" (1984: 160). But the essay takes the

presentation much more seriously than the traditionally presented theories which

often separate the subject from the presentation. Adorno praises the 'methodically

unmethodically' approach of the essay (Ibid: 161). The essay works through a

series of fragments, mirroring reality, and does not attempt to smooth over the cracks

as a disciplined study does. A. Tournon reaches a similar conclusion, while

discussing the irregularities in Montaigne's texts: "The resulting irregularities are not

simply a fortuitous disorder, it is a consequence of a system in which expression and

a critique of thought take precedence over the rule of rhetoric" (1983: 53).

Adorno compares the development of concepts in an essay to the process of learning

a language in a foreign country. Unlike the systematically put together teachings of

a language in school, a language is learnt in a foreign country through experience,

`without a dictionary', through the repetition of words in different contexts. The

price paid by learning through experience rather than by the rules is often making

errors in the new language. It is similar to the price the essay pays as a result of its

particular mode of writing. The essayform lacks security as a consequenceof its

31
open intellectual approach (1984: 161).

In his critical study of Montaigne's writings, R. Sayceidentifies an aestheticunity in

the Montaigne essay. It is achievedby combining the advantagesof immediate and

spontaneous thoughts with, paradoxically, the grouping of thoughts, however

loosely, around some sort of central theme: "One of Montaigne's greatest

achievements is the reconciliation of these two opposite poles" (1972: 263). And

Adorno claims that "discontinuity is essential to the essay" (1984: 164). The essay

is an open form as it doesnot subscribeto a system. But, at the sametime, it can be

describedas a closed form since it puts a great deal of emphasison the presentation

of ideas. Max Frisch in his introduction to his Sketchbook, a book of short

fragments of writings from the late 1940's, asks his readers to address this:

The reader - always assuming there is one, that there is somebody who is

interested in following these sketches and jottings of a youngish

contemporary whose claim to attention lies not in his person but only in his

contemporaneity (...) - the reader would do this book a great favor were he

not to dip into its pagesaccording to whim or chance, but to follow the

order as presented; the separatestonesof a mosaic - and that is what this

book is at any rate intended to be can seldom stand up by themselves

-

(1977: 1).

Earlier in this study, parallels between the Japanese

rich medieval essay tradition, in

32
particular as represented in Kenko's Essays in Idleness and Shonagon's The Pillow

Book, and between Frisch's and Montaigne's work have been already highlighted.

A close look at the aestheticsof the Japanesegenre of essay writing reveals even

more comparisons with the Western literary essay genre and specifically with

Adorno's concepts. M. J. Miller in her study of the aesthetics of the Japanese

tradition of essay writing in Essays in Idleness and the The Pillow Book describes

the practice of using different means to unify a literary work, apart from the narrative

story structure. She mentions the use of associative links, seasonal references, and

symbolic identification, all which were usedto involve the active participation of the

readerin the reconstructionof the Japaneseessaytext (1985: 255). L. Chancelists

the different styles used by a Kenko's essay: "(The essay) incorporates subtle

multiple genres, including narrative, memoir, journal, poetic criticism, aphorism,

Buddhist homily, admonition, court manual, and oral anecdote"

(1997: 446)

Kenko describes this process of writing in his essay no 82:

Somebody once remarked that thin silk was not satisfactory as a scroll

wrapping because it was so easily torn. Ton'a [a Japanese poet, 1289-

1372] replied, "It is only after the silk wrapper has frayed at top and

bottom, and the mother-of-pearl has fallen from the roller that scroll
a

looks beautiful". This opinion demonstrated the

excellent taste of the

33
 man. People often say that a set of books looks ugly if all volumes are not

in the same format, but I was impressed to hear the Abbot Koyu [a

contemporary of Kenko] say, "It is typical of the unintelligent man to

insist on assembling complete sets of everything". Imperfect sets are

better. In everything, no matter what it may be, uniformity is undesirable.

Leaving something incomplete makes it interesting, and gives one the

feeling that there is room for growth (1967: 70).

D. Keene in his introduction to Kenko's essaysplaces them and the The Pillow

Book within the Japaneserandom mode of composition known as zuihitsu which

means `follow the brush': "The formlessness of the zuihitsu did not impede

enjoyment by readers; indeed, they took pleasure not only in moving from one to

another of the great variety of subjects treated but in tracing subtle links joining the

successive episodes" (1967: xvi). Keene finds the expression of contradictions an

important element in Kenko's essays, pointing to his use of random, suggestive style

rather than his systematic thinking (Ibid: xxi). He statesthat the irregularity and

incompletenessof Kenko's essaysgo well with the notion of simplicity:

Simplicity which allows the mind freedom to imagine, to create, did not

appeal to nineteenth century (European) observers of Japanesearchitecture,

who contrasted its insignificance with the grandeur of European

masterpieces,but today our tastesare better attuned to the understatement

34
 advocated by Kenko (Ibid: xx).

L. Chance in her discussion of Essays in Idleness notes that moving freely from

topic to topic, the reader of the essays "enters into active dialogue with a reticent yet

highly rhetorical Kenko, who both plays upon and disappoints ordinary reactions.

Even his most dogmatic passages (... ) anticipate the reader's responses, while

ignoring their incompatibility with his intermittent bursts of celebration of everyday

life" (1997: 446).

Michel de Montaigne

Michel de Montaigne decided at the age of thirty-eight to leave his work as a

councillor in the city of Bordeaux and dedicate his life to writing. In the following

twenty years he proceeded to produce a total of 107 essays, covering a vast variety

of subjects and topics ranging, from a short segment of two pages to a book-length

essay. His writings slowly grew in confidence and maturity and developed

organically to become longer, more complex and more personal essays. G. Defaux

warns againstthe temptationto `anthologise'the work (1983: 79). When the reader

of Montaigne is faced with the fragmentary, the reflective and the variety of subject

matter, s/he will be quickly tempted to `organise' the `mess'. The reader will be

also tempted, wrongly, to simplify and reduce the text as it contains a complex layer

of voices and discourses (Ibid: 84).

35
Reading Montaigne is neither the study of the man himself nor the reductive activity

of study of the text. It is both. The purpose of the text is for the writer and the

reader to stay within it and not to speculate about wider issues. The word `essay'

has its origin in the Latin: to weigh, to test, to examine. The strongly experimental

character of the essay is often overlooked, but it is clearly reflected by Montaigne's

choice of the term `assai' to describe his writings. The experimental character of the

form is also clearly seen in the style, the choice of subjects and the structure of the

essay. Montaigne's essay is a continuous test between the subject matter, the 'text'

and the 'self or, as Defaux puts it: "the intelligence which assimilates, masters and

speaksthe text" (Ibid: 91). J.A. McCarthy, in his introduction to the Germanessay

makes the following remark about Montaigne:

The most striking leitmotif in the history of the essay is Montaigne's famous

inscription "Que scais-je? " which has been variously interpreted by

emphasising each word independently: "What can I know? " "What do I

know? "and "What do I know?". The playful ambiguity is entirely appro-

priate for the literary form whoseSpielcharakter(playful character)is often

cited as a distinguishingtrait (1997: 323, my italics).

Montaigne himself offers very clear insight into the relationship between the writer,

the text, the reader and the style of writing. In `the essay `Of Democritus and

Heraclitus Montaigne' comments about his own practice:

If it is a subject I do not understand at all, even

on that I essay my

36
 judgment, sounding the ford from a good distance, and then, finding it too

deep for my height, I stick to the bank. And this acknowledgmentthat I

cannot cross over is a token of its action, indeed one of those it is most

proud of. Sometimes in a vain and nonexistent subject, I try to see if it will

find the wherewithal to give it body, prop it up, and support it. (... ) I take

the first subject that chance offers. They are all equally good to me. And I

never plan to develop them completely. For I do not see the whole of

anything; nor do those who promise to show it to us. Of a hundred

membersand facesthat eachthing has,I take one, sometimesonly to lick it,

sometimes to brush the surface, sometimes to pinch it to the bone (... )

Scattering a word here, there another, samples separated from their context,

dispersed, without a plan and without a promise, I am not bound to make

something of them or to adhere to them myself without varying when I

please and giving myself up to doubt and un-certainty and my ruling

quality, which is ignorance (... ) Things in themselves may have their own

weights and measures and qualities, but once inside, within us, she (the

soul) allots them their qualities as she sees fit (... ) and the coloring that she

chooses - brown, green, bright, dark, bitter, sweet, deep, superficial and

which each individual soul chooses (1958b: `Of Democritus and

Heraclitus', 219-220).

Montaigne's extraordinary use of rich visual writing is clearly demonstrated in the

37
quotation above, as is his direct, translucent and personal style. It reveals a flow of

"natural form of thought" (Good, 1988: 42). It can be compared with the Japanese

essay tradition of Kenko, and the random mode of composition known as zuihitsu -

`follow the brush' discussed earlier. Montaigne's style is also an excellent example

for Lopate's and Adorno's assertion that a distinctive method of expression is

necessary for the essay. Montaigne's strong visual language is even more apparent

in his essay `Of the Education of Children': "The bees plunder the flowers here and

there, but afterwards they make of them honey (... ) it is no longer thyme or

marjoram" (1958b: 111) and in his longest essay, `Apology to Raymond Sebond':

"To really learned men has happened what happens to ears of wheat: they rise high

and lofty, heads erect and proud, as long as they are empty; but when they are full

and swollen with grain in their ripeness, they begin to grow humble and lower their

horns" (1958b: 370). Ralph Emerson, the nineteenth century American essayist

describes Montiagne's style as being as "wild and savoury as sweat fern" and

observes: "cut thesewords and they would bleed; they are vascularand alive; they

walk and run" (quoted in Chevalier, 1997: 570). Montaigne, in his last essay, `Of

Experience', stretches and expands the essay form to include a detailed account of

his daily life, pleasures and desires, all interwoven with his desire for knowledge.

Centuries later, Roland Barthes, in SIZ and the books following it, picked up that

expanded form of the essay where Montaigne had left it.

38
During his `career' as a writer, Montaigne spent eighteen months travelling

extensively through Switzerland, Germany, Austria and Italy and incorporated his

experiences in his essays. Those experiences appear in the body of the essays as

anecdotes, stories or accounts of various events observed by the writer. In the

essay `Of Cruelty', for example, he describes witnessing the hanging of a notorious

robber in Rome. His extensive travels are also reflected in the use, after his return,

of Italian proverbs and quotations, mainly from Dante and Tasso. Montaigne left

behind after his death a separate series of travel journals, not intended for

publication. The journals detail his sightseeingand encountersabroad. They form

a fascinating `appendix' to the study of Montaigne's especially

essays, as they were

not written for public consumption, with no `reader' in mind and without the direct

appeal to us. They were discovered accidentally in 1770, two hundred years after

Montaigne's death. D. Frame sees the travel journals as a confirmation of

Montaigne's sincerity in the essays, as they display the same style and the relaxed

personal and modest spirit of the essays (1958: 862). Montaigne's travels added

another dimension to the essays - they broadened the writer's mind and enabled him

to draw on a wider range of humanexperiencesand to put his and his countrymen's

predicaments in perspective (see for example his essay `Of Coaches', which is

discussedin detail below).

Montaigne himself refers in numerous places to the structure of his essays, for

39
example,in the essays`Of Vanity', `Of Friendship' and `On SomeVersesof Virgil'.

He doesnot seeany systematicstructurein the essaysbut suggeststhat the disorder

itself follows a plan, often around a theme and a series of digressions. R. Sayce

attempts to identify several formal types of Montaigne's essays:

" The first is the untypical, clearly articulated structure as it appears in some early

essays. `Of Friendship', an essay on Montaigne's closest friend, La Bootie, offers

a clearly laid-out catalogue of different types of friendships.

" The second form is identified as an indirect entry, as it appears in `Of Evil Means

Employed to a Good End'. The subject of the essay- foreign soldiers drafted to

fight a war as mercenaries- is introduced only half way through the essay after a

generalintroduction.

"A common form of an essay consists of two main themes which are continuously

interchanged as the essay unfolds. In `Of Conscience' Montaigne starts the essay

by telling a story of a meeting he had during the civil war with an enemy officer.

The meeting made him examine his conscience. He then goes on to discuss the

issuesof torture andjustice which lead him back into the subjectof conscience.

" One of the most common and complex structures is that of the interwoven

themes. `Of Vanity' is often cited as one of the best examples of this form. It

embraces eleven different topics, according to Sayce (1972: 270). Montaigne

himself, at the start of the essay, refers to it: "Here you have, a little more decently,

some excrements of an aged mind, now hard, now loose, and always undigested.

And when shall I make an end of describing the continual

agitation and changes of

40
my thoughts, whatever subject they light on...?" (1958b: `Of Vanity', 721).

9A frequent form of an essay is the single theme which embraces a web of

digressionsand often contradictions. Again his last essay `Of Experience' (which

discussed earlier in the chapter) is an excellent example of this. `Of the

was

Affection of Fathers for their Children' is written as a letter to the writer's friend

Madame d'Estissac. The clearly defined theme of the essay, which is reflected in

the title, includes a wide range of personal stories, historical reflections and

observations on related issues concerning family life.

"A circular form can be found in `All Things Have their Season', in of

Cannibals' and of course, in `Of Vanity'. This form sometimesappearsat the end

of an essay which embraces a single theme with a range of digressions.

Of particular interest for this present study is the essay, `Of Coaches' which, broadly

covers the two subjects: Royal life in Europe and the activities of the Spanish

invaders in the New World. The essay introduces at the beginning the subject of

fear through the writer's experience. What follows is a developmentof a seriesof

ideasthrough associationsof words and imagesin a circular movementwhich comes

back at the end to the title of the essay- coaches. The structural developmentof this

essayandthe useof associativetechniquescan easily be seenin the schematicoutline

below of the essay (developed from a short thematic outline in Sayce, 1972: 272)..

This outline highlights the main themes of the essay, some of them are mentioned

41
briefly in the text of the essay, others are developed in length. Capital letters are

usedto indicate the chain of associationsbetweenthe various themesas they follow

each other within the essay:

Writers use multiple CAUSES to find the `master cause'.

What are the CAUSES for blessingthe personwho SNEEZES?

The three CAUSES of the body in letting out WIND.

The CAUSE of heaving WIND by sailors during their SEA journey.

The main CAUSE of SEA-sickness is FEAR.

My experienceof FEAR on SEA.

"I was too SICK to think of DANGER" (a quote from Seneca).

How I face FEAR and DANGER.

FEAR was overcome in history by great men mainly on the battle field.

"Where there is less FEAR there is less DANGER" (a quote from Livy).

Absence of FEAR in me is due to insensibility of my part, not strength.

I FEAR a long journey by COACH, or BOAT.

I hate riding in a COACH.

I would write the history of COACHES in wars (if I had a better memory).

Examples of the use of COACHES in wars, mainly by the Hungarians.

Early French KINGS travelled in OX-CARTS.

The POWER and wealth are displayed by KINGS in their use of COACHES.

The sources of POWER enjoyed by KINGS and EMPERORS.

42
ROMAN EMPERORSusedCOACHES led by strangebeasts.

KINGS should not indulge in vanities, as did the ROMAN EMPERORS. But,

ROMAN EMPERORSleft behind greatheritage,remarkablefor its INGENUITY.

INGENUITY displayed by the ROMAN compared to our poor performances today.

We have made little PROGRESS,

"This age is broken down, and broken down the EARTH" (quote from Lucretius).

Our knowledge of the WORLD is poor.

We have just discovered another WORLD.

We are destroyingthe NEW WORLD, throughignorance.

Attack on SpanishCRUELTY in the NEW WORLD in the nameof their KING.

The remarkable buildings built by the indigenous people in SOUTH AMERICA

They built their cities and run their lives without COACHES.

The last KING of PERU was captured after his people were killed by the Spanish.

He was caught by a HORSEMAN and pulled down to the ground.

This simple schematicbreakdownhides the amount of detailed descriptions,wealth

of quotations, depth and visual richness in the writing of this essay. But the above

outline demonstrates clearly the elaborate structure of the essay, which is based on

word, theme or image associations. After a short introduction, the subject of

coaches is introduced as a personal dislike by Montaigne and via a circular structure

of associative themes, the essay ends with the same theme - coaches, this time in

43
South America. Although the theme of coachesis central to the essay,the essayis

not a single theme essay, but it presents several themes through a mixture of personal

observations,quotations and stories. In addition, `On Coaches' also demonstrates,

throughout, the style required by a literary essay. The essay's strong criticism of

the power enjoyed by the Royals in Europe and of the atrocities performed by the

Spanish in America is compelling as the last paragraph of the essay reads:

That last king of Peru, the day that he was taken, was thus carried on shafts

of gold, seated in a chair of gold, in the midst of his army. As many of

thesecarriersas they (the Spanish)killed to make him fall - for they wanted

to take him alive - so many othersvied to take the place of the deadones,so

that they nevercould bring him down, however great a slaughterthey made

of those people, until a horseman seized him around the body and pulled

him to the ground (1958b: 699).

This final, highly visual and moving narrative segment of the essay, contains all the

previous elements of the essay: the chair, the gold, the horse are all echoesof the

description of the Roman Emperors and their coaches,earlier in the essay. The

essay'sthemesregarding the cruelty of the Spanish,the tragic end of a culture and

our failing to understandthe New World, are all mentionedin this last segmentof the

essay. The image of a Roman in a coach drawn by four naked girls, previously

evoked in the essay, and the image of the dying Peruvian warriors carrying their king

on their shoulders at the end, are examples of the rich texture of style in the essay.

44
Montaigne's personal experiences, apparent formlessness, the associative movement

from idea to idea from image to image, and the extensive use of quotations achieve a

unity in diversity through association. It represents directly what Adorno praises as

the strongly experimental,'methodically unmethodically'approachof the essay.

P. Lopate clearly sums up:

The personal essay represents a mode of being. It points the way for the

self to function with relative freedom in an uncertain world. Skeptical yet

gyroscopically poised, undeceived but finally tolerant of flaws and

inconsistencies,this mode of being suits the modern existential situation,

which Montaigne first diagnosed. His recognition that human beings are

surrounded by darkness, with nothing particularly solid to cling to, led to a

philosophical acceptance that one had to make oneself up from moment to

moment (1994: xliv).

Conclusion

The literary essayopensthe way for the creation of a unique dialogue between the

the text, the writer and the reader. The text of the essay is written in relatively

informal prose. Flexible in length and often mixing various structural elements, the

text pays great attention to its representation, rather than to the development of a

literary genre. The essay offers the reader knowledge, ideas, stories and

observations,but lacks a systemof arrangedscholarshipor a completenarrative. Its

45
strength is in its diversity and the personal character of the writings. The writer of

the essay, either visible or obscured, is often only a reference point, holding the

work together structurally. This opens the way to free associations of ideas

working through a series of fragments. Without relying on outside theories, the

essay's individual concepts support each other. The text's diverse and separate

structural forms bring in the reader to play an active role in the construction of the

essay.

The Montaigne 'assai' is a continuous test between the text and the writer who

absorbs, masters and offers the text to the reader. Anecdotes, stories or accounts of

various events observed by Montaigne are often presented as interwoven themes in a

circular structure. His of

extraordinary use visual writing and his direct, translucent

and personal style are crucial to the understanding of his essays. Analysis of

Montaigne's essaysdemonstratesthat the writer's personal experiences,together

with the apparent formlessness of the essay, the associative movement between ideas

and the extensiveuse of quotations,achievea in

unity diversity through association.

It represents what Adorno praises as the strongly experimental, 'methodically

unmethodically', approach of the essay. The analysis of the essay's content,

aesthetics, structure and style, and in particular the Montaignean essay, offers the

foundation for the study of the essay film. Many of the literary essay's aesthetic,

thematic,structuraland stylistic elementsare to be found in the essayfilm genre.

46
 CHAPTER THREE : THE ESSAY FILM

Introduction

Comparedwith the vast amount of writings on the subject of the literary essay,the

essayfilm has had only limited exposurewithin the field of film studies. Most of

the writings are analyses of individual films, with few attempts to reach a wider

definition of the form. Some attempt to relate, in general terms, the essay film to the

literary essay, and in particular to the Montaignean essay, others mention the essay

film as part of the documentarygenre.Currently the essayfilm is often presentedas

a sub-group of the documentary genre2. Existing theories of the essayfilm form

have not yet travelled all the way down the road of textual analysis and the close

study of the style and structure of the form. This study will do just that. The essay

film form is not new. Vertov's work had already pointed in the direction of the

genre, although it is true to say that, compared with other cinematic genres, the essay

film was not, and still is not, one of the most popular forms in cinema.

The essayfilm is best defined as a separategenre,utilising cinematiclanguageas the

cinematic 'text' in relationship to the film maker and the audience. By a careful use

of the different elementsof cinematic language- the basic 'building blocks' of image,

sound, editing and the organisation and manipulation of time and space - the film

2Seefor
example: Renov, M, "Lost. Lost. Lost, Mekas as an Essayist" in James,D, (ed.) To Free the
in m, 1992, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

47
maker's presence is woven into the body of the film. The cinematic 'text' becomes

the 'reflective text', the mediating medium between the film maker and the spectator.

The essay film is not an autobiographical genre, although it may include

autobiographical elements. It is not an organised chain of arguments, a study or an

investigation as is the documentary genre. Nor is it an Aristotelean closed narrative

form presenting a unity in action, space and time, as is the Hollywood fiction film.

It creates narrative and non-narrative structures, 'methodically unmethodically' put

together, to form a unique cinematic genre. The essay film is not a part of the

documentarygenre. It is an independentgenrewhich owesmore to the avant-garde

and to the tradition of the literary essaythan to the documentarygenre.

Existing theories of the essay film

Often the term essay film has been used to describe films of different kinds, which

cannot be described as part of any other established genre. That alone cannot be

enough of a reason to use the term. P. Lopate mentions a large number of films

which at one time or anotherhave beencalled essayfilms and reachesthe conclusion

that none of them - except Night and Fog by Alain Resnais- can appropriately be

defined as a essay film. Lopate presents five definitions of what, in his view,

constitutesa essayfilm:

1. An essay film must have words.

2. The text of the film must represent a single voice.

48
 3. The text must show an attemptto understandreasonedline of discourse.

4. The text must contain a strong personal view, not only information.

5. The text's language should be eloquent and attractive (1996: 245-247).

As a writer of literary essays himself, and with his overwhelming emphasis on the

text, Lopate reaches a very sceptical conclusion in trying to find a common ground

between the literary essay and the essay film. Looking through a large number of

films, including works by Marker, Godard, Welles, Jost, and many others he

concludes that most of them lack a visual quality which is cinematic enough to stand

shoulder-to-shoulder with great cinematic works, except Night and Fog (Ibid: 269).

Curiously, although mentioning Montaigne in passingas one of the `fathers' of the

literary essay, Lopate does not look in detail at the essay film in light of Montaigne.

M. Renov, on the other hand, does use Montaigne's essay as the basis of his

discussion of the essay film:

In the present context, it is the Montaignean essay, indissolubly

coupling personal and social-historical exploration ('the measure of

sight' and `the measure of things'), that provides the ground upon

which the figure of the film/video essay can be constructed (...) Within

discourse, `self' and `other' become enmeshed and mutually

defining: the social a representation, always mediated through

subjectivity, becomes instead its expression (1989: 7).

Combining the discussion of Montaigne's and Barthes' literary essays, Renov uses

49
them in his definition of the essay film:

These visual works, like the literary essay form, can be said to resist

generic classification, straddling a series of all-too-confining

antinomies: fiction/non-fiction, documentary/avant-garde,

cinema/video. In

ways that can be specified, thesetexts are notable for their negotiation of

threetermsor critical axesaroundand againstwhich the essay-effectcan be

said to form: history, subjectivity, language (Ibid: 8).

Being more generous than Lopate, Renov names a large number of possible essay

films and focuses his study of the genre on the three above-mentionedelements:

history, subjectivity and language. By introducing the three concepts of history,

subjectivity and language, Renov tries to identify the poetics of the essay film as a

separateentity, yet still as part of the overall new documentarydiscourse. These

new conceptsoutlined by Renov are a direct continuationof ideaspresentedearlier in

this thesis in relation to Montaigne, to Defaux's and Tournon's literary studies, as

well as to Barthes' and BensmaYa's work. Rightly, Renov rejects traditional

documentary discourse as a basis for the study of the essay film. The four

fundamental tendencies of documentary are mentioned by Renov himself elsewhere

as a basisfor constructingthe poeticsof the documentarygenre:

1. To record, reveal, or preserve;

2. To persuadeor promote;

50
 3. To analyse or interrogate;

4. To express (1993: 21).

The essayfilm, like the literary essay,doesnot conform to theseprinciples. This is

also Renov's view, but his argumentis an interestingone. He seesthe documentary

genre's developmenttoward the personaland essayisticas a way-out for the "ailing

documentary tradition" (1989: 9). Renov's emphasis on the autobiographical

element in the documentary is also clear elsewhere:

By 1990, any chronicler of documentary history would note the

growing prominence of work by women and men of diverse cultural

backgrounds in which the representation of the historical world is

inextricably bound up with self-inscription (... ) Subjectivity is no

longer construed as `something shameful'; it is the filter through

which the Real enters discourse as well as a kind of experiential

compass guiding the work toward its goal as embodied knowledge

(1995: http://www. city. yamagata.yamagata.jp/yidff/ff/box/box? /en/b7en-

1.html. ).

Renov discusses Raul Ruiz's film Of Great Events and Ordinary People (France,

1978) as an example of the essay film (1989: 12). Renov reveals here the

somewhat limited view he has of the genre. Ruiz's film - highly personal,

disjointed in places,delivering commentaryabout documentaryand to some degree

51
self-reflective - is far from constituting an essay film. The French election theme is

used in the film as a straight-forward dramatic tool. It gives the film a very strong

linear structure, emphasised by the use of inter-titling - Day 1, Day 2, etc. - to cut

from sceneto scene. The film has a strong senseof a build-up toward the end: the

election day. In the last section of the film, Ruiz does open up the linear form to

somedegreeby repeatingearlier shotsfrom the film, by talking about different texts

in relation to the same shot and by intercutting between huts in the Third World and

US suburbs. But this last chapter of the film does not alter the overall closed

structureof the film.

Likewise, Renov's discussion of Jonas Mekas' film Lost. Lost. Lost (USA, 1949-

1975) as an essay film, although it attempts to place the film "across the historical

fields of the documentary as well as of the avant-garde" (1992: 219), puts the

emphasis on the autobiographical nature of the documentary, on the reflective

character of the film, and devotes little time to the avant-garde elements in the film.

Although autobiography and the relationship between `the inward gaze and outward

gaze' (Renov after Defaux) are important in the discussion of the essay film, they

form only only one element of the essay film. Jonas Mekas himself describes his

film as a diary, or a note hook. He compares his work to the literary diarist as a

collector of images, recording events in his own life and finally editing it down

chronologically (quoted in Sitney, 1987: 194).

52
A. Williams, before Renov, placed Mekas' work as part of the New American

Cinema. Mekas' films, according to Williams, have a strong autobiographical

content and tend to be `moralist' in nature. This `moralistic' strand in Mekas' film

Lost, Lost, Lost is similar, in Williams' view, to the French `moraliste' spirit of self-

examination which can be traced back to Montaigne's essays (1976: 62). Williams

very briefly describes the film as having "an almost essay-like style" with a reflective

character (Ibid). Williams places the film firmly within the documentary genre, but

makes two particularly interesting observations about Lost, Lost. Lost. The first is

that the writing quality -a la 'camera-stylo' (the French concept of the `pen-like'

recording of images) of the film connectsMekas' work to the French tradition (see

below the discussion of the French writer and film maker Alexandre Astruc's

writings). The second observation is that the distance between Mekas - the collector

of images Mekas the editor assembling his own images twenty years later is
- and - -

crucially important for an understanding of Lost, Lost, Lost. This is particular to

the process of making an essay film and takes the `camera-stylo' style a stage further

(see below the discussionon montage). Williams' observationson 'camera-stylo'

and Renov's identification of the 'reflective' elements within Lost. Lost, Lost are

correct , but are not sufficient, in my opinion, to define the film as an essayfilm.

Mekas himself speaksin the commentarysound-trackof the film about his reasons

for making it: "a camera historian, recording events; making notes with the camera;

I was there and I recorded it for ever, for history use". Mekas has lost too much of

his past and this is the reason for him to record it for the future. The 'camera-stylo'

53
technique which Williams mentions in his article is used in the film, but solely as a

diary and home-movie tool for collecting the material. The film is a diary - an

autobiographicalfilm - wherein most imagesare directly connectedto the subject -

Jonas Mekas - and are not observational or of more general or abstract character.

The film is a diary documentary about the experience of immigration, trying to relate

to reality through the camera's constant recordings of autobiographical events. Reel

five of the film (there are in total six parts/reels to the film) is more experimental in its

editing and juxtaposing of images, but all the images presented are still

autobiographical,'home-movie' segmentstreated,comparedto the other reels, with

a more abrupt and poetic commentary.

The most recent discussion on the subject of films on the 'edge' of the documentary

genre is to be found in C. Plantinga's chapter on `The Poetic Voice' of the nonfiction

film in his book Rhetoric and Representation in Non - fiction Film. There,

Plantinga tries to define those documentaries which offer alternatives to the

established structures of documentary. These films present, upfront, aesthetic

considerations, exploit the tension between documentary representation and

composition, or put the emphasis on self-analysis rather than on observation or

explanation (1997: 171). Plantinga divides these films into four main categories:

the poetic documentary; the avant-garde documentary; the parodic documentary and

the metadocumentary. All four, according to him, regardless of their reliance on

54
formal cinematic tools and their use of `open voices' (Plantinga's term), are still part

and parcel of the documentary discourse as "they perform a central function of the

documentary: providing information through explanation, observation, or

exploration" (Ibid). Of particular interest to this study is his definition of the avant-

garde documentary and the metadocumentary. Avant-garde documentaries are style-

centred and manipulate the recorded footage in opposition to the aesthetic

considerations of the classical cinematic forms. As a result, according to Plantinga:

The avant-garde nonfiction film encourages an interplay between two

ways of viewing the film. On the one hand, the spectator perceives

the referent through iconic, indexical images (and perhaps sounds); on

the other hand, style makes referentiality difficult, and becomes itself

the primary object of interest. When we view an avant-garde

nonfiction, we consistently slide between seeing the images as either a

window onto the world or a sequence of nonreferential images (Ibid:

176).

The term metadocumentary is an interesting one, becauseit is applied by Plantinga to

Vertov's The Man With the Movie Camera and to some of Chris Marker's films.

Plantinga points to the explicit reflective character of these films, as they seek to

highlight the documentary representation itself. This is in opposition to the implicit

reflective character of avant-garde films (Ibid: 179). The metadocumentary films

55
use elaborate montage to distinguish themselves from realism (Ibid: 180) and often

rely on the use of the voice-over to emphasise the personal multitude of points of

view within the film (Ibid: 182). Plantinga places the `Poetic Voice' films firmly

within the documentary genre. In my view, his separation between the

metadocumentary, with its explicit reflective character, and the avant-garde, with its

implicit reflective style, is somewhat artificial. He points rightly to the very similar

range of cinematic tools used in both of them in opposition to the classical

documentary. Therefore, I feel, they should he grouped together but not within the

documentarygenreat all.

The avant-garde roots of the essay film

N. Alter's view, in her discussion of the essay film in relation to Farocki's film

Images of the World and the Inscription of War (Germany, 1988), is extremely

interesting because it refers to Adorno's writings on the literary essay, to early Soviet

cinema, to the French film maker and writer Alexandre Astruc and to the film avant-

gardegenre. Although her article is mainly focusedon the hidden political message

of the film, her general discussion of the essay film is unique. She grounds her

definition of the essay film in Adorno's aesthetic approach to the essay in the wider

historical and political context (Alter, 1996: 166). She adds her own assertion that

the essay film needs to include "the political in/visible and in/audible that moves

stealthily beneath, within, and around vision, visuality, and visibility" (Ibid: 167).

56
She follows this by pointing, briefly, to Astruc, Vertov and Richter in order to

establish the avant-garde roots of the essay film. In her detailed analysis of

Farocki's film, which follows the general discussion on essay film, Alter looks at the

important role of editing in constructing the film, referring in particular to

Eisenstein's concepts of montage (Ibid: 186). Alter concludes her general

discussion on the essay film by referring back to Adorno's writings on the literary

essay:

As a result, essay films, including Farocki's, demand particular techniques

of "reading betweenthe lines" to exposea political imperception -a level of

signification in excess of what the film maker intended (... ) If, as Adorno

noted of the written essay, "nothing can be interpreted out of something that

is not interpreted into it" then the filmed essay shows and tells us that we

can view and hear a feature film as documentary, a documentary as

feature. So it is that, as "a form of intelligence" [Farocki's preferred term

for the essay film], (the film) Bilder (... ) asks to be actively co-produced

by its audience(Ibid: 172).

Interestingly, the term `form of intelligence' is also found in G. Defaux's definition

of Montaigne's essays(Defaux, 1983: 91).

The avant-garde German film maker, Hans Richter, used the term 'essay film' as

early as 1940. It was the first time the term is mentioned in film theory literature.

In a very short article - publishedin the SwisspaperBaselerNationalzeitungin April

57
1940 - which he named `The Essay Film, a New Art of Documentary Film', Richter

called for a move away from both the narrative fiction film genre and from what he

describes as the `postcard' documentary. Richter advocates breaking the

chronological structure and the use of allegory in the new form of essayfilm: "to

render visible what is not visible" (quoted in Blümlinger and Wulff, 1992: 197).

Richter calls in his article for a new documentary language which is more artistic than

fiction film. By 1957, he dropped the essay film terminology altogether in favour of

`poetic film' which came to describe the experimental film movements of the

twentieth century, namely the abstract, dadaist, surrealist, cubist, futurist or

expressionist. In an interview with Jonas Mekas in 1957, Hans Richter speaks

about his experience in making, what he calls now, `poetic films'. Reflecting on his

work as a visual artist in the 1920's, Richter describesit as part of the avant-garde,

comprising the abstract, fantastic and documentary cinema. `Film poetry' was used,

according to Richter, as an opposition to `film novel' which represented the

entertainment genre (Mekas, 1957: 6). All experimental films were describedas

poetic. The lyrical form of the film poem, accordingto Richter, gave the maker the

freedom to work with the raw material and develop in parallel to the aesthetics of

modern art, poetry and music (Ibid: 7).

The French film maker and writer, Alexandre Astruc coined the phrase 'camera-

stylo' (camera-pen)in 1948 to describe the directnesswith which the film maker

58
uses the tools of the cinema to create a cinematic language in order to translate his/her

ideas to the screen. This is, in his view, similar to the novelist's mode of working

with words in creating literary work (Astruc, 1948: 18). Astruc goes back to the

silent cinema era in order to argue his case:

The silent cinema tried to give birth to ideas and meanings by symbolic

associations. We have realised that they exist in the image itself, in

the natural progression of the film, in every gesture the characters

make, in every one of their words and in the camera movements which

bind the objects one to another (quoted in Reisz and Millar, 1968:

322).

Astruc highlights above the symbolic associations which are made possible in

'cam6ra-stylo'. He calls for a new type of film making which emphasises above all

the prominent role of the film maker as a creator of images. In 'camera-stylo',

images form the back-bone of a film, escaping both the commercial industry

requirements for entertainment, heavily influenced by literature, and the narrow

definition of the avant-gardeof the 1920's and 1930's as pure, poetic or surrealist

cinema (Astruc, 1948: 21). In this, he aims to broaden the term avant-garde to

include films which use the 'camera-stylo' (Ibid: 22).

The image-writing essenceof the 'cam6ra-stylo'was precededas a cinematic tool by

the Russian film maker and writer Dziga Vertov. Vertov says of himself "I am a

59
film writer. A Cinepoet. I do not write on paper, but on film" (quoted in Geduld,

1967: 97). In 1929, introducing the term 'Kino-Eye', he wrote: "Kino-Eye is the

documentary cinematic decoding of both the visible world and that which is invisible

to the nakedeye" (quotedin Michelson, 1984: 87). [Alter, as we have seenearlier,

points to the essay film quality of Farocki's work by highlighting the political

visibility and invisibility of his images,without referring directly to Vertov]. In his

writings about his film The Man With the Movie Camera, Vertov describes in great

detail his effort to establish the 'Kino-Eye' as an experiment in the creation of an

autonomous genre, separate from the fictional tradition, the theatre and literature and

from the documentary techniques which existed prior to his work (Ibid: 82-91).

Vertov tried to reject the traditional narrative structures by concentrating on the image

itself. Vertov defined the image as "purely denotational, having no other meaning

than the one that arises from its referent" (quoted in Pirog, 1982: 303).

Montage

The associative and symbolic possibilities inherent in 'camera-stylo' have been

mentioned already by Astruc. Understanding montage in the context of the avant-

garde roots of the essay film is crucial to this study. A. Wettlaufer, in her

discussion of the pre-cinema modes of literary montage, offers a good definition to

the term `montage' which applies to the image as well as to the word, and to our

discussion of the essay film:

60
 (Montage) relies on a deconstructive aesthetic, which produces a

constructive experience in its audience. Like poetry itself, montage

signifies through indirection, formally providing guideposts by which the

reader arrives at the artist's meaning without the artist having said what is

really meant. By fragmenting traditional syntax, an implied rather than

explicit narrative is created through juxtaposition. Thus montage allows,

even forces, the reader of the visual or verbal text to synthesize meaning

from its disparate pieces. The assembly, which constitutes part of its very

definition, can only take place when the work of art is experienced,for the

integration of the sequentiallyjuxtaposed parts may only take place in the

mind of the perceiving audience (1995: 516).

In a study of Eisenstein's montage, V. Sanchez-Biosca traces some of its origins to

the Russian formalists at the beginning of the Twentieth century. The formalists

developed the concept of the literary `defamiliarisation' - Ostranenie (literally

meaning 'making strange') - within Russian avant-garde poetry. Ostranenie takes a

word out of its usual context and puts it in an unexpected setting to project it as a

`vision' (Sanchez-Biosca, 1990: 281). It forces us to notice a word and restores

the original meaning of the text which is generally lost through what the formalists

called `automation', i. e. the regularity and the continuous use of a text in an

indiscriminate fashion in everyday life. `Defamiliarisation' is not a single device or

a particular technique in poetry, according to V. Shklovsky in his article `Art as

61
Technique', but is a result of using different techniques - wordplay, rough rhythm,

symbolism or metaphor. Poetry, according to the Russian formalists, is defined by

its ability to make the reader read the text with a high degree of awareness, "art exists

that one may recover the sensation of life; it exists to make one feel things, to make

the stone stony" (Shklovsky, 1965: 12). This echoes our definition of a

Montaignean essay which recognises a similar predicament and urges the writer as

well as the reader to accept the fact that one has to be aware of the nature of

continuous changes in life which are reflected in the essay.

Shklovsky also looks in detail into the question of rhythm in relation to poetry and

the process of `defamiliarisation' in particular:

The rhythm of prose is an important automatising element; the rhythm

of poetry is not. There is `order' in art, yet not a single column of a

Greek temple stands exactly in its proper order; poetic rhythm is

similarly disordered rhythm (Ibid: 24).

Shklovsky addressesdirectly the possibilities of poetic devicesin film in his article

`Poetry and Prose in Cinematography'. He identifies the formal possibilities of

constructing a film with the use of poetic techniques: rhythm, repetition, montage -

in contrast to a `prose' film, based on clearly articulated semantic values (1973:

130). Vertov's film Sixth of the Earth (1926) and Pudovkin's film Mother (1926)

62
 Shklovsky, in 1927, films based formalism (Ibid: 129)3.
are cited by as on poetic

Sanchez-Biosca describes the formalists' approach to the poetic image and to the

montage of a text:

The Ostranenie of a fragment, a phoneme, or any other textual part

to the logical and credible sense of the whole, introduces the

referring

reception of heterogeneity through montage of series that do not

belong to the homogeneous continuity of the text. Shklovsky's

definition refers expressly to the place of reception, the reader, as the

basis of opposition (1990: 281).

This reading of Shklovsky ties together the ideas on the use of the fragment, the

heterogeneity through montage and the position of the reader of the text, described

earlier in this thesis.

In 1931, Tristan Tzara in Paris reflected on the art of the collage, the montage

technique within a single image in painting, in light of Picasso's use of newspaper

cuttings within the texture of his paintings. Picasso's use of newspapercuttings,

decorativewrapping paperor wallpapersemphasisesthe `defamiliarisation' process

mentioned above. Tzara too bases his discussion of the collage in painting on the

use of the written word within poetry:

3As 1923, Vertov, Eisenstein Shklovsky the Soviet avant garde artists group, LEF.
early as and were part of
See Chapter one in Petrie, V, Constructivism in Film: The Man with the Movie Camera- A Cinematic
Auajýy,sL%,1987, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, for a detailed overview of Vertov's place within the

post-revolutionary Russian avant-garde world.

63
 A word put beside another, by a secret association which cannot be

controlled through known means of investigation, can with a shock -a

strange process - reveal in some particularly sensitive or experienced

readers, a feeling of the poetic kind. (... ) The commonplace

expression, this autonomous block in spoken language, introduced as

one unit in the written sentence, represents an opposition in the poetic

order where the nature of thought can be elevated to unsuspected

transparencies (1931: 62).

The sameoccurs,accordingto Tzara,in painting:

A shape cut out of a newspaper and inserted into a drawing or a

painting encompasses the commonplace expression, a bit of everyday

reality, in contrast with another reality constructed by the mind. The

difference within the materials, which the eye is capable of translating

into a tactile feeling, gives a new depth to the painting where weight is

inscribed with mathematical precision into the volume's equation, and

its density, its tasteon the tongue,its consistencyplace us before a unique

reality in a world createdwith the power of thought and dreams(Ibid).

Picasso had `discovered' with his paper collages in 1912 that "the sign has slipped

away from the fixity of what the semiologist would call an iconic condition - that of

resemblance - to assume the ceaselessplay of meaning open to the symbol" (Krauss,

1998: 28).

64
 Dziga Vertov in his 1929 lecture on 'Kino-Eye'4 talks about his principles of

montage in his films The Eleventh Year (1928) and The Man With the Movie Camera

(1929):

To make a montage is to organise pieces of film which we call the

frames, into a tine- thing. It means to write something cinegraphic

with the recorded shots. It does not mean to select pieces to make

`scenes' (deviations of a theatrical character) nor does it mean to

arrange pieces according to subtitles (deviations of a literary character)

(quotedin Sitney, 1971: 373, my italics).

Here Vertov takeshis' Kino-Eye' approachto recordingan image a stagefurther into

the organisation of the images into sequences. Vertov's theory echoes our

discussion, earlier in this thesis, of the literary essay. Ideas within a literary essay

are developed through things, objects or associations and not through a direct line of

argument, a catalogue of events in which one event follows another, often as a result

of a cause and effect relationship.

Vertov calls his montage `the theory of intervals'. The use of the word `interval' is

unusual in relation to film. The term is used in music to suggest melodic or

harmonic relationships between individual notes. Vertov strives for `a cinematic

scale' (quoted in Sitney, 1990: 43) to establish a set of relationships between

independent images, not necessary defined as juxtaposition. Once the `interval' is

4Appeared first in Film Front

no 3,1935. SeeSitney, P, Film Culture - Anthology of American Avant-
garde 1971,London: Seckerand Warburg.
65
applied both `melodically' and `harmonically' a complex structure of multi-layering

sequences of images can take place. The `cine-thing', mentioned earlier by Vertov,

is based on `intervals': movement between frames; proportional association

between them or the transitions from one frame to another. The movement between

the frames - `spectacular interval' - as Vertov calls it, is achieved by the following

techniques:

1. Relations of planes (small and large).

2. Relations of foreshortening.

3. Relationsof movementswithin two framesof eachpiece.

4. Relations of lights and shades.

5. Relations of speeds of recording (quoted in Geduld, 1967: 104).

Vertov puts the emphasis in his `theory of intervals' on the "spectacular value of each

distinct image in its relations to all the others engaged in the `montage battle' which

begins" (Ibid). The viewer is left to `navigate' among the different layers of

intervals to create an overall impression, a task similar to that facing the reader of

formalist poetry.

Unlike Vertov, who stressed the `Kino-Eye' recording and editing of the image and

the attention to the writing-like quality of the film process, Eisenstein saw the

importance of the added emotional and stylistic values of the image in order to

develop a montage (Pirog, 1982: 306)5. According to Eisenstein: "Montage has

66
 a realistic significance when the separate pieces produce, in juxtaposition, the

generality, the synthesis of the theme, that is the image embodying the theme itself'

(Ibid)6. D. ScheunemanndiscussesEisenstein's montagein detail. As the word

`montage' is taken from the industrial world of assembling several ready-made

elements, it applies, in the cinema, to a method of working aesthetically to construct

a meaning out of images. As a result, the film maker is not bound by the dominant

eighteenth and nineteenth century ideas of creating work which imitates existing

structures or represents reality (Scheunemann, 1990: 6). Eisenstein's concept of

montagerelies on the elementsof attractionborrowedfrom the spectator'sexperience

in the pre-cinema world of the circus and the music hall7. The `montage of

the
attractions' reaches spectators'emotions in order to convey an idea or a theme in

the film:

To use montage of attractions as a basic device, means therefore, a break

away from the course of fictional plotting, from presenting a consistent

and coherent flow of action (... ). It is rather the tension between

various elements, their conflicting nature and their ability to arouse the

spectator's emotional response that determines the selection

of scenes and incidents and their compositional

5At times, EisensteinconsideredVertov's formalist approachas "unmotivated

cameramischief' referring to
the film The Man With the Movie Camera. SeeEisenstein. S. 1949, SanDiego: HBJ: 43.
6Pirog's
article offers a detailed account of the Eisenstein's and Vertov's opposing views of the montage.
70n
early cinema and the concept of the 'cinema of attraction' see also Gunning, T, "The Cinema of
Attractions, Early Cinema und the Avant-garde" in Elsaesser, T, (ed.) Early Cinema- Space Frame Narrative,
1990, London:
BFI.

67
 arrangement(Scheunemann1990: 7).

Eisenstein himself weites, including in his definition even what he sees as the `Kino-

Eye' approachto film: "(Montage of attractions)is this path that liberatesfilm from

the plot-based script and for the first time takes account of film material, both

thematically and formally, in the construction" (1988: 40). He describes the

process of `the montage of attractions' as a comparison of topics for thematic impact

and explains: "It is not in fact phenomena that are compared, but chains of

associations that are linked to a particular phenomenon in the mind of a particular

audience"(Ibid: 41). This systemof emotionally-calculatedassemblyof attractions

through associative elements, guides the spectator through an Eisenstein film,

accordingto Sanchez-Biosca(1990: 284).

Modernist American poetry

The influence of Russian formalist poetry on Vertov and Eisenstein, on montage and

the avant-garde film in general was charted above in detail. S. Howe's article on the

essay film adds a direct and useful link between the essay film and modernist

American poetry. Howe relates montage techniques used by the American

modernist poets to film montagewithin the particular genreof the essayfilm. This

forms the basis for her study of the essay film and, specifically, the study of

Marker's film Sunless and Vertov's work. Howe looks at Marker's editing in the

light of the associative techniques developed in poetry: "Emerson, Melville,

68
Dickinson, Elliot, Moore, Williams, Stevens, Olson, Cage (... ) use letters as

colliding image-objects" (1996: 331). She quotes William James' assertion that:

"association, so far as the word stands for an effect, is between things thought of - it

is things not ideas, which are associated in the mind. We ought to talk about (the)

association of objects not the association of ideas" (Ibid). Vertov's montage of

`cine-thing' within 'Kino-Eye', Eisenstein's description of the process of the

'montageof attraction', Adorno's portrayal of the associativetechniquesusedin the

literary essay and, similarly, the Japanese tradition of the essay, bring the study of

the avant-gardeand someof the aspectsof the literary essaytogether. According to

Howe, the writings of the poets Melville, Dickinson and Whitman "involved

comparing and linking fragments or shots, selecting fragments for scenes (... )

constantly interweaving traces of the past" (Ibid). The free associations of images,

following the `stream of consciousness' used already in modernist poetry (for

example the works of T. S. Elliot), also inform the nature of the editing in Marker's

Sunless. Howe compares the poet Dickinson's concept of the `Pen Eye' to Vertov's

`Kino-Eye' in a way similar to the relationship established earlier in this study

betweenAstruc's `camera-stylo' and Vertov's `Kino-Eye'. Modernist poetry's use

of associativetechniquesand its influence on film montageshould be discussedhere

in relation to the use of the poetic metaphor, the film metaphor in the context of

symbolic association, and montage in general.

69
 J. Mooij offers some good definitions of the poetic metaphor based on the three main

functions of metaphor in literature: the emotive; the persuasive and the cognitive8.

According to him metaphors were generally used in poetry to elaborate an idea for

stylistic reasons,to expressa particular world view or to introduce different levels of

meanings and symbolism. Focusing his attention on modernist poetry, Mooij points

to the fact that, in modernist poetry, the metaphor has developed further, in the

following ways. Firstly, fusion occurs between the principal ('the tenor') and the

subsidiary ('the vehicle') components of the metaphor so that the distinction between

the literal and and figurative meanings of the metaphor collapses (Mooij, 1992:

320). Secondly, poetic metaphorsare not necessarilyvery clear, they are unclear

and `hesitant' in Mooij's words (Ibid: 321). Thirdly, more often than hesitant,the

metaphor operates in modernist poetry in an opposite fashion - it is bold, creating a

collision of images rather than a collusion (Ibid). These definitions of the poetic

metaphor bring us directly to the discussion of film metaphor within montage.

T. Whittock and N. Carroll expand the definition of a film metaphor to the wider

study of the cinematic image in the context of the discussion of the notion of

seeing9. Nevertheless, both discuss metaphor within editing in some detail.

Whittock identifies the following types of metaphor used in film editing:

8See
also Steen,G, "Metaphor and Literary Comprehension",Poetics, 1989, vol. 18, pp. 113-141 for general
discussionon the metaphorand Lewis, E, "Super-position: Interpretative Metaphor", Paideuma,1994, vol. 23,
no. 2-3, pp. 195-214 for a study on metaphorin modern poetry
9See
also Clifton, N, The Figure in Film, 1983, London and Toronto: AssociatedUniversity Press. Clifton,
as part of his larger study of the figure in film, simply lists a variety of different types of film metaphor.

70
 1. Image A is like image B.

2. AisB.

3. A is replaced by B.

4. Juxtaposition.

5. Metaphorby a direct associationor by contextualmetonymy.

6. Disruption of the syntax, similar to the formalists' Ostranenie

(1990: 50-69).

Whittock identifies, in addition to the above mentioned types of film metaphors, the

distortion of an image to create a metaphor (e. g the use of a fish eye lens or

dissolves), whilst Carroll cites the use of superimposition by Vertov in the film The

Man With the Movie Camera in which `eye equals lens' functions as a film metaphor

and as a visual technique (1996: 810-811).

A particularly interesting association between modern American poetry and film is

made by B. Singer. He mentions the American modernist poet Walt Whitman's

profound influence on Dziga Vertov and Vladimir Mayakovsky but mainly on

Vertov's film The Man With the Movie Camera. Whitman's influence on Russian

literature in the 1910's and 1920's was extensive, and his poetry book Leaves of

Grass (published in 1855) became a best-seller after the Soviet revolution. As soon

as the film The Man With the Movie Camera came out in the USSR, Vertov was

hailed as the `Soviet Whitman' (Singer, 1987: 247). Singer also refers to the

71
 testimony by Vertov's brother and collaborator - M. Kaufman - recorded in 1976,

recalling Vertov's familiarity with Whitman's poetry (Ibid: 248).

Accepting the fact that the film The Man With the Movie Camera cannot totally be

read as a `Whitman poem', Singer neverthelesshighlights severalpoints of similarity

between the two artists' work. Both offer a rich intense overview of their subject

matter, unprecedented for their period, using diversity, eclecticism and fractured text

in the work, and rejecting `smoother' structures. Both works project the fast

rhythm of urban modernity and use real life ('Kino-Eye') as the `raw material' (Ibid:

250) for their art. Whitman in his poetry explores the relationship between the poet

and the raw material surrounding him, as does Vertov with his camera. Both

document their environment and monitor the social, scientific and political changes in

which they take an active partlO. Whitman's Leaves of Grass was seen by the poet

as a `gift' to the American people11,offering his personal views and highlighting

his involvement in the world around him, just as Montaigne presentedhis essaysto

his reader. Finally, Singer brings examples of what he calls "the ethnographic

montage" (Ibid: 253) in Whitman's poetry and Vertov's film. Both use montage

techniques to chart, in a quick succession of short sentences/image sequences, a long

list of different daily activities in order to describe the world of the poem/film. 12

10See
also Sharpe, W, Unreal Cities. Urban Figuration in Wordsworth Baudelaire. Whitman. Eliot and
Williams 1990, Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press for a fascinating study of Whitman's city
,
landscape and the poet's position within it, as reflected in Leaves of Grass.
"See Jerome Loving introduction to Whiunau, W, Leaves
of Grass, 1990, Oxford: Oxford University Press.
12See
also Greenspan, E, "The Poetics of "Participle-loving Whitman"" in Greenspan, E, (ed. ) The Cambridge

72
 Conclusion - definition of the essay film

Alter and Howe have taken the examination of the essay film beyond the study of the

documentarygenre on one hand, and the comparativestudy betweenthe essayfilm

and the literary essay on the other hand. They introduce elements of the avant-garde

to the discussion. They look at the relationship between the ideas presented in

Chapter Two relating to the content, style, structure and aesthetics of the literary

essay and some fundamentals of the avant-garde. Alter's study, although

concentrating specifically on the hidden political significance of Farocki's film,

offers the closest definition of the essayfilm to date and with its study of Farocki's

editing techniques, points the way to the form of textual analysis of the essay film

genre which has been long overdue.

The essay film cannot be placed inside the documentary genre. It is clear from the

comparison with its literary predecessor that its main aim is not to record, reveal,

preserve, persuade, analyse or investigate as it is the case, generally, with the

documentary. B. Nichols' definition of the documentary reads:

In documentary, a typical sceneestablishestime and place and a logical

tie to previous scenes; it presentsthe evidential nature of some portion

of a larger argument (such as an illustration, example, interview with

witness or expert, visual metaphor or sound/image counterpoint), and it

Companion to Walt Whitman, 1995, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press for a similar comparison between
The Man with the Movie Camera by Vertov and Whitman's Leaves of Grass and Crossing Brooklyn Ferry

73
 terminates with suggestionsof how the search for a solution might lead

to another scene, in another time or place (1991: 19).

The documentary tradition is far too closely identified with the linear, narrative

cinematic language and is often completely removed from the autobiography of the

film maker in its endeavour to fulfil the goals outlined above. More often than not,

the documentary seeks to present a closed structure of cinematic language, similar to

the Aristotelean tradition which is dominant in the fiction film genre. The

Aristotelean impact on narrative film is described by R. Armes as follows:

We are given dramatic actions in which everything is precisely plotted

to exploit to the full the interweaving of consecutivenessand causality

in the construction of the story (... ) Action and character are locked

indissolubly together in the unfolding of the story, so that one reveals

and confirms the truth of the other. The plot may be highly patterned

in terms of repetitions, parallels and variations of events and

characters, but the meaning is assumed to lie somewhere else, in the

subjectof the story rather than the structureitself (1994: 107).

This definition makes it extremely clear that the essay film is not constructed along

the lines of an Aristotelean dramatic structure - it is not constructed as a closed form

and its meaning lies in the structure itself. This, coupled with its strong roots in

both the literary essay and the avant-garde, points to the fact that the essay film genre

stands outside the documentary genre. Although, as M. Renov has pointed out, the

74
documentary genre does include work of highly personal character and may include

substantial autobiographical elements within it, it cannot include within it the essay

film genre. The essay film cannot offer, as Renov wishes, a remedy and a way

forward for what he seesas an `ailing documentarytradition'. I disagreealso with

Richter's final aim to place the essayfilm inside the documentarygenreas a way to

change it radically `from the inside' and move away from what he calls the `post-

card' documentary(Richter, 1992: 198). C. Plantinga's term - metadocumentary-

is an interesting one, as it identifies the reflective character within this term.

Nevertheless, Plantinga places metadocumentary within documentary. He identifies

in metadocumentary a range of cinematic tools used in opposition to the classical

documentary,and therefore,the films he includes in his definition should not be put

within the documentary genre at all.

The essay film with its roots in both the literary essay and the avant-garde has tried

indirectly, since Vertov's work, to establish its own language. The essay film

creates its own discourse by using the tools of cinematic language - image, sound,

editing and the organisation of time and space - to create the cinematic 'text'. It

creates narrative and non-narrative structures, 'methodically unmethodically' edited

together. This is hound together with the notion that the film maker is present inside

the work and introduces it to the audience, asking them to take part in the

construction of the film's meanings. As a result, the cinematic 'text' becomesthe

'reflective text', the mediating medium between the film maker and the spectator.

75
 The strong avant-garde elements of the cinematic language in the essay film, together

with its links to the literary essay, point to an independent genre. The essay film can

be described thus as an independent genre within non-fiction film. A. Piotrovskij in

his essay `Toward a Theory of Cin6-Genres' 13 which was published in 1927 as

part of Poetika Kino (Poetics of Cinema -a collection of Russian formalist writings

on film, including among others, Shklovsky's) wrote:

We shall define a eine-genre as a complex of compositional, stylistic,

and narrative devices, connected with specific semantic material and

emotional emphasis but residing totally within a specific `native' art

system - the system of cinema. Therefore, in order to establish the

`cine-genres', it is necessary to draw specific conclusions from the

basic stylistic laws of cinc; the laws of 'photogeny' and `montage'.

-art,

We will observe how the use of `space', `time', `people', and

`objects' varies from the point of view of montage and photogeny,

depending on the genre. We will also observe how the narrative

sequences are arranged, and what the interrelations among all these

elements are within a given cine-genre (Eagle, 1981: 131-132).

I hope this chapterhasdonejust that, with regard to the essayfilm.

13Translatedby Anna Lawton in Eagle, 11,Russian ronnalist Film Theory, 1981, Ann
Arbor: University of
Michigan: 131-146

76
 CHAPTER FOUR : `The Man Who Couldn't Feel' and Other Tales -
TEXTUAL ANALYSIS

Introduction

The film `The Man Who Couldn't Feel' and Other Tales offers insight into the essay

film form. The textual analysis of the film in this chapter will define in detail the

genre characteristics as they have been outlined in the previous two chapters of this

thesis. Existing writings to date on the essay film are general in their discussion of

the genre and none includes a detailed textual analysis of a film which belongs to the

genre. V. Petric offers a detailed textual analysis of Vertov's film The Man With the

Movie Camera using only constructivism as his basis for the analysis of the filml4.

A detailed analysis of `The Man Who Couldn't Feel' and Other Tales will reveal the

linear and non-linear structural elements within the genre and the use of avant-garde

montage to achieve a coherent form based on the fragmentary cinematic text.

This chapter will also highlight the film's resemblance to the literary essay form.

Many of the literary essay'saesthetic,thematicand structuralelements,togetherwith

the strong avant-garde techniques used within the film, define `The Man who

Couldn't Feel' and Other Tales as an essay film. This chapter will discuss the

thematic content of the film, its overall structure, the narrative and non-narrative

forms within it, the role of autobiography, travel and archive footage in determining

14Petric, V, Constructivism in Film: The Man with the Movie Camera- A Cinematic Analysis, 1987,
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

77
the aesthetic and thematic content of the film, as well as the avant-garde editing

techniques used throughout the film. A shot-by-shot analysis of the first twenty

three minutes of the film is also included in this chapter (for a shot breakdown of the

complete film and the transcription of all texts on the sound track, see Appendixes

One to Eight).

The film does not belong to the documentary genre, neither it is structured as a

fictional narrative, as it avoids the disciplines of documentary and the other main

narrative cinematic genres. The film creates narrative and non-narrative structures,

'methodically unmethodically' edited together, using the editing methods of the

avant-garde. These are bound together with the notion that film maker is present

inside the work and introduces it to the audience, asking them to take part in the

construction of the film's meanings. The film does not offer a complete,

systematically organised presentation of one or more of its themes. There is no

central theme or single story in the film. The film includes a variety of subject

matter and does not offer a well-rounded study of ethics, morality, politics or

humanity in general. As in a Montaignean literary essay, the multitude of visual and

sound sequences and short'stories', often repeated and interwoven, offer the viewer

a large variety of ideas, themes and observations in order to construct the dialogue

between the film maker, the film and the viewer.

78
Thematic content

The film lacks a core motif, a thesis, a single voice or a central text or topic. The

themes in the film do not go through a process of elaboration or enlargement,

exposition or development - all usually identified as important elements of the

documentary or the fictional narrative genres. The film emphasises the lack of

coherence and the imperfection of the human condition, accepting the fact that human

behaviour often escapesfrom any system of values and is erratic by nature. The

film's overall structure reflects just that. The film includes from time to time

contradictory ideasas its chartsits route through a seriesof fragments. A variety of

themesappearand disappearthroughoutthe film, amongthem are:

1. The Man Who Couldn't Feel' and the effect of the poverty of our

emotional world on other themes in the film.

2. The relationship between the First and the Third Worlds.

3. Travel and the fascination with the `other' or the exotic through the

activity of travel.

4. Mankind and the environment.

5. The idea of the global village - Gaia.

6. The horrors of war.

7. The oppressive nature of `big' ideologies.

8. Representation of images and sound, editing and the cinematic process.

9. Life in different countries and cultures.

79
 10. Loneliness and despair.

11. Autobiography.

12. Countryside versus the city.

13. Religion

The film doesnot imposea systemon the different themescontainedin it. Opinions

and sentiments are put forward from time to time, but they are not used as

fundamentals. When suppositions are presented in the film they are not presented to

the viewer as foregone conclusions and cannot be used as a basis for an over-arching

theory which informs a conclusive argument, as is often the case in the documentary

genre. The same is true about the series of stories (or `tales') contained within the

film which are not linked dramatically and are not presented to the viewer according

to any of the conventions of narrative development. Crucial to the understanding of

the structure of the film is the scepticism of the film maker which is presented to the

viewer. As a result, the truth in the film is limited, and it does not claim to be all-

embracing. The authority of the film is not in the systematic presentation of themes

and views, but in the experience presented by the film maker - the film is a

provisional and tentative reflection.

Two of the film themes - autobiography and travel - need to be looked into in detail at

this stageof the analysisin light of our definition of the essayfilm genre.

80
 Autobiography

Autobiographical elements play an important role in the subject matter in the film.

But the film doesnot chart a completeand systematicaccountof the film maker'slife

or offer a completeaccountof any episodein his life. The autobiographicalelement

of the film is most recognisable in the film maker's voice-over, told toward the end

of the film, recalling the experience of his bus-ride from Bulgaria to Turkey (251c-

279d)15. The bus-ride story is told in the first person mode by the film maker

himself for the first, and only, time during the film. Because of its prominence in

the last part of the film, this story brings the film maker directly into the film and

makes the viewer awareof the nature of the travel footage shown earlier throughout

the film. A less prominent autobiographicalfeature, close to the beginning of the

film, is the image of a Western Man engaged in a conversation with a Chinese sailor,

while travelling on a river boat (7b). Another autobiographical element throughout

the film is inherent in the use of home movie format - Super 8 film - as an image-

recording device. For a long time, the use of a small-format, individually owned

home-movie camerahas pointed to the intimacy and direct involvement of the film

maker with his/her images.

An important element in the film which brings the viewer closer to the process of

gathering the imagesis the fact that some of the personsphotographedlook directly

15For
a complete shot list of the film, see Appendix One. All shot numbers in this chapter refer to the film's
shot list.

81
into the lens. Among these are:

1. The Chinese boatman (11-12; 263-263a).

2. A Chinese girl stops dying a fabric - and looks at the camera (62).

3. A Chineseman on a bicycle (136b).

4. Chinesechildren in the market (145).

5. A Chinese man cooking with a wok (148).

6. Jewish boys in a class room (201a and 211-212).

7. Chinese men riding on a top of a track (261a).

The gaze into the traveller's camera lens establishes the film maker's presence in

those locations, and as the film contains a large amount of travel footage, the viewer

concludes that the traveller is the film maker. But more importantly, those images

are included in the film as a commentary on the process of film making itself - as

indication of the self-reflective character of an essay film - and as a comment on the

nature of travel in foreign lands - one of the film's themes.

Although the film includes the autobiographicalelementsmentionedabove,it cannot

be described as an autobiographical film. The film lacks a definitive system of

presentation of events in the film maker's life. The fragmented series of experiences

presented in the film produces the opposite effect - the realisation that everyone's

experience is mixed, varied and divergent in a similar way. For example, the

overwhelming experience in the past thirty years of global travel and the easeof

82
access to remote corners of the world, coupled with the wealth of opportunities to

record images, are universal for viewers in the West. The extensive travel footage is

presented as a theme in the film and not as a travelogue of the film maker.

Furthermore, none of the images are presentedwith sync sound. Thus they are

detachedfrom their particular settingsor location. Sync soundgroundsthe image in

the experienceof the film maker as the personbehind the recording in a specific time

and place. The absence of any sync sound in the film removes the images from the

personal and anecdotal identification of the viewer with the film maker.

The result of the multitude of themes, subject matters and observations in 'The M

Who Couldn't Feel' and Other Tales is not a film about the `self' nor it is a

autobiography or a confession. Like in a Montaignean essay, the `self' in the film,

either visible or obscured, is the Barthean `self', part of the discourse created

between the author, the `text' and the viewer. The mixture of the often eclectic and

fragmentary cinematic texts, events and reflections can only be understood by

applying here the concept of the 'self'. The film maker establishes himself as the

primary intellectual subject for the variety of digressions, instead of using external

structure to `hinge' the film on.

Travel

Most of the film's scenes were filmed during the film maker's travels in different

83
countries of the world. The images filmed during various journeys are totally

removed from the travel experience itself. The images are presented as non-sync

filmic images, detached from any geographical or anthropological context. They are

chosenprimarily for their cinematic quality - colour, movement, dramatic content,

framing - and their suitability to be used in several contexts. In this way, these

images represent a whole range of meanings as they hold more general, abstract

readings on different levels (see our discussion above about the non-sync use of

images within autobiography). The travel images are used in the film to support

ideas and general observations and are often presented in a mixture of self-

preoccupation, reflection or commentary by the film maker. Although most of the

film was shot during periods of travel, the film is not a travelogue, a film about the

experience of travelling itself, or a documentary about the individual locations. The

film doesnot chart the entire experienceof a trip or a seriesof trips. It doesnot give

any general travelling or geographical information about the places visited.

Although the film contains one direct travelling experience which is told by the film

maker in the first personon the voice-over track of the film (shots 251c-279d), and

one, indirect, reference to the nature of travelling in the text of the Italian sailors'

song (shots 287-303), the film does not offer an overview of the film maker's travel

activities. Nor does it offer a succession or a progression of travel tales.

84
The following segments of the film are travel footage:

1. A journey on a river boat in China and through the Chinese rural

countryside (6-12; 37-63b; 132-150; 261-271b; 128-131; 220-221;

252-257b).

2. Landscapesof Antarctica (3-4; 14; 20-26; 77-79; 189-190).

3. American highways and suburban neighbourhoods (65-70a; 184-184g;

250-251c; 279-179d).
4. Italian village houses covered with wall paintings (70b-76; 286-298).

5. Bombay city and beach scenes (80-87b; 151-156; 236-242b; 273-274).

6. A boat tour of a containerharbour in Holland (230-235a).

7. Many of the individual images - images of water, forests, wood,

temple bells, a woman near a lake, a woman on a boat bench, children

playing on a helicopter ride in a fair ground - are travel footage.

In addition, one travel episode is introduced in the film on the sound track alone and

was discussed earlier, namely the personal voice-over account of a bus-ride from

Bulgaria to Turkey (shots 251c-279d). The subject of travel in the film has to be

seen in a similar context to the issues concerning autobiography which were

highlighted earlier on. The film's travel theme is is a mixture of self-preoccupation

or observation by the traveller, which in turn functions as a method for digression or

deviation in the context of other themes.

85
Film structure

The overall structure of the film 'The Man Who Couldn't Feel' and Other Tales

corresponds in parts to the following structural elements of a Montaignean essay,

which were discussed in an earlier chapter:

A. Interwoven themesthrough digressionand association:

The variety of the film's themes, some already mentioned in this chapter, are

developed briefly within the film through images (`cin6-things' as described by

Vertov), or associations,but not through a linear argument. Themesare not linked

as a result of a cause and effect relationship. Different themes and ideas are

interwoven in the film in a structure that limits their development.

The following are examples of this structure:

1. The themes of travel, the relationship between the First and the Third

Worlds and 'The Man Who Couldn't Feel' are presentedin the pre-title

sequenceof the film (1-14).

2. The horrors of war and the relationship betweenthe First and the Third

Worlds (161-184).

3. Political movements versus the individual (37-64; 112-131).

4. Different aspects of American way of life (65-77).

5. The story of creation in Genesis and man's cultivation of the land (14-

63b).

86
 A
6. wind surfer's body movements and Japan's atomic bomb victims

treated in a hospital (80-97).

7. Children in different cultures (192-223).

8. A busy Indian train station, Bombay'sbusinessdistrict and a desertedold

train station next to the sea(236-251c).

9. Travel and voyeurism (37-63b; 261-272).

10. Industrial landscape and production followed by images of war (162-

183).

11. A young girl, holding balloons, who stands on the sea shore, gazing at

the sea, followed by the Bomb's victims and a cut back to her on the shore.

This time the sea is motionless; the waves resume their movement and after

a while the girl walks away (84a-102c).

12. The girl with a balloon is part of a sequencewhich also includes

porcelain dolls - lit by a single candle-light and moving slowly in darkness

inside a cabinet - and a teenagegirl sitting at a shore of a lake (98-103a).

This sequence is intertwined with the previous one.

B. Circular form and repetition:

The film has,in parts, a circular structurewhich alongside,and often in conjunction

with, the previous cinematic structure of interwoven themes through digression and

association, defines its overall structure. This circular structure is often created

87
through repetition. The last two examples above of interwoven themes - nos. 11

and 12 - already highlighted repetitions within them. In addition, the following

sequencessuggest a circular form through repetition:

1. The first image of the film - the closed window with a ceramic bowl in

front of it - also closesthe film.

2. Two other images from the pre-title sequence of the film reappear in the

closing sequence of the film: 5 and 301; 13 and 298.

3. The text, 'The Man Who Couldn't Feel', (seeAppendix Two) opens the

film and is then repeated twice, creating an impression of a three-part

temporal structurefor the film. As a result, eachpart of the film startswith

the same text on the sound track but in a different visual context. In

addition to the temporal effect, this creates a very loose resemblance to a

'theme and variation' structure. A close examination of the multitude of

themes presented in each of the `three parts' of the film shows that the

film's structure is not defined through a three-part linear developmental

structure nor by a `theme and variation' structure which implies a central

theme to the film with slight variations to it during repetitions. The film's

structure is determined by the variety of interwoven themes, digressions and

repetitions.

4. The splitting up of a long sequence into two is used in the film to repeat

themes and modify them as a result of a new sound and image relationship.

88
 This in turn helps to create some of the circular structural components in the

film. The following long sequencesare treated in the film in this way: The

Chinese revolutionary parade; Scenesfrom the Portugueserevolution;

Japaneseatomic bomb victims; A text over music: English for beginners-

'Good morning Mr. Jones'(seeAppendix Three); Long travelling shotsof

American neighborhoods; A deserted old train station next to the sea.

5. Many of the images relating to Chinese peasant' life, which appear first

near to the beginning of the film, are repeated during the `bus-ride' tale

toward he end of the film. This repetition of a series of images a second

time around with a different sound track changes the reading of the images

and createsnew themes.

6. Repetition of single images throughout the film create small internal

structures. Often they are used to connect two or more sequences or'tales'

[seebelow for the discussionof the `tales']: A closed window / door (13;

75; 185; 192; 205; 213; 241; 298); A woman sitting on a river boat's

bench; the same bench empty (37; 49; 169; 183; 272); Images of

forest or wood logs (29-33; 104; 275-275b; 277); Blue ice landscapes

(14; 20; 190); A teenagegirl sitting on a shoreof a lake (103-103a; 191);

Crowds (64; 187-188; 223); A temple bell (186-186a; 222).

The film's interwoven, circular and often repetitive themes are presentedwith a

variety of narrativeand non-narrativeconstructionsbasedon avant-gardefilm editing

techniquesand using metaphor.

89
Narrative `tales'

Twelve segments of the film, or 'tales' (as indicated in the film title), are of sufficient

length to contain linear narrative structures. These `tales' are characterisedby their

relative long duration and resemblanceto a complete narrative linear framework in

their internal structure. These descriptive sequences and sketches, fictional or non-

fictional, relate a story, a themeor an incident. They offer completenarrativeseither

on the sound track, or as part of a visual sequence using narrative visual continuity

editing techniques.

A. The following `tales' are introduced on the sound track as a voice-over:

1. The text of 'The Man Who Couldn't Feel' is a transcription of a

psychoanalyticalsessionbetweenan analystand a chief executiveofficer of

a major company (3-14; 128a-146; 230-238). The text is presentedas a

dialogue between the two men. It starts with a series of general questions

and answers and slowly develops into more personal and detailed exchange.

It ends with a dramatic admission by the businessman that he is incapable of

talking about his feelings (see Appendix Two).

2. The text of an Italian sailors' song (287-303) belonging to a traditional

song structure of verse and refrain (See Appendix Eight).

3. The personal story of the film maker's bus-ride from Bulgaria to Turkey

(251c-279d) is told as a narrative linear tale, charting chronologically the

events as they unfolded during the night journey (see Appendix Seven).

90
 4. The archive interview with the American pilots who droppedthe atomic

bomb on Nagasaki (173-184c) is presentedas a series of questions and

answers between a journalist and the pilots and forms part of a newsreel

item of the time (see Appendix Six).

5. The voice-over tale of the bachelor, his neighbour and her husband (70a-

77) belongs to the narrative joke structure (see Appendix Four) 16

B. The following are lang narrative `tales' describedin imagesequences:

1. A visual sequence, following a text on screen which contains the first

phrase of the book of Genesis,depicting the different stagesof creation

accordingto Genesisfrom ice landscapesto Chinesepeasantscultivating the

land (14-39).

2. Sequences of Chinese peasants working the land, working as market

traders or as travellers along the river (37-63b; 132-150; 261-271b).

These are documented in a descriptive style moving between long

establishingshots,medium shotsand close-updetails.

3. The use of a long travelling shots of empty American suburbanstreets

from a moving car (70-70a; 184-184g; 250-250c) offers a continous,

`real-time' view of the subject.

4. The wind surfer who struggles to control his board, watched by a group

of Indian onlookers on the shore (80-87b), is shown through a series of

16For
an analysis of this joke's literary structure, seeMartin, W, RecentTheories of Nanativ 1986, Ithaca:
,
Cornell University Press,pp. 65-71; 104-106; 169-170.

91
 establishing and close-up shots and the use of reverse shots to tell the story

of the event. The surfer himself goes through several cycles of

manoeuversin his efforts to control his board.

5. The young Jewish children learn to pray in a class room. (192-213).

Their repetitive body movement during the lesson is introduced through a

series of long and close-up shots as well as reverse shots between the

children and the teachers. As the lesson progresses the children become

more and more tired and lose interest in the lesson.

6. The two children on a `helicopter-ride' at a fair ground (214-219b). This

segment starts with the children boarding the `helicopter' and is followed by

the ride itself. When the ride ends, they refuse to get off despite their

mother insisting they do so.

7. A short story of a woman dressed in white (280-285a), carrying a

suitcase in her hand, entering a train station, pacing up and down the

platform. During the final shots of this sequence,the camerapulls out to

reveal that she is waiting in vain, in a deserted train station.

The narrative `tales' mentionedaboverepresentcompletenarrativestructuresand are

a result of the use of continuity editing techniques. To achieve it, the following

continuity editing techniques are used as dramatic tools in the construction of the

`tales' and other short narrativesegmentsin the film:

92
1. Matching consecutive actions: The sequence showing a Chinese woman

planting rice (45-46); Chinese peasants boarding and disembarking a river

boat (137-141a); Children on a helicopter ride (214-219b).

2. Cut on action: The surfer struggling to control his board (81-83b);

Teaching Chinesepassers-byto use a camera(254-257b); Chinesewomen

dying fabric (264-266).

3. Change of image size and angle: Jewish children in a class room (193-

212); Bombay train station at night (237-240); The woman in white in a

deserted train station (280-286a).

4. Preserving a sense of direction: Portuguese crowd in a bull ring during a

demonstration (112-117); An elderly couple on a boat in a container

harbour (231-235a); Woman in white in a desertedtrain station (280-286a).

5. Manipulation of the duration of an event through shortening or

lengthening the sequence: A journey on a river boat in China in which a

Chinese sailor is engagedin conversation with a traveller (6-12); Cars

travelling at night (65-68); The wind surfer watched by a crowd on shore

(80-87b).

6. Sound flows over a visual cut: The sound of sea waves covers the cut

between Antarctica (77-79) and the wind surfer (80 and onwards); Wind

soundstartsover the room with the art installation (88-89) and crossesover

the Japanesebomb victims (90 onwards) and again before the second

sequenceof the bomb victims (160-161); the Italian song track begins

93
 earlier, during the deserted train station scene (285a-286).

In some cases the tales on the voice-over track or in the image sequences coincide to

createa multi-layered narrative story. In other cases,the `tales', either in sound or

image, are themselvesrepeatedin different contexts and, as a result, new narrative

sequencesare created. Here are two examples:

9 The voice-over text of `The Man Who Couldn't Feel' is repeated three times

throughout the film: at the beginning, in the middle and near the end of the film. On

all three occasions the text is edited together with images of travelling: twice the text

is told over sequences of Chinese peasants in the country-side, the third time over

images of an elderly couple travelling in Rotterdam harbour. Two dramatic effects

are achieved as a result. The first: each `section' of the film starts with the notion

of travelling which is one of the themes of the film. The second: the text describing

the ambition of a Western businessmanis dramatically juxtaposed with the Third

World images during the first two repetitions and is reflected in the image of the

`Western' man and his wife, as a retired couple, in the third repeat. This repetition

may suggest an element of a loose cyclical structure to the film, but as we have stated

earlier, it does not determine an overall three part structure for the film. Each and

every `part' of the film which follows the text of `The Man Who Couldn't Feel' is

structured differently and presents new themes and image and sound constructions.

Although a suggestionof linear developmentor a `themeand variation'

structure is

94
created, the film does not conform to either pattern. It is, though, an example of the

`play' throughout the film between narrative and non-narrative constructions.

" The long, single travelling shot of empty American suburban streets is used three

times throughoutthe film, in different contexts: The first time as an illustration to the

tale about the bachelor, his neighbour and her husband, creating an imaginary

location to the tale, as it corresponds visually to the general atmosphere and to some

of the details in the story. The second time the shot appears in the film is at the end

of the atomic bomb pilots' interview, describing the Japanese city underneath their

flight path. The image of empty American suburban streets is in contrast to the

content of the interview on the sound track, and throws a new light on the dramatic

content of the interview. The third time the shot is used is as an `epilogue' and a

contrast to the crowds inside the Portuguese bull ring arena on one hand and as

prologue to the bus-ride tale which follows on the soundtrack.

Archive material

Linked to the notion of narrative structures within the film is the inclusion of sound

and image archive material. The archive footage in the 'The Man Who Couldn't

Feel' and Other Tales is used primarily to provide individual images, like the travel

footage and all other the self-originated images in the film. Similar to the way

quotations are used in a Montaignean essay, these images do not provide historical

information as such, nor are they used to illustrate an historical event. Archive

95
images are used as raw material from which to construct various themes and ideas

throughout the film, and thus are often used several times in different contexts.

They are chosen for their cinematic qualities of image, dramatic content, rhythm,

colour and framing. A clear example of it is the use of the Chinese athletes'

repetitive movementswith red flags (227-229) which createsa near-abstractimage.

At times they are used as part of the narrative `tales', as we have seen above. They

are independentvisual or sound segmentswhich form part of the dialogue between

the film maker and the viewer. In taking an archive image or a sound segment out

of its context, they are used in the formalist way - 'out of automation'. Historical

images are not intended to lend authority to the film, as is the case in a documentary,

nor to support a thesis. They are not chosen from sources in the past to reinforce

the present experience of the film maker. Instead, they form part and parcel of the

experienceitself.

The following soundarchive sequencesare included in the film:

1. The text over music - English for beginners, 'Good morning Mr. Jones' -

is taken from a 1950s commercially available language teaching sound

record. The text, divided in the film into two (39-64 and 184f-188),

contains basic English phrases, greetings and polite exchanges, spoken by

a male teacher in a slow and authoritative voice. It portrays the use of

language,broken down to its most basic elementsin speech,mirroring the

96
 use of individual shots as `building blocks' for the film as a whole. The

first half of the text is spoken over images of Chinese peasants working the

land and scenes of Chinese village market. It is used here as a tool of

irony. The conclusion of the text is narratedover moving shotsfrom a car

in an empty neighbourhoodin the USA, followed by the image of an empty

room with an open door, followed by a temple'sbell, imagesof crowds and

blue ice. Here, the slow, impersonal and alienating text accentuates the

feeling of alienation and loneliness in the image.

2. A second text over music - 'I must advise you... '(103a-114) -a

meditation text (see Appendix Five), read by a male voice, is taken from

1960s meditation instruction tape. The text, conveying a large dose of

personal doubt and self-questioning, is juxtaposed with images of

individuals and crowds who are strongly motivated by a causeand display

their convictions, vigorously, in public.

3 An archive interview with the American pilots who dropped the atomic

bomb on Nagasaki (sound: 173-184c - see Appendix Six for the text of the

interview - image: 179-182) is part of an American cinema newsreel. The

interview links togetherseveralthemesin the film, as was describedearlier

in this chapter.

The following picture archive material is also used in the film as `raw images':

1. Archive scenesof peasants'massdemonstrationsduring the Portuguese

97
 revolution (112-117; 243-249) are taken from television news reports of

the event.

2. Archive footage of Chinese revolutionary parade (118-127; 225-229) is

part of a Chinese government newsreel covering the tenth anniversary

celebrationof the Chineserevolution.

3. Archive footage of Chinese industrial landscape and the interiors of a

steel mill (170-178) is taken from Chinese official monthly cinema

newsreels.

4. Archive footage of peasants practicing Tai Chi (220-234a) is taken from

official Chinese monthly cinema newsreels.

The use of archive material in the film, especially the visual material, is dispersed and

fragmented. Images often only appear as a brief sequence or a part of a `tale'.

Archive images and sound tracks are taken out of any historical or geographical

context and are utilised instead, throughout the film, as cinematic material to

constructthe film, alongsidethe original footage shot by the film maker.

Non-narrative structures and editing

The thematic content and the variety of narrative structures in the film, outlined

above, have shown that these do not create an overall linear narrative structure for the

film. It is the linkage of narrative and non-narrative elements in the film, edited

together, which determinesthe overall definition of the film as an essayfilm. In a

98
stark contrast to the above described narrative `tales' in the film, the film contains a

large number of individual, autonomous images and sound segments. These often

break the narrative structures and introduce some of the non-narrative elements to the

film. At other times they are used as linking images in the editing process, as

metaphors, as a commentary on the tales, or to create a rhythmic pattern in the

construction of the film. These images echo the image-writing essenceof the

'camera-stylo' and more closely the `Kino-Eye' experiment in the creation of an

autonomous genre, separated from fiction and from the narrative documentary.

These images are "purely denotational, having no other meaning than the one arises

from its referent" similar to the way Vertov's `Kino-Eye' was described earlier in

Chapter Three. The `Kino-Eye' approach to montage is often used in the film.

The `interval' montage creates what Vertov called the `cind-thing' - cinematic

structures- by selectingimagesin not order to make scenes,but in order to articulate

and focus on the image itself, making the viewer alert and receptiveto it. Although

these images and short structures are used regularly throughout the film, as

metaphors, they function mainly by breaking a narrative sequence or connecting

between sequences. These individual images and sound segments are:

1. A closed window with a ceramic bowl in front of it (1; 34; 302).

2. A `window' shape gate at an entrance to a lake. Water flows inside the

`window' (5; 35; 301).

99
 3. A closed window / door (13; 75; 185; 192; 205; 213; 241; 298).

4. A window overlooking a lake (36; 278)

5. A woman sitting on a river boat's bench; the same bench empty (37; 49;

169; 183; 272).

6. Imagesof forest or wood logs (29-33; 104; 275-275b; 277).

7. Blue ice landscapes(14; 20; 190).

8A US plane crushedinto snow (78).

9. A young girl standing on the sea shore, holding balloons (84; 102-

102c).

10. A teenage girl sitting on a shore of a lake (103-103a; 191).

11. Porcelain dolls, lit by a single candle light, moving slowly in darkness

inside a cabinet (98-101).

12.An artist's steaminstallation in a gallery (157-160).

13. An artist's installation of a room filled with oil (2; 88-89).

14.Crowds (64; 187-188; 223).

15. A temple's bell (186-186a; 222).

16. A sound segment of an argument between a man and a woman (152-

155).

17. A male Indonesian voice singing (81-88).

As already mentioned above, the film is based on a series of narrative and non-

100
narrative structures using associations of images and sound, repetitions and

metaphors in a circular movement. Before continuing to discuss the non-narrative

elements in the film, their relationship to the narrative elements and the structural

development of the film, a shot-breakdown of the most important scenesfor our

discussion, in the first 23 minutes of the film, is presentedbelow. Similar to our

structural analysis of one of Montaigne's essays, earlier in this thesis, the following

schematic image analysis of the first 23 minutes of the film will start our discussion

about editing. Capital letters are used to indicate the chain of associations between

the various images as they follow each other within the sequence. This mirrors our

analysis of the structure and literary techniques used by Montaigne in his essay `Of

Coaches':

101
 IMAGE SOUND

Closed WINDOW with a ceramic howl in front Atinos track

2 Mali ý
",,, ROOM filled with oil

SNOW landscape Text: `The Man Who.. '.

5 1& - 1&WINDOW with WATER behind

6 LAKE

Oak
I Chinese SAILOR

I-\ RIVER BOAT- Chinese SAILOR talks to traveller

1 Closed WINDOW on wall

14 ICE landscape
15 ICE landscape
®w

Titles Atmos track

Text on black: Genesis' first words "Vibrators" music track

20 6 ICE landscape
00W

27 WATER

29 LAKE with TREES in the background

29 INENW-AZIL TREES

3' ý_ ý, LOGS in SQUARE shapes

34 1 ------I Closed WINDOW with a ceramic howl

35 IL - 154 WINDOW with WATER behind

36 WINDOW overlooking a LAKE

37 '' WOMAN on henchc on a RIVERr boat observing the view

45 Chinese WOMAN in a field Text over music: 'Good Morning'

63, Eý_; ýý + WOMEN MOVE across the frame

64 c'ROWD MOVES across a DARK frame

651) TRAFFIC AT NIGHT Music: "Roll ii'Harp"

69 MOVING SHOTS FROM A CAR in daytime

`ý

70 Suburban HOUSES from a MOVING CAR V/O: 'The bachelor'

iii
71 Village HOUSES with shut WINDOWS

73 A mural PAINTING of Sophia Loren on a village HOUSE

77\ STILL IMAGE of a man in SNOW wear

78 Plane crushed in SNOW

79 Two tractors `plough' SNOW Sound: Waves

trý
87a WIND SURFER at sea Music: Male singer

87b SURFER board POINTS FORWARD

88 A bridge POINTING FORWARD inside a room filled with OIL Atmos: wind

94 JapaneseBOMB victims

Iv
100 SINGLE CANDLE illuminates DOLLS in slow motion Music: " C. Kay"

102 A GIRL with BALLOONS in front of frozen SEA WAVES

103 ,&A teenage GIRL sits near a LAKE Text /niusic: Meditation text.

104 j, CjM FOREST

105 A CHINESE DANCER in a FOREST (POSTER)

106 CHINESE WOMEN DANCERS (POSTER)

ýr

hw 'ý

}_{CHINESE
107/, REVOLUTIONARY PEASANTS (POSTER)

110 ""' A ROUND detail from a CHINESE POSTER

A ROUND IIIJLL RING

115M M Portuguese SOLDIERS during the REVOLUTION WATCH the BULL RING

121 Crowds WATCH CHINESE REVOLUTIONARY parade

122 CHINESE REVOLUTIONARY PARADE Sound ft: coin spinning

.

129 CHINESE SOLDIERS and families on SIGHT-SEEING

130 CI IIN I: SI: OI'I'I('I: IZStakcPHOTOS ofcýicI OIIier 7ýý.

ýý: '7ItcýMIII tVilo .
ft$o,
oo, "I

132 A MURAL IMAGE of Mao in a CHINESE village

vi
The above shot-breakdown of the opening of the film highlights the associative and

non-narrative montage techniques used in conjunction with the narrative tales in

order to create the interwoven and repetitive thematic structure of the film,

`unmethodicallymethodically' put together. The film introducesat the beginningthe

theme of feeling and proceedsto develop a series of ideas through associationsof

images and sound segmentsin a repetitive, interwoven and circular movement. At

the end of the first 23 minutes the film comes back to the subject of feeling. This

pattern is repeated throughout the film which ends with the Italian sailors' song - the

sailors' relentless journeys in search of love.

The following `tales' are introduced in the aboveschematicoutline: `The Man Who

Couldn't Feel' (3-14); Creation according to Genesis - from ice landscapes to

Chinesepeasantscultivating the land (14-39); Scenesfrom the Chinesecountryside

(37-63b; 132-150); The joke about the bachelor, his neighbour and her husband,

together with images of empty American suburban streets (70-70a); The wind surfer

(80-87b). Their thematic content was discussed earlier in this chapter, and here

some of the editing techniques used are highlighted.

The pre title sequence (1-15) presents two main themes travel and 'The Man Who
-

Could Not Feel' which, when combined, create a third theme

-a comment on the

relationship between the First and the Third Worlds. The pre-sequence title uses

102
juxtaposition of sound and image - the voice-over text of 'The Man Who Couldn't

Feel' (3-14) is juxtaposed with the Chinese sailor and the traveller sequence (6-12).

To achieve this, the sequence relies on associative editing between:

1. Water, river and ice (4,5,6,7,11,14,15)

2. Framesdominatedby the colour blue (2,4,5,6,14,15).

3. Squareshapes(1,2,5,13)

Repetition of single images creates associative editing throughout the film, as well as

small internal structures, often used to connect two or more sequences or 'tales'.

The following images, taken from the above outlined shot-breakdown represent this

technique: A closed window/door (13; 75); A woman sitting on a river boat's

bench; the same bench is empty (37; 49); Images of forest or wood logs (29-33;

104); Blue ice landscapes (14; 20).

Juxtaposition is also used in the section of the film following the title. Sequences of

Chinese peasantsworking the land, Chinese market and river scenes(37-63) are

juxtaposed with the text of 'Good morning Mr. Jones' (39-64). In this

juxtaposition between text and image, the text itself evokes a series of images, when,

for example, we may identify persons in the images as'mentioned' on the sound

track. The theme of political movements versus the individual (112-131) is linked

through an association between two similar-shaped (round) frames - the Chinese

round structure depicted on a poster (110) followed by bull-ring in Portugal during

103
the revolution (1 12a). Another example of an individual, autonomous, image which

links through association two themes is the image of crowds moving across a dark

frame (64). This image resembles the framing and the movement of the last frame in

the Chinese country-side sequence(63a) and is linked associatively with the next

image (65b) of traffic at night.

Metaphors in the film are a form of `Ostranenie' - they stand out of context and

together with adjacent images or words, create a new `theme' (a `cin6-thing' through

the use of the `interval') or are often repeated themselves in order to establish a

similar effect. The most obvious uses of a cinematic metaphor in the opening

section of the film are found, for example, in the following images:

1. A closed window with a ceramic bowl in front of it (1; 34) and another

closed window/door (13; 75). These images are not only used as

metaphors within their sequence, but whenever repeated later, throughout

the film, create their own theme.

2. The same is true about the blue ice landscapes(14; 20) which are also

repeated later in the film.

3. A US plane crushed into snow (78) is linked as a metaphor to the text on

the sound track and also links thematically to the image preceding it and the

one following it.

4. The wind surfer's board in frame 87b is pointed forward and this framing is

104
 by the following image of a bridge in a room filled with oil (88).
matched

This last image is used as a link between the stormy waves of the surfer and

the stillness of the oil and as a metaphor to the suffering of the Japanese

woman lying on her back in a hospital.

5. The image of a porcelain doll (100) - lit by a single candle-light, moving

in darkness inside is
a cabinet - used as a metaphor for the bomb's
slowly

it
victims preceding and for the girl with the balloons which follows. The

young girl, holding balloons, stands on the sea shore, gazing at the sea - the

is
sea motionless; the waves resume their movement and after a while the

girls walks away (102).

A different editing technique, also part of the avant-garde tradition, is the 'montage

of attractions', which is used in the opening section of the film:

1. A male Indonesian voice singing (81-88) over the surfer's actions (80-87b).

The two separatecomponentsof the edited sequenceamplify its emotional

impact.

2. Text over music: 'I must advise you... ' -a meditation text read by a male

(103a-114) the images of Chinese revolutionary posters

voice - over

depicting peasant life (105-111), followed by archive scenes of peasants'

mass demonstrations during the Portuguese revolution (112-117) is used to

introduce the senseof scepticismand alienationto the sceneas a whole.

105
Conclusion

The non-narrative elements of the film result in fragmenting the twelve segments, or

'tales',which are long enoughto embraceinternal linear narrative,forcing the viewer

to map out a meaning from its diverse, and often repetitive and interwoven parts.

Vertov's `theory of the interval' in creating an overall `spectacular' can be used to

describe the structure of the film. The film asks the viewer to accept the Ostranenie

the fragment taken out of its usual context and put in an unexpected setting to
-

project it as a 'vision' as the basis of the montage. In this respect, the film also
-

resembles the American Modernists' poetic montage, which involves comparing and

linking fragments, selecting them into scenes and use letters as `colliding image-

objects'. The mixture of narrative tales in 'The Man Who Couldn't Feel' and Other

Tales, on one hand, and an overall non-narrative structure on the other hand,

represents directly what Adorno called the `methodically unmethodical' approach to

the essay.

In order to presentits ideas, the film emphasisesthe accuracy of representationof

sound and image instead of expanding on a cinematic genre. The film follows the

Barthean assertion that one must first of all renounce structuring the text according to

the principles of classical rhetoric. The film images are `broken down' to the `single

text', to the single image,in order to assemblethem back by editing framesalong the

multitude threads of meanings. The single image is not used to create a unified

106
model but is an "entrance into a network with thousands of entrances" (Barthes,

1975: 12). Without relying on outside theories or structures, the film's individual

images or sequences of images support each other. 'The Man Who Couldn't Feel'

and Other Tales works through a series of fragments which mirror reality, but does

not attempt to `smooth over the cracks' as fiction or documentary films do through

narrative continuity editing. The variety of stories, themes, image and sound

segments together with the film maker's personal experiences, apparent

formlessness, the associative movement from idea to idea, from image to image and

the use of archive footage, all achieve a unity in diversity through association. In

this, the film resembles a Montaignean essay. The film is a `camera-stylo' film - the

`pen-like' recording device of imageswith its direct useof the cinematic languageto

translate the film maker's ideas. The style and the structure of the film rely heavily

on montage techniques used by the early Soviets and by the Modernist poets.

The textual analysis of the film `The Man Who Couldn't Feel' and Other Tales leads

us to look again at the definition of the essayfilm as it was developedearlier in the

thesis. The essay film creates its own discourse by using the tools of the cinematic

language- image, sound, editing and the organisationand manipulation of time and

space - to create the cinematic `text'. It creates narrative and non-narrative

structures, 'methodically unmethodically' edited together. This is bound together

with the notion that film maker is present inside the work and introduces it to the

107
audience asking them to take part in the construction of the film's meanings. As a

result, the cinematic `text' becomes the `reflective text', the mediating medium

betweenthe film maker and the spectator. The strong avant-gardeelementsof the

cinematic language of the essay film, together with the links to the literary essay,

point to it as being an independent genre, and not part of the documentary genre.

108
CHAPTER FIVE : ESSAY FILMS BY CAVALCANTI, VERTOV

AND MARKER

Introduction

Following our definition of the essayfilm genrein the light of the analysisof the film

`The Man Who Couldn't Feel' and Other Tales, this chapter looks at several films by

Alberto Cavalcanti, Dziga Vertov and Chris Marker and considers them in terms of

the definitions given in earlier chapters. In the past, these films were either

described as documentaries, essay documentaries, 'unexplained films' or said to

contain a 'unique' form of film making. Many commentators have brought forward

various issues in relation to the films discussed in this chapter, issues which are

often very similar to the outcomes of our discussion of the essay film, but only one

has described the films as essays. We will define the films in this chapter as essay

films, often by referring to existing analysis which resulted in placing the films as

documentaries or as belonging to something other than the essay film genre.

This chapter begins by discussing Alberto Cavalcanti's film Rien clue les Heures

(1926). Cavalcanti's film is a unique film in his career, displaying an experimental

form which he never repeated. The film is defined here as an essay film. The film

was produced before Vertov's essay films, but it is unlikely that Vertov saw it or

was aware of its existence. Therefore, there is no question of an historical

109
 development of the essay film genre from Cavalcanti to Vertov. Interestingly

though, another French avant-garde film of the period, Rend Clair's Paris ui Dort

(France, 1923), was seen by Vertov in 192617. Clair's film -a narrative fictional

comedy - uses freeze-frame techniques to enhance the comical character of the film.

Clair's manipulation of the camera speed, as a dramatic tool, is echoed in Vertov's

later films.

Vertov produced three major turns between 1928-1930: The Eleventh Year (1928),

The Man With the Movie Camera (1929) and Enthusiasm (1930). The Man With

the Movie Camera is the most important of the three films and of the greatest

significance to Vertov's career as a film maker. The first of the three films, The

Eleventh Year. already shows many of the characteristics of an essay film which are,

in turn, fully developed in The Man With the Movie Camera. The third film,

Enthusiasm, is an extraordinary attempt to apply the essay film form which was

developedin The Man With the Movie Camera to Vertov's first sound film. The

result is a sound-based essay film which is in many respects similar to the image-

based The Man With the Movie Camera. Both The Eleventh Year and Enthusiasm

are, thematically, very much part and parcel of the dominant political agenda of their

time, whilst The Man With the Movie Camera is a unique film in its thematic content,

style and structure.

17Vertov's diary entry in which he refers to the

viewing of the film is reprinted in Michelson, A, "Dr. Crase
and Mr. Clair", 1979, vol. 11, Winter, p 32.
-Qs-Lob-er,

110
Nearly three decades later, the French film maker Chris Marker produced the film A

Letter from Siberia (1958) followed by The Koumiko Mystery (1962), and his most

famous essay film Sunless (1982). Although these films differ in some ways from

Vertov's approach,they are part of the essayfilm genre and are defined as such in

this chapter.

Alberto Cavalcanti's Rien que les Heures

The film Rien que les Heures (1926), made by the Brazilian director Alberto

Cavalcanti during his stay in France, ends with the following intertitles: "We can fix

a point in space, freeze a moment of time, yet, both space and time elude us".

Nearly sixty years later, the film Sunless by Chris Marker starts with the following

quote from T. S. Eliot's Ash Wednesday: "Because I know that time is always time

and place is always and only place". Both quotesare significant in our readingof an

essayfilm as a `reflective text'. In addition, Cavalcanti's first intertitle of the film

reads: "This film has no story to tell. It is just an impression of time passing and is

not intended to represent any specific town". This intertitle indicates the lack of an

overall narrtaive structure in an essay film and its considerable `distance' from the

documentarygenre,as defined by the film maker himself and by our own definition

of the essay film. Rien gae les Heures, which takes place in Paris, is often

described as the first `city documentary' film, preceding Ruttman's Berlin.

Symphony of a City (Germany, 1927). But Ruttman's film is, in contrast, a single

111
theme documentary and not an essay film. R. Barsam describes the differences

between Cavalcanti and Ruttman as follows:

In contrast to Ruttman's film, the rhythm of Cavalcanti's film is paced,

rather than orchestrated; his vision is episodic, rather than symphonic;

and he relies on the cumulative impression of a series of

images, rather than on a unified thematic approach (Barsam, 1974:

29, my italics).

The fragmented nature of Rien Clue les Heures leads Barsam to call the film a

'mosaic-film' which leaves the viewer with a long-lasting impression:

When the film is over, we are left with the impression that life goes on,

that the next day will again bring work and play, love and hate, food

and garbage. Young people will play, artists will create, old people will

wander unregarded, and lovers will kiss. Some of the images are

linked through contrast, others through irony, and still others are

unrelated, but the overall impression is that of a mosaic. The images

relate only when they are considered in their relation to the whole picture

(Ibid: 30, my italics).

Barsam describesabove some of the avant-gardetechniquesused in the film - the

episodic and often unrelated series of images, linked through contrast - which

support our definition of the film as an essayfilm. His term -'mosaic-film'- could

be replacedby the term `essayfilm'.

112
J. Chapman highlights two fundamental elements of our definition of an essay film

in Rien que les Heures. Firstly, he observes that the film is in fact a series of

interwoven and repeated individual situations which enable Cavalcanti to draw his

audienceto a variety of ideasinside a single film. Secondly,Cavalcanti generatesa

feeling in the film which resembles a personal observation by the film maker.

Chapman therefore rightly places the film inside the French avant-garde tradition

(1971: 39-42). Similarly, S. Lawder describes the film as an avant-garde

impressionist documentary, but positions the film firmly inside the documentary

genre (1975: 103). E. Barnow sees the significance of the Vertovian opening of

the film - the ladies' moving image sequence which is transformed into a still

photograph inside a picture album - as a clue to the character of the film: "Cavalcanti

loves tricks (...). (He) wandersfrom topic to topic. He usesa few stagedscenes,

sometimesembarrassinglyamateurish. He lacks Ruttman's senseof organization,

but seems far more genial" (1983: 74). Interestingly, Barnow highlights an

important element in the film, which we have identified already as part of the essay

film aesthetic: "Rich-poor contrasts are suggested throughout the film, but no

meanings are developed from them: rich and poor are mere threads in the fabric of

city life" (Ibid, my italics).

The intertitles of Rien que les Heures, the variety of themes, its structure, the use of

short narrative sequencesand the avant-garde techniques used in the film, all

correspond to our definition of an essay film. The self-reflective nature of the film,

113
as an essay film, is expressed in its first and last intertitles, which are quoted above.

The film is an essay film with its main theme - the city - presented through a complex

structure of narrative and non-narrative segments edited together. A `day in the city'

structure can be traced in the film, but only in the background,and not as the main

structural element of the film, as is the case with the 24-hour structure of Ruttman's

documentary film, Berlin. Symphony of a City. In line with our definition of the

essay film, the themes in Rien clue les Heures are presented through fragmentation

and a mixture of short, acted, narrative stories and non-narrative images. The

suggestion of a temporal structure to the film (with the use of a repeated image of a

clock) is interwoven with an indication of a narrative thread which can be read in the

film through the character of the woman at the beginning of the film and the woman

witnessing the mugging incident toward the end of the film.

The repetitive thematic structure of an essay film can be identified in one of the

themes of Rien que les Heures - homelessness and poverty versus wealth. The film

uses a multitude of avant-garde techniques both in editing and in creating the film

texture itself. The film is characterised by presenting short episodes, together with

autonomous individual images edited through juxtaposition, association and the use

of metaphor: a car becomes a horse; an image of an eye watching a painting is

followed by a still image of a painting, followed by an image of rows of eyes which

are followed by a row of flags. Associative editing is also employed in cutting from

114
 dog hair to washing clothes in a river and to people washing clothes outside their

homes; a woman breathing is followed by the up-and-down movement of a

machine. Contrast and juxtaposition are used in editing between the swimming pool

and the drunken men sleeping in the street. In addition, Cavalcanti often inserts

abstract images in the edited sequences,for example in the newspapersequence.

The film reflects upon and uses extensively the medium itself. It employs

photomontage, split screens, superimposition and double exposure: a plate of meat

is superimposed on a slaughtered animal; images of an accordion and dancers are

superimposed; a photograph taken of a group of ladies becomes a picture in an

album. In anotherscenethe camerais mountedon a fun-fair carouselto createvery

fast-moving revolving abstract images. The extensive use of avant-gardeediting

techniques, the multitude of interwoven and repetitive themes and the reflective

character of the film, all point therefore to the definition of Rien que les Heures as an

essayfilm.

Dziga Vertov

Vertov made his three essay films in the Ukraine, away from Moscow, between

1928 and 1930. In some respect,thesefilms can be describedas the culmination of

his theoretical and practical work since the Soviet revolution. During the first ten

years after the revolution, Vertov produced mainly newsreels and agit films and

wrote extensively on the theory of `Kino-Eye' and film making in general18. The

18For
a complete list of Vertov's oeuvre as a tilm maker and a writer seeFeldman, S, Dziga Vertov- a Guide

115
 three essay films - The Eleventh Year. The Man With the Movie Camera and

Enthusiasm - are more ambitious than any of his previous films in their length, scale

and degree of structural complexity. They represent a clear break from the earlier

`agit' film genre. Sixth of the Earth (1926), produced before The Eleventh Year,

was the last major 'agit' film and ends with a strong political message to the viewer

in its final intertitles. Its structure is dominated by a regular cross-cutting

throughout the entire film between intertitles and images (see below the discussion

on the relationship between Whitman's poetry and the film). In one aspect Sixth of

the Earth points to future development in Vertov's work as it was named by Vertov

himself a `eine-poem' whereas he had named his previous films `newsreels'.

Abramov, the first Russian biographer of Vertov, looks at the film as a cinematic

`theme and variations', referring to Vertov's background as a composer (quoted in

Bordwell, 1972: 41). The film Three Songs about Lenin (1934), which followed

Enthusiasm, represents the end of Vertov's avant-garde film making. The film

signifies a return to a clearly structured, single theme documentary that is divided

into threeeasily defined parts. From the early 1930's, Socialist-Realismbecamethe

dominant political and artistic ideology in the USSR, replacing nearly two decadesof

the Soviet avant-garde movement which had started with literary foimalism19

to References and Resources, 1979, Boston: G. K. I lall as well as Petrie, V, Constructivism in Film: The Man
with the Movie Camera- A Cinematic Analysis, 1987, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
19AndreiZhdanov, Stalin's cultural right hand man in the 1930's
and 1940's, talking at the first congressof
the Union of Soviet Writers in 1934,declared: "All Soviet artists (should) produce a truthful and historically
concreterepresentationof reality (...) in the spirit of Socialist Realism" (quoted in Petrie, 1987: 244n). See
also Chris Marker's documentaryfilm The Last Bolshevik (France, 1993) for a unique and moving depiction,

116
 Outside the Soviet formalist circle of film makers and critics, Vertov's efforts to

establisha new cinematic genre through his essayfilms were already recognisedby

one of the foremost film theoreticiansof the time, the HungarianBela Balhzs:

The search for the literature-free 'pure film style' led directors not only

to travel with their camera into unknown distances, but also to penetrate

into a yet i.indiscove red and unknown nearness. The first such

traveller who went on a voyage of discovery into proximity was the

Russian Dziga Vertov (Baläzs, 1970: 164, my italics).

Baläzs makes a clear distinction between narrative and documentary films on the one

hand and Vertov's work on the other. He points to the role of the camera as a

personal tool in `travelling' into the, then, new world of the cinema and the film

maker himself the creationof the `self-reflectivetext' which is part of our definition
-

of an essayfilm:

These entirely authentic shots of actual reality are the most subjective of

all. They have no story but they do have a central figure, a hero. This

hero is invisible because he is the one who sees it all out of his 'cine-

eye. ' But everything he sees expresses his own personality, however

unconstructed the reality in his shots may appear. It is he who is

characterized and reflected in the shots which he took in preference to

some other fragments of reality. Only his own subjective feeling

determined the choice, the sequence,the cutting rhythm of the things he

basedon eye witness accounts,of the post-revolution Soviet film world.

117
 shows us. He is an artist who seems to yield himself up to objective

impressions without looking for a link between them. But he himself

supplies the link and his subjective self is the constructive principle on

which the film is built (Ibid, my italics).

Baläzs here describes Vertov's work in a way very similar to our definition of the

essayfilm, in particular to the Barthesiannotion of the 'self', touching upon the role

the film maker takes within an essay film. Vertov is quoted as having said of

himself that "within him there are two 'I's': One follows the other. One is a critic,

the other a poet" (Pirog, 1982: 303).

The particular use in the essay film of the 'interval' as one of the avant-garde

methods of the genre was recognised by A. Bakshy in 1931 when he wrote about

Vertov's editing :

Attempts have been made to base the composition (of a film) as a whole

on such methods of formalized treatment of the image content as the

arrangement of 'rhymed' sequences with certain images recurring at

definite intervals, or of whole cycles of sequenceson the lines of a

repeating pattern somewhat after the manner of certain verse forms.

Dziga Vertov is regarded in Russia as the head of this school of

cinematic composition (quoted in Jacobs, 1969: 300).

118
The film The Eleventh Year (1928) was produced by Vertov in celebration of the

eleventh anniversary of the Soviet revolution. This fact determines the overall theme

of the film and puts it in part in the 'agit' film genre. The film still contains some

short political intertitles, but in its complexity, richness of interwoven and repetitive

themes, many of the essay film elements later fully developed in The Man With the

Movie Camera are already recognisable. A members' panel of the Soviet journal

Nov, LEF published their reaction to The Eleventh Year in 1928. Shklovsky

criticises Vertov's use of metaphorical intertitling and accuses him of diversion from

the main function of an 'agit' film (quoted in Petric, 1987: 21). Eisenstein reacted

to the film by attacking its complexity derived from the use of `interval' editing

(Eisenstein, 1949: 73). The film The Eleventh Year should be described as an

essay film as it contains only a suggestion of a narrative structure - morning through

to evening - through a sporadic repetition of the image of a worker blowing a

trumpet. But this image can he seen as a repetitive autonomous image rather than as

an indication of a closed structure in the film. The film contains a large variety of

themes and locations - road building, electricity works, farms, mines (some shots are

later reused in The Man With the Movie Camera), sailors and soldiers mostly put
-

forward as individual images rather than as documentary sequences or political

messages linked to intertitles. The film, as an essay film, relies on associative

editing, often following the movement of the machine in the individual images. The

images of the African and the Indian toward the end of the film are intercut with fast

119
cutting and repetition of images from earlier scenesin the film. The film also makes

extensive use of the medium of film itself by using super - imposition to create

powerful and highly graphic effects which are fully developed in the next film, 1

The Man With the Movie Camera (1929) is described by Vertov in the opening titles

of the film as:

A record on celluloid in six reels. An excerpt from the diary of a

cameraman. The film presents an experiment in the cinematic

communication of visual events without the aid of intertitles, without the

aid of a scenario, without the aid of the theatre (a film without sets,

actors etc). This experimental work aims at creating a truly

international absolute language of cinema based on its total separation

from the languageof theatre and literature.

This definition by Vertov of a new film form, departing from the 'agil' film and

documentary and narrative forms, is significant to our claim that Vertov and the film

The Man With the Movie Camera should be prominent in any discussion of the essay

film genre. In addition to the opening titles of the film, we should also consider

Vertov's own description of the film which was distributed by him to audiences

during the film's tust screeningsin Kiev and Moscow:

The film is the sum of events recorded on the film stock, not merely a

120
 summation of facts. It is a higher mathematics of facts - visual

documents are combined with the intention to preserve the unity of

conceptually linked pieces which concur with the concatenation of

images and coincide with visual linkages, dependent not on intertitles

but, ultimately, on the overall synthesis of these linkages in order to

create an indissoluble organic whole (reprinted in Petric, 1987: 130).

The images, according to Vertov, are not linked through any established form but

neverthelessthey create an 'organic whole'.

Earlier in this thesis, the relationship between letters and images was highlighted in

the discussion of American modernist poetry and its links to the essay film genre.

In 1929, after viewing The Man With the Movie Camera in Germany, L. Britton

wrote in The Realist -a British journal for science, industy,

art and economy - about

the film. He comments that the film offers a new film language - "a new film

alphabet (... ) (images) form a library of film elements, which can be likened to the

letters of the alphabet or the characters of the musical notation, and in the same way

they are recombined in the artist's brain to produce imaginative creations" (1929:

127, my italics). The film, according to Britton, is not an 'agit' film, neither does it

aim to preach Communism. Britton observesthat The Man With the Movie Camera

is also not a documentary film chronicling a series of events, but should be described

as a 'composition'. This, because the film uses the `interval' technique which we

121
have identified in our definition of the essay film, or in Britton's words: "(the film)

not merely employs a succession of scenes where each impression, like the

successive notes in a melody, is influenced by those that precede and follow, but he

(Vertov) also uses scenes shown simultaneously like the simultaneous notes of a

harmony. " (Ihid: 128). Britton states that the real interest of Vertov in The Man

With the Movie Camera is the human condition - "the grandeur and majesty, the

pathos and simplicity and wonder of human life, the sublimity of the human ideal"

(Ihid: 126).

This observation of Britton is very similar to our discussion of the literary essay, and

of the character of Montaigne's writings in particular. Britton offers the reader his

opinion about the general state of the cinema in 1929 -a crucial year in its relative

short history - in light of Vertov's The Man With the Movie Camera :

The appearance of Vertoff (sic) in the forefront of the international film

discussion is particularly interesting at the moment when the talkies have

produced a sudden arrest of normal growth of film technique, and are

forcing the film back within the stunting and stultifying limits of the

stage (Ibid: 129).

Nowadays, seventy years later and from a much further distance, we can only

observe that Britton's premonition was extremely accurate. Essay films, alongside

other avant-garde and non-narrative cinematic forms, have definitely played second

fiddle to the dominant narrative film language.

122
 Among modern commentators and writers, some place the film The Man With the

Movie. Camera firmly within the documentary genre, others within the avant-garde,

and some find it difficult to place it within any established genre. None describes it

as an essay film, but many, nevertheless, point to different elements within it which

coincide with our definition of the film as an essayfilm.

E. Bar now, in his book on the history of the documentary film genre, places Vertov

within the 'reporter' category of documentary film makers. He does, though,

analyse in detail the formalist background to Vertov's film and defines The Man With

the Movie Camera as an avant-garde documentary film (1983: 63). Barnow also

mentions Walt Whitman's influence on Vertov's work and in particular Whitman's

use of a catalogue of occupations (and locations) in a direct-address manner20. He

compares it to Vertov' style in an earlier film - Sixth of the;Earth. This direct `You'

style in the film -'You in the Tundra... You Uzbeks' - is, according to Barnow, the

forerunner of the style in The Man With the Movie Camera. Furthermore, Barrow

calls The Man With the Movie Camera "an essay on film truth, crammed with

tantalizing ironies" (Ihid). But he does not develop further this line of argument.

Instead, he describes the film as 'dazzling in its ambiguity' and leaves the reader with

a series of unanswered questions: "What did it finally mean for audiences? Had

Vertov demonstrated the importance of the reporter as documentarist? Or had his

20See, for
cx. unp!e, 'Starting tioin !'aumanok' in Whitman, W, Leaves of Crass, 1990, Oxford: Oxford
University Press, pp. 18-29.

123
barrage of film tricks suggested - intentionally? unintentionally? - that no

documentary could be trusted?" (Ibid: 65). These questions reveal the limitation of

Barnow's definition of the film as a documentary.

D. Vaughan in his analysis of the film calls it "a study in film truth on an almost

philosophical level. The levity of its treatment the fact that it is argued in the mode
-

of fun does not disqualify this judgement" (1971: 56). He concentrates his
- .
discussion on the film's efforts to destroy its own illusion "in the hope that reality

will `emerge' from the process, not as a creature of screen illusion but as a liberated

spirit" (Ihid). Without defining it as such, Dai Vaughan points to the self-reflective

character of the film, one of the fundamentals of any essay film.

J. Mayne argues that the film defies any classification inside formalism. It is a

complex film in which technology, ideology and social practice are linked. She

claims that the film is a self-reflective political film which defines the cinema as an

ideological medium. She portrays the film as a "meta-narrative, i. e. a film that tells

a story about itself, about the activities of the cameraman in the place of a central

narrative character" (1977: 83). S. Croft and 0. Rose similarly use the film as a

route to offer a Marxist analysis of film in order to "understand the ideological basis

of the cinema through its relationship to the mode of production as located within

social formations" (1977: 11). They define the film as a `city documentary'

124
although they remark that it is clearly different from any existing dominant cinematic

codes: "Meanings are read from the film not through any simple re-presentation of

an anterior reality in the form of closed history, but through the film's placing of

shots within itsell" (Ibid: 20). A. Michelson also describes the film as a `city

documentary' and depicts it as a film which defines the outmost limits of its medium

by employing a great variety of innovative cinematic devices (1972: 69).

B. Nichols puts Vertov's lilies among the `reflexive' mode of documentary films

(1991: 33). This mode of documentary, according to Nichols, uses many common

devices of the documentary but "sets them on edge so that the viewer's attention is

drawn to the device as well as the effect" (Ibid). M. Renov's hook, Theorizing

Documentary, in which he discusses the four main tendencies of the documentary

film, mentions The Man With the Movie Camera twice: Once as a documentary

which seeks to promote or persuade (1993: 29) and also as a film which analyses

the processof film making itself (Ihid: 31).

M. Le Gricc puts the film firmly within the avant-gardegenre and in particular within

the formalist, revolutionary approach of the new Soviet cinema. Le Grice combines

in his discussion the interwoven thematic elements of the film and the editing

techniques employed by Vertov and his editor. The 'methodically unmethodical'

arrangementof sequenceswhich occurs in an essay film, is described by Le Grice as

125
'clusters of short sequences' which achieve a coherence through a `precision in

these relationships':

The massive work, whose emergent theme is the inter-relatedness of

activity, enterprise and movement of the Soviet metropolis, functions

through the most intricate weave of thematic connections. The basis of

the connections is multi-levelled, but clear (... ). In addition to (this)

coordination at the visual and kinetic level, thematic relationships are

continually established through identification of the material (...). In order

to create this weave, a temporal simultaneity is effected by clusters of short

images intercut in rapid succession. Though a precision in

sequencesof

these relationships is sought and achieved in the film's editing, the spectator

in
always participates synthesizing the material for himself (1977: 59- 60,

my italics).

G. Pirog in his article on the different approaches of Vertov and Eisenstein to

montage,seen from a semiotic point cat'view, looks in detail at Vertov's The Man

With the Movie Camera. The film, according to Pirog, continually attempts to

subvert linearity even in its own constructions which, from time to time, emerge

within the film. Using Russian formalist terminology, Pirog describes the film thus:

" (Tic film) is a cinema of Ostranenie gone wild (...). Vertov was fully aware that

the acceptability or film content most often depends on its adherence to film

126
conventions rather than on its adherence to reality. Vertov turns the tables on

device, deconstructing it, and tries thereby to clear the iconic sign of any taint of

conventionality" (1982: 298, my italics). The role of the film maker as both an

observer and a self-observer underpins the entire film, and is contrary to the

documentary film's purpose of observing reality as an 'object': "Once the subject is

in place and linnly established as the central point of reference he deconstructs it,

explaining meaning in terms of systems of conventions" (Ibid: 303). The result,

says Pirog, is that any linearity suggested in the film is disturbed and does not

develop into a story. As a result, one of the outcomes of this approach is the lack of

a central character in the tilin.

Pirog's comments above highlight the definition of an essay film as a reflective text,

lacking a central theme which is presented in a linear fashion to the viewer. Pirog

also describes the role of the camera, the cameraman and the editor: "This larger

matrix serves not only to underscore the meta-nature of the film but to assert the

particular power film making has over the reorganization of the world it records"

(Ibid: 300). The process of editing, the selection of shots, which is paramount in

our discussion of the essay film, is described by Pirog as the most important element

of the film: "So important is this process for this film that combination is not based

on a linear narrative chain but serves to underscore the very paradigmatic nature of

the filmic process" (Ibid). He brings to our attention the example of the still images

of children that appear and disappear at various points in the film: "They are part of

127
the larger fund of images that Svilova (the editor) can draw upon in her editing

work" (Ibid) The images are not developed throughout the film toward a `story',

but are used as an editing tool by Vertov:

These sequencesare connected to each other not on the basis of narrative

coherence, but on the basis of their being representative of the same

filmic process. This is made clear by metaphor, as in the mouse-

conjuring trick and the fade-ins of the swimmers and carousel, and

explicitly, as in the stills of the children who appear in new combinations

later on (Ibid, my italics).

Pirog links the discussion of the filmic metaphor with the recurrent image in the film

of the windowed door with light streaming through it. The image is used to

highlight the experience of viewing an editing processon one hand, and the breaking

up any conventional expectations for a linear pattern on the other. This also mirrors

our discussion of editing of the film `The Man Who Couldn't Feel' and Other Tales,

the use of the film metaphor and of the individual images in it. Pirog in his detailed

analysis of the film concentrates on its cinematic techniques which are derived from

formalism and which as has been shown, are also part of our definition of the essay

film. Pirog, though, does not attempt to place the film within a particular cinematic

genre.

V. Petric devoted a complete hook to this film alone Constructivism in Film (1987)
-

128
- analysing it as an avant-garde film and looking in detail at the aesthetic, thematic

and structural elements in the film. He too discusses the film according to the

theories of formalism, constructivism and Russian avant-garde cinema of the period.

The detailed, scene-by-scene,analysis by Petric is extremely accurate and useful in

the context of this thesis, but I would like to put a slightly different emphasis on it

and, as a result, to place the limn inside the essay film genre. Throughout his book,

Petric discussesthe following aesthetic and thematic elements of the film, which are

extremely relevant to our discussion of the essayJilin:

1. The film is not a single theme documentary about a city -a `city

documentary'.

2. The different themes in the film are constructed by the viewer's active

participation during the screening of the film.

3. The film combines, on the one hand, narrative sequences and, on the

other hand, it defies any notion of an overall narrative structure by

constantly interrupting narrative flow and introducing non-narrative

elements into the sequence.

d. The film is sell'-relleential becauseof the role played in it by the camera, the

cameraman and the editor. In addition, some of the people

photographedin the film react and interact with the camera.

5. Unlike a documentary, in which the point of view resides always with

the third director

person - the or camera person - in The Man with the

129
 Movie Camera point of view is continually shifted between the

film maker, the camera itself, the editor, the character or what Petric

calls 'the ambiguous one' who cannot be pinned down to any of the

above. This constant shift in point of view is also used to break up

narrative sequences.

G. The film offers a variety of commentaries on social and political levels,

but none of them are definitive, being instead left open for the viewer to

take part in their construction and interpretation.

7. The film uses juxtaposition, cinematic metaphor and associative editing

,

techniques to establish different themes.

8. The film uses multi-textured cinematic devices - freeze-frames, super-

imposition, reverse motion, accelerated motion, slow motion, stop

frame;,pixilation, strobe-Ilickering effects and dissolves.

Petric describes the film as an avant-gardeconstructivist film. He depicts the film as

an "integration of its filmic devices (particularly its shot composition and montage)

with all other elements to form a self-contained cinematic whole" (Ibid: 130).

Because of its constructivist principles, the film can only he read, according to

Petrie, as a sum of the detailed textual analysis of the film. In his book, Petric.

therefore, follows his definition of the film with a detailed shot analysis of a wide

range of formal and other cinematic devices in the film.

130
The two definitions of the film which are mentioned by Petric - one by Vertov

himself that the film is an attempt to create a "film thing" (quoted in Petric, 1987:

130) and Petrie own's 'constructivist' term - are in my opinion unsatisfactory. To

use Vertov's terminology within modern film theory seems impractical.

Nevertheless, one should take note of his use of the term 'diary of a cameraman'

which appears in the opening title of the film to describe the film. In parts, the film

is a diary of a sort, but the complete film is far more complex and rich in themes, so

that it is difficult to define it solely as an autobiographical diary film.

The autobiographical element in The Man With the Movie Camera is compatible with

our previous discussions on the place of autobiography and the film maker within the

essay film genre. The autobiographical element in the film is linked to the use of the

camera - the `Kino-Eye' or the 'camLlra-stylo' in `writing' the film and representing

the film maker through his camera as the `self' and as the main intellectual entity

within the film which hinds the different components of the film together.

It is impossible to understand The Man With the Movie Camera without seeing the

central role played in it by the camera and, through it, the cameraman/film maker.

Petric's constructivist readings of the film and of the aesthetic and thematic

elements within it are accurate, extremely valuable and lead us very far down the

road to an understanding of the film. The term 'constructivist film' though,

describing the genre of the film as a whole, is somewhat limited because it

describessolely the cinematic devices used in the film. It does not take into account,

for example, Petrie's own catalogue of aestheticand thematic elementswhich

are part

131
of any discussion of the essay film genre.

The Man With the Movie Camera is an essay film in which the `text' is self-

reflective, similar to Montaigne's articulation of the writing process within the essay

itself. The film addresses its 'text' by the use of the camera, editing, movement,

framing, speed and film texture. The cameraman in the film introduces an

autobiographical element to it and holds the fragmented sequencesand short narrative

stories together. But, The Man With the Movie Camera is not a film about the

cameraman nor is it a documentary on life in the USSR. The film is shot in different

cities and locations and does not ol'l'er a portrait of a particular place. Fragmented

observations, ideas, documentary segmentsand short stories are held together by the

film maker and the representation or the film making process itself. It is like an

essay by Montaigne finds something in this film. Similar to our analysis

- everyone

of the integration of narrative 'tales' and non-narrative elements in the film "Me Man

Who Couldn't Feel' and Other Tales, Vertov's film offers `short stories' through

short narrative sequences- e.g: the beach, sport, morning in the city, factory life -

while other edited sequences create an impression of a story through editing

fragments of sequences and individual autonomous images. Some of the fragments

of ideas and short stories are introduced early in the film and then repeated and

developed later. Some are completed during the film, others reappear as image

repetitions within an edited sequence. Vertov constantly manipulates the film

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language itself, reworking the presentation of the image rather than seeking to create

an overall structure. As an essay film, The Man With the Movie Camera does not

rely on external concepts, instead it is the cinema of the spectacle, magic tricks and

showmanship: images are repeated in different contexts; rhythmic editing is created

through the use of individual images in a kinetic metaphor or graphic match;

is
extensive use made of film techniques such as freeze frames, super imposition,

reverse motion, accelerated motion, slow motion, stop frame, pixilation, strobe-

flickering effects and dissolves which dominate the texture of the film.

Enthusiasm (1930) is Vertov's first sound film, in which many of the thematic and

editing concepts of the essay film are deployed both in the image, but more

importantly, in the sound design. In place of the cameraman, the radio operator

offers one of the elements in the film which connects the various themes in it and

reflects on them. The radio operator's images offer a comment on the process of

sound recording and editing in the same way that the cameramanand the editor did in

The Man With the.Movie Camera. As Enthusiasm was the first experiment in using

sound, produced one year after The Man With the Movie Camera. the result is a

fascinating experimental sound essay film, although it is crude in places. It uses

juxtaposition and multi-layered symbolism in the sound editing through a mixture of

electronic tracks, ambient sound, documentary sound footage, sound effects, sync

speech and music. The film presents a multitude of themes religious, personal,
-

133
industrial and political. These are interwoven and often repeatedto create a rhythmic

pattern and also include `image quotations' from earlier films. One of the features of

Vertov's essay films is the re-use of images -a form of self-reflective quotation -

across all his three films. The different themes in the film are presented in an

extremely fragmented style and are cut abruptly, often in order to create a rhythmic

effect together with the sound track. In fact, more than the two previous films,

Enthusiasm is a complete `Kino-Eye' film in which the images are so thoroughly

fragmented that it is difficult to identify long sequences. This is in addition to the

extensive use of constructivist imagery and super-imposition which create strong

abstract and graphic effects. Asa result, the essay film character of the film lies in

its `sound picture' with its interwoven repetitive themes, which are bound together

with the notion that the radio operator/film maker is present inside the work and

introduces it to the listener/viewer. The sound track often determines the

relationship between sound and image through the use of juxtaposition and

associative and metaphoric editing. L. Fischer describes the film as a documentary

film which is also an experimental sound film, demonstrating Vertov's ideas on

sound and the 'Radio-Eye'. In a detailed analysis of the sound track, Fischer

highlights the self-rellective, multi-layered and experimental techniques used in

editing sound and image, but positions `The Woman with Earphone' (Enthusiasm)

alongside The Man With the Movie Camera as `Kino-Eye'/'Radio-Eye'

documentaries (1977-8: 27). 1 suggest that both belong to the essay film genre.

134
 Chris Marker

"Words achieving equality with images,

ideas achieving equality with facts,

art achieving equality with life,

how d'you say in Russian?

Dziga Vertov"

(Chris Marker quoted in Kiimper, 1997: 175)

Chris Marker's three essay lilies, A Letter from Siberia (1957), The Koumiko

Mystery (1962) and Sunless (1982), differ from Vertov's essay films primarily in

the considerable use of long personal commentaries on the sound track by the film

maker. The personal commentaries are, in one respect, the dominant element in

Marker's essayfilms, similar to the central role played by the camera in Vertov's Thg

Man With the Movie Camera21. The length and the highly personal character of the

commentaries may lead to the films being defined as personal documentaries. But

there are important fundamental differences between Marker's commentaries and the

documentary genre which enable us to place his three films inside the essay film

genre.

The commentaries are constructed through a strong associative `text-editing'

technique, mirroring Marker's highly associative image editing. The commentaries

211nthe
early years of his eurer, Marker published the texts of his essay films under the titles Cammentaires 1
(1961), Paris: Scuil and Con menmires 2 (1967), Paris: Scuil.

135
 literary
do not rely on external, pre-determined or cinematic structures. They do not

convey a single theme to support documentary images. The commentaries in

Marker's films are not structured as a linear narrative, but they contain narrative

segments and non-narrative segments edited together. The commentaries do not

constitute an autobiography or a travelogue, as, for example, Wim Wenders'

personal documentary films Tokyo-Ga (1985) and Note Books on Cities and Clothes

(1989) do. The commentaries constitute essays in their thematic and structural

complexities. Similar to the overall structure of the film `The Man Who Couldn't

Feel' and Other Tales. the commentaries are a combination of anecdotes, poems,

travelogue, biographical, political, social, historical observations and quotations

from other sources. The commentaries often reflect on the making of the films

themselvesand on film as a medium. The film maker is present in the work through

his voice, which is similar to the place of the camera in Vertov's The Man With the

Movie Camera. This determines the overall structures of the films, structures which

rely on the concept of the `self', offering coherence to the films. The spoken

commentaries in Marker's essay films are extremely prominent and, by themselves,

point toward the definition ol'the films as essayfilms. But the films should also be

defined as such becauseof their overall thematic, aesthetic and structural principles

and the use of the avant-garde techniques in constructing the image of the films.

The films' use of different formats, multi-surfaces, animation and video also point to

136
their definition as essay films.

The film Letter from Siberia (1957), one of Marker's earliest films, came to the

attention of A. Bazin in 1958 as a type of film which had not been seen before in

France: "How can one present Letter from Siberia? At first one must do this in a

negative way, by noting that it resembles nothing which has hitherto been made in

the way of documentary ('topic-based') films" (1983: 179). Although,

superficially, the film looks like another travel report from the USSR, Bazin claims

that this is a wrong description and suggestshis own definition for the film:

Letter from Siberia is an essay in the form of a cinematographic report

on Siberian reality past and present (... ) An essay which is documented

by the film. The important word here is essay, with the same meaning

as in literature: An essay at once historical and political, even though

wiittcn by a poet ([hid: 180, my italics).

Although his definition of the literary essay - at once historical and political, even

though written by a poet - is somewhat simplistic in view of our discussion of the

essay, Bazin follows on in his argument to recognise that the film maker's presence

in the film defines the essay form of Letter from Siberia. Bazin's use of the term

`intelligence' as the 'raw material' of the film is similar to Alter's definition of the

role of the film maker in the essay film and to the definition Defaux gave to

Montaigne's presence in his essays [See also Balars' notion of the 'absent hero' in

137
Vertov's work which was mentioned earlier in this chapter]. Bazin continues his

argument by highlighting editing as a crucial element in the study of the film:

Chris Marker brings in his films the absolutely new notion of

`horizontal' editing, as opposed to traditional editing which approaches

the film print lengthwise through the relationship between shots. Here

the image doesn't refer to what precedes it or follows it, but - in a way

laterally - to what is said. Better still, the essential element is the beauty

of the sound, which makes the mind reach for the image. Editing is

done-fi"vm the ear to the eye (Ibid, my italics).

Bazin asks us to look at the image itself in a way similar to how the formalists and

the Russian avant-garde film makers described the word/image in poetry/film.

Without mentioning Vertov's 'theory of the interval' and the practices of the `Kino-

Eye' and the 'Kino-Ear' Bazin describes the editing in Letter from Siberia as

"horizontal (...) done from the ear to the eye" (Ibid).

Thirty years later, R. Bellour takes Bazin's definition of Marker as an essay film

maker in Letter from Siberia and applies it to most of Marker's films. Furthermore,

he sees a direct link between Barthes' fragmented writings and Marker's films

(Bellour 1997: 109). Bellour also places Marker alongside Montaigne and Barthes

as an artist who works through the logic of his medium and continuously invents the

rules of his own game (Ihid: 125). Bellour adds Michaux's poetry as influencing

138
Marker's films (Ibid: 110) and, more importantly, the central role of the viewer in

the exchange between him/her and the film maker: "He (Marker) knows that the only

real exchangeresides in the address,the way the person who speaksto us situates

himself in what he says,with respectto what he shows" (Ibid). Both the Bazin and

Bellour definitions of Letter from Siberia as an essay film are very useful, if

somewhatbrief and limited in their scope.

To add to their observations on the film and to illustrate some of them, Letter from

Siberia should be defined as an essay film for the following reasons:

1. Despite the fact that it contains a central theme, it is an essay film which

presentsa multitude of themes: man and nature, city and the countryside,

politics, history, the medium of film, the nature of editing.

2. The film includes a variety of styles: voice-over, animation, long wide

vistas and travelling shots, archive material, documentary images, TV

commercials and distinct, graphical, constructivist photography.

3. The film, in places, reflects on itself: during the beginning scene of men

building telegraph poles across the open spaces; shots of the camera

filming in the street; repetition of shots of the bear in one example and

of the road workers in another in order to offer commentary on the

viewer's perception of the film.

4. The film uses associative editing techniques in constructing its scenes:

dance extracts are intercut with images of water, followed by

costume-
139
 drama in local old costumes and archive images of the Sputnik rocket.

Images of men digging underground are followed by first cave

paintings, then the cut-out animation of a Mammoth, the history of the

Mammoth and finally cut back to rivers in Siberia. Siberian nomads riding

deerarefollowed by a TV animationcommercialfor Kellog cerealfeaturing

a deer, and the sequence goes hack to the nomads. A series of the first

photographsof the region is matchedwith live footage.

5. Similar techniques are used on the sound track: a French song about

Paris, sung by of Yves Montand, is played over a loud speaker in Siberia as

part of a street scene and is followed by a cut to a Russian translation of the

song and then a cut hack to the French version with Montand. Similarly,

later in the film, a modern French song sung by a woman changes to

Russian over scenesof taking a bear for a walk. The French woman's

voice is edited over images of animals in a zoo in Siberia and over animal

miniatures, intercut with Russian songs

The Koumiko Mystery is not a documentary film about Koumiko as a Japanese

woman representingother women, representingJapan,or any other issue. It is an

essay film. "She does not make history, she is history" says Marker in the

commentary sound track. The film is not a documentary on the Olympic games

which in placesacts as a kind of a `backdrop' to the film. The answersby Koumiko

140
herself in what seems to be, at the beginning of the film, an interview with the film

maker, become Marker's own `voice' on the commentary sound-track, a shift which

is repeated later in the film Sunless. Her voice is only one of the voices in the film,

which include extracts from radio broadcasts and sync sound. The textures and the

sources of images in the film are as varied as in Marker's other essay films. The

Koumiko Mystery includes documentary images of Japan; crowd shots intercut with

a variety of highly stylised close-ups, often stills, of Koumiko's face; adverts and

Samurai films from Japanese TV; newsreel images of political figures of the time

across the world; drawings on a TV screen; a poster of the French film Umbrellas

of Cherboui:g followed by a sequence of of Japanesepeople in the streets with open

umbrellas together with the original film music. The film also includes long

sequenceson martial arts, boxing, childhood, animals and departmentstoreswhich

are continuously interrupted in the process of associative editing.

In discussingMarker's film The Koumiko Mystery (1962), T. Rafferty seesonly a

difference in tone between the `playful' approach to Letter from Siberia and the

`haunting' effect in The Koumiko Mystery. He observes about the film: "The shift

from the present tense of documentary to the past tense of reverie isn't just a formal

experiment in the relationship of sound and image" (1984: 285). The film offers a

new relationship between sound and image, which does not exist in documentary.

The usual illusion of a documentarywhich reads,to the viewer: `you are there', and

141
uses on-camera interviews, is substituted by retrospection and by a new illusion: -

`what we see, is what Marker is' (Ibid). But, Rafferty does not go further in

attempting to define the film outside the documentary genre

One can look, superficially, at The Koumiko Mystery as an essay film which

preceded Sans Soleil (Sunless) (1982), becauseof Marker's `return' to Japan in

Sunless. But, more interestingly, Sunless has developed the genre even further in

its degree of complexity of thematic content, the use of the avant-garde and the

associative character of the personal commentary on the sound track. Sunless is

probably Marker's most watched and discussed film, alongside La Jette. E.

Branigan writes extensively about Sunless. He examines in detail the boundary

between fiction and non-fiction, narrative and non-narrative, subjectivity and

objectivity and the relationship between the `story world' and the screen. His

approach is a cognitive one, looking at the multiplicity of levels of text and the

complex temporal structures in the film. Branigan, correctly, rejects the notion that

the film is a documentary -a film with a closed structure which seeks to represent the

world to the viewer:

The spectator assumes in a documentary that there is a close

(causal) connection between the logic of the events depicted and the

logic of depicting. Or, to put it another way, the

world on the screen

has left its trace on film because it is closely connected to

our ordinary

142
 world and to our familiar ways of depicting (1992: 202).

The film can be seen,initially, as a travelogueabout a large number of exotic places.

The enormousvariety of locations visited suggests,according to Branigan, some of

the themes of the film: island nations, isolation, different cultures, cities, non-

Western societies and the contrast between industrial nations and their former

colonies (Ibid: 207). The method with which the stories, anecdotes and travel

experiences are linked together and related to the different themes in the film is very

particular. Therefore, the film is not actually a travelogue, according to Branigan,

because of its thematic complexity which is a result of the extensive use of

association and memory, and becauseof the lack of any clear travel pattern in it

(Ibid). Discussing another element in our definition of the essay film, namely,

autobiography, Branigan observes:

The identity of the person who is making the trip, and the manner in

which impressions are being registered becomes progressively less

certain. To make matters still more complex, the film undertakes to

document the general problems of documenting a place and culture as

well as to speculate about the interpretive problems being posed for a

spectatorby its own imagesand sounds(Ibid: 208).

The role of the film maker in the film, the self-reflective nature of Sunless and the

rejection of both the documentary and the travelogue genres expressed by Branigan

above, all point to the definition of the film as an essay film. Branigan looks at the

143
film differently - he adopts a post-modernist perspective. He lists the following

points as defining post-modernist aesthetics:

1. Lists of things and permutations,rather than a seriesof eventswhich derive

from an origin and move step-by-steptoward a conclusion.

2. Middles without explicit beginningsor ends.

3. Inconclusiveness,indeterminacy.

4. Surface, randomness, and possibility.

5. Diversity and plurality without hierarchy.

6. Fragmentation, dissonance, admixture, layering.

7. Incongruity, rather than unity or purity.

8. Multiple media, eclecticism, pastiche, intertextuality.

9. Pop culture, stereotypes, cult of the everyday.

10. Quotation, distance.

11. Detachment, self-consciousness (Ibid).

A close look at these definitions reveals that they reflect accurately the complex

thematic content and aesthetics of Sunless and further more, they are very compatible

with our description of the essay film. The film's post-modernist's reading

convinces Branigan that the film cannot be seenas a documentaryfilm at all (Ibid:

209). In addition, argues Branigan, Marker's use of quotes in his film; his

reflections on the role of the cameraman(e.g. at the beginning with the shot of the

144
three Icelandic girls, similar to Vertov's The Man With the Movie Camera); the

expression of doubt by the film maker and the film discussion's of the film itself, all

point, to the definition of the film as a "cautionary tale" (Ibid: 215). Essay film is a

more appropriate term to describe the film, especially in the light of Branigan's

conclusion:

Sans Soleil is also balanced precariously between narrative and non-

narrative. Stories and anecdotes collected during a journey are arranged in

a dramatic way to suggest the changing attitude of the traveler toward

memory and history (... ). The result is neither catalogue, concordance, nor

index, but rather something like a 'hyperindex' of stories where one can

begin with any 'entry, ' or item in a story, and discover not only references

to particulars of the story but also references to additional 'entries' that

collect related sets of particulars from other stories. A 'hyperindex'

(...) continues to disperse outward onto a network of other entries and

cross-references offering an indefinite number of routes by which to trace

the knowledge base (Ibid: 216-217).

Branigan's analysis of Sunless, expressed above, is compatible with our definition

of the essayfilm but, as a previous discussionof Petrie's analysis of The Man With

the Movie Camerademonstrated,the essayfilm definition offers a clearerframework

for the discussion of both films' genre.

145
A. Casebier describes finlessas 'a deconstructive documentary':

The film offers a multi-level exploration of many interrelated

phenomena. It is about filmmaking, and it is about the making and

forgetting of film images (... ). The film aims to deconstruct certain

traditional conceptions about documentary filmmaking, the

representation of history, and our consciousness about both (1988:

34).

Casebier argues that the film is both a documentary and a non-documentary as it is a

deconstructivecritique of the form itself (Ibid: 35). The sameduality is mentioned

by T. Rafferty. The questions asked by the viewer while watching any

documentary are often: how do people live or what has happened in a certain place?

In Sunless the questions are different, according to Rafferty, they are about the film

itself: where are we now? why does a certain image appear where it appears? etc.

The film is both highly personal and detached; a documentary and a film full of

retrospection:

The far flung documentary images of Sans Soleil are assembledas an

autobiography - the film has no subject except the consciousness,the

memory of the man who shot it - yet Marker attributes this

consciousness to the invented `Sandur Krasna', removes it from himself

to yet more spectral entity (Rafferty, 1984: 286).

The central role of `the consciousness' of the film maker inside the work is an

146
important element, as we have seen earlier, in defining the essay film.

Casebier also raises an interesting comparison between the film Sunless and the

Japanesetradition of the diary - Utanikki (Casebier, 1988: 36). He highlights the

fact that the Utanikki was often narrated by a woman, comparing it with Marker's

a
use of woman narrator to the
represent film maker in the film. The Utanikki-diary

form of the film is a central element in the film, as it is used to deconstruct the

traditional documentary form, according to Casebier (Ibid: 37). This supports his

conclusion that the film is a deconstructivedocumentary. But a closer look at the

Japanese Utanikki form reveals some other interesting parallels with our previous

discussion on the literary essay and the essay film. The thousand years old tradition

of the Japanesediary has to be seen in a different light from the Western diary form.

E. Miner in his introduction to four of the best known Japanesediaries coins the term

`poetic diaries'. The diaries are works of art, mixing freely facts, fiction and poetry.

In the Tosa Diary, the woman narrator reflects on the diary form and speaks about

the nature of writing itself: "I do not set down thesewords, nor did I composethe

poem, out of mere love of writing. Surely both in China and Japanart is that which

is created when we are unable to suppress our feelings" (cited in Miner, 1969: 87).

Miner mentions the use of poetry as a formal device, the "narrow margin between

truth and fiction" (Ibid: 8) and the stylistic emphasis of the diaries as crucial in

understanding the form (Ibid: 9). Kenko's Essays in Idleness, which were

discussedearlier in the thesisin relation to Montaigne's literary essay,are described

147
by Miner as a transitional form between two different types of poetic diaries (Ibid:

210).

Y. Biro starts her discussion of Sunless with a quote from Italo Calvino's Invisible

Cities:

Marco Polo describesthe bridge stoneby stone. But which is the stone

that supportsthe bridge? - Kublai Khan.asks.

The bridge is not supported by one stone or another, Marco Polo

answers, but by the line of the arch they form.

Kublai Khan remains silent, reflecting. Then he adds: why do you

speak to me of stones, it is only the arch that matters to me.

Polo answers: without stones there is no arch (Calvino, 1997: 82).

The choice of Invisible Cities to illustrate Sunless is very appropriate. Alongside

Barthes' writings toward the end of his career, there are few other examples in

modern prose of 'methodically unmethodically' structured literary works, which

share many of the characteristics of the essay film. Among the books which come

to one's attention, alongside Invisible Cities by Italo Calvino, are Motel Chronicles

by Sam Shepard, Sketches by Max Frisch, The Voices of Marrakesh by Elias

Canetti, and The Son lines by Bruce Chatwin. Biro finds it difficult to define or

classify Sunless. Referring to Invisible Cities, Biro describes Sunless' structure as

an arch of individual images: " Sans Soleil lingers with delightful sovereignty on

148
disjointed, telling images, suggesting that without stones there is no arch. A sort of

Gesamtkunstwerk which defies the conventional pose between the `raw and the

cooked' that is: document and fiction, but also between word and image" (1984/5:

173). Biro finds Sunless.in fact, more ambitious than a mere "essay" (Ibid: 174) -

a term which she does not define as a cinematic form. The audienceexperiencesa

"vertigo of time", according to Biro, as it watches a dazzling chain of scenes,

struggling to hold to the experienceof watching individual images(Ibid).

B. Nichols also finds it difficult to define the film and describes Sunless as a

"troubled text" (1991: 241) which constantly questions the experience of the film

maker and the viewer. The film createsan opening for a multitude of experiences

beyond the ideology of narrativeunity by meansof breaking down the contradictions

inherited in narrative (Ibid). Two other commentatorscorrectly describethe editing

techniques used in Sunless. T. Rafferty puts the emphasis in his interpretation of

the editing process in the film on the film as miming the involuntary process of

memory. But he rightly mentions the fact that the editing in Sunless takes Marker's

use of montage beyond Vertov's work as he seeks to develop the rhythm of the

juxtaposition (1984: 285). M. Walsh looks at the editing patterns in the film with

its graphic matching in relationship to the political themes in it (1989: 29-36). This

brings him to concludethat the themesof the film are indistinguishablefrom its style

and that the film can, as a result, be defined as an open-structurefilm.

149
R. Rosenstone and R. Bellour use the term essay to describe some aspects of the

film Sunless, but their definitions are brief and incomplete. Rosenstone writes

about the film as an historical document, describing it as "a free-form visual essay"

(Rosenstone,1995: 152). Considering the make-up of an essay,he observesvery

briefly: "In form, the film is an essay,a series of simultaneous verbal and visual

reflections" (Ibid: 156). Rosenstonedoes not elaborate further, but is instead

interestedin the possibility of an essayfilm, like Sunless.presentinga new form of

history in a visual age. The essay does not assemble facts in a logical order to

introduce an historical argument but it

ruminates over the possibilities of memory and history, personal

experience and public events - and the relationships among them. And

how we might use these things, or our images of them, to understand

ourselves and our world. These reflections are not those of everyone,

but of a very specific film maker with a specific set of memories and

experiences(Ibid).

Rosenstone also highlights another important fundamental of the essay film, the fact

that the film maker in Sunless delivers his essay with a great degree of uncertainty

and doubt which enriches the complex texture of the film. Sunless is also accurately

described by Bellour as "an essay, haunted by the fiction of a self-portrait, traced in

it like a watermark in paper" (1997: 120).

150
In addition to Rosenstone's and Bellour's definitions of the film as an essay film, we

have shown above that many of other commentators' observations on the film form a

part of our definition of the genre, even if they have often described the film as a

'difficult' film to categorise. The role of Marker's commentaryon the soundtrack is

paramount in understanding the film as an essay film, as we discussed it at the

beginning of this consideration of Marker's essay films. Sunless, like Montaigne's

literary essays, is a complex and thematically and structurally rich essay film, which

enables different viewers to find different ways to consider it. The variety of

textures in Sunless includes the use of video, tv images, freeze frames and radio

broadcasts. Often constructivist elements in the film are used to put together

rhythmically edited sequences. Sunless introduces a new technique, which of

course was not available earlier, to reflect continuously on itself and on the reality of

its images. This technique is the use of the video artist's manipulations of images

seen earlier in the film to add to the texture, the thematic content and the self-

reflective character of an essay film. Vertov's camera and its role as both a

recording device and an essayistic self-reflective tool has come full circle with

Marker's video processing of the film images in Sunless.

151
CHAPTER SIX : CONCLUSION

The film Sunless by Chris Marker has always intrigued me in its complexity, since it

first came out in 1982.1 thought initially that the film was a documentaryfilm, but

subsequent viewings of the film triggered a series of questions regarding the

documentarygenre and more importantly, the particular cinematic languageused in

the film. Embarking upon the editing of the film `The Man Who Couldn't Feel' and

Other Tales, I tried to recreate Sunless' unique structure, style and aesthetics. I

began to discover a cinematic structure different from the documentary. During the

editing and after the completion of the production of `The Man Who Couldn't Feel'

and Other Tales a new cinematic form emerged,which in turn also shed a different

light on the film Sunless. This cinematic form stood clearly outside the

documentary genre and belonged to the avant-garde. I define it as the essay film.

As a result, in this thesis, the film `The Man Who Couldn't Feel' and Other Tales

offers insight into the essay film genre, into Sunless and other films. In this thesis

the textual analysis of the film defines in detail the genre characteristics and

establishes it as an avant-garde genre. The literary essay's aesthetic, thematic and

structural elements, as they have been discussed in the early part of the thesis,

especially in light of Montaigne's writings, expand the definition of `The The Man

Who Couldn't Feel' and Other Tales as an essay film and point toward the

establishmentof the genreas a whole. The textual analysis of the film explores the

152
linear and non-linear structural elements within the genre and the use of avant-garde

montage to achieve a coherent form based on the fragmentary cinematic text. The

film, like other essayfilms, asksthe viewer to acceptthe formalist literary conceptof

Ostranenie within poetry as it is applied in film as the basis of the montage. In this

respect, the film also resemblesthe American Modernists' poetic montage which

involves comparing and linking fragments, selecting them into scenes and using

letters as `colliding image-objects'. The mixture of narrative tales in'The Man Who

Couldn't Feel' and Other Tales, on one hand, and an overall non-narrative structure

on the other hand, represents directly what Adorno called the 'methodically

unmethodical'approachto the essay.

This thesis demonstratesthat, in common with the other essay films, individual

images or sequencesof images in `The The Man Who Couldn't Feel' and Other

Tales support each other to form a circular, interwoven and repetitive patterns

without relying on pre-determined cinematic structures. In every essay film, the

variety of stories, themes, images and sounds together with the film maker's

personal experiences, the apparent formlessness, the associative movement from idea

to idea, from image to image and the use of archive footage, achieve a unity in

diversity through association. In this, the essay film resembles a Montaignean

essay. The essayfilm is a `camera-stylo' film - the `pen-like' recording device of

images with its direct use of the cinematic language to translate the film
maker's

153
ideas. This, together with the structural and editing elements highlighted above,

define the film 'The Man Who Couldn't Feel' and Other Tales and the other films

which were discussed in the thesis as essay films, as part of the avant-garde.

The films of Cavalcand,Vertov and Marker which havebeendiscussedin the thesis

in light of our definition of the essay film are defined as such, sometimes in

opposition to existing descriptions of the films as documentaries. Bazin and Bellour

have identified two of Marker's films as essay films, but their definitions were brief

and incomplete. Some of Vertov's commentators have identified his films as part of

the avant-garde but have not identified them as essay films. Our definition of the

essayfilm genre and the textual analysis of the film `The Man Who Couldn't Feel'

and Other Tales bring together the films of Cavalcanti, Vertov and Marker and

locatesthem inside the essayfilm genre.

154
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Rosenstone, R (1995), Visions of the Past, Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard

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Sanchez-Biosca, V (1990), "Montage and Spectator: Eisenstein and the Avant-

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,

Sayce, R (1972), The Essays of Montaigne -A Critical Exploration, London:

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- (1987), (ed.) The Avant-garde Film, a Reader of Theoiy and Criticism, NY:

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-

New York: Columbia University Press.

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Steen, G (1989), "Metaphor and Literary Comprehension", Poetics, vol. 18,

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-a

University Press.

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-

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FILMOGRAPHY

Ackerman, C, News from Home (Belgium/France, 1976).

Cavalcanti,A, Rien que les Heures(France, 1924).

Clair, R, Paris Qui Dort (France, 1923).

Dovzhenko, A, Earth (USSR, 1930).

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Inscription of War) (Germany, 1988).

Franju, G, Hotel des Invalides (France, 1951).

- Le Sang des Bates (France, 1948).

Godard, J. L, Vivre Sa Vie (France, 1962)

- La Chinoise (France, 1967).

- Two or Three Things I Know about Her (France, 1966).

Goretta, C, and Tanner, A, Nice Time (UK, 1957).

Haanstra, B, Glass (Holland, 1958).

185
Ivens, J, The Biidge (Holland, 1928).

- Rain (Holland, 1929).

- The Tale of the Wind (France, 1988)

Jacopetti,G, Mondo Cane(Italy, 1961).

Keuken, van der, J, An Eye Above the Well ( Holland, 1988).

Marker, C, Le Joli Mai (France, 1962).

- The Last Bolshevik (France, 1993)

- Letter from Siberia (France, 1957).

The Koumiko M -y (France, 1965).

- Sans Soleil (Sunless) (France, 1982).

Marker, C, Godard, J. L, Ivens, J, Klein, W, Lelouch, C, ResnaisA, Varda, A

Far from Vietnam (France, 1967).

Medvedkin, A, Happiness(USSR, 1934)

Mekas, J, Lost, Lost. Lost (USA, 1949-1975).

Murnau, F, and Flaherty, R, Tabu - une Histoire dans les Mers du Sud (USA,

1929).

186
Pudovkin, V, Mother (USSR, 1926 )

Resnais,A, Night and Fog (France, 1955).

Richter, H, Inflation (Germany, 1927).

Ruiz R, Of Great Eventsand Ordinary People(France, 1978).

Ruttmann, W, Berlin. Symphony of a City (Germany, 1927).

Storck, H, L'Histoire du Soldat Inconnu (Belgium, 1932).

Vertov, D The Eleventh Year (USSR, 1928).

- Enthusiasm - Symphony of the Donbas (USSR, 1930).

- The Man with the Movie Camera (USSR, 1929).

Sixth of the Earth (USSR, 1926).

-

- Three Songs of Lenin (USSR, 1934).

Vigo, J, A Propos de Nice (France, 1930).

Wenders, W, Note-books on Cities and Clothes (Germany, 1989)

- Tokyo-Ga (Germany, 1985).

187
 THE ESSAY FILM

Thesis submitted to Middlesex University

in partial fulfilment of the requirement

for the degree of

Doctor of Philosophy

Joram ten Brink

School of Art, Design and Performing Art

Middlesex University
1999

APPENDIXES
APPENDIX ONE

A SHOT LIST OF THE FILM 'THE MAN WHO COULDN'T FEEL' AND OTHER TALES.
 atmos track begins
- m. s. f.
a small boat travelling slowly on a river
00.00.00

2 00.10.12

00.17.01
V. 0 1 (male psychother(ipist) What do you do?

V.0 2( male executive) I run a data processing firm.

4 It is a subsidiary of a large multinational. 00.26.13
V.0 1 Can you say something about your work?
V.0 2I like the work. I like the office. It is rather big,
I sit in a corner. I have a good view.

5 V.0 1 What can you say about the people you work
with? 00.36.04

V.0 2 Not much... I find it hard to describe how I feel

about them. 00.42.18
6

V.0 1 What career prospects do you have`?

V.0 21 don't know. A colleague of mine who used to
IPF
work for me got promoted recently to group vice
president at head office. 00.49.09

V.0 1 Did you get upset about that? After all, he used
to work for you.

V.0 2 No, those are the breaks. 00.56.07

V.0 1 What is your relationship with your wife like?
7a

2
 in. S. f.

V.0 2 All right. We have been married for

fifteen years. She had an affair once with an- 01.11.14
7b
other man.
V. 0 1 How did you deal with it? Did you feel
hurt?
V.0 2I didn't feel very much. When she told
me about it, I said it's all right... I think all this 01.23.15

7c
talk about feelings is crazy. What's important is
to get on with life.
V. 0 1 How is your relationship with your wife
now?
V.0 2 She sometimes screams at me for no 01.28.10
reason.
8 V. 0 1 Have you found out why she gets upset?
V. 02No.
V. 0 1 Do you have children
V.02Yes.
V.0 1 Can you tell me something about them? 01.42.12
V.0 2I have a boy and a girl. They are doing
9
fine. I haven't much contact with them, given
my working hours.
V.0 1 How do you feel?
V.0 2I have had stomach pains for three years.
They got worse but I discovered that if I held 01.52.00
my body in a certain position it hurt less. I
managed until the ulcer perforated. Now I take
pills and watch my diet.
V. 0 1 What do you usually do when you are at
home?
V.0 2I am not at home that much given my 02.04.23
working hours. But when I am there I watch
television.
V.0 lWhat was the last program you watched?
V.0 2I don't remember. I usually forget the story 02.11.01
12 line immediately.
V.0 1 Do you ever dream?
V.0 1 Do you ever fantasize or have day-dreams?
 Ill. S. f.
V. 0 2 My wife told me I might.
x"37.11
V.0 1 What thoughts do you have now?
14 V.0 2I don't know... none. What do you expect me to
say? I find it hard to describe how I feel... I am not
much of a talker.

atmos track end

" Charlie Kay" music track begins
m. 5023
15

16

TITLES

17

18

" Charlie Kay" music track ends

Atmos track- light aircraft and fireworks
03.20.09
19 Text at the bottom of the screen-
In the beginning God created heaven and earth
And the earth was without form and and void...
 M. S. f.

03.51.13

22

04.01.04

23

04.10.19
24

04.17.06
25

04.24.19

26

27 04.34.09

04.42.00
28

I) 04.47.00
 m. s. f.

04.52.09
30

04.57.21
31

05.04.11
32

33 05.0x.15

34
05.14.14

35
18.13

36

05.25.14

37 05.29.23
 M. S. f.
05.41.03
38

38a
05.52.19

Music truck- Vibrators- ends 05.55.04

cross, f tide to
Music track- Good Morning Mº: Jones begins
39

TEXT on the sound track-

Good morning...
06.02.04

40

Good Morning... 06.04.21

41

Mr. Jones...
l)(,. I O.02
42

06.19.02
42a

How are you...

..

I am thirsty...
43 ..
06.26.04
How are you...
.. 7
 M. S. f.

very well... 06.39.06

..
44

...very well, 06.42.00

Thank you,
45
very well, thank you.
And how are you?...

And how are you? 07.08.00

45a ...
Fine, fine thank you.
,
It's early...

It's clear.. 07.28. I8

45h ..

46 do you understand me?...

07.31.09

47 07.37.12

48

07.41.09

48a Mrs. Jones..

.good afternoon 07.46.14
8
 m. s. f.

07.42.07
49
How are you?..

07.53.20

50

51 How are you'?.. 07.55.20

52 I am ready, 07.59.15
...
Fine...

53 08.04.00

and you`?...

54
ýl ii; ll

55
very well, 08.14.20
funks...

56
08.26.06
9
 m. S. I.
may I introduce myself...

08.31.02
57
am John Wallis...
.1

08.40.06
.speak more slowly..
58

59 ..permit me..
08.44.20

to introduce myself..
...

08.55.01
60 John Wallis...
.

where are you fronen''...

61 09.03.0 1

62 I am from Texas...
09.06.09

Is I( n adc ßo1%ýoodI.) 0o). I4. O5

63 .

63a
O'). I ti. II
 m. s. f.

09.23.20
excuse me. but I don't understand...
63h ..

Good afternoon..
..

U').2ý. 17
(; ood afternoon.
64

65 Music track- Good Morning Mr. Jones- ends.

09.44.05
Music track- Roll th'Ha p -starts

65a
09.58.04

65h

10.03.19

66

10.13.20

67

10.28.21

67 a

10.37.10
 M. S. f.
0.46.21
68

0.49.22

69

11.07.06
69a

1.12.! 0

691)

11.17.08

70 Music Track- Roll tli'Harp - ends

Music track- Playtime on Pluto - begins

7Oa
This man was a bachelor and he lived in this big 11.22.29
residential area, and this man and woman moved in
beside him, you know, and the woman was real
beautiful-she had long blonde hair and she was
built real good, and every day she'd get out and cut
70h
the grass and all, in short shorts and tight pants and
everything. Now the man, he said,
"I just got tohave a little bit of that. " 11.55.11
So finally one day he got the nerve to go over
there and ask her. And he said,
"Can I have a little bit of that" and she said,
"Well, tomorrow when there ain't no body around,
you come over here and bring fifty dollars and I'll
71 12.05.08
let you have it. "
So the next day he went over there...

12
 m. s. f.
and took the money and he got it,
72 12.09.10
you know,

and it was real good, and he

12.12.07
goes back home.
And that night her husband
come home and he says,
73

That man next door come over today? "

12.1x. 09

74
(And she says, "Oh, I'll bet
he knows. ")
12.22.22
She says, "Yeah, he come. "
He says,"He bring that fifty dollars? "

75

(She says, "I know he knows now. ")

She says, "Yeah, he brought it. " 12.29.04
76

He says, "Well, I's just wondering, 'cause he

come by my office this morning wanting to
borrow fifty dollars and he said he'll bring it 12.35.02
back to you today. "
77

12.46.10

78

Music track- Playtime on Pluto- end 12.56.02

79 Cross, fade to
Atmos track- waves
13
 M. S. f.

13.09.05
80

13.19.10

81 music buck- 7ambang - begins

13.25.08

81a

13.37.14

81b

13.48.16
81c

13.50.01

82

83 13.54.07

14.12.07
83.E

14
 M. S. f.
14.18.24
83b

14.20.20
84

14.30.07

84d

14.34.19
85

86 4.49.05

87 14.56.23

87a
15.05.06

87h

15.12.06

15
 M. S. f.

15.21.20
music track- Tainl angJ ends
88 -

15.28.11
Ahnos track - waves- ends
89
cross fade
Atmos truck- it'ind- starts

15.40.03

90

15.51.02
91

91a I5.56.03

16.03.17
92

16.07.09

93

16.14.10
94

16
 M. S. f.
16.17.13
95

16.25.22

90

16.37.00
l)-,

Atmos track- winds- ends

16.41.04
9h Cross fade
Music track- Charlie Kay- starts

16.58.02
91)

17.09.13

100

17.25.24
101

17.33.20
102

17
 M. S. f.

17.35.15
I(i

14.46.08

1(l2h

102c

103 Music track- Charlie Kay- ends 17.47.15

Cross fade
Music Track-King of'Rock - starts with
coin spinning,

TEXT on the sound track-

103
18.02.21
I must advise you,
That I am under curse...

18.12.09
and fifty percent of the time
..
104 I am wrong,
and I don't know which fifty percent it is...

sO what I am telling you,

...
maybe the wisest thing I've ever said 18.19.05

105 or it maybe totaly wrong.

and that's roughly our predicement.....

I(X, 18.27.23
The words that come to me...

19
 M. S. f.
lV

be 18.35.00
ý, -" ,{ may or may not of use to....
107
ý 1
ýýI

18.42.15
whoever you think you presentaly are...
Ms

18.49.20

Ill1)

18.56.05

110

19.02.03

19.08.00
the Irt cI live In 1mww...
112

nmit he I; ir out.
...
112 it doesn't seem that way to me, 19.22.03
but when I think about it from the frame work
of whome I used to be when I was a psychology
professor, I think I am crazy...

1121) 19.24.04

19
 M. S. f.

and all the rest of it... 19.30.23

..
Ii2c

19.31.14
112Li you and the stuff
...
and the floor and the trees...

19.35.14
and the automobiles and the polution...
.
113

19.40.04
and the birds, behind all of this stuff
113a ...
you try to get high...

19.45.21

114 you want to bliss out...

...
coin spinning starts again

19.49.14
115

116

19.51.13

117

19.55.08

20
 M. S. f.
20.02.06
118

20.09.11

119

20.13.22

1]q, l

20.22.23

114

20.24.18
120

121 20.34.09

20.36.02
122

coin spinning- end music track-

cross fade 20.40.00
12ai music track- Sun Rise - stairs
21
 M. S. f.

20.43.10
1?3

20.46.02
124

20.55.08

125

20.57.09
126

21.01.02
127

21.09.16
128

I1
V. 0 1 (male psy(-hotherapist) What do you do? 211.1024

129 21.14.03

22
 m. s. f.

V.O 2( mule executive) I run a data process- 21.16.24

130 ing firm. It is a subsidiary of a large multina-
tional.

21.18.20
131

VA) 1 Can you say something about your work'!

V.0 21 like the work. I like the office. It is rather
21.21.14
big, I sit in a corner. I have a good view.

132
V. 0 1 What can you say about the people you
work with?
V.0 2 Not much... I find it hard to describe how I
feel about them.
21.32.23
V.O 1 What career prospects do you have?
133

21.3x. 06

133:

V.0 21 don't know. A colleague of mine who

used to work for me got promoted recently to
group vice president at head office.
V.0 1 Did you get upset about that`?After all, he 21.40.21
134
used to work for you.
V.0 2 No, those are the breaks.

21.43.03
3-ý- I

V.0 1 What is your relationship with your wife

Iike?
V.0 2 All right. We have been married for
135 fifteen years. She had an affair once with an- 21.51.12
other man.

23
 M. S. f.

21.55.21
I35a

22.02.05

i36h
VO I How did you deal with it'? Did you feel hurt'?
V.() 21 didn't feel very much. When she told me 22.02.19

about it, I said it's all right... I think all this talk
about feelings
137 is crazy. What's important is to get on with life.

22.10.00
137.E N'.O 1 How is your rclationship with your wife
now'?
VO 2 She sometimes screams at me for no reason.

22.14.19

138 V.() 1 Have you found out why she gets upset?
VO 2 No.

22.18.01
139

" () 1 Do you have children

J4, -i ,ýV.
V'.0 2 Yes.

V'.0 1 Can you tell me something about them?

1-31)a 22.21.14
V.0 21 have a boy and a girl. They are doing fine. I
haven't much contact with them, given my working
hours.
..: ", ý

140
Ya'
H V'.0 1 How do you feel?
22.26.07

24
 M. S. f.
V. 0 21 have had stomach pains for 22.28.09
14(ßa three years. They got worse but I
,
discovered that if I held my body in
a certain position it hurt less. I
managed until the ulcer perforated.
Now I take pills and watch my diet. 22.33.24
141

V.0 1 What do you usually do when

22.41.08
you are at home?
141a

V.0 21 am not at home that much given

my working hours. But when I am there 22.46.24
I watch television
142
V. 0 1 What was the last program you

watched?

V.0 21 don't remember. I usually forget

the story line immediately. 22.57.19
143
V.0 1 Do you ever dream`?
V.0 2 No.

V.() 1 Do you ever fantasize or have day-dreams?

22.59.24
V.O 2 Not that I can remember.
V.() 1 Do you ever cry?
144
V.0 2 No.
V.0 1 Do you ever get excited about things?
V.02No.
V.0 1 Are you anxious being here?
V.0 2 My wife told me I might. 23.07.16
I4-ß V.0 1 What thoughts do you have now?

V.0 21 don't know... none. What do you expect me 23.17.15

to say?
14
Music track- Sun Rise- ends
Cross fade
25
 in. S. f.
music track- Charlie Kay- starts
I find it hard to describe how I feel... I am not 23.20.06
46
much of a talker.

23.31.04

146u

23.31.20

147

23.47.22
147a

23.53.21

148

24.00.05
14K:
ß

24.01.17

24.07.09
41)

26
 m. s. f.
24.07.20

150

24.11.10

151

24.15.13
152 Text in the music track-
you remember what I talked to you about?
....

man and a woman screem at each other in the

background)
24.21.00

153

you have to realise

.. ...

24.29.02
154 ...
that she is not real,
Yes she is.
She is real because...

155 24.34.03
Sheseems like this in your mind.

150 24.46.05

157

24.49.08

27
 m. s. f.

24.56.05
158

25.00.10
I5M

25.01.13
15')

25.06.05
16()
music track- Charlie Kay- ends
Atmos track- wind- starts

25.13.20
161 "r'ý

r .0A
25.22.15

162 -, '

25.32.22
"r
163

25.45.20

1h1

2
 m. s. f.

25.48.10
165

25.49.22
166

25.57.01

167

26.07.09
168

20. I0. I0
10K.
1

Atmus track- wind- ends 26.18.11

61)
cross finde
Music track- - starts

26.24.20
171
 M. S. 1.

26.35.09
17,

26.39.03

17?

O1( US Journalist This is Brigadier Gen-

cral Thomas 0' Farrel of Albany, New York,
,
thc.ºtre commander of the atomic bomb project. 26.43.05

17.1

ý1 III \,, u tcll u. m)mcthing of the atomic bomb

ý,rýr. t. (ýrncral O'Farrel ,

26.48.12

17c

17ý '6.49.10
%() 2 It S l'i lt ti I) I knt'N%I speak Ic,r e%er\

ni. in md \%" mall ()I the huge strong... %%ho

\%,,i kt d ,, h ii and . (, I aithfully on this great 26.53.23

177 fantastic. fairy land project. which had such a

trunnrn. ious impact on the \%ar against Japan.

27.02. (x)

ý") murh crcdit is duc tu x) many that it is

. till to properly portion that credit. 27.08.15

1T-

to
 M. S. f.
27.12.13
II

We have however a sense of great moral

re. lxmsihility...
27.15.15
l1ý
.

bccausc this big power has been given to

...
us...
27.18.00
i":

and we should he ever humble and

that it has been given to us 27.22.03

..grateful
and...
Iý
rather then to our enemy.

ý,
. . 27.27.02
and all of us who had a part in its
...

dc\rlohnwnt and in carrying it out its

use to dedicate our strength, our

Ill.; 27.36.12
wealth our brains and even our lives

that it is always used for good and

never for evil.

i-ý.
i

H () I Captain hrrnmt K Behan of 1IOUStun,

27.40.15

27.51.10
Irra%. Bombardier of the great RT.. what was your
out ,tanding experience on this historic flight'?

31
 Ill. S. I..
VO 31 suppose it was when the cloud
27.56.14
184d
opened up over the target and Nagasaki, and

the target was pretty as a picture I made the

run. let the bomb go, that was my greatest

28.03.24

thrill
184c
Almos track ends
cross fade
_
Music track- Good morning Mr. Jones- starts

28.14.15
TEXT of the sound track-
1841'
Do you understand me now?...

28.25.09

I understand it, but I don't speak it...

1g4

28.35.18

185 I am hungry...

I am tired..

28.50.18
186 Its late...

186 28.52.15
I am thirsty...

28.57.06
187
the coffee is cold...
... 32
 111.S. f.

29.02.20
188 the window is closed...

Good morning, good morning Mr. Jones.

29.22.23
189

29.28.02
190

29.37.22

191

29.47.1 1
192
Music track- Good Morning Mr. Jones- ends
erns Iacle
Sound track- Jewish children school's chanting-
starts

29.54.20
193

19-1
30.07.07

19
30.19.06

33
 m. s. f.

30.26.03
19('

?O.35.1O

197

30.40.16

198

30.44.06

199

30.49.06
200

r
30.56.10
? UI

31.09.02
1)Ia

31.09.21
202

34
 m. s. f.

203 31.15.10

31.19.13
203a

31.20.19
204

31.39.24
2D-k.
i Sound track- Childern Chant- ends
Music track- Tehillind Steve Reich- starts
( text of the track is Psahna, sung in
Hebrew)

205 31.49.09

31.56.01
20('

32.03.16
207

32.08.16
2Oý

35
 Ill. S. f.

32.16.04
209

32.24.01

210

32.29.24

211

32.36.04

212

32.42.00
213

32.47.2O
214

32.57.22
215

215a 33.07.17

36
 Ill. S. f.
33.15.05
216

33.23.21
4ýj ti;; ;
21(xi

217 33.29.23

33.41.18
218

33.48.02
218a

33.50.13
219

34.03.24
219a

34.12.24
219b
37
 M. S. f.
34.16.20
220

34.25.16

221

34.41.21

221a

34.44.02

222

34.48.16
223

34.53.07
224

34.58.23
224a

35.07.15
225

38
 M. S. f.
226
35.11.08

35.15.05
227

35.20.07
228

35.23.08

229

230
Music track- Tehillm- end
35.27.07
Music track- Storm Clouds- starts

V. 0 1 (male psychotherapist) What do you do?

V. 0 2( male executive) I run a data processing

firm. It is a subsidiary of a large multinational. 35.56.0)
2
V. 0 1 Can you say something about your work?
V. 0 2I like the work. I like the office. It is
rather big,
I sit in a corner. I have a good view.
V. 0 1 What can you say about the people you
work with?
23Cb 36.03.01
V. 0 2 Not much... I find it hard to describe how
I feel about them.

36.03. (X9
231

39
 m. s. f.
V.0 1 What career prospects do you have?
232 V.O 21 don't know. A colleague of mine who used to 36.09.15
work for me got promoted recently to group vice
president at head office.
V.0 1 Did you get upset about that? After all, he
used to work for you. 36 10 11
V.0 2 No, those are the breaks.
233 V.0 1 What is your relationship with your wife like?
V.0 2 All right. We have been married for fifteen
years.She had an affair once with another man.
V.0 1 How did you deal with it? Did you feel hurt?
V.0 2I didn't feel very much. When she told me 36.33.02
233a
,shout it, I said it's all right... I think all this talk

about feelings is crazy. What's important is to get on

with life.
V.0 1 How is your relationship with your wife now'?
VO 2 She sometimes screams at me for no reason. 36.38.23
234 V.0 1 Have you found out why she gets upset?
V.0 2 No.
V.0 1 What do you usually do when you are at
home'?
V.0 2I am not at home that much given my
36.48.16
231u working hours. But when I am there I watch
televi lion.
V.0 1What was the last program you watched?
V.0 2I don't remember. I usually forget the story
line immediately.
V.0 1 Do you ever dream'? 36.53.01
235
V.O 2 No.

V.0 1 Do you ever fantasize or have day-dreams?

V.0 2 Not that I can remember.
25a

V. O 1 Do you ever cry'?

V. 0 2 No.
230 36.59.11
V.0 1 Do you ever get excited about things'?
VO 2 No.

40
 V. 0 1 What thoughts do you have now? Ill. S. t,.
V. O 21 don't know... none... 37.05.15
237

What do you expect me to say'? I find it hard to

... 37.10.15
describe how I feel... I am not much of a talker.

238
Music track- Storm Clouds- begins

37.16.01
238a

37.34.19

239

37.47.13
240

37.55.21
241

24 37.59.01

38.11.08
242a

41
 Ill. S. f.

38.19.20
?421)

38.22.16
2 l.

38.26.12
244

38.29.2 1
245

24( 38.34.2

24 t

38.40.24
247

24 38.47.1 9

42
 M. S. f.

249 39.04.23

39.10.16

250

39.15.10

25U)
39.26.14
Music track- Storm Clouds- ends
cross fade

Music track- Allsorts - starts

25k

39.36.15

251

39.37.13

251a

39.45.04

25lb

39.53.23

43
 m. S. F.

25Ic in the Bulgerian

A late afternoon city of Varna. 40.01.00

A small travel agency sells bus tickets to Istanbul.

40.02.09
252
A cheap ticket no doubt. The other route to take
,

will he to travel all the way to Sofia and take a

train 40.06.13
253

from there to Istanbul. Too long and too expen-

sive.

254 40.11.17

254a 40.13.14

The journey has started on the train from Victo-

ria's
24äh 40.18.19

international platform sitting down on my small

,

sleeping hag holding a copy of Brave Soldier

255
40.19.02

Schweik.

(Atn, os track- bouts travelling 40.22.04

on a ritver- starts/
256 Schweik describes his travels to the Russian front
via Hungary and Romania.

44
 I needed a guide for my summer travels so I in. S. f.

40.29.02
257
decided used him. I always loved the old

soldier. I had to leave Schweik at Sulina on the

257a 40.32.01
Black sea as he continued toward Odessa and

there was no way I could go there.

25'Al
40.38.22

I have arranged with Elena that we'll meet on

258
40.40.19

the last Friday of August , at 6 pm at the Istan-

259 bul's Hilton. Good old Hilton chain. For years

40.49.18
it has been our meeting point any where in

Europe Elena said she might be in Istanbul

.
260
that month so it would be a good ending for
40.59.21
my summer travels.

From Sulina to Istanbul it is a straight line on

261
the map.
41.06.21
Just continue along the shores of the Black sea.

26I,ß Disgusted by Chauuscesko's Romania I left it

41.12.21
earlier and walked across the border into
Bulgaria to the annoyance of the Rumanian

45
 m. s. f

262 41.14.13
border guards who disturbed by the lone walker

who crossed the border on foot.

I slept the last night on the floor at the train

41.19.01
263 station , hungry and cold and could not find a

coffee or bread in the village.

41.25.13
263a So I started to walk to the border post. Bulgaria

was not much better but at least there was some

food. Kebab and beer three times a day 41.27.21

.
264
After Romania every thing tasted delicious.
,

It was near the end of August and I have

41.32.15
264a travelled enough and Varna was nothing special.

So I decided to take the shortest route to

Istanbul.
41.41.00

265
( Atnoa track- bout- ends/

41.45.11
265;t
I bought the bus ticket and was told to be at

4 pin around the corner to hoard a Turkish bus.

41.5O. O4
26(

46
 Ill. S. I.

41.53.15
Few Turks were busy loading the bus.
267

Huge roles of material were stored underneath

the body of the bus.

41.56.23
268
We boarded the bus- myself and a group of

20 Saudi students dressed immaculately in

traditional white long gowns. 42.05.01

2i&1

The bus was filled immediately with

269 42.09.16

Turkish music played loud on the radio.

270 The Saudi s didn't like it to say the 42.12.22

,

least. It was not their type of music.

271
42.17.15

One of them stood up and walked to

Z71.E ward the driver with a cassette in his

42.22.09

hand asking if he wouldn't mind playing

271b
their music Um Kulthum.
.
42.23.24
It is my favourite music too, especially on those
long bus journeys at night
47 .
 m. S. f.

It was not the Turkish driver's , though. He flatly 42.33.25

27ý

rejected the request .

As the Saudi turned hack to go back to his seat his

42.37.21
273

friends shouted to him : pay him! Pay him!

That Turkish driver discovered a gold mine that night.

42.44.23
274
( Music truck- Umni Kulthum- starts)
For each Um Kulthum tape he received a$ 20 bill.

After few hours we stopped on the way in a small

27i Bulgarian village for some petrol and a short run to 42.50.07

the toilet .

I got back from the toilet to find the Saudis arguing

275 43.00.04
with the owner of the petrol station He was ex-
.

trernely sorry but there were no toilets in the station

."

What do you mean - no toilet "I said have just

,"I
275 43.03.24
heen to one" He looked side ways and whispered to

inc - but those Arabs are so dirty....

43.09.14
He got paid $50 for each Student visiting his filthy
77.5)

toilet. [ thought the Saudis were the new Americans

( Music track Um kulthum
-ends)
arriving to Europe after the war with their pockets 43.35.04
( Music track-Allsort. c stints/
-
27
stuffed with dollar hills
.

We arrived at the border.

48
 nn. S. f.

On the Turkish side 43.36.13

ý
276 ý. ý,. ,ý All became clear few hours later.

:,
Suddenly, the bus went off the main road and

43.40.23
entered a small village. In no time a group of
277
women came out from the houses and were

helping the drivers to unload the bus. From

underneath the body of the bus came huge

278 43.53.22

rolls of first class Chinese silk and from under

the bus seats came sacks full of bank notes.

No wonder the bus tickets were so cheap. 44.04.22

279
The Saudis were relieved to be back in

Istanbul They complained bitterly about

.
279a
Varna and although they went there initially
44.10.15

to look for the blonde women they felt back at

home and much happier in Istanbul.

44.13.05
27
I went to Hilton once, at 6 pm on the last Friday

of the month. I saw them at a distance sitting at

27ýk the bar.

I moved away and waited another half an hour 44.2 24

hidden behind the newspapers stand.

2771 Elena didn't arrive.

I went back to my youth hostel. 44.29. I5

Music track- Allsorts
- ends)
49
 in. S. f.
turns track- wind- starts
.I 44.31.1

280

44.39.06

281

44.47.15

282

45.01.13

283

45.04.20
284

45.07.24

285

285a Atinos track- wind- ends 45.20.13

Music Irak- Adclio aria bella Napoli- starts

2H(ß 45.26.09

50
 m. s. f.

ýý/
45.39.09
Subtites( text of the song)-

Goodbye my beautiful Naples

Goodbye... 45.47.07

? Hh Goodbye my beautiful Naples

Goodbye....

I'll never forget you...

45.54.14

Where do the sailors go

289
in their white coats

looking for a brawl or bazar?

C
45.59.02
where do the sailors go
290 their tired faces
with

looking for a girl to kiss?

what do the sailors do 46.03.04

291
when they arrive in a port?

they go and find love

inside the bar

292 46.07.1 1
some are alive, fortunately,
one or two are dead.

`There's a widow we have to

go and visit...
293
`how do the sailors manage 46.13.08
to recognise the stars

always the same, at the equator

293a or at the North Pole?
tired of this drudgery?
tired of life 46.10.02
a life full of mosquitoes

51
 Ill. S. F.

how do the sailors manage 46.24.16

23b
to kiss and embrace each other

and yet still remain real men?

around the world without love

like a postal package 46.35.07

293c
with no one to ask them
`How are things?

`their heart given to a woman

46.36.09
a woman without a heart'
294
I wonder if they ever think of us...?

`But where do the sailors go

rascals, taking chances

46.44.15
295 with life in their trousers
destiny between their teeth

beneath the prostitute moon

and the smiling sky? 46.54.04

296
where do the sailors go
with boredom that kills them

asleep on a bridge
deep down, reluctantly
47.03.14
297
they dream of coming home,

what do they care about

in the middle of the sea

47.07.01
298 on this never ending course
between Genova and New York

47.12.19
299

52
 m. s. f.

47.22.09
300

how do the sailors manage

to do without people 47.31.15

301 and yet still remain real men?

around the world without love

like a postal package
47.49.14
with no one to ask them
302

`How are things?

`their heart given to a woman

48.06.13
303 a woman without a heart'

I wonder if they ever think

about it...?

I wonder... '

END CREDITS 50.10.07

53
APPENDIX TWO : `The Man Who Couldn't Feel' Text

VOICE-OVER TEXT, SHOTS 3- 14; 128a- 146; 230- 238.

SOURCE: Kets de Vries, 1993: 72-74

- What do you do?

a data processing firm. It is a subsidiary of a large multinational.

-I run

- Can you say something about your work?

-I like the work. I like the office. It is rather big, I sit in a corner. I have a good

view.

- What can you say about the people you work with?

- Not much... I find it hard to describe how I feel about them.

- What career prospects do you have?

-I don't know. A colleague of mine who used to work for me got promoted recently

to group vice presidentat headoffice.

- Did you get upset about that? After all, he usedto work for you.

- No, those are the breaks.

- What is your relationship with your wife like?

All right. We have beenmarried for fifteen years.

-

54
 She had an affair once with another man.

How did you deal with it? Did you feel hurt?
-

didn't feel very much. When she told me about it, I said it's all right... I think all
-I

this talk about feelings is crazy. What's important is to get on with life.

How is your relationship with your wife now?

-

- She sometimesscreamsat me for no reason.

- Have you found out why she gets upset?

- No.

- Do you have children?

- Yes.

- Can you tell me something about them?

-I have a boy and a girl. They are doing fine. I haven't much contact with them,

given my working hours.

- How do you feel?

-I have had stomach pains for three years. They got worse, but I discovered that if I

held my body in a certainposition it hurt less. I manageduntil the ulcer perforated.

Now I take pills and watch my diet.

- What do you usually do when you are at home?

55
-I am not at home that much given my working hours. But when I am there I watch

television.

- What was the last program you watched?

-I don't remember. I usually forget the story line immediately.

- Do you ever dream?

- No.

- Do you ever fantasise or have day-dreams?

- Not that I can remember.

- Do you ever cry?

- No.

- Do you ever get excited about things?

- No.

- Are you anxious being here?

- My wife told me I might.

- What thoughts do you have now?

-I don't know... none. What do you expect me to say? I find it hard to describehow

I feel. I am not much of a talker.

56
APPENDIX THREE : 'Good Morning Mr. Jones' Text

TEXT OVER MUSIC, SHOTS 39-64; 184F-188.

SOURCE: "Living English", Crown Music Records Publishers, NY, 1958.

Good morning,

Good Morning, Mr. Jones.

How are you?

I am thirsty.

How are you?

Very... well,

Very well, thank you,

Very well, thank you.

And how are you?

And how are you?

Fine. Fine, thank you.

It's early.

It's clear.

Do you understandme?

57
Good afternoon Mrs. Jones.

How are you?..

How are you?..

I am ready.

Fine.

And you?

Very well,
...

Thanks...

May I introduce myself?

I am John Wallis.

Speak more slowly.

Permit me...

To introduce myself,

John Wallis.

Where are you from?

I am from Texas.

Is it made of wood?

Excuse me, but I don't understand.

Good afternoon.

58
Good afternoon.

Do you understand me now?

I understand it, but I don't speak it.

I am hungry,

I am tired

It's late.

I am thirsty.

The coffee is cold.

The window is closed.

Good morning,

Good morning Mr. Jones.

59
APPENDIX FOUR: `The Lover's Gift Regained'

VOICE-OVER TEXT, SHOTS 70a-77.

SOURCE: `The Lover's Gift Re aig

ned' Martin, 1986 191.

This man was a bachelor and he lived in this big residential area, and this man and

woman moved in beside him, you know, and the woman was real beautiful - she had

long blonde hair and she was built real good, and every day she'd get out and cut the

grass and all, in short shorts and tight pants and everything.

Now the man, he said, "I just got to have a little bit of that". So finally one day he got

the nerve to go over there and ask her. And he said, "Can I have a little bit of that" and

she said, "Well, tomorrow when there ain't no body around, you come over here and

bring fifty dollars and I'll let you have it". So, the next day he went over there and took

the money and he got it, you know, and it was real good, and he goes back home.

And that night her husband come home and he says, "That man next door come over

today? " (And she says, "Oh, I'll bet he knows"). She says, "Yeah, he come". He says,

"He bring that fifty dollars?" (She says, "I know he knows now"). She says, "Yeah, he

brought it". He says, "Well, I'm just wondering, 'cause he come by my office this

morning wanting to borrow fifty dollars and he said he'll bring it back to you today"

60
APPENDIX FIVE : Meditation Text

TEXT OVER MUSIC, SHOTS 103a-114.

SOURCE: "Shree Hanuman Chaleesa - Forty Verses for Hanuman. the Breath_of

Ram", ZBS Foundation, NY, 1973.

I must advise you, that I am under curse and fifty percent of the time I am wrong, and

I don't know which fifty percent it is, so what I am telling you, maybe the wisest

thing I've ever said, or it maybe totally wrong. And that's roughly our predicament.

The words that come to me, may or may not be of use to whoever you think you

presently are.

The place I live in now must be far out. It doesn't seem that way to me, but when I

think about it from the frame work of whom I used to be when I was a psychology

professor, I think I am crazy.

And all the rest of it, all of you and the stuff and the floor and the trees, and the

automobiles and the pollution and the birds, behind all of this stuff, you try to get

high, you want to bliss out.

61
APPENDIX SIX : US Air Force Pilots' Interviews

VOICE-OVER TEXT, SHOTS 173-184c.

SOURCE: USA Air Force Archive Film, 1945.

JOURNALIST: This is Brigadier General Thomas 0' Farrel, of Albany, New York,

theatre commander of the Atomic Bomb project. Will you tell us something of the

Atomic Bomb project, GeneralO'Farrel?

AMERICAN PILOT 1: 1 know I speakfor every man and woman of the huge strong

team who worked so long and so faithfully on this great fantastic, fairy-land project

which had such a tremendousimpact on the war againstJapan.

So much credit is due to so many that it is difficult to properly portion that credit.

We have however a senseof great moral responsibility, becausethis big power has

been given to us, and we should be ever humble and grateful that it has been given to

us rather then to our enemy. And all of us who had a part in its development and in

carrying it out its use to dedicateour strength,our wealth our brains and even our very

lives to seethat it is always used for good and never for evil.

JOURNALIST: Captain Kermit K Behanof Houston,Texas,Bombardier of the great

RT, what was your most outstanding experience on this historic flight?

62
AMERICAN PILOT 2: 1 suppose it was when the cloud opened up over the target

and Nagasaki, and the target was pretty as a picture I made the run, let the bomb go,

that was my greatest thrill.

63
APPENDIX SEVEN :A Personal Story

VOICE-OVER TEXT, SHOTS 251c-279d.

A PERSONAL STORY.

A late afternoon in the Bulgarian city of Varna, a side street near the main square of the

city. A small travel agency sells bus tickets to Istanbul. A cheap ticket, no doubt.

The other route to take will be to travel all the way to Sofia and take a train from there

to Istanbul. Too long and too expensive.

The journey has started on the train from Victoria's International platform, sitting

down on my small sleeping bag holding a copy of The Brave Soldier Schweik.

Schweik describes his travels to the Russian front via Hungary and Romania. I

needed a guide for my summer travels so I decided used him. I always loved the old

soldier. I had to leave Schweik at Sulina on the Black Sea as he continued toward

Odessa and there was no way I could go there. I have arranged with Elena that we'll

meet on the last Friday of August , at six p.m. at the Istanbul's Hilton. Good old

Hilton chain. For years it has been our meetingpoint any where in Europe. Elena

said she might be in Istanbul that month so it would be a good ending for my summer

travels.

64
From Sulina to Istanbul it is a straight line on the map. Just continue along the shores

of the Black Sea. Disgusted by Chaizscesko's Romania I left it earlier and walked

acrossthe border into Bulgaria to the annoyanceof the Rumanian border guards who

were disturbed by the lone walker who crossedthe border on foot. I slept the last

night on the floor at the train station hungry and cold and could not find a coffee or
,

bread in the village. So I started to walk to the border post. Bulgaria was not much

better but at least there was some food. Kebab and beer three times a day. After

Romania, every thing tasted delicious. It was near the end of August and I have

travelled enough and Varna was nothing special. So I decided to take the shortest

route to Istanbul.

I bought the bus ticket and was told to be at four p. m. around the corner to board a

Turkish bus. Few Turks were busy loading the bus. Huge roles of material were

stored underneaththe body of the bus. We boarded the bus- myself and a group of

twenty Saudi students dressed immaculately in traditional white long gowns. The bus

was filled immediately with Turkish music played loud on the radio. The Saudis

didn't like it, to say the least. It was not their type of music. One of them stood up

and walked toward the driver with a cassettein his hand, asking if he wouldn't mind

playing their music: Um Kulthum. It is my favourite music too, especially on those

long busjourneys at night. It was not the Turkish driver's, though. He flatly rejected

65
the request. As the Saudi turned back to go back to his seat his friends shouted to

him: Pay him! Pay him! That Turkish driver discovered a gold mine that night. For

each Um Kulthum tape he received a$ 20 bill.

After few hours we stopped on the in

way a small Bulgarian village for some petrol

and a short run to the toilet. I got back from the toilet to find the Saudis arguing with

the owner of the petrol station. He was extremely sorry but there were no toilets in

the station. "What do you mean - no toilet" I said, "I have just been to one". He

looked side ways and whispered to me "but those Arabs are,so dirty"

He got paid $50 for each student visiting his filthy toilet. I thought the Saudis were

the new Americans arriving to Europe after the war with their pockets stuffed with

dollar bills.

We arrived at the border. On the Turkish side, all became clear few hours later.

Suddenly, the bus went off the main road and entered a small village. In no time a

group of women came out from the houses and were helping the drivers to unload the

bus. From underneath the body of the bus came huge rolls of first class Chinese silk

and from under the bus seats came sacks full of bank notes. No wonder the bus

tickets were so cheap.

The Saudis were relieved to be back in Istanbul. They complained bitterly about

66
Varna and although they went there initially to look for the blonde women they felt

back at home and much happier in Istanbul.

I went to the Hilton once, at six p.m. on the last Friday of the month. I saw them at a

distancesitting at the bar. I moved away and waited another half an hour hidden

behind the newspapers stand.

Elena didn't arrive.

I went back to my youth hostel.

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APPENDIX EIGHT : Italian Song Text

TEXT OF AN ITALIAN SONG, SHOTS 287-303.

SOURCE: "Addio a Napoli / Ma Come Fanno I Marinari", Dalla and De Gregori,

Rome: RCA, 1979.

Goodbye my beautiful Naples,

Goodbye...

Goodbye my beautiful Naples,

Goodbye. I'll never forget you...

Where do the sailors go

in their white coats

looking for a brawl or bazaar?

Where do the sailorsgo

with their tired faces

looking for a girl to kiss?

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What do the sailors do

when they arrive in a port?

They go and find love

inside the bar

Some are alive, fortunately,

one or two are dead.

There's a widow we have to

go and visit.

How do the sailors manage

to recognise the stars.

Always the same,at the equator

or at the North Pole?

How do the sailors manage

to kiss and embrace each other

and yet still remain real men?

69
Around the world without love

like a postal package,

with no-one to ask them

'how are things? '

Their heart given to a woman

a woman without a heart'.

I wonder if they ever think of us?

I wonder...

But where do the sailors go

rascals, taking chances,

with life in their trousers

destiny between their teeth

Beneath the prostitute moon

and the smiling sky?

Where do the sailors go

with boredom that kills them

70
asleep on a bridge

deep down, reluctantly

They dreamof coming home,

tired of this drudgery?

Tired of life

a life full of mosquitoes

What do they careabout

in the middle of the sea

on this never ending course

between Genova and New York?

How do the sailors manage

to do without people

and yet still remain real men?

Around the world without love

like a postal package

71
with no one to ask them

'how are things? '

Their heart given to a woman

a woman without a heart

I wonder if they ever think

about it...?

I wonder...

72
APPENDIX NINE : List of the Film's Cinema Screening

LIST OF CINEMA SCREENINGS OF THE FILM

'THE MAN WHO COULDN'T FEEL' AND OTHER TALES

1. Rotterdam International Film Festival, Holland 4/1 '97

-

2. Berlin Film Festival, Germany 11/2. 21/2 `97

- -

3. San Francisco International Film Festival, USA 24/4- 8/5 `97

-

4. linage Forum, Tokyo, Japan - 26/4- 5/5 `97

5. Marseilles Documentary Festival, France - 16/6- 21/6 `97

6. Barcelona, Sonar Electronic Music Festival, Spain 12/6- 14/6 `97

-

7. Jerusalem International Film Festival, Israel 10/7- 19/7 `97

-

8. New Zealand International Film Festival 11/7- 26/7 `97

-

9. Brisbane International Film Festival, Australia Aug. `97

-

10. Sheffield DocumentaryFilm Festival, UK 13/10- 19/10 `97

-

11. Museum of Modern Art, New York, USA 15/12 `97

-

11. Harn Museum of Art, Florida, USA 31/3 `98

-

12. Imagesinternational Film Festival, Toronto, Canada 23/4- 2/5 `98

-

13. Zone Media Festival, Maidstone, Kent 7/11 '98

-

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In archive collections-

1. The German Cinematheque, Berlin, Germany.

2. Brown University, Providence,RI, USA.

3. Image Forum, Tokyo, Japan.

4. University of Florida, USA.

74