Review: [untitled]

Author(s): Jonathan Rosenbaum

Reviewed work(s):
Cinema and Language by Stephen Heath ; Patricia Mellencamp
Source: Film Quarterly, Vol. 38, No. 1 (Autumn, 1984), pp. 52-53
Published by: University of California Press
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1211885
Accessed: 10/01/2010 14:55

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the unchannelledenergy of the pulsion finds spaces are those of nightclubsor circusesor
a socially acceptable form; for example, cinemasor otherspots of entertainment).
Fuller'sprimitivesoften find a belief to weld L'Image-Mouvement is filled with myriad
theirrawenergyto. thoughtsabout film rangingfrom broadphil-
Deleuze opens with the declaration that osophicreflectionto close analysis(for exam-
L'Image is not a history, but a first attempt ple, a discussionof shadowandlightin specific
at a taxonomy of film-one whose study of filmsof Von Sternberg)to randommeditation
movementhe promisesto follow witha second (for example, an intriguingcommentaryon
volume on time. And yet, a subtle historical Method Acting and the Actor's Studio). The
argumentdoes underlie Deleuze's classifica- book is a virtuosoperformance,especiallyfor
tion. Althoughhe arguesno necessaryhistori- people outside the disciplineof film studies,
cal relationshipbetweenthe four centralclasses but that veryvirtuositymay well be the source
of image-movement,his book ends with a dis- of the majorreservationI haveaboutL'Image-
cussion on the "crisis of the image-action" Mouvement:it tries to do too much in too
in which he treats the postwar break-upof short a space. Frequently, one wishes that
realist narrative in American, Italian, and Deleuze would slow down and explain why
Germancinema. Wherethe image-actionde- he's bringingin a certainargument;although
pendsupon a preciseestablishmentof protag- theoretical,the book lacks an explicit meta-
onists in their situating environmentand so theoreticalanalysisof its goals, its methods,
offers the spectacleof a certainrealism,post- its desires. For example, Deleuze announces
war developments create an anti-narrative that he has little interest in psychoanalytic
cinemain whichsituationbecomesinessential. or linguistic(i.e., Metzian)approachesto film
Deleuzeisolates five qualitiesof this new his- but, exceptfor a few throwawaycriticismsof
toricalpossibility:the dispersionof real space the ways these approachesseem to him to
into a non- or fragmentedspace(as in Altman reduce and distort their objects of analysis,
where multipleactions break up the unity of he provides no extendedjustification of his
dramaticspace); the weakeningof dramatic disavowal;to be sure, some of the justifica-
logic (as in Cassavetes);an increasedemphasis tion derivesfrom the argumentof Anti-Oedi-
on wanderingand a motion that arrivesno- pus but since psychoanalysisand semiotics
where(as in Easy Rideror Lumet'simagesof may be the dominantmethods in film study
continuouscomings-and-goingsin a film like today, it would have been interesting for
Dog Day Afternoon); the recognition that in Deleuze to turn his mere assertions about
a worldof non-actionand of the lack of indi- thesemethodsinto articulatedarguments.
vidual initiativethe only centerof power lies And yet, any criticismsmust be relativein
not in individualsbut in the proliferationof light of the extremehistoricalimportanceof
media signals, cliches from on high (as in the book (althoughone can hope that Deleuze
King of Comedy or Nashville or Network); might make his theoreticalinvestmentmore
and a paranoid fascination with notions of explicit in volume 2). The appearance of
conspiracy(as in Lumet'sNetwork,Anderson L'Image-mouvement is an exciting event for
Tapes, and Prince of the City). Thus, in a few film study and one that well deservesserious
pages, Deleuze presents a panorama of the attentionand commentary.
new form of energyin the new Americanfea- -DANA POLAN
turefilm. Butperhapsevenmoresuggestively,
he goes on to examine Italian neorealismin
the same light and finds in that cinemanot a CINEMA ANDLANGUAGE
naturalismor a realismbut a kind of modern-
ist anti-realismin which space has no real Editedby StephenHeathand PatriciaMellencamp.Frederick,MD:
Publications
of America,1983. (American
existence(as he notes, the frequentimage of University Series,Volume
Monograph
FilmInstitute
1.) $25.00cloth,$10.00paper.
rain in Italian films works to render space
insubstantial);in which individualagency or As someone who attendedthe "Cinemaand
projects have no force; in which the guiding Language" conference held at Milwaukee's
light in peoples'slives is not theirown will but Centerfor TwentiethCenturyStudiesin 1979,
a will imposed by media and mass culture I recallit as a livelyeventthatwas
intellectually
(hence, in Fellini, the most clearly defined a good deal more scatteredthan the Milwau-
52
 kee conference devoted to "The Cinematic
Apparatus"the previousyear. In contrastto
the smaller numberof participants,UN-like
seatingarrangementand greaterconcentration
of the earlierconference, "Cinemaand Lan-
guage" was ultimatelysomethingcloser to an
internationaltrade fair in academic theory,
with an alluring sidebar of films and film-
makers(rangingfrom Akerman,Benningand
Burch to Gordon, LeGrice and Mangolte)
whichwerethemselvestoo scatteredto mingle
verymuchwith the theoreticaldebatesor with
eachother.
The first volume in the AFI's invaluable
monograph series devoted to media theory
conferences-produced, like the others,
thanksto the admirabletenacityof Ann Mar-
tin priorto herdeparturefrom the AFI's Edu-
cation Services-is, as co-editors Stephen
Heath and PatriciaMellencamppoint out in
their brief preface, only "one record" of the
conferencethey co-directed.(Oddly enough,
the same prefaceneglectsto mentionthe one
film shown-Noel Burch'sCorrectionPlease,
or How We Got into Pictures-which con-
ceivablyhad the most to do with the confer-
ence's statedtopic.) But if this recordremains
necessarilypartial,it is neverthelessquite use-
ful for what it does offer. While three of the
papers-by StephenHeath ("Language,Sight
and Sound"), DudleyAndrew("The Primacy
of the Figurein CinematicSignification")and
Paul Willemen ("Cinematic Discourse: The
Problem of Inner Speech")-have already
been publishedelsewhere,there are ten more
appearinghere for the first time, all of them
of interest:studies of spectatorialplacement
by MaryAnn Doane and MalcolmLe Grice,
a theoreticalfeminist overviewby Teresa de
Lauretis("Froma Dreamof Woman"), Mel-
lencampon "Jokes and TheirRelationto the
Marx Brothers," Philip Rosen on "Subject
Formation and Social Formation," three
paperson Japanesecinema (by Burch, David
Bordwelland Don Kirihara)and two on Un
Chien andalou (by Laura Oswald and Linda
Williams,who engagein a debateon theirdif-
ferences). Of particularinterestis Kirihara's
"Kabuki, Cinema and Mizoguchi Kenji," a
fascinatingstudy of the stylisticbracketingof
kabukiin The Story of the Last Chrysanthe-
mums (1939), perhapsthe most neglectedof
Mizoguchi'smasterpieces.
-JONATHAN ROSENBAUM
THE
SUBJECT
OFSEMIOTICS
NewYork:Oxford,
ByKajaSilverman. 1983.$35.00.
"Semiotics":the term has wreakedhavoc at
film conferences, university campuses, and
publishinghouses acrossthe country.Its very
elusiveness-is it a mode of inquiry, a disci-
pline, a theory?-has made it the object of
much energeticdebate. Some people are un-
abashedlymessianicabout its methodological
possibilities.Still others know that they must
come to terms with it, but find themselves
dragged kicking and screamingthrough the
tortuous (not to say torturous)defiles of the
signifier.And thereare those who have made
a virtue of an adversaryposition, producing
counter-discourseslike rabbits out of a hat.
If only someone would write a book that ap-
proachedthe materialwith clarity,grace, and
precisionof thought, a book whose serious-
ness and subtlety of analysis would provide
an accessibleexplicationof the terminology,
a lucid illustrationof its procedures,and a
critical assessmentof its usefulness! In The
Subjectof SemioticsKajaSilvermanhas given
us just that.
Silvermanoffers her work as a supplemen-
tary or explanatorytext to the currentpost-
structuralistdebates within the discoursesof
anthropology,linguistics,literatureand film.
The prefatory quote (from Benveniste)situ-
ates this work withinlanguagefrom the start:
"It is in and throughlanguagethat man con-
stitutes himself as a subject . .. 'Ego' is he
who says 'ego'." Thus Silvermaninitiatesher
task by attestingto the inextricabilityof the
twin enterprises(psychoanalysis-the science
of the unconscious,and semiotics-the science
of meaning)which govern the book. But far
from being a simple primer,the book is rich
with imaginativeinsights and illustrativeex-
amplesfrom film and literature,for it is Silver-
man's purpose to constantly articulate the
reciprocalrelationsbetweentexts and theory.
Perhaps most important, though, in distin-
guishingthis book from otherswhichhave set
themselves a similar project, is Silverman's
emphaticreferenceto the question of sexual
differenceas a constitutiveorganizingprinci-
ple in all of significationand sociality. Thus
while she lucidly explicatesFreudand Lacan
(amongothers),she does so froma perspective
which acknowledgesboth the centrality of
paternalvalues in the currentculturalorder
53