Wavelength is a very difficult movie to watch. The reason for this goes beyond the baseline criticism that the film is boring, as it is more accurate to say that Wavelength is unsatisfying. Jean-Louis Baudry discusses the cinematographic effects of the apparatus in relation to dream-states and the fulfilment of the spectators desire for knowledge, and Christian Metz builds on these concepts by addressing how the spectator is able to engage with the screen through the satisfaction of her desires. These engagements between the spectator and the apparatus (the camera, the projector, etc.) form an invisible process that seems entirely natural to the viewer, however in order to understand these processes it is best to engage with the facets of the apparatus which do not succeed at engaging the spectator, such as selective perspective and zooms (Baudry 357, 360). The cameras unique abilities of selective perspective and the zoom reveal the cinemas conditioning of the subject, or spectator, within the dominant ideology, which is made possible by the womb/dream-like environment of the movie theatre; the atmosphere of the theatre promotes ideological posturing because it allows for the viewer to become a transcendental subject and causes them to enter a neo-mirror-stage. Baudry and The Apparatus Before fully engaging with Baudrys work, it is important that we understand what he defines as “the apparatus.” The apparatus refers to the actual technology required to make and exhibit films, which includes the camera and projector, as well as film stock, the theatre screen, and most other material things that are involved in film capturing and exhibition (Baudry 356). In “Ideological Effects of the Basic Cinematographic Apparatus” he says that the scientific base of cinemas technology gives it an aura of neutrality that allows the apparatus to be excused from ideological questioning (355). The technology is however a facilitating instrument which is inherently necessary to getting the real-life scene onto film, where the camera turns into a series of still photographs, and then turns the still photographs back into motion on a theatre screen through the projector (Baudry 356). Baudry refers to this process, which is specific to cinema, as work, or a process of transformation (356). The important thing about this transformation is that it is concealed by the technology, and the spectator-subject only perceives the moving film that reproduces the original scene. Baudry discusses whether the cinematographic apparatus is accompanied by ideological surplus value, and since the technology conceals, it causes the instruments to produce a specific ideological effect (357). Assuming that the apparatus does produce specific ideological effects, then it is also important to consider that the spectator subject, with her own subjective perspective, is also an integral part of the apparatus, as the cinema would not exist without her there to perceive it (Baudry 360-1). The Apparatus and The Spectator Baudry states that the spectator is the centre and origin of all meaning, as they are perceiving the reproductions in the film through their own existential perspective, which gives meaning to what they are perceiving (360-2). Baudry states that “to seize movement is to become movement, to follow a trajectory is to become trajectory, to choose a direction is to have the possibility of choosing one, to determine meaning is to give oneself meaning” (360). The spectator of the film, or “eye subject,” becomes absorbed by the movements of the camera apparatus relative to the movements which she can perform, meaning that the spectator can become the movement that she is watching because the camera represents a subjective experience which she can relate to (Baudry 360). Thus, the mobility of the camera, the fact that unlike the spectator it does not have a body, means that the favourable condition of the unrestrained camera-eye manifests itself in the “transcendental spectator”(Baudry 360). This “transcendental spectator” then becomes the source of all meaning in the frame, as “the image will always be an image of something” and the perception of that something comes from a deliberate act of consciousness on the part of the subject in the theatre (Baudry 360). However, the camera as an apparatus sees differently than the subject, even though it is merging with the subject to become a part of the larger cinematographic apparatus. The camera has monocular vision and the depth of field provided by different lenses is different than the human eye can see (Baudry 357). For example, the shallow depth of field provided by a 100mm T1.4 lens, which contracts the depth between objects and flattens the planes of perspective in the image, creates an effect which the human eye cannot duplicate. The plane which is in focus, in this example, is the optical construct that metonymically asserts the frames ideal vision “by the displacement that it seems to carry out; a subject is both in place of and a part of the whole” (Baudry 358). So, although the spectator feels as though they are the autonomous origin of meaning, the camera is actually fixed to a specific point of reference and guides the subject to look and perceive in a certain way. Baudry states that the camera “lays out the space of an ideal vision and in a way assures the necessity of transcendence” (358). This means that the spectators perception and understanding of the frame is dependant on where the camera is positioned and the “hallucinatory reality it creates” (Baudry 358). An example of how the placement of the camera and the perspective created through the apparatus guides the spectator to engage with a certain meaning within the frame is Peter Greenaways film, The Draughtsmans Contract, which uses forced perspective and depth of field to challenge the spectators engagement with the frame. The Spectator and The Draughtsmans Contract In this frame taken from The Draughtsmans Contract (Figure 1.1) you can see this concept of ideal vision in how the camera is guiding the subject to examine the environment in a certain way. Although there is deep focus within the frame that could allow the subjects eyes to drift anywhere (since every object in the frame is in focus), Greenaway balances the frame with strong lines of force that force the subject to look narrowly down the centre of the frame. The lines of force created by the draughtsmans drawing board guide the viewer to look into the frame-within-a-frame, which restricts the spectators view of the scene by ensuring that they submit to Greenaways ideal vision. Greenaways film complicates the usage of ideal vision, as instead of guiding the viewer towards relevant story information, Greenaway uses restrictive perspective to ensure that the spectator ignores the woman placing the shirt in the hedge (which is relevant information towards solving the mystery plot of the film). By challenging the spectators relationship with the apparatus by making the ideal vision wrong, Greenaways film is considering the authenticity of the spectators transcendence and agency, as the apparatus is not giving them the true means of perception (meaning that the apparatus is not forcing the spectator to look in the right place). Greenaway also forces the audience to consider whether Greenaway himself has agency over the film, which is best represented by the dinner table scene. The first shot of this scene shows a conversation taking place at a dinner table, shot in a medium-size tracking shot that reveals just enough information to satisfy what the audience needs to know within the scene. However, the following shot disrupts this ideal position by reframing the scene from a wider angle, revealing that the dinner takes place outside; this added information at first satisfies the transcendental subjects desire for knowledge, as they now know more than they need to know about the scene, but Greenaway complicates this framing further by having a dark statue-like character appear on the corner of the frame, without any narrative context. This figure complicates the spectators satisfaction as a transcendental subject, as well as Greenaways agency as the director, because the spectator is no longer concerned with the dinner scene, since she already has all the information she needs to know about that, and is instead now trying to comprehend the importance of this new narrative information; the audience questions Greenaways authority because the camera-eye is no longer perceiving for them in the right way, as it is ignoring the new information that their transcendental existence desires. The Cinema as Dream-Space Before we can go further with the concept of this transcendental subject and her desires, Baudrys relationship between the movie theatre and Platos cave must be addressed. In “The Apparatus: Metapsychological Approaches to the Impression of Reality in Cinema,” Baudry compares the cinema with Platos allegory of the cave in order to examine cinemas ontology as an impression of reality (206). The similarities between Platos cave and the movie theatre are both physical and semantic; both have their operators above and behind the subject (so as not to cast the subjects own shadow on the screen and break the illusion), both images are not actually the real things that they are supposed to be portraying, both involve the subject as being forcibly immobile, and both have their apparatus creating an illusion that is not so distant from the intelligibly real, since the existence of the apparatus itself confirms the existence of an external world (Baudry 208-11). Baudry suggests that the similarities between these two spaces (they both concern spectators presented with an impression of reality in similar ways) is haunting in that it suggests that the desires present in the cinema have existed long before its existence, and that the fascination with the images on the screen is related to the “reproduction and repetition of a particular condition and the representation of a particular place on which this condition depends” (Baudry 212-3). For Baudry, this particular place is the womb, which is represented by the “sort of cavernous chamber underground” that is present in Platos allegory, as well as the dark cave-like environment of the cinema (212). Freud writes, “from a somatic viewpoint is a reviviscence of ones stay in the body of the mother, certain conditions of which it recreates: the rest position, warmth, and isolation which protects him from excitement” (Baudry 215). Baudry says that these womb-like environments make possible the first form or regression, that of temporal regression, meaning that the subject regresses to a state of hallucinatory satisfaction of desires and primitive narcissism; “the person who plays the main part in the dream scenes is always the dreamer himself... and the dream wish is turned into a dream fantasy as the dreamer fulfills his desires” (Baudry 215). Freud considers dreams to be a projection of the fulfillment of these desires, and “in the context in which [Freud] uses the word, projection evokes at once the analytic use of the defence mechanism which consists in referring and attributing to the exterior representations and affects which the subject refuses to acknowledge as his own, and it also evokes a distinctly cinematographic use since it involves images which, once projected, come back to the subject as a reality perceived from the outside”; like projection in a dream, cinematic projection acts as a mechanism for providing the subject with the satisfaction of her desires (Baudry 216). In his essay, “Immersion Cinema: The Rationalization and Reenchantment of Cinematic Space,” sociologist Tim Recuber explains this comparison between the dream-state and the movie screen: “Both Metz’s and Baudry’s accounts of the cinema rely on the spectator’s inability to test cinema’s images and sounds—his distance from the screen, his silence, and his immobility—to explain the perceptual illusion characteristic of narrative cinema. Reality must be felt or tested out to tell the difference between what we perceive and what we imagine. Because the spectator cannot perform these tests while viewing a film, he reverts to a more childlike state simultaneously accepting that what he sees is real and abandoning secondary processes such as attention, judgment, and reasoning for a more primal set of urges and desires.” (322) Recuber engages the cinema screen, the dream state, and Platos cave all as one general environment; all deal with the subject being within a space that they cannot prove to be real because they are restrained, whether that be by shackles or the quiet environment of a movie theatre. The concept of “testing” present in all three spaces is the limiting of the the subjects interaction with the impression of reality, as the the subject is not able to “test” her environment and regresses to a childlike state in which she does not challenge the reality before her. However, Baudry reasons that the cinema is only able to create a state of artificial regression because the viewer always has the choice to “close his eyes” and abandon the spectacle, even though the subjects interaction with the way the images are displayed to him is incredibly similar to that of the dreamer when he engages with the cinematic spectacle (Baudry 220). Baudry states that “the cinematographic apparatus offers the subject perceptions of a reality whose status seems similar to that of representations experienced as perception,” and that, “unlike a dream, in cinema the subject doesnt have any control over their experience” (220). So unlike a dream, in cinema the subject desires to return to a state in which representation and perception were not differentiated, a “desire to return to that state along with the kind of satisfaction associated to it”; the spectator is activated by the cinematographic apparatus into a state in which they desire for desire (Baudry 220). The Transcendental Subject and The Neo-Mirror-Stage Christian Metz further developed Baudrys theories as he discusses the “transcendental subject” in “Identification, Mirror.” Metz declares that cinema is imaginary from the start, since it always includes the absence of the real things which it portrays, it is merely a reproduction (820-2). Since the only space which exists in the cinema is what is appearing on-screen (which was captured by the camera and is now projected by the projector), the subject who views the film is an all-perceiving presence; “they are there to look at the screen” (Metz 822). Metz discusses the relationship between the act of watching a movie and the subjects knowledge: “In the cinema the subjects knowledge takes a very precise form without which no film would be possible. This knowledge is dual (but unique). I know I am perceiving something imaginary (and that is why its absurdities, even if they are extreme, do not seriously disturb me), and I know that it is I who am perceiving it. This second knowledge divides in turn: I know that I am really perceiving, that my sense organs are physically affected, that I am not phantasizing, that the fourth wall of the auditorium (the screen) is really different from the other three, that there is a projector facing it (and thus it is not I who am projecting, or at least not all alone), and I also know that it is I who am perceiving all this, this this perceived-imaginary material is deposited in me as if on a second screen, that it is in me that it forms up into an organized sequence, that therefore I am myself the place where this really perceived-imaginary accedes to the symbolic by its inauguration as the signifier of a certain type of institutionalized social activity called the cinema.” (823) The subjects knowledge provides a dual function, as the subject knows that they are perceiving something imaginary, and know that it is them that are perceiving it, and also that they are not projecting it, meaning that they are not the only ones perceiving it. Metz states that the spectator is then identifying with himself, as a pure act of perception; the subjects experience comes before every “there is” (823). It is thus the viewer that makes the film, since the film cannot exist without her there to perceive it, making her the all-important, all-perceiving transcendental subject. As a subject within the apparatus, connected to it, the spectator is then simultaneously receiving and releasing information as she watches and interprets the film that is playing before her, as the images do not have meaning until they are perceived in this manner (823-4). The question then is: how does the subject transcend to this point? Metz provides the answer to this question, it being the subjects identification with the cinema-screen based on Lacans mirror-stage. The Lacanian mirror-stage is, simply put, when a baby looks into a mirror and identifies her subject because of its close relation to a familiar object, such as her mother, which then causes for the creation of her ego as she confirms her existence (Metz 822). However, Metz is hesitant to consider the cinematic apparatus as a mirror because it lacks the most important part of the mirror stage – the subject, the baby, that looks upon herself (822). There is always an object in the cinema, since there is always “something on the screen” to look at, but the reflection of the subjects own body has disappeared, and is not recreated in the apparatus (822). Metz proposes that what makes possible the spectators absence from the screen is that since she has already experienced the mirror-stage, she can accept the existence of the objects in the cinema screen because she already knows that she herself exists (822). What makes the cinematographic apparatus important in its comparison to the mirror-stage then, is that the subject, although not in the mirror, is still like a child again, since they are prey to the imaginary images on-screen—the relationship between apparatus and subject is like a neo-mirror-stage (Baudry 220; Recuber 322). Desire and Nonfulfilment The viewer, as an all-perceiving transcendental subject and as a child looking at the subject-less mirror-screen, becomes one with the camera in the apparatus as the camera is stationing her through its framing so that she may only look in the place that the camera looks (Metz 824). The typical movements of the camera, such as tilts and pans and tracking shots, mimic typical movements which the viewer accepts as natural (the pan is the same as turning ones head) (Metz 824). This is the ideological condition of the apparatus, as the viewer is wholly identifying with the perspective of the camera, and is thus seamlessly identifying with the ideology which the apparatus promotes (Metz 825). However, to make this point as clear as possible, it is best to use examples of unordinary camera movements, which themselves point out “the authors viewpoint” (Metz 826). An ordinary framing is a non-framing, as the subject is not consciously aware that it is in fact originally the artists viewpoint, however the uncommon angle shocks the viewer and stops them from wandering subjectively over the frame (Metz 825-6). Metz says of the uncommon angle, “Thus for a moment I became directly aware of the emplacement of my own presence-absence in the film simply because it has changed” (826). For example, in the shot from The Draughtsmans Contract the film maker is directly forcing the spectator to become aware of her “presence-absence”, or her perception without reflection, by making her look in a certain way, a way which is different than she is accustomed to (Metz 826). Furthermore, Metz says that “everything out of frame brings us closer to the spectator”; for example, when a character addresses someone off-screen, that off-screen person is in the same non-reflected space as the spectator-subject (826). In regards to this concept, Metz writes that “this invisible character, supposed (like the spectator) to be seeing, will collide obliquely with the [spectators] look and play the part of the obligatory intermediary. By offering himself as a crossing for the spectator, he inflects the circuit followed by the sequence of the identifications and it is only in this sense that he is himself seen: as we see through him, we see ourselves not seeing him” (826). The spectator identifies with the frame through this invisible character, as this character becomes a substitution for her own presence in the film. This process works towards the prime voyeuristic desire of the subject, which is to shorten the distance between himself and the cinematic object (Metz 828-30). Metz addresses scopophilic cinephilia as the fetishistic desire to connect with what is happening on-screen so that the spectator can satisfy his desire as a voyeur, and the invisible techniques that permit the viewer to enter that mirror-frame while still being disconnected from it are what allows for the fulfilment and satisfaction of those desires (829-31). So, why is Wavelength so difficult to watch? The Zoom and Other Denials of Satisfaction Wavelength is almost entirely unwatchable (and “painful to minds attuned to Hollywood”) because it employs techniques which constantly disrupt the spectators satisfaction, rendering such satisfaction impossible (Vogel 97). In Wavelength, the camera is placed above and behind the subject, capturing its images from the same position that a projector would be situated in a movie theatre. This camera placement is detached from the action (if one can even call the four minutes that characters appear “action”), and its fixed position prevents the spectator from fulfilling their desire for more knowledge—they are bound, like the subjects in Platos cave, so that they may only look straight ahead at a single image. Furthermore, the zoom itself is a denial of satisfaction, since it involves the taking-away of information, which is an almost comical insult to the transcendental subject. The act of zooming itself is also unnatural, as the human eye cannot zoom in, and since Wavelength is comprised of one long zoom, this technique immediately rejects the subjects identification with the camera; thus, the subject is always aware that they are perceiving objects that are being presented without the subjects own mirror image (Metz 826). Michael Snow states that “the oscillator sine wave in Wavelength is the sound equivalent of the zoom,” both of which are the primary sources of discomfort for the spectator and work towards rejecting the subjects identification with the film (Yalkut 51). The sequence in Wavelength that depicts the woman finding the dead body (Figure 1.2) contains an even stronger level of nonfulfilment, since the character action is occurring off-screen, with no subject in the frame, making it impossible for Metzs invisible character connection to take place (Yalkut 52). The connection cannot occur because, although there is a figure in the non-reflected space outside of the frame for the spectator to provide substitution, there is no other character on-screen to address the existence of that character (and therefore, the existence of the spectator-subject). Without this connection, the spectator is fully aware that he is watching a film and is unable to fulfill the voyeuristic desires which form the basis for why he watches films in the first place (Metz 835-6). To borrow language from Metz, Wavelength is a “kind of permanent undressing, a generalized striptease, a less direct but more perfected striptease, since it removes from view what it has previously shown,” taking away everything that the viewer desires to see, even when that element is something as simple as its four-minutes of narrative (836). Most films provide nonfulfilment as a means towards getting the viewer to subconsciously guess at the unknown knowns of a scene, usually to build suspense or atmosphere, but in Wavelength, the boundary that bars the look and the desire is designed to aggravate and ensure that there is no satisfaction (Metz 836). Thus, Wavelength becomes an example of how ideological conditioning occurs through the apparatus due to a variety of factors concerning the theatre-space and the spectator-subject; Wavelength completely rejects the invisible techniques of the apparatus to highlight how the cinema is able to deceive the spectator because he feels that he is above deception, because he knows that he perceives it as fantasy, and then lets his guard down. However, since it reveals the ideological conditioning of the apparatus by stripping the film of enjoyable identification, watching Wavelength becomes a difficult and uncomfortable experience. https://youtube/watch?v=aBOzOVLxbCE
Posted on: Wed, 05 Nov 2014 22:38:13 +0000
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