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Ideological Effects of the Basic Cinematographic Apparatus

Author(s): Jean-Louis Baudry and Alan Williams


Source: Film Quarterly, Vol. 28, No. 2, (Winter, 1974-1975), pp. 39-47
Published by: University of California Press
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1211632
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IDEOLOGICAL
IDEOLOGICALtEtLuSS
-FtEqLI 39
39

me that at the end of the original Out One she is killed typical romantic melodrama of the forties which I hap-
-which may or may not suggest that her condition was pened to see shortly after Celine and Julie, there is a
terminal. sequence of flashbacks to accompany George Brent's
4. A notable technical achievement, since the film was reading of a diary. Then the phone rings, and he re-
shot in 16mm and blown up to 35. turns to his surroundings with a start. "I was living in
5. Or, to put it another way, a straight cut in a "normal" that diary," he says. Filmically, this is exactly the same
film may imply as wild a transition as anything in process by which Celine and Julie find themselves living
Rivette. In Jacques Tourneur's Experiment Perilous, a in the house.

JEAN-LOUIS BAUDRY

Ideological Effects of the Basic


Cinematographic Apparatus'
The debate over cinema and ideology let loose by the spectacular political
events in France of May 1968 has transformed Cahiers du Cinema and
much of French film thought. Baudry's article, which appeared in
1970 in Cinethique (No. 7-8; translated by permission) is characteristic
of the attempts that have been made to criticize the ideological
underpinnings of previous film thought, and to ground new work in
a more self-conscious and self-critical set of assumptions. This
questioning mode of thought turns from what it considers outmoded idealist
of phenomenological doctrines toward the type of radical psychoanalytic
thinking done by Lacan and toward an explicit sociopolitical analysis
of the film-making and film-viewing process.
Baudry's article covers a broad range,
and at times his points are made in an allusive or even elusive way.
Certain key terms and usages have been glossed in the notes.
A few irreducible obscurities remain, which the French postal strike
has prevented us from clarifying. The article is presented here as
a central document in the recent evolution of French film thought.

At the end of The Interpretation of Dreams, does not seem to hold strongly to this optical
when he seeks to integrate dream elaboration model, which, as Derrida has pointed out,2
and its particular "economy" with the psyche as brings out the shortcoming in graphic repre-
a whole, Freud assigns to the latter an optical sentation in the area earlier covered by his work
model: "Let us simply imagine the instrument on dreams. Moreover, he will later abandon the
which serves in psychic productions as a sort of optical model in favor of a writing instrument,
complicated microscope or camera." But Freud the "mystic writing pad." Nonetheless this op-
Il
An II:U LUUI%.AL cFFECrr

tical choice seems to prolong the tradition of have been ignored, however. They have been
Western science, whose birth coincides exactly protected by the inviolability that science is sup-
with the development of the optical apparatus posed to provide. We would like to establish
which will have as a consequence the decenter- for the cinema a few guidelines which will need
ing of the human universe, the end of geo- to be completed, verified, improved.
centrism (Galileo). We must first establish the place of the in-
But also, and paradoxically, the optical appa- strumental base in the set of operations which
ratus camera obscura will serve in the same combine in the production of a film (we omit
period to elaborate in pictorial work a new mode consideration of economic implications). Be-
of representation, perspectiva artificalis. This tween "objective reality" and the camera, site
system, a recentering or at least a displacement of the inscription, and between the inscription
of the center (which settles itself in the eye), and projection are situated certain operations,
will assure the setting up of the "subject"* as a work3 which has as its result a finished product.
the active center and origin of meaning. One To the extent that it is cut off from the raw
could doubtless question the privileged position material ("objective reality") this product does
which optical instruments seem to occupy on not allow us to see the transformation which has
the line of intersection of science and ideological taken place. Equally distant from "objective
products. Does the technical nature of optical reality" and the finished product, the camera
instruments, directly attached to scientific prac- occupies an intermediate position in the work
tice, serve to conceal not only their use in ideo- process which leads from raw material to fin-
logical products but also the ideological effects ished product. Though mutually dependent from
which they may provoke themselves? Their sci- other points of view, decoupage [shot break-
entific base assures them a sort of neutrality and down before shooting] and montage [editing, or
avoids their being questioned. final assembly] must be distinguished because
of the essential difference in the signifying raw
But already a question: if we are to take material on which each operates: language
account of the imperfections of these instru- (scenario) or image. Between the two com-
ments, their limitations, by what criteria may plementary stages of production a mutation of
these be defined? If, for example, one can speak the signifying material takes place (neither
of a restricted depth of field as a limitation, translation nor transcription, obviously, for the
doesn't this term itself depend upon a particular image is not reducible to language) precisely
where the camera is. Finally, between the fin-
conception of reality for which such a limitation
would not exist? Signifying productions are ished product (possessing exchange value, a
particularly relevant here, to the etxent that commodity) and its consumption (use value)
instrumentation plays a more and more im- is introduced another operation effected by a
set of instruments. Projector and screen restore
portant role in them and that their distribution the light lost in the shooting process, and trans-
is more and more extensive. It is strange (but
is it so strange?) that emphasis has been placed form a succession of separate images into an
almost exclusively on their influence, on the unrolling which also restores, but according to
effects they have as finished products, their con- another scansion, the movement seized from
tent, the field of what is signified, if you like; "objective reality."
the technical bases on which these effects depend Cinematographic specificity (what distin-
and the specific characteristics of these bases guishes cinema from other systems of significa-
tion) thus refers to a work, that is, to a process
:The term "subject" is used by Baudry and others not of transformation. The question becomes, is the
to mean the topic of discourse, but rather the perceiving work made evident, does consumption of the
and ordeiring self, as in our term "subjective."-ED. product bring about a "knowledge effect"
mmm~m~ ........~ JA

- - --
IDOULUGICAL IEPClTb
1 1111 d1

[Althusser],or is the work concealed? If the means of a wide-angle or telephoto lens, is


latter,consumptionof the productwill obviously clearly marked in comparison with so-called
be accompaniedby ideological surplus value.* "normal"perspective. We will see in any case
On the practicallevel, this poses the questionof that the resultingideologicaleffectis still defined
by what procedures the work can in fact be in relation to the ideology inherent in perspec-
made "readable"in its inscription. These pro- tive. The dimensions of the image itself, the
cedures must of necessity call cinematographic ratio between height and width, seem clearly
technique into play. But, on the other hand, taken from an average drawn from Western
going back to the firstquestion,one may ask, do easelpainting.
the instruments (the technical base) produce The conceptionof space which conditionsthe
specific ideological effects, and are these effects constructionof perspectivein the Renaissance
themselves determinedby the dominant ideol- differsfrom that of the Greeks. For the latter,
ogy?In which case, concealmentof the technical space is discontinuousand heterogeneous (for
base will also bring about a specific ideological Aristotle, but also for Democritus, for whom
effect. Its inscription,its manifestationas such, space is the location of an infinityof indivisible
on the other hand, would produce a knowledge atoms), whereas with Nicholas of Cusa will be
effect, as actualizationof the work process, as born a conception of space formed by the rela-
denunciation of ideology, and as critique of tion between elements which are equally near
idealism. and distant from the "source of all life." In
addition,the pictorialconstructionof the Greeks
THEEYEOF THESUBJECT correspondedto the organizationof their stage,
Central in the process of production4of the based on a multiplicityof points of view, where-
film, the camera-an assembly of optical and as the paintingof the Renaissancewill elaborate
mechanicalinstrumentation-carries out a cer- a centered space. ("Paintingis nothing but the
tain mode of inscriptioncharacterizedby mark- intersection of the visual pyramid following a
ing, by the recordingof differencesof light in- given distance,a fixed center,and a certainlight-
tensity (and of wavelength for color) and of ing."-Alberti.) The center of this space coin-
differencesbetween the frames. Fabricatedon cides with the eye which Jean Pellerin Viator
the model of the cameraobscura,it permitsthe will so justly call the "subject." ("The principal
constructionof an image analogousto the per- point in perspective should be placed at eye
spectiveprojectionsdevelopedduringthe Italian level: this point is called fixed or subject."5)
Renaissance. Of course the use of lenses of dif- Monocularvision, which as Pleynet points out,
ferent focal lengths can alter the perspectiveof is what the camerahas, calls forth a sort of play
an image. But this much, at least, is clear in the of "reflection." Based on the principle of a
historyof cinema: it is the perspectiveconstruc- fixed point by referenceto which the visualized
tion of the Renaissancewhich originallyserved objects are organized,it specifies in return the
as model. The use of differentlenses, when not position of the "subject,"6the very spot it must
dictated by technical considerations aimed at necessarilyoccupy.
restoringthe habitualperspective(such as shoot- In focusing it, the optical construct appears
ing in limited or extended spaces which one to be truly the projection-reflectionof a "virtual
wishes to expand or contract) does not destroy image" whose hallucinatoryreality it creates.
[traditional]perspectivebut rathermakes it play It lays out the space of an ideal vision and in this
a normativerole. Departurefrom the norm, by way assuresthe necessity of a transcendence-
metaphorically (by the unknown to which it
*Althusser opposes ideology to knowledge or science. appeals-here we must recall the structural
Ideology operates by obfuscating the means by which place occupied by the vanishing point) and
it is produced. Thus an increase in ideological value is metonymically (by the displacement that it
an increase in mystification.-ED.
wip-r-r-lowre
42 IUEUJLWl AL EFFcrrc

seems to carry out: a subject is both "in place which poses a problem. The meaningeffect pro-
of" and "a part for the whole"). Contraryto duced does not dependonly on the contentof the
Chinese and Japanese painting, Western easel images but also on the materialproceduresby
painting,presentingas it does a motionless and which an illusion of continuity, dependent on
continuouswhole. elaboratesa total vision which the persistence of vision, is restored from dis-
correspondsto the idealistconceptionof the full- continuous elements. These separate frames
ness and homogeneity of "being,"7and is, so have between them differencesthat are indis-
to speak, representativeof this conception. In pensible for the creation of an illusion of con-
this sense it contributesin a singularlyemphatic tinuity, of a continuous passage (movement,
way to the ideological function of art, which time). But only on one conditioncan these dif-
is to providethe tangiblerepresentationof meta- ferencescreatethis illusion:they mustbe effaced
physics. The principle of transcendencewhich as differences.9
conditionsand is conditionedby the perspective Thus on the technical level the question be-
constructionrepresentedin painting and in the comes one of the adoption of a very small dif-
photographicimage which copies from it seems ference between images, such that each image,
to inspire all the idealist paeans to which the in consequence of an organic factor [presum-
cinemahas given rise [such as we find in Cohen- ably persistenceof vision] is renderedincapable
Seator Bazin].8 of being seen as such. In this sense we could
say that film-and perhapsin this respect it is
PROJECTION: THEDIFFERENCE NEGATED exemplary-lives on the denial of difference:
Nevertheless, whatever the effects proper to the differenceis necessary for it to live, but it
optics generally,the movie camera differsfrom lives on its negation. This is indeedthe paradox
still photographyby registeringthroughits me- that emerges if we look directly at a strip of
chanical instrumentationa series of images. It processed film: adjacentimages are almost ex-
might thus seem to counter the unifying and actly repeated,their divergencebeing verifiable
"substantializing"character of the single-per- only by comparisonof images at a sufficientdis-
spective image, taking what would seem like tance from each other. We should remember,
instants of time or slices from "reality" (but moreover, the disturbing effects which result
always a reality already worked upon, elabor- during a projection from breakdowns in the
ated, selected). This might permit the supposi- recreationof movement, when the spectatoris
tion, especiallybecause the camera moves, of a broughtabruptlyback to discontinuity-that is,
multiplicity of points of view which would to the body, to the technicalapparatuswhich he
neutralize the fixed position of the eye-subject had forgotten.
and even nullify it. But here we must turn to We might not be far from seeing what is in
the relation between the succession of images play on this materialbasis, if we recall that the
inscribed by the camera and their projection, "language"of the unconscious,as it is found in
bypassing momentarilythe place occupied by dreams,slips of the tongue, or hystericalsymp-
montage, which plays a decisive role in the toms, manifests itself as continuity destroyed,
strategyof the ideology produced. broken, and as the unexpectedsurgingforth of
The projection operation (projector and a markeddifference. Couldn'twe thus say that
screen) restorecontinuityof movementand the cinema reconstructsand forms the mechanical
temporal dimension to the sequence of static model (with the simplificationsthat this can
images. The relation between the individual entail) of a system of writingloconstitutedby a
frames and the projection would resemble the material base and a counter-system(ideology,
relationbetweenpoints and a curvein geometry. idealism) which uses this systemwhile also con-
But it is precisely this relation and the restora- cealing it? On the one hand, the optical appa-
tion of continuity to discontinuous elements ratus and the film permit the marking of dif-
IDEOLOGICAL
IDEOLOGICALEFFECTS
EFFECTS 43
43

ference (but the marking is already negated, effort to produce an ordering,regulated trans-
we have seen, in the constitutionof the perspec- cendence) becomes absorbedin, "elevated"to
tive imagewith its mirroreffect)." On the other a vasterfunction,proportionalto the movement
hand, the mechanicalapparatusboth selects the which it can perform.
minimal difference and represses it in projec- And if the eye which moves is no longer fet-
tion, so that meaning can be constituted: it is teredby a body, by the laws of matterand time,
at once direction, continuity, movement. The if there are no more assignablelimits to its dis-
projectionmechanismallowsthe differentialele- placement-conditions fulfilled by the possibili-
ments (the discontinuityinscribedby the cam- ties of shooting and of film-the world will not
era) to be suppressed,bringingonly the relation only be constitutedby this eye but for it.13 The
into play. The individual images as such dis- movability of the camera seems to fulfill the
appear so that movement and continuity can most favorableconditionsfor the manifestation
appear. But the movement and continuity are of the "transcendentalsubject." There is both
the visible expression (one might even say the fantasmatizationof an objectivereality (images,
projection) of their relations, derived from the sounds, colors) and of an objective reality
tiny discontinuitiesbetween the images. Thus which, limiting its powers of constraint,seems
one may assumethat what was alreadyat work equallyto augmentthe possibilitiesor the power
as the originatingbasis of the perspectiveimage, of the subject.14As it is said of consciousness-
namely the eye, the "subject," is put forth, and in point of fact we are concernedwith noth-
liberated (in the sense that a chemical reaction ing less-the image will always be image of
liberates a substance) by the operation which something;it must result from a deliberateact
transformssuccessive, discrete images (as iso- of consciousness [visee intentionelle]. "The word
lated images they have, strictly speaking, no intentionalitysignifies nothing other than this
meaning, or at least no unity of meaning) into peculiaritythat consciousnesshas of being con-
continuity,movement,meaning;with continuity sciousnessof something,of carryingin its qual-
restored both meaning and consciousness are ity of ego its cogitatum within itself."15In such
restored.12 a definitioncould perhapsbe found the statusof
the cinematographicimage, or ratherof its op-
THETRANSCENDENTAL SUBJECT eration, the mode of working which it carries
Meaning and consciousness, to be sure: at out. For it to be an image of something,it has
this point we must return to the camera. Its to constitute this something as
meaning. The
mechanicalnaturenot only permitsthe shooting image seems to reflect the world but solely in
of differentialimages as rapidly as desired but the naive inversion of a founding
also destines it to change position, to move. "The domain of naturalexistence thus hierarchy:
has
Film history shows that as a result of the com- an authority of the second order, and only
always
bined inertia of painting, theater, and photog- presupposesthe domainof the transcendental."'6
raphy, it took a certain time to notice the in- The world is no longeronly an "openand un-
herent mobility of the cinematic mechanism. bounded horizon." Limited by the
The abilityto reconstitutemovementis after all lined up, put at the proper distance, the framing,
world
only a partial,elementaryaspect of a more gen- offers up an object endowed with meaning, an
eral capability. To seize movementis to become intentionalobject, implied by and
implying the
movement, to follow a trajectoryis to become action of the "subject"which sights it. At the
trajectory,to choose a direction is to have the same time that the world's transfer as image
possibilityof choosingone, to determinea mean- seems to accomplishthis phenomenologicalre-
ing is to give oneself a meaning. In this way the duction, this putting into parenthesesof its real
eye-subject, the invisible base of artificialper- existence (a suspensionnecessary, we will see,
spective (which in fact only representsa larger to the formation of the impressionof reality)
44 IDEOLOGICAL EFfECTS

provides a basis for the apodicity17 of the ego. space. The latter, in any case, could not have
The multiplicity of aspects of the object in view been conquered without exercising violence
refers to a synthesizing operation, to the unity against the instrumental base, as can be dis-
of this constituting subject: Husserl speaks of covered from most of the texts by film-makers
"'aspects,' sometimes of 'proximity,' sometimes and critics: the discontinuity that had been
of 'distance,' in variable modes of 'here' and effaced at the level of the image could have re-
'there,' opposed to an absolute 'here' (which is appeared on the narrative level, giving rise to
located-for me-in 'my own body' which ap- effects of rupture disturbing to the spectator (to
pears to me at the same time), the consciousness a place which ideology must both conquer and,
of which, though it remains unperceived, always in the degree that it already dominates it, must
accompanies them. [We will see moreover what also satisfy: fill). "What is important in a film
happens with the body in the mise-en-scene of is the feeling of continuity which joins shots
projection.-J. L. B.] Each 'aspect' which the and sequences while maintaining unity and
mind grasps is revealed in turn as a unity syn- cohesion of movements. This continuity was
thesized from a multiplicity of corresponding one of the most difficult things to obtain."22
modes of presentation. The nearby object may Pudovkin defined montage as "the art of as-
present itself as the same, but under one or an- sembling pieces of film, shot separately, in such
other 'aspect.' There may be variation of visual a way as to give the spectator the impression of
perspective, but also of 'tactile,' 'acoustic' phe- continuous movement." The search for such
nomena, or of other 'modes of presentation'18 narrative continuity, so difficult to obtain from
as we can observe in directing our attention in the material base, can only be explained by an
the proper direction."'1 essential ideological stake projected in this
For Husserl, "the original operation [of inten- point: it is a question of preserving at any cost
tional analysis] is to unmask the potentialities the synthetic unity of the locus where meaning
implied in present states of consciousness. And originates [the subject]-the constituting tran-
it is by this that will be carried out, from the scendental function to which narrative con-
noematic point of view, the eventual explication, tinuity points back as its natural secretion.23
definition, and elucidation of what is meant by
consciousness, that is, its objective meaning."20 THESCREEN-MIRROR:
And again in the Cartesian Meditations: "A SPECULARIZATION
ANDDOUBLE
IDENTIFICATION
second type of polarization now presents itself But another supplementary operation (made
to us, another type of synthesis which embraces possible by a special technical arrangement)
the particular multiplicities of cogitationes, must be added in order that the mechanism thus
which embraces them all and in a special man- described can play its role effectively as an ideo-
ner, namely as cogitationes of an identical self logical machine, so that not only the reworked
which, active or passive, lives in all the lived "objective reality" but also the specific type of
states of consciousness and which, through identification we have described can be repre-
them, relates to all objects."2' sented.
Thus is articulated the relation between the No doubt the darkened room and the screen
continuity necessary to the constitution of mean- bordered with black like a letter of condolences
ing and the "subject" which constitutes this already present privileged conditions of effec-
meaning: continuity is an attribute of the sub- tiveness-no exchange, no circulation, no com-
ject. It supposes the subject and it circumscribes munication with any outside. Projection and
his place. It appears in the cinema in the two reflection take place in a closed space and those
complementary aspects of a "formal" continuity who remain there, whether they know it or not
established through a system of negated dif- (but they do not), find themselves chained, cap-
ferences and narrative continuity in the filmic tured, or captivated. (What might one say of
IDEOLOGICAL
IDEOLOGICALEFFECTS
EFFECTS 45
45

the function of the head in this captivation: it produced. This scene would be repeated and
suffices to recall that for Bataille materialism reenactedin such a manner that the imaginary
makes itself headless-like a wound that bleeds order (activated by a specularization which
and thus transfuses.) And the mirror, as a re- takes place, everything considered, in reality)
flecting surface, is framed, limited, circum- fulfills its particularfunction of occultation or
scribed. An infinite mirror would no longer be of fillingthe gap, the split, of the subjecton the
a mirror. The paradoxicalnature of the cine- orderof the signifier.26
matic mirror-screenis without doubt that it re- On the other hand, it is to the extent that the
flects images but not "reality";the word reflect, child can sustain the look of another in the
being transitive,* leaves this ambiguity unre- presence of a third party that he can find the
solved. In any case this "reality"comes from assuranceof an identificationwith the image of
behind the spectator'shead and if he looked at his own body. From the very fact that during
it directlyhe would see nothing except the mov- the mirror stage is establisheda dual relation-
ing beamsfrom an alreadyveiled light source. ship, it constitutes,in conjunctionwith the for-
The arrangementof the differentelements- mation of the self in the imaginary order, the
projector, darkened hall, screen-in addition nexus of secondaryidentification.27The origin
from reproducingin a strikingway the mise-en- of the self, as discoveredby Lacan,in pertaining
scene of Plato's cave (prototypical set for all to the imaginary order effectively subvertsthe
transcendence and the topological model of "opticalmachinery"of idealism which the pro-
idealism24)reconstructsthe situation necessary jection room scrupulouslyreproduces.28But it
to the release of the "mirrorstage" discovered is not as specifically "imaginary,"nor as a re-
by Lacan. This psychological phase, which productionof its firstconfiguration,that the self
occurs betweensix and eighteen months of age, finds a "place" in the cinema. This occurs,
generatesvia the mirrorimage of a unifiedbody rather,as a sort of proof or verificationof that
the constitutionor at least the first sketches of function, a solidificationthrough repetition.
the "I" as an imaginaryfunction. "It is to this The "reality"mimed by the cinema is thus
unreachableimage in the mirror that the spec- first of all that of a "self." But, because the re-
ular image gives its garments."25But for this flected image is not that of the body itself but
imaginaryconstitutionof the self to be possible, that of a world already given as meaning, one
there must be-Lacan strongly emphasizesthis can distinguishtwo levels of identification.The
point-two complementaryconditions: imma- first, attachedto the image itself, derives from
ture powers of mobility and a precocious mat- the characterportrayedas a center of secondary
uration of visual organization(apparentin the identifications,carrying an identity which con-
first few days of life). If one considers that stantly must be seized and reestablished. The
these two conditions are repeated during cine- second level permitsthe appearanceof the first
matographicprojection-suspension of mobility and places it "in action"-this is the transcen-
and predominanceof the visual function-per- dental subjectwhose place is taken by the cam-
haps one could suppose that this is more than era which constitutes and rules the objects in
a simple analogy. And possibly this very point this "world." Thus the spectator identifiesless
explains the "impression of reality" so often with what is represented, the spectacle itself,
invoked in connection with the cinema for than with what stages the spectacle, makes it
which the various explanationsproposed seem seen, obliging him to see what it sees; this is
only to skirt the real problem. In order for this exactly the function taken over by the camera
impressionto be produced,it would be necessary as a sort of relay.29Just as the mirrorassembles
that the conditions of a formative scene be re- the fragmentedbody in a sort of imaginaryin-
tegration of the self, the transcendentalself
*It is always a reflection of something.-TR. unites the discontinuousfragmentsof phenom-
AA . _ ' ' nen ^nltA
IUCVLUUVIAL =TC~~~~~~~~~~~~
CrrE1a

ena, of lived experience, into unifying meaning. of one's own identity collapse simultaneously
Through it each fragmentassumes meaning by with the revealing of the mechanism, that is of
being integrated into an "organic" unity. Be- the inscription of the film-work.
tween the imaginary gathering of the fragmented The cinema can thus appear as a sort of psy-
body into a unity and the transcendentality of chic apparatus of substitution, corresponding to
the self, giver of unifying meaning, the current the model defined by the dominant ideology.
is indefinitely reversible. The system of repression (primarily economic)
The ideological mechanism at work in the has as its goal the prevention of deviations and
cinema seems thus to be concentrated in the of the active exposure of this "model."31 Analo-
relationship between the camera and the subject. gously one could say that its "unconscious" is
The question is whether the former will permit not recognized (we speak of the apparatus and
the latter to constitute and seize itself in a par- not of the content of films, which have used the
ticular mode of specular reflection. Ultimately, unconscious in ways we know all too well). To
the forms of narrative adopted, the "contents" this unconscious would be attached the mode of
of the image, are of little importance so long as production of film, the process of "work" in its
an identification remains possible.30 What multiple determinations, among which must be
emerges here (in outline) is the specific func- numbered those depending on instrumentation.
tion fulfilled by the cinema as support and in- This is why reflections on the basic apparatus
strument of ideology. It constitutes the "sub- ought to be possible to integrate into a general
ject" by the illusory delimitation of a central theory of the ideology of cinema.
location-whether this be that of a god or of any [TRANSLATEDBY ALAN WILLIAMS]
other substitute. It is an apparatus destined to
NOTES
obtain a precise ideological effect, necessary to
the dominant ideology: creating a fantasmatiza- 1. Translated from Cinethique, No. 7/8 (1970), pp. 1-8.
2. Cf. on this subject Derrida's work "La Scene de
tion of the subject, it collaborates with a marked l'ecriture" in L'Ecriture et la Difference (Paris: Le
efficacity in the maintenance of idealism. Seuil).
Thus the cinema assumes the role played 3. [Travail, the process-implying not only "work" in
throughout Western history by various artistic the ordinary sense but as in Freud's usage: the dream-
formations. The ideology of representation (as work.-TR.]
a principal axis orienting the notion of aesthetic 4. Obviously we are not speaking here of investment of
"creation") and specularization (which organ- capital in the process.
izes the mise-en-scene required to constitute the 5. Cf. L. Brion Guerry, Jean Pellerin Viator (Paris:
transcendental function) form a singularly co- Belles Lettres, 1962).
6. We understand the term "subject" here in its func-
herent system in the cinema. Everything hap-
tion as vehicle and place of intersection of ideological
pens as if, the subject himself being unable- implications which we are attempting progressively to
and for a reason-to account for his own situa- make clear, and not as the structural function which
tion, it was necessary to substitute secondary analytic discourse attempts to locate. It would rather
organs, grafted on to replace his own defective take partially the place of the ego, of whose deviations
ones, instruments or ideological formations ca- little is known in the analytic field.
pable of filling his function as subject. In fact, 7. The perspective "frame" which will have such an
this substitution is only possible on the condition influence on cinematographic shooting has as its role
that the instrumentation itself be hidden or re- to intensify, to increase the effect of the spectacle, which
no divergence may be allowed to split.
pressed. Thus disturbing cinematic elements- 8. See Cohen-S6at, Essai sur les principes d'une philo-
similar, precisely, to those elements indicating sophie du cinema (Paris: Corti) and Bazin, What Is
the return of the repressed-signify without fail Cinema? (Berkeley & Los Angeles: University of Cali-
the arrival of the instrument "in flesh and fornia Press).-TR.
blood," as in Vertov's Man With a Movie Cam- 9. "We know that the spectator finds it impossible to
era. Both specular tranquillity and the assurance notice that the images which succeed one another before
' l .........

IDEOLOGICAL
FiC.s
tFF-KIS 47
47

his eyes were assembled end-to-end, because the pro- to the opening, the fault in the organs of meaning, by
jection of film on the screen offers an impression of which the exterior world may penetrate the interior and
continuity although the images which compose it are, assume meaning. "It is the interior which commands,"
in reality, distinct, and are differentiated moreover by says Bresson. "I know this may seem paradoxical in
variations in space and time. an art which is all exterior." Also the use of different
"In a film, there can be hundreds, even thousands of lenses is already conditioned by camera movement as
cuts and intervals. But if it is shown for specialists who implication and trajectory of meaning, by this trans-
know the art, the spectacle will not be divulged as such. cendental function which we are attempting to define:
Only an error or lack of competence will permit them it is the possibility of choosing a field as accentuation
to seize, and this is a disagreeable sensation, the changes or modification of the visee intentionelle.
of time and place of action." (Pudovkin, "Le Montage" No doubt this transcendental function fits in without
in Cinema d'aujourd'huiet de demain, [Moscow, 1956].) difficulty the field of psychology. This, moreover, is
10. [Ecriture, in the French, meaning "writing"but also insisted upon by Husserl himself, who indicates that
"schematization" at any given level of material or ex- Brentano's discovery, intentionality, "permits one truly
pression.-TR.] to distinguish the method of a descriptive science of
11. [Specular: a notion used by Althusser and above all consciousness, as much philosophical and transcendental
by Lacan; the word refers to the "mirror" effect which as psychological."
by reflection (specularization) constitutes the object 24. The arrangement of the cave, except that in the
reflected to the viewer and for him. The body is the cinema it is already doubled in a sort of enclosure in
most important and the first of these objects.-TR.] which the camera, the darkened chamber, is enclosed
12. It is thus first at the level of the apparatus that the in another darkened chamber, the projection hall.
cinema functions as a language: inscription of discon- 25. Lacan, Ecrits (Paris: Le Seuil, 1966). See in par-
tinuous elements whose effacement in the relationship ticular "Le Stade du miroir comme formateur de la
instituted among them produces meaning. fonction du je."
13. "In the cinema I am simultaneously in this action 26. We see that what has been defined as impression of
and outside of it, in this space and out of this space. reality refers less to the "reality" than to the apparatus
Having the power of ubiquity, I am everywhere and which, although being of an hallucinatory order, none-
nowhere." (Jean Mitry, Esthetique et Psychologie du theless founds this possibility. Reality will never appear
Cinema (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1965), except as relative to the images which reflect it, in
p. 179. some way inaugurated by a reflection anterior to itself.
14. The cinema manifests in a hallucinatory manner the 27. We refer here to what Lacan says of identifications
belief in the omnipotence of thought, described by in liaison with the structure determined by an optical
Freud, which plays so important a role in neurotic instrument (the mirror), as they are constituted, in the
defense mechanisms. prevailing figuration of the ego, as lines of resistance to
15. Husserl, Les Mdditations Cartesiennes (Paris: Vrin, the advance of the analytic work.
1953), p.28. 28. "That the ego be 'in the right' must be avowed, from
16. Ibid., p. 18. experience, to be a function of misunderstanding."
17. [Apodicity, in phenomenological terminology, indi- (Lacan, op. cit., p. 637.)
cates something of an ultimately irrefutable nature. See 29. "That it sustains itself as 'subject' means that lan-
Husserl, op.cit.-TR.] guage permits it to consider itself as the stagehand or
18. On this point it is true that the camera is revealed even the director of all the imaginary capturings of
as incomplete. But this is only a technical imperfection which it would otherwise only be the living marionette."
which, since the birth of cinema, has already in large (Ibid., p. 637.)
measure been remedied. 30. It is on this point and in function of the elements
19. Ibid., p. 34, emphasis added. which we are trying to put in place that a discussion
20. Ibid., p. 40. of editing could be opened. We will at a later date
21. Ibid., p. 58. attempt to make some remarks on this subject.
22. Mitry, op.cit., p. 157. 31. Mediterranee, by J.-D. Pollet and Phillipe Sollers
23. The lens, the "objective," is of course only a par- (1963), which dismantles with exemplary efficiency the
ticular location of the "subjective." Marked by the "transcendental specularization" which we have at-
idealist opposition interior/exterior, topologically situ- tempted to delineate, gives a manifest proof of this
ated at the point of meeting of the two, it corresponds, point. The film was never able to overcome the eco-
one could say, to the empirical organ of the subjective, nomic blockade.

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