Lant. Haptical Cinema

Haptical Cinema
Author(s): Antonia Lant

Source: October, Vol. 74 (Autumn, 1995), pp. 45-73
Published by: The MIT Press
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Haptical Cinema*
ANTONIA LANT
In the fourthscene of GeorgesMdlies's ThePalace oftheArabianNights(1905)

the Prince,Blue Dwarf,and theirentourageenterthe Magic Foreston a treasure
quest-but theirentryis of a special kind.At first,whiletheyare stillabsentfrom
the shot, theirwayis utterlyblocked by paintedjungle flats,pressed against the
camera. Graduallylayerupon layerof flat,shaped, palms and vines glide to the
frame'sfour edges, invisiblyoperated by studio hands, each liftingand parting,
adding, almost foot by foot, depth for the arrivingcharacters to occupy. Each
removed foliage plane accommodates furthertheir volume, their contrasting
roundness as human figures.The flats' opaque material,the allover densityof
their drawn designs (some leafy,some calligraphic,pseudo-Koranic), and their
position preciselyat rightangles to the camera, as if held in the plane of the
screen,conceal all clues as to what,or how much of it, lies beyondas the travelers
progress.A surprisedmonkeybackflipsoffstage,a vine-strangledsculpturesinks
out of sight,a roaming lion-Douanier-like-exposed as one flatshifts,slinks
away.Afterfiveor six almosttotalchanges of scene withinthisone shot,each at a
plane deeper in the set, the partyreaches a sphinx-guardedterraceand divides,
half leaving rear left,the others foregroundright,withthejungle slowlyclosing
behind them,sectionbysection,in the orderin whichit had opened. The surfaces
of forestseem to reconstitutethe plane of the screen, the filmbrieflydeclaring
itselfthe decorated canvas it alwaysis-before movingto scene five,the epiglottal
cave.
This sequence is the mostsystematicof Melies's repeated engagementswith
the novelspatialityof cinema,an utterly flatmediumof presentation,insubstantial,
withouttextureor material,and yet evoking,in a wafer,a fullerillusion of the
physicalityand exactnessof human beings than anyprior art. In otherfilms,such
as TheSpiritualisticPhotographer(1903) and TheInn Where No Man Rests(1903), he
makes paintings come to life. In Deliriumin a Studio(1907), another filmthat
* I would like to thank Donald Craftonfor earlyconversationson this topic, Isabelle Frankfor
more recentdiscussions,AnnetteMichelsonforsuggestingWorringer'sEgyptian Art,and IngridPeriz
forher encouragement.
OCTOBER 74,Fall 1995,pp. 45-73. ? 1995 October

Magazine,Ltd. and Massachusetts
Institute
ofTechnology.

Operatingtheflatsfor theMagic Forest.
The PalaceoftheArabianNights.
1905.
:-::-:l:iil::-::-:-:: iiiiiiZ' li --_::::

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entwinesdesigned surface,illusionof spatial penetration,and an oriental set, a

paintingengorgesan artist:the artistAli strugglesto pull his head froma bucket
as a woman climbsinto an ornatelyframedpicturenearby,takes up the pose of
the odalisque, and, throughtrickphotography, freezesinto the paintedlinen;Ali,
now freed fromthe bucket, frustratedly bashes the frozenwoman, wakingthe
irritatedAli Bouf,who, afterdecapitation and other abuses, chases the firstAli
afterher,and eventuallyalso into the art.1Mlies's fondnessforgigglingskeletons
(a stock-in-tradefromhis lifeas a magician) belongs here too. Relativelyflatand
linear in form-also when painted as whitebars on a black cat suit (as in The
Palace oftheArabianNights)-these ex-humanstransform, throughcinematicdis-
solves,into plump bodies of flesh;in Le Monstre
(1903) a livelybone skelly,swaying
beforea sphinx,morphsinto an undulating,veiledbellydancer,irresistible to the
watchingEgyptian.
By interleavingpainted flatswithmovingactors;by animatingor constitut-
ing paintingsthroughtrickeffectsof stop motion,splicing,and double exposure;
by creatinga giant magic lanternthat produces both still and animated projec-
tions, and then bursts open withdancing girls (in TheMagic Lantern[1903]),
Mlies chose motifsthat probed or highlightedthe alluringyet illusorydepths
of the cinema, the impossible compressions and expansions of far and near,
the unclear identitiesof figureand ground.But thiswas a qualityalso noted by
1. The filmis also knownas AliBarbouyou

etAli Boufa l'Huile.

HapticalCinema 47
cinema's firstpublic. One reviewerof a Biograph filmshot froma movingtrain

described the peculiar effectof "an unseen energy swallow[ing] space and
fling[ing] itselfinto the distances."2Maxim Gorky,at a Russian 1896 Lumiere
screening, wrote of the apparent opposite motion toward himself: "A train
appears on the screen... [and] seems as thoughit willplunge into the darknessin
whichyou sit."3 Such spectatorsrecord the engulfmentof space threatened,but
not deliveredbycinema,a motioninto or out of the screen,forwardand back, the
motionslowedand dissectedon the Magic Forestjourney.
Scholarship on early filmhas thoroughlyexamined its spatial life; space
figuresprominentlyin Thomas Elsaesser's collection EarlyCinema:Space,Frame,
Narrative, in whichauthorscompare the spatial propertiesof one-shotand multi-
shot films,uncoveringtheiravant-gardeor narrativepotential.4For some writers
the less strictlyspatiallycoded arrangementsof earlycinema,bycomparisonwith
the laterclassicalstyle,have suggestedthata widerrange of spectatorialresponses
was possible and indeed existed.5Justas forthe Biographand Lumiere reviewers,
cinematicspatialityformost of these writersentails both the illusoryone of the
filmand the psychosocialone of viewers.But the era of earlycinema had its own
specialized theoristson this point; the spatial propertiesof representationand
theirrelationto an observer,indeed as definedbythe observer'sperception,was a
formulationof art theorycoincidentwithcinema's appearance. In fact,mulling
over spatial traitsin art-fine and decorative-was at its most intense in this
period, constitutingcrucial groundworkin the emergingdisciplineof art history.
Adolf Hildebrand's TheProblem ofFormin Paintingand Sculpture(1893) and Alois
Riegl's Problems ofStyle(1893) and subsequent Late RomanArtIndustry(1901)-
foundational texts for Heinrich W6lfflin,Wilhelm Worringer, and Walter
Benjamin, among others-sifted and caressed the aesthetic scope of spatial
evocation across the ages and across media.6 Riegl establishedhis notion of the
2. Tom Gunning,"An Unseen EnergySwallowsSpace: The Space in EarlyFilm and Its Relation to
American Avant-GardeFilm,"in FilmBeforeGriffith, ed. John Fell (Berkeley:Universityof California
Press, 1983), p. 363, quoting a reviewerfromthe New YorkMail and Express,firstcited in Robert C.
Allen, Vaudevilleand Film,1895-1915: A Studyin MediaInteraction(Ph.D diss.,Universityof Iowa, 1977),
p. 131.
3. Maxim Gorky,"A Reviewof the Lumiere Programat the Nizhni-NovgorodFair,"July4, 1896,
trans.Leda Swan,in Kino:A History ofRussianand SovietFilm,ed. JayLeyda (London: George Allen and
Unwin,1960), p. 408.
4. EarlyCinema:Space,Frame,Narrative, ed. Thomas ElsaesserwithAdam Barker (London: British
FilmInstitute,1990).
5. See, for example, Miriam Hansen, Babel and Babylon:Spectatorship in AmericanSilentFilm
(Cambridge: Harvard UniversityPress, 1991), and JudithMayne, The Womanat theKeyhole: Feminism
and Women's Cinema(Bloomington:Indiana University Press,1990).
6. Adolf Hildebrand, TheProblem ofFormin Paintingand Sculpture[1893], trans.Max Meyerand
RobertMorrisOgden (New York:G. E. Stechert& Co., 1932; reprint,New York:Garland, 1978); Alois
Riegl,Problems ofStyle:Foundations
fora HistoryofOrnament [1893], trans.EvelynKain withan introduc-
tion by David Castriota and prefaceby Henri Zerner (Princeton: PrincetonUniversityPress, 1993);
Riegl,LateRomanArtIndustry [1901], trans.RolfWinkes(Rome: GiorgioBretschneiderEditore,1985).
WilhelmWorringerwritesthat "it is to Riegl that the greatestincentivesto the workare due," while

48 OCTOBER
Kunstwollen,the "definiteand purposeful"trendor tastecharacteristicof an age,

largelythroughthe analysisof the degree to whichworksof art of an era were
shaped by the constraintof needing to be perceivedas more planar or spatialin
essence.7 Changes in artisticstylewere the resultof changes in the Kunstwollen
thatcorrespondedabove all to culturalchanges in spatial perception.8And while
Riegl's formulationswere to transform over the years,the beholder remainedof
criticalimportancein his mappingof differences of styleand intent.As he put it,
"every work of artdoes afterall presupposethe existence of a perceivingsubject."9
These authors'objectsof studywereusuallyhistorically remote(late Roman,
Dutch seventeenthcenturyfor Riegl, classical and Renaissance for Hildebrand,
EgyptianforWorringer),but theyall cited the stateof contemporaryrepresenta-
tion,ifnot modernlifeitselfas an impetusfortheirenquiries.Hildebrandnoted
the threatof industrializationto art and artists,"the technicalprogressand fac-
toryworkof our day"whichdisengagesour understandingof thingsfromtheways
in whichtheyhave been made, causingus to "valuea productmore foritselfthan
as a resultof some mental activity."lo For Riegl (who criticizedHildebrand for
insufficientsensitivityto differencesbetween ancient and modern Kunstwollen),
the understandingand analysisof past art (here specifically late Roman art) had
been both necessitatedand enabled by "a fundamentalbreach" that had set in
since "thebeginningof the twentiethcentury...an emancipationof the facultyof
feelingin modern man" thatpermittedhim to recognizesuch culturallymotivat-
ing forcesin other eras.11Worringer, thoughnot a specialistin Egyptianart,was
neverthelesscompelled to interrogateit because of its value as "the pronounced
counterpartof our viewof space."12His workwas necessary,he claimed,because
Benjamin described him as "a decisiveinfluence,"applyinghis theoryof the Kunstwollen to his failed
Ph.D thesison Germantragicdrama (WilhelmWorringer, and Empathy:
Abstraction A Contributiontothe
PsychologyofStyle[1908], trans.Michael Bullock [NewYork:Meridian,1948], p. 137). See Thomas Y.
Levin, "WalterBenjamin and the Theoryof ArtHistory,"October 47 (Winter1988), pp. 77-83. Walter
Benjamin,Ursprung desdeutschen Trauerspiels(Berlin:ErnstRowoltVerlag,1928).
7. Riegl,LateRomanArtIndustry, p. 9.
8. See Michael Ann Holly, Panofskyand theFoundationsofArtHistory(Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell
University Press,1984) forfurtherdiscussion.
9. Riegl, "Late Roman or Oriental?" [1902], in GermanEssays on ArtHistory:Winckelmann,
Burckhardt, Panofsky,and Others,ed. Gert Schiff,The German LibrarySeries, vol. 79 (New York:
Continuum, 1988), p. 181. Riegl's essay,writtenas a polemic against another art historian,Josef
Strzygowski, summarizesthe broad argumentsof his earlierbook LateRomanArtIndustry and originally
appeared in BeilagezurAllgemeinen Zeitung(Munich,April23, 1902).
10. Hildebrand,TheProblem ofForm, reprintedition,p. 15.
11. Riegl,"Late Roman or Oriental?"p. 174. He seems to refer,therefore,tojust twoyearsbefore.
See also LateRomanArtIndustry, p. 88.
12. Worringer,EgyptianArt,trans.Bernard Rackham (London: Putnam's,1928), p. 82; originally
published as Agyptische Kunst:Probleme ihrerWertung (Munich: Piper, 1927). This book is marked by
extremelycomplex and oftenracistargumentsmobilizedboth to explain ancient Egyptianarchitec-
tureand art,and to associateit withcontemporaryculturein the United States.One of Worringer's
conclusionsis thatthereis a discontinuity betweenEgyptianartand the culturethatmade it. I takeup
theseissuesin a forthcoming essay.

HapticalCinema 49
"the problemof the historyof the genesisof space" was "a trulymodernone. Only
for men of todaycould the question of the essence of spatialitybecome one of
such actualityfor the historyof the spirit.We modernswere the firstwho could
find in this any problem at all."13Worringerconcluded his book withthe same
sentiment:"I have a strongconvictionthatthe rise of thisideal figure[the desire
for realizationof full space-expressionin culture] in me is no accident, but the
hidden consequence of general transformations whichour historicaloutlook and
judgment are undergoingat this momentin evolution-and which urge one to
put the question to whichan answeris here attempted,"the question of the trans-
formationof spatialexpressionin culture.14
The impulsefortaxonomiesofform,or whatWorringer willcall "morphologies
of culture,"derived fromthe impact of modernistimages, the proliferationof
mass-culturalmaterials,the explosion of new "culturesof import,"and shiftsin
urban experience that immersed filmmakers,sculptors,and museum curators
alike.15As Worringerinsists,these changes put spatialityat "the center of our
perceptualinterest."16
In this essayI bring earlycinema into contactwithadjacent theoriesof art
that analyze space, to illuminate that stage of the historyof cinema when its
processes of descriptionwere found so strikingly odd, new,or unfamiliar.When
Gorkycomments that "Everythingthere-the earth, the trees, the people, the
waterand the air-is dipped in monotonousgray,"whatdisturbshim in partis the
democratizingeffectof cinema, that all elements,dead or alive, human or not,
inhabitone metaphoricaland literalplane.17"The ashen-grayfoliageof the trees
swaysin the wind,and the graysilhouettesof the people ... glide noiselesslyon the
grayground,"as if oblivious to one another,theirrelativesignificanceunclear.18
Later,VirginiaWoolffuses (or confuses) fluffcaught in the projectiongate with
the representationof a tadpole, and thatwithnovelevocationof emotionalstates;
and she describesher attentionwandering,like Gorky's,movingacrossthe surface
of the screen, but also probing into depth, selecting for interestthe gardener
mowingthe lawn beyond (or above) Anna Karenina and her lover.19And then
13. Ibid., pp. 73, 81.

14. Ibid., p. 91.
15. By "culturesof import"Worringeris probablyreferringto, among other arts,Africanart. He
continues,the "culturesof import"in Europe no longer "allowus to adhere calmlyand obstinatelyto
the old accentuationsof essentialvalues"; these "widerpossibilitesof comparison" have "potentially
open[ed] up an entirelynew fieldof vision,"and have made us "revis[e] ... our habitsofjudgment"
(ibid., pp. 81, 91). One mightalso see the outcropof grammarsof artand designof the second halfof
the nineteenth century(by Walter Crane, Owen Jones, William Goodyear,an unpublished one by
Riegl,and others) as partof thewiderpracticeof classificationin the sciencesand social sciences.
16. Ibid., p. 73.
17. Gorky,"LumiereProgram,"p. 407.
18. Ibid.
19. Virginia Woolf, "Movies and Reality,"The Nation,1926; reprinted as "The Cinema" in The
Captain'sDeathBed and Other Essays,ed. Leonard Woolf(New York:HarcourtBraceJovanovich,1950). I
am indebtedto IngridPeriz forher analysisof thispassage.

50 OCTOBER
thereis the spatialswallowing and rushingalreadydescribed.Reconnectingcinema

withconcurrentanalysesof artgivesus purchaseon whatJacquesAumontrecently
insistedwas the distinctive, initialprimitiveness of cinema,its value as "a deposit
of figurativeinvention,"as the period of densest, most intense questioningof
cinematicdesign.20
Withinthisterritory I followtwo relatedpaths: Riegl's distinctionbetween
haptical and optical propertiesof art-a distinctionreferringto knowledgeof
artisticspace throughthe senses of touch and vision-and the role of Egyptian
artin makingthisdistinction.As the conditionsof modernlifefueled activityin
re-visioningthe past, Egypt played a particular role-in Worringer'sview,a
studyof its artprovidedthe mostprofitableexample forarrivingat modernself-
knowledge.21Its objects could do thisfora complex of reasons.
Throughthemtheoristsplantedan anchoringpole in their(oftenteleological)
models of decipherment,grasped one end of a representationalrange; ancient
Egyptian styleembodied a distinct,earlier systemof representation.Crudely
put, thiswas the flat,hieratic,archaic,planar end of things,not the linear per-
spective and complex volume of Renaissance art. Repeatedly,Riegl dynamized
his argumentforevolution of the Kunstwollen by opposing modern and ancient
Egyptian wills (this practically in the teeth of Cubism), using the term"modern
art"largelyto referto Renaissance productiononward,and sometimesexplicitly
to Impressionism.22"Ancientarchitecture[was] hostile to space, and modern
architecture... space searching."Of Egyptianreliefshe says,"space relationsare
avoided, or, as faras theyhad to be considered,are cunninglytransformed into
relationson the plane. In thisrespectour present-day expectations are contrary
to the intentof the Egyptians."In a finalexample he writes,"Because our modern
art appeals to a high degree to experience (and is even in danger of seeing the
materialdeformedthroughthe conceptual), it is understandablethatwe prefer
the subjectiveperceptionof the Greekover the objectiveone of the Egyptians."23
Expanding this point in a note, he continues: "everyEgyptian artistworked
painstakingly suppressingany subjectiveinfiltration. The diametricalopposition
to this constitutesour modern art of so-called individualism,where each artist
creates painstakingly in accordance withhis subjectiveideals whichleads to the
resultthattherecannot be made a workof artwhichwould be consideredby all,
or at least by a largerpart of the public, as 'good' and that especiallythe most
celebratedworksof arthave foundthe mostvehementopposition."24
One hears in thisopposition instability on both the Egyptianand modem
20. JacquesAumont,"WhenIs PrimitiveCinema?" (lecturegivenat "Cinema Turns100,"the Third

InternationalConferenceofDomitor,Societyforthe StudyofEarlyCinema,NewYorkUniversity, June
1994). Myreferenceto Gorkyhere was promptedbyAumont'sdiscussion.
21. Worringer, Egyptian Art,p. 82.
22. See Riegl,LateRomanArtIndustry, p. 27, forone ofseveralreferencesto Impressionism.
23. Ibid., pp. 57, 59, 63.
24. Ibid., pp. 63-64.

HapticalCinema 51
sides, and this,througha kind of undertow,broughtthem into another relation.

On the one hand, rupturesin the currentKunstwollen stare Riegl in the face (he
worries about deformationthrough extreme subjective content), and modern
changes in general, as I have already noted, consciouslymotivate the wave of
investigationinto spatialvocabularyin both art and theory.25 On the other hand,
already embedded withinEgyptiansculptures and icons, as described by Riegl,
Hildebrand, and others,was the germ of expansion into variegated possibility.
Egyptcould not help but stand forideas of emergenceand evolutionin styleitself
because of itsplace withintheirchronologiesas the initialor primitiveform,from
which there could only be a progression. Riegl writes,"It is obvious that the
isolation of the individual figuresconnected to the plane, as it was principally
intended by the Egyptians,could not be done with absolute strictness... .The
slightestnecessityto bring two figuresinto a closer and more evidentrelationto
one another had to lead to ... the connection of the individualshapes notjust
withthe plane (whichwas alreadythe aim of ancient Egyptianart),but withone
another."He describesthisstateof affairsas "a contrast,and thereforea problem."
He continues: "furthermore,space relations-foreshortenings, overlaps, and
shadows-could not all possiblybe suppressed as soon as plane relations were
admitted.... The suppressionof space in ancientEgyptianartmeantthusanother
latentcontradiction,in which,again, was contained a problemforreconciliation
and thus the seed for futuredevelopment."26 This leaky structuregrows in a
particularideological nexus: it is consonant withthe gesturesof historical(and
sometimesimperial) vantagein expressingthe dual desire to locate ancientEgypt
both as the powerfulbut limitedsource fromwhichmodern culturehas traveled
an enormous and valuable distance, and as a stable, weighted,touchstone,the
eternalbeacon fromthe past, reassuringin the grip of modernity'sfluctuations.
We witnessa collapse of the structure,the fusingof the Egyptianand the modern,
when Picasso and Braque, in a referenceto their radical reorderingof artistic
planes and spaces in 1908, are said to be working"in the Egyptianstyle."27But
here must be mentioned one other, contrasting facet of the significationof
Egypt within discourses on art (although there is no room to discuss its full
implications)--itspossession of "stylistic
perfection."28
25. In factRiegl will argue thatit is in Dutch seventeenth-century art that the most ideal balance
betweenobjectiveand subjectiveelementsis achieved.See MargaretIverson'sdiscussionof this"delicate
equipoise"in AloisRiegl:ArtHistory and Theory (Cambridge:MIT Press,1993), p. 147 and elsewhere.
26. Riegl, Late RomanArtIndustry, p. 60. Riegl earlier refersto this "latentcontradiction"in his
chapter on architecture:"In ancient artisticcreation there existed fromthe verybeginninga latent
innercontroversy; one was not able to avoid a subjectiveblend in spiteof the intendedbasicallyobjective
perceptionof objects.This latentcontroversy was the seed forall laterdevelopment."(See pp. 22, 24.)
27. See ArthurDanto, "GeorgesBraque," TheNation(August27, 1988), pp. 174-76, fora discussion
of this theme. Louis Vauxcelles and Le Douanier Rousseau both apparentlymade the connection to
Egypt,althoughonlytheVauxcellesreferenceis clearlydocumented.
28. Riegl, Late RomanArtIndustry, p. 63. Riegl here refersto Egyptian accomplishment"in the
conquering of raw materials,"in which they have been "superior to all their successors until the
presentday,"although he is onlyimpressedby thiswithincertainlimits.

52 OCTOBER
By 1891 Owen Jones's The Grammarof Ornament had become "a veritable
bible of reference... to Englishand Americandecorators,the decorativeartist,
the cultivatedamateur in aesthetic matters,and the professionalarchitect."29
Publishedin 1856, afterJoneshad participatedin designingthe 1851 GreatExhi-
bition in London, the volume illustrateddecorativeartfromaround the world.30
Jones began his one-hundred-plateselection with three plates from "Savage
Tribes,"followedby nine of Egyptianornamentand threeAssyrianand Persian
examples. His message,shared by others,was thatEuropean designwas sorelyin
need of renewal, but-and here he differedfrom other commentators-he
proposed that the sources of greatestaccomplishmentin design were outside
Europe, where,in Savage Tribes,"the principlesof the veryhighestornamental
art are manifest,"even in "theverybarbarouspractice"of tattooingthe face.31In
Egyptiandesign the same highvalue was to be found,via "inspirationdirectfrom
nature."But ratherthan naturalisticcopying,in Egyptiandesign the "lawswhich
the worksof nature display"are observedso "thatEgyptianornament,however
conventionalized,is alwaystrue."32 Jones concludes: "We venture,therefore,to
claim forthe Egyptianstyle,thatthoughthe oldest,it is, in all thatis requisiteto
constitutea true styleof art, the most perfect.The language in whichit reveals
itselfto us may seem foreign,peculiar,formal,and rigid,but the ideas and the
teachingsit conveysto us are of the soundest.As we proceed withotherstyles,we
shall see thattheyapproached perfectiononlyso faras theyfollowed,in common
with the Egyptians, the true principles to be observed in every flowerthat
grows."33 In otherwords,in anotherinfluentialstrandof assessmentof visualcul-
ture,overlappingwithRiegl'sin itsfocuson decorationbut divergentin itssetting
store by nature rather than the cultural engine of the Kunstwollen, Egyptian
accomplishment represented the apogee of decoding and understanding, a
source of immediatevalue and interestratherthanan ancienthistoricalmooring.
To thisbriefsurveyof Egypt'svariableratingswithinthe flurry of late-nine-
teenth-century grammars of art we may now relate the cinema. I have argued
elsewhereforthe immenserangeof attractionsof Egyptforearlycinema,fromthe
29. WilliamH. Goodyear,TheGrammar oftheLotus:A NewHistory ofClassicOrnament as a Development

ofSun Worship (London: Sampson,Low,Marston& Co., 1891), p. 3.
30. Owen Jones, The Grammarof Ornament(1856; reprint,New York: Van Nostrand Reinhold
Company,1982).Jones'spersonalfortewas in Arabicdesign:he wrotea referencetexton theAlhambra
in Spain, was commissionedto ornamentthe Khedive'sPalace in Cairo, and posed againsta backdrop
of Moorish motifsfora formalportraitin 1857. See ErnstGombrich,TheSenseofOrder:A Studyin the
PsychologyofDecorative Art(Oxford:Phaidon Press,1979), p. 51 and elsewhere.
31. Jones,TheGrammar ofOrnament,p. 13.
32. Ibid., p. 22.
33. Ibid., p. 24. GoodyearansweredJones'stome withhis own grammar,thistime of the lotus,in
evolution,not onlyforGreekegg-and-dart
whichhe placed Egyptat the source of all stylistic molding,
as Joneshad done, but also for"AncientAmerican"designor Mayanculture,and all others:"thelotus
was a fetich[sic] of immemorialantiquity. ..worshipped . . fromJapan to the Straitsof Gibraltar"
(GrammaroftheLotus,p. 4). And it was throughGoodyear'spublicationthatRiegl could, in his own
Problems ofStyle,linkeons of developmentofstyleof the acanthus,startingas earlyas the Egyptian.

HapticalCinema 53
parallel betweenfilmicanimationand the raisingof mummiesto the theorization

of moviesas hieroglyphictextsforpictorialreading.34I now wantto suggestthat
this prevalencemay be as centralto cinema's desire to signal an evolvingspatial
language as itwas to the contemporaryRiegl.The illusionof movingphotographic
pictureson a plane, and the cuttingof diversespaces againstone anotherin multi-
shot filmssuggested,in its earlyreception,a pressingout into and back into space,
a claimingof new space, a movementbetweenhaptical and optical,entailingspe-
cific interactions with a viewer. If we could document concrete contiguities
between filmmakersand art theoristson this point, the place to look would be
Vienna duringthe earlydecades of thiscentury.But in the absence of thesewe can
still say that filmmakingcultures were, like audiences and critics, steeped in
Egypt'sassociationwithstrikingspatiality,be it of flatness,ofstrangeness,of layers,
of emergence.In the cinema, as in art theory,Egyptianspatialitywas fertileand
productive,lending to Theda Bara's worldin Cleopatra (1917) cluttered,ornamen-
tal planarity,to Karl Freund's The Mummy(1932) giantismand depth, while in
other filmsit seemed to be able to trace out the shiftfroma cinema of frontal
presentation to a cinema of articulated depth. In this realm where cinematic
material and nascent principlesof art historyintersectedlay another reason for
filmingpharaohs,forbothcinemaand Egyptspokeof a worldon thevergeof spatial
transformation-their combinedeffectwas to be intoxicating, and enduring.
Depressed by "the povertyof sculpturalart" and short of opportunityfor

bas-relief,Hildebrand wrotea treatisewhose forcewould be amplifiedbyhis own
experience as a workingsculptor.35 Here he proposed "our general spatial ideas
and the perceptionof spatial formas the mostimportantfactsin our conception
of the realityof things."36But he noted thatthe eye perceivesspace in twomodes,
visuallyand kinesthetically,correspondingto distantand near encounters.37In
distantperception we grasp the image as a whole, as a spatial unitythat tends
towardflatness,or at least has clear, comprehensible spatial relations between
parts; this is a "visualprojection,"Fernbild
or distance picture.38By contrast,the
nearer an object is in our field of view,the more eye movementis required to
perceiveit as coherentand spatiallyunified,but throughthismotionwe can piece
togetherdisparateviews,using a combinationof the visual and kineticmodes.39
34. AntoniaLant, "The Curse of the Pharaoh, or How Cinema ContractedEgyptomania,"October 59

(Winter1992), pp. 86-112; reprintedin East ofSuez: Orientalism
inFilm,ed. GaylynStudlarand Matthew
Bernstein(New Brunswick, N.J.: RutgersUniversity Press,1995).
35. Hildebrand, TheProblem ofForm,p. 116.
36. Ibid., p. 17 (fromthe forewordto the thirdedition).
37. Ibid., p. 21.
38. Ibid., p. 28.
39. In his later forewordHildebrand allies these two modes to the facultiesof sight and touch:
"These twomeans of perceivingthe same phenomenonnot onlyhave separateexistencesin our faculties

54 OCTOBER
Successful art brought these two operations into balance, strivingtoward a

"general law of unity in space" best represented by the sculptural work of
Michelangelo, woefullylacking in the memorial groups of Canova with their
diagonals and proudlyjuttingfigures,and crasslyfloutedin modernpanoramas.40
Panoramas, in combining deep, distant, painted scenes with real foreground
objects,brought"forthan unpleasantfeeling,a sortof dizziness"in the "sensitive
observer"tryingto reconcile multiple,incommensurateclues to coded depth as
he or she scanned from the near to the distant and back.41 Ultimately,the
panorama "presuppose[d] in the spectatora coarseness and vulgarityof vision"
and encouraged the same "lackof culturein perception,just as wax figuresdo, by
means of perversesensationsand a falsefeelingof reality."42
Hildebrand's account of visitingthis mass-cultural,precinematicentertain-
mentclarifieshis ultimatepreferenceforthe bas-relief, a mode of representation
withparticularmetaphoricpowerforevokingthe aestheticsof cinema.His model
forexplainingthe "conceptionof relief"is reminiscent of Melieis'sForestdissection,
forin formingthree-dimensional objects,artistsshould considervolumeas simply
"a plane continuinginto the distance."As he instructs,"thinkof two planes of
glass standingparallel,and betweenthema figurewhose positionis such thatits
outer points touch them." (His sandwich formulationalternates planar and
volumetricelements-like M6lies's foliage flatsand actors.) The zone between
the glass sheets formsa "uniformdepth measurement"and when the figureis
viewedthroughthe frontglass"itbecomes unifiedintoa unitarypictorialsurface.
... The figurelives,we maysay,in one layerof uniformdepth. Each formtendsto
make of itselfa flatpicturewithinthe visibletwodimensionsof thislayer,and to
be understoodas such a flatpicture."43Hildebrandadds thatwhensculptingfrom
the block one movesfromthe visual to the kinetic,imaginingdepth relationsin
planes, slowlyemergingas if througha series of bas-reliefs,or as if the sculpture
werein a bath,the watergraduallydrainingaway.44
Hildebrand'saccount becomes suggestively cinematicas he tracesbas-relief
evolutionfromthe Egyptian.A low-relief figureof a pharaoh,partiallyincisedand
partiallyworkedinto forwardplanes, "illustratesthe evolutionof sculpturefrom
drawing,"45 while another,cuboid Egyptianfigure"illustratesthe evolution of
sculpture from drawingcarved into a block."46Still referringto the Egyptian
forsightand touch,but are unitedin the eye.... The twofunctionsofseeingand touchingexisthere...

in intimateunion [and] an artistictalentconsistsin havingthese twofunctionspreciselyand harmo-
niouslyrelated"(ibid.,p. 14).
40. Ibid., pp. 113, 135.
41. Ibid., p. 56.
42. Ibid., p. 58; and see p. 113.
43. Ibid., p. 80.
44. Ibid., pp. 128-29, 134-35. He contraststhismethod to sculptingin clay,whichproceeds from
the kineticto thevisual.Hildebrandattributesthe bath image to Michelangelo.
45. Ibid., p. 98.
46. Ibid., p. 103. Michelangelo'ssculpturesretainedthe ghostsof theiroriginalblocks-but not as

HapticalCinema 55
example, he writes:"Sculpturehas undoubtedlyevolvedfromdrawing;by giving

depth to a drawingwe make of it a relief,and thisreliefmaybe regardedas the
animation of a surface."47Emergence into volume is animation of a plane, illus-
tratedbyan Egyptianincised/reliefdrawingon the wayto sculpture,emblematic
both of origin and the onset of development,and its formboth protrudesfrom
and retreatsinto the surface,movesforwardand backward.
By "animation"Hildebrand meant both increased modulation in the plane,
and increased activityby the viewer,who would move, or imagine he moved, to
perceivethe object. In thiscontexthe remindshis reader that"all our knowledge
concerning the plastic nature of objects is derived originallyfrommovements
which we make either with eyes or with hands. And it is througha complex of
such movements,or by so-called kinestheticideas of them, that we are able to
imagine three-dimensionalor solid form."48 Riegl also identifieda trend toward
animation in the developmentfromEgyptian to classicallyantique Kunstwollen
(a trendfavoredby modern taste).49Let us now shiftover fromHildebrand and
Riegl'sanimationto filmsthathave showcasedcinema'spowerto animatea surface
by adapting the vocabularyof Egypt. Even though this is surelynot what NoMl
Burch meant when he wrotethatearlycinema "began again" thejourney toward
Renaissance perspectiveand "onlyfullyrejoined the 'classical' representationof
space between 1910 and 1915,"severalfilmsof the teensdo indeed presentspatial
amplificationas a passage fromthe Egyptianto animation,sometimesmarking
thejourney by the drawingof a curtain,itselfreminiscentof the onset of motion
pictureprojection.50In DeathofSaul, forexample, arrayedin the foregroundis a
counter of representationaloptions: Saul's rotund body in semi-Assyrian garb
contrasts with painted hieroglyphics,a bas-relief, and curtain and parapet
ornamentsof flatchevronsand lotuses.51Angryand jealous at David's popularity,
Saul holds back the curtain invitingus into the more potent, intenselyspatial
cinema beyondwherethe crowdsare lionizingtheirhero. It is as ifbydisplayinga
wide range of artisticmodes, each associated withits own special thickness,the
filmbetterflauntsits new propertyin the center-the dramaticpresentationof
deep spatialillusionfreefromdemarcated,planar zones.
In Ramses,KingofEgypt(1912) landscape shotsof shepherdingalternatewith
much as the Egyptian-makingthemthe mostspatiallyunifiedand successfulof worksforHildebrand.

Illustrativeplateswere not included in the firstthreeGermaneditionsof TheProblem ofFormin Painting
and Sculpture and mayfirsthave been added, as faras I have been able to establish,in the 1932 English
edition.
47. Ibid., p. 125.
48. Ibid., p. 24.
49. Riegl,Late RomanArtIndustry, p. 77. This discussionoccurs in a sectionwhereRiegl is establish-
ing the "inanimation"of the laterConstantinianreliefartin whichthereis a "latentschismfeltby the
modernbeholder betweenFernsicht and Nahsicht, farand near positionsof viewing."
50. NoielBurch,LifetoThoseShadows,trans.and ed. Ben Brewster(Berkeley:University of California
Press,1990), p. 162.
51. Fragmentof a filmviewedat the Libraryof Congress,FAB 1703, also knownas David and Saul
and MortdeSaiil (Pathe, 1912).

56 OCTOBER
.........
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Mortde Sail. 1912.
scenes of Ramses' court, the sets patterned to suggest a similar cinematic lineage.
At one point a servant leaves the palace, parting curtains between two massive
Antinous figures. A wall incised with birds, an oar, and feathers fills right frame;
behind him is the flattest lotus pattern, while on the stele by his side are car-
touche strips. The full volume of his live body is heightened by its motion
through the curtains, and by its juxtaposition with slimmer, static, or totally flat,
nonperspectival representational forms. In a second scene, the woman Rameses
loves flings open drapes to reveal the gleaming statue of Isis in depth; she heads
toward it, forsaking the hieratic, film-stripborders of the frame for the more
three-dimensional world of gods and godesses beyond.52 In a later film, She
(1925), based on H. Rider Haggard's novel, the same elements occur, but highly
eroticized. The curtain is transparent, printed with a life-sized, Egyptianate
human frieze. Behind it glows a light, illuminating a huge statue, a fountain
playing, and She moving. Suddenly the curtain is torn open by the moving volume
of her body passing through it, her head backlit and veiled as she prowls toward
Holly, more fullyrevealing as she goes the luxury of the hidden space behind her.
The curtain itself,with its figures, slight folds, and undulations, slight thickness,
not quite one with the skin of the screen, portends this spatial rending. Even the
many mummy cases of silent cinema, painted and designed, sometimes in relief,
and containing bound actors who will come to life, profferspatial forms in the
52. There are similarscenes inJoseph

and His Brethren
(Cines, 1911).

Haptical Cinema 57
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Egypt.1912.
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58 OCTOBER
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AncientTemplesof Egypt.1912.

HapticalCinema 59
evolutionarysequence. Their Chinese-dollquality,and the self-unbinding of the

mummies (often a criticalmoment in theiranimation), brings togetherin one
figurethejourney frombas-relief(the case) to sculpturein the round (the living
mummy),the wrapped mummybeing a sortof haptical stagingpost on the way,
stuckto the plane of the back of the case.
Egyptspoke to silentcinema'sspatialityin otherwaysbesides thosesuggested
by Hildebrand's model of animated drawingvia the bas-relief,and I will briefly
reviewthem here as furtherevidence of the general relevanceof the Egyptianate
in making tangible cinema's promised volume.53At the simplestlevel, viewers
recognized,in the stationaryzoetrope or spiralkinetograph(in whichsequences
of slightlyvaryingprinted, drawn, or photographed images are arranged as a
frieze), formalsimilaritiesto the banded design of tomb decoration. Certainly
the flat,stripformof exposed celluloid echoed thisartforsome commentators.54
A second association lay in the radical juxtapositions of scale made possible
throughcinema-through the projectionof close-ups,editing,double exposure,
split screen, and so on-but already familiarfromthe daunting scale shiftsof
nineteenth-century photographsof Egypt.By the 1890s images of giantEgyptian
statuary, above all the sphinxat Giza, had been widelycirculatedthroughlantern
shows,weeklymagazines,and books. The placement of human figuresalongside
the monumentsenhanced theirimmensityand hence the images' fascinationof
staggeringdiscontinuitiesof scale withouttricksor editing.55Nile valley loca-
tions later provided settingsfor silent films,for Kalem's AncientTemples
ofEgypt
(1912) for example, in which, in the opening shot, writerand actress Gene
Gauntierand the Kalem troop stridepast a fallenhead of Ramses.These were,as
it were, naturallyoccurring,immobile instancesof one of cinema's eeriest early
properties-giantismof the movingface.
Double exposure also enabled new scale relationswithinthe same shot. In
Cabiria(Italy,1914) the decoration of the court of Cirta (a townmeant to evoke
North African Carthage) blends Assyrian,Persian, and particularlyEgyptian
design withits sun-diskscarabs,Horus figureswithguardingwings,and Anubis-
like monoliths.As Queen Sofinisbadreamsthatshe willlose thiswealthifshe does
53. Points in the next two paragraphsappear in mycontributionto Cinbmasans Frontieres/Images

acrossBorders,1895-1918, ed. Roland Cosandey and FranCois Albera (Lausanne/Quebec: Payot-
Lausanne/Nuitblancheediteur,1995).
54. See, above all,Vachel Lindsay'sdiscussionof thisin TheArtoftheMovingPicture[1915] (NewYork:
Liveright,1970) where,among otherreferences,he recommendsTheBookoftheDead as a blueprintfor
screenwriters.Charles Urban's filmEgyptsurelydemonstratesthis relation: one scene, shot in the
BritishMuseum,compounds threelayersof serial frames,in threeseparateplanes: the casketdecora-
tion at greatestdepth,withits regular,recurringpilasters;the glass case, also segmentedinto frames,
and the unseen filmstockitself,passingbeforethe lens behind the viewer.See Charles Urban, Urban
Movie Chats,Egypt, circa 1921.
55. See Julia Ballerini,"The In Visibilityof Hadji-Ishmael:Maxime Du Camps's 1850 Photographs
of Egypt,"in TheBodyImaged:TheHuman Formand VisualCultureSincetheRenaissance,ed. Kathleen
Adler and Marcia Pointon (Cambridge: Cambridge UniversityPress, 1993), pp. 147-60, for an
expanded discussionof thispoint.

60 OCTOBER
GretaGarbo.Publicity
photo.1930s.
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not sacrificethe girl Cabiria, Moloch's three monstrous,isolated eyes blinkand

hoverover her chaise whilea huge hand reachesfromframeleftas ifto grab her.
The double exposurecreatesa shocking,gruesomescale disruptionto expressher
fearand horror.Even a filmsuch as Melies's TheMan witha Rubber Head,withno
Oriental content,mighthave called up Egypt'snowwidespreadculturallibraryof
monumentalismsansediting(whichitwas Melie's'strickto conceal). In Blackmail's
chase scene in th'eBritishMuseum (Hitchcock'slast, more-or-less silentfilm),a
massiveEgyptianhead looms behind the escaping man, memorializing,I would
suggest,the linkto the opening chaptersof cinema.The centralpointhere is that
radicaljuxtapostions of scale, particularlythose accomplished withinthe same
frame,could not help but summonEgypt,whosevisualimpactof massivenesswas
produced via figureswhose scale persistedwithoutthe aid of projection.These
were the largestfaces in the world,but forcinema, "surpass[ing]in the gigantic
and monstrousall that antiquityhas leftus."56Surelythe urge to superimpose
Greta Garbo's face on a sphinxlay in its power to expressso succinctlythe com-
bined impactsof her close-up,overwhelmingin its scale, silence, and enigmatic
sensibility.
But the act of superimpositionalso produced a kindof bas-relief.The accu-
56. Georg WilhelmFriedrichHegel, ThePhilosophy ofHistory(New York:Dover, 1956), p. 198. Of

course, Mayan,Easter Islander,and other sculpturaltraditionsproduced giganticfigures,but none
wereas widelyreproducedor discussedin thisperiod as the Egyptian.

HapticalCinema 61
rate registration of the photomontage, combined with the retention of the

sphinx's characteristic nemessilhouette, suggested that Garbo's head did not
replace the sphinx'sbut rathercovered it in a new,film-star skin,one layerover
the other.And it is not only the unimaginablesliverof space between one layer
and the nextthatpointsto the bas-reliefgenre,but also the veryembeddednessof
the sphinx itself.Over the centuriesit had become, througherosion, no longer
fullymodeled but, bodily,clearlyof the rock strata,while sand had in addition
hidden its lower quarters.The promiseof spatial emergence,which I have been
arguing was acutely associated with early cinema, adhered to both the collage
technique and the location's geography.In fact,for Hegel, a constrainedemer-
gence characterized ancient Egyptian culture in general, but the Sphinx in
particular:"The human head lookingout fromthe brutebodyexhibitsSpiritas it
begins to emerge fromthe merelyNatural-to tear itselfloose therefromand
already to look more freelyaround it; without,however,entirelyfreeingitself
fromthe fettersNature had imposed."57Because of its extensiveunderground
chambers,as much as because of time's sand burial, Hegel seemed to perceive
Egyptas one giganticbas-relief.58 The gradual freeingof above-groundstructures,
under way through excavations of the second half of the nineteenth century,
would then parallel throughmetonymyHildebrand's sculpturefromthe block;
onlynow sand insteadofwaterseeped away.59
Garbo's sphinx was not unique but followedTheda Bara's, Asta Nielsen's,
and several other publicityimages which built up thin spatial layers of visual
illusion. In one for Cleopatra(1917) these layersincluded Bara's face floatingoff
the sphinxysurface,her name painted as ifin shallow,protrudingrelief,and the
filmtitleseeminglychiseled in below.60Even in a second, collage-freephotograph,
Bara seems both fusedwithand emergentfromthe Egyptianate--paintedlotuses
sprout from her head and bud from her shoulders, enhancing the bas-relief
effect,whileshe standsupon a parabolic ledge, measuringjust the kindof shallow
slice Hildebrand prescribed.ArtworkforEdith Storey'sTheDust ofEgypt(1915)
also bonds a princessto a decorated plane, sectionshere too painted to look both
incised and protruding.61It is especially significantthat all these images are
promotional materials,invitationsto the show.They hint at the departurefrom
the static flatnessof the photograph,the frieze,the painting,that cinema will
perform,pointingto the sensualityof emergencefromtwodimensionsinto "living"
57. Ibid., p. 199; see also p. 213. PhilipKuberskirefersto thispassage, althoughmore to drawon its
negativeevaluationsof the culture,in his veryinterestingessayon Egyptin ThePersistence ofMemory:
Organism, Myth,Text(Berkeley:University of CaliforniaPress,1992).
58. "The inummerableedificesof the Egyptiansare half below the ground and half rise above it
into the air" (Hegel, ThePhilosophy ofHistory,p. 199).
59. Anothertypeof bas-reliefwas associatedwithEgyptin thisperiod: travelersand scholarsmade
"squeezes" fromincised hieroglyphictexts,usuallypapier mach6 impressions,dried, and then studied
later,or perhapskeptas souvenirs.Gradually,photographytook overthisrole.
60. See illustrationin Lant, "The Curse of the Pharaoh,"p. 86.
61. See illustrationin ibid.,p. 102.

62 OCTOBER
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Bara. 1917. (CourtesyoftheAcademyof
Motion PictureArtsand Sciences.)

HapticalCinema 63
forms,initiallyheld frozenbut in screeningsproferredin motion and potential

volume. Bara's Cleopatraspeaks this impossible incursion as she looms forward
fromthe stone surfaceto challenge the clean boundaries and contained designof
haptic form.Egyptiana calibrated the impact of this spatial complexity,cuing
both cinema's actual flatness(the screen and filmstock) and the movinghuman
body somehow contained within it. And the bas-relief offered an especially
powerfulshorthandfor this,livingas it did between two kingdoms,drawingand
sculpture,the flatand the full; connoting as it did the idea of transitionand
emergence; and operatingas it did in a zone wherebackgroundand foreground
were rarelyfullydistinguishable,and ofteninterchangeable.62
Hildebrand's distinctionof the near and distant,to be reconciledin the bas-
relief,was importantforRiegl,whose discussionof spatial formnot onlyfurther
illuminatesthe role the Egyptianatemightplayin film,but itselffilteredinto film
theoryat the hand of WalterBenjamin. Riegl honed his ideas on the decorative
arts,plyinghis waybetween the Ring and Sch6nbrunn,where half the Austrian
carpet collection was still royallyhoused. From his research he concluded that
therehad been a "decisiveshift[in art'shistory]fromthe strivingafterobjectivity
in the tactile appearance (haptic objectivism) to the objectivityof the visual
appearance (optical objectivism)."63In art of the former camp "depth and
delimitation" of the object spoke primarilyto the viewer'stactile sense, while
"optical (visible) qualities, like color and light" made optic art known to the
observer.64 Hinged to thiswas the question of where the viewerstood (in either
Nahsicht,Fernsicht,or Normalsicht positions-near, far,or somewherein between),
and whether,among other elements,shadows in the art workappeared to have
endless depth or were perceived more as clearly delimited, defining graphic
marks.All thiswas tied to the matterof how much subjectiveparticipationwas
demanded, allowed, or invitedon the part of the viewer,and whetherthe object
appeared to belong to the same space as the vieweror not. Riegl explained thata
62. The bas-reliefas a figureforcinema,or a fixturein cinema,is a richermotifthanspace permits

me to examine here. Mention should, however,be made of Freud's analysis of Jensen's storyof
Gradiva,in which the young archaeologist, Norbert Hanold, weaves his desires into a copy of an
antique reliefof a girl"whostepsalong."He fantasizesfromthisreliefthatshe comes to life,"animating
the past withhis imagination,"repressinghis love fora local girl,Zoe Bertang,his emotions locked
insteadinto "beingin love withsomethingpastand lifeless"(Freud, "Delusionsand Dreams inJensen's
Gradiva"[1906], in TheStandardEditionoftheComplete Works
Psychological ofSigmundFreud,vol. 9, trans.
and ed. James Strachey [London: The Hogarth Press, 1959], pp. 16, 22). Also relevant is Hugo
Miinsterberg'sdiscussionof the impressionof depth in cinema, referringto Vachel Lindsay'sproposi-
tion thatwe experience cinema like sculpturein motion,withthe foreground"fullof dumb giants.
The bodies of these giants are in high sculpturalrelief"(Miinsterberg,TheFilm:A Psychological Study
[1916] [NewYork:Dover,1970], pp. 22-23). Andre Bazin's discussionof the indexicalityof cinematog-
raphy,in whichitsoperationsresembleforminga mold,a death mask,or a (new) Shroud of Turin,res-
onates withthe bas-relieftheme (Bazin, WhatIs Cinema?vol. 1, trans.Hugh Gray(Berkeley:University
of CaliforniaPress,1967).
63. Riegl,"Late Roman or Oriental?"p. 185.
64. Ibid., p. 181.

64 OCTOBER
hapticworkcould be almostfullyunderstoodin the dark,throughtouch,because

of its clear outline or boundary,establishinga tangible sense of surface,and a
separation of the object from the viewer. In the optical mode, visual style
"unite[d] objects in an open spatial continuumand increasinglyappeal [ed] to
the spectator's recognitionof shared realities."65This insightenabled Riegl to
speak of the "inevitableadmixturesof subjectivevision"in art since the Middle
Ages66-optical qualities were more subjective in that they"depend[ed] to a
greaterdegree on those chance circumstancesin which the perceivingsubject
[found] itself."67
Riegl's schema is suggestive for a discussion of early cinema in several
respects. First, the subtle relationshipsof surface,plane, and depth through
which his Kunstwollen expressed itselfwere most clearly revealed in the non-
figurative arts,above all in architectureand the crafts(thoughtheyapplied across
all media); hence Riegl'slifelonginterestin the spatialgrammarof decoration.In
other words,Riegl's understandingof the relation of viewerto art workis not
derivedfromhis or her identification witha representedhumanfigure,but rather
operates at the level of design,suggestingan additionalavenue fordiscussingfilm
figuration besides via narrativeand plot. Further,reflectingon spatialitywas
centralto Riegl's thesis,an endeavorthatimmediately led him to discussa viewer
and the linkage of spatial perceptionto spatial presentationin art. Film consti-
tuted yet another arena of spatial articulation, and one might make the
historicalparallelbetweenRiegl'sargumentforthe increasingimbricationofsub-
jectivityin optic art-that not cleanlyset apart fromthe viewer-and the broad
shiftin filmmaking stylesfroma cinema of presentation,of attractions,to one of
representation, in which a diegeticmooringforthevieweris increasingly offered.68
Lastly,Riegl's "dialectical terminology" (as he puts it in a nod to Hegel) installs
ancient Egyptianart as emblematicof the haptic,the seed of an evolvingspatial
language.69The discussionof tactilitythataccompaniesthisdistinction,and that
was developed byBenjamin,mightbe productively relatedto currentquestioning
of the optical'sdominantrole in culture,such as Linda Williams'srecentargument
for the haptical consumption of pornographic film,for example-for Riegl
tackledboth the "the sensual act of seeing"and the sense of touchas components
of perception,and pondered theirmodernatrophism.70
65. Holly,Panofsky, p. 73.

67. Ibid., p. 181.
68. Tom Gunning, "The Cinema of Attractions:EarlyFilm, Its Spectator and the Avant-Garde"
[1981] in Early Cinema,pp. 56-67. The term "cinema of attractions"was formulatedby Andr6
Gaudreaultand Tom Gunning.
70. Linda Williams,"CorporealObservers:VisualPornographiesand the 'Carnal DensityofVision,"'
Press,1995), pp. 3-41; foranoth-
Images,ed. PatricePetro (Bloomington:Indiana University
in Fugitive
er view,see JonathanCrary,Techniques On Visionand Modernity
oftheObserver: in theNineteenthCentury
(Cambridge:MIT Press,1990), pp. 59-64, 122-24. Riegl,"Late Roman or Oriental?"p. 180.

Haptical Cinema 65
Riegl annointed ancient Egyptianart the "strictestplane-artin the world";

withits emphasis on "mass and surface"71it was least encumbered by subjective
tendencies. The ancient Egyptian temple was "an isolated formal unit" not
"delimited... in depth" but in heightand width72;it necessarilydeemphasizedany
relation to its beholder in attempting"the clearest possible delineation of the
individual figure."73Going into detail about Egypt's hapticity,Riegl explained
that the pyramidwas the "architecturalideal of the ancient Egyptians"because
"any of the four sides permits the beholder's eye to observe an alwaysunified
plane of an isoceles triangle,the sharplyrisingsides of whichbyno means reveal
the connecting space behind."74Further,windows,those "means of communica-
tion between inside and outside" thatwould readilyconveydepth, are small and
concealed in Egyptian temples.75For similar reasons Egyptian architecture
exhibited "space fright."Huge interiorssuch as the hypostylehall at Karnak had
to be packed withcolumns;in otherhalls "thevieweris more awareof the delimit-
ing flatwalls than of the empty space between them."76Ancient Egyptian art
placed "the sharpest possible emphasis on the outlinewithin the plane" and
accorded access only "in the most limited way to depth-designatingshadow,
admittingjust enough of it to allow recognitionof depth in the modeling of the
surface"-hence the veryshallowreliefof much Egyptianart.77Furthermore,the
representationof figuresas "striding... types... withtheirprofilepositioningof
head and legs and theirfrontalviewof eyes and shoulders"78avoided foreshort-
ening, or overlapping to the greatest extent possible, again minimizing
suggestionsof depth. Riegl found thisart lackingin aerial and linear perspective
"insofaras it extendsbeyond the individualfigure,"79
an effectsupportedbythe use
of the "strictestpolychromy"-the application of "single,unbroken color" only
withinthe "tactilelimitsof an object"80or drawing-insteadof indefinitecoloristic
applicationthatwould confusefigureand ground.81
By contrast,Riegl notes in Greek art an increaseof shadowsand an attempt
in the relieffigure"to more and more freeitselffromthe ground,"both leading
to a greater"plasticeffect."It stillprovokesthe "tactileorgans of the viewer,"but
there is a less sharp delineation of height and width than in ancient Egyptian
art.82Riegl then describesthe gradual hollowingout around relieffigures,such as
71. Rieglas discussedbyWorringer, EgyptianArt,pp. 82, 87.

73. Ibid., p. 181.
75. Riegl,"Late Roman or Oriental?"p. 179; see also LateRomanArtIndustry,
p. 28.
76. "Late Roman or Oriental?"p. 179 and LateRomanArtIndustry, p. 28.
77. "Late Roman or Oriental?"p. 182.
78. Ibid.
79. Ibid., p. 185.
80. Ibid., p. 182.
81. Ibid., p. 187.
82. Ibid., p. 183.

66 OCTOBER
in fourthcenturyA.D.works,and the "gulfthatseparatesthem... tornopen bythe

Greek development"fromancient Egyptianreliefs.83 For Riegl it is late Roman
art,previously dismissedas a cultureof decline,thatmostinterestingly documents,
ifin falteringways,the unevenjourneyof artisticinventionfromhapticto optical
forms.To appreciatethisit wasjust a question,he argued,of seeingit throughits
own Kunstwollen, and not that of the modern period, although modernity's
changes now made thatpossible.
Riegl'sschema, delineatingrelationsof planimetricto volumetricspace, and
space within an object versusspace around it, has been heavilycriticizedforits
teleologicallinearity,and forthe porousnessof its categories,whichcaused even
Riegl trouble.However,it is thatveryporousness,and the criticalimportanceof
Egyptwithinit, in a theorycontemporaneouswithcinema's birth,that tellsus
more of what celluloid Egyptianizingmeant, both historicallyand aesthetically.
One finalexample willsupportmycase: a filmbulgingwithformalcomparisons,
of the movingwiththe still,the silentwiththe noisy,the flatwiththe volumetric,
thephotographicwiththe cinematic-in a massivememorialto thesilentcinema-
which adds for good measure a director and central character from Riegl's
hometown.84
Karl Freund's TheMummy(1932) beginson an archaeologicaldig in 1921,a
resonant date for viewersof the early 1930s-Tutankhamen's tomb was to be
opened the followingyear,as Ardeth Bey (Boris Karloff)will remark.But it is
alreadyin the elaboratelycraftedintroductory sequence, namingstudio,producer,
star,and picture title, that The Mummyuses the spatial incipience of Egyptto
unlock cinema's promise,spinningit througha complex of motions.At firstthe
familiarplane orbits the Universal globe, counterclockwise,with the globe's
motion,noisilypassinground the back and out of sight,leavinga trailof letters:
"A UniversalPicture."The screenfadesto black,and then,as harshtrumpetnotes
sound, a shot of a model landscape with raked lightingfades in, a pyramidat
left,sphinx at right,both nestled in sand dunes and starklylit; "Carl Laemmle
presents Boris Karloff"fades in across them. Almost immediatelythe model
beginsto spin in frontof the camera,whileinsteadthe impressionis of the camera
arcing horizontallyaround the model, passingrightwardin frontof the sphinx,
causing the pyramidto seem to move behind the sphinx in a parallax motion.
This pyramidis theneclipsed bya second,whose twofacesalmostfillthe screen-
and we brieflycatch sightof a thirdpyramidin the leftbackground,beyondthe
sphinxas itwere.The camera comes to reston thissecond pyramid,on itsfurther-
most,shadowed face, where the words "The Mummy"are mounted,as if cut in
deep stonerelief,castinglong trailingshadowsoverthe stoneblocks.
The swivelingand spinningmotions,notjust of globe and plane, standard
83. Ibid., p. 184.

84. Karl Freund was workingin filmforAlexander"Sascha" Kolowratin Vienna from1912, before
movingto Berlinand thento the United States.

HapticalCinema 67
for Universal, but of the icons and even (apparently) the camera, have now
rotated the spectator too, making him or her seem to change places with the
sphinx and pyramids-in fact,the rotationceases just as the viewerwould come
into sightof him-or herself,as it were. The motion throughalmost 180 degrees,
prizes open a volumewithinwhichthe storywillunfold-the extravagantopening
pan marksout and inventsthat volume, dramatizingit by forcingit out of the
stone remainsof Egypt.We have,in effect,traveledbehind the haptic,around it,
to its reverseside, or inside-the side that,according to Riegl, cannot be known
fromthe outer surface.The cinema offersus thatpossibilty, and TheMummy here
both knowsit and flauntsit,in the processnarratively reorientingthe spectatorto
the darker,hidden, otherside of Egypt,the occultic over the scientific,and then,
later in the film,nostalgicallyrememberingthe overthrownsilentpast of filmin
an entirelymute pharaonic sequence. TheMummy looks both ways,being formally
innovativein its use of sound, scale models, and back projection,but mournful
both forsilentcinema and forEgypt,"the real Egypt"in the wordsof the heroine,
Helen, the one with "nothing dreadfully modern." This fulcrul position is
expressed thematicallyin the figureof the mummy,suspended between lifeand
death; in the heroine,who is half-Europeanand half-Egyptian, part new woman,
partancientprincess,speakingboth Englishand an ancientEgyptianlanguage; in
the political discussionof the fateof excavated remains,whethertheyshould be
in Europe or Egypt;and in the presentationof two approaches to archaeology,
the scientificand psychic,representedbydoctorsWhempleand Muller,fromLon-
don and Vienna. And it is also implied that Helen is a psychoanalyticpatient of
Dr. Muller,but that'sanotherstory.
Riegl's theories combined power of insightwith sufficientlyabstract and

malleable termsto invitewide application.85From the account I have given we
would expect that when film theorists adopted his categories it would be to
describe cinema as an optic art, one that could not be known at all through
touch and thatpossessed a strongsubjectivecomponent. The haptic, if present,
would be an imagined point of departure,perhaps a memoryof earlyfilmcul-
ture. However,both Benjamin and Burch make the opposite case, the former
througha perverse,inventivebrilliance,the latterthrougha projectivetwiston
the possibilityof touchingcinematicspace. For both, maturecinema is a haptical
form.
Riegl's importance for Benjamin lay in his argumentthat changes in style
were a registration of changes in human sense perception-and that this
85. For example, HeinrichWolfflinreinterpreted the termsas "linearly"and "painterly"

in his study
of High Renaissance and Baroque art in Principles
ofArtHistory:TheProblem oftheDevelopment
ofStylein
LaterArt[1915], trans.M. D. Hottinger(NewYork:Dover,1971).

68 OCTOBER
altered according to historicalevents and the Kunstwollen, and particularlyat

timesof social or artisticcrisis.86
Benjamin,of course,was to argue thatin the age
of mechanical reproductionthere had been such a change in the "medium of
contemporaryperception."87AlthoughBenjamin criticizedRiegl (and Wickoff)
fornot attempting"to showthe social transformations expressedbythesechanges
in perception,"he grantedthat "the conditionsforan analogous insight[were]
more favorablein the present,"given the widespreadpower of the medium of
film.88In extendingRiegl's categoriesto the cinema,however,Benjamininverted
Riegl'sdialectic:in cinema,althoughit had no actual tactilepropertiesof its own
(in the dark the screenofferedno modulatedsurfaceto feel), the shockeffectof
the bombardmentof spectatorsby imageswas physical,quite unlike the contem-
plativerelationof the viewerto a workof art thatrelied on distanceforits aura
and effect.Cinema was notfernsichtig but rathernahsichtig.In modernlife,wrote
Benjamin, "the desire of the contemporary masses [is] to bring things'closer'
spatially and humanly. . . . Every day the urge grows stronger to get hold of an
object at veryclose range bywayof its likeness,its reproduction."89
Cinema does
this,"detach[ing] the reproducedobject fromthe domain of tradition,"bringing
it nearer.90Benjamin'sevocationof the haptical/opticaldistinction(Hildebrand's
near and distantcan also be heard) is mostvividwhenhe comparesthe painterto
a magician,but the cameramanto a surgeon:"The magicianheals a sickperson
throughthe layingon of hands; the surgeon cuts into the patient's body.The
magicianmaintainsthe naturaldistancebetweenhimselfand the patient;though
he reduces it veryslightlyby the layingon of hands, he greatlyincreases it by
virtueof his authority.The surgeondoes exactlythe reverse;he greatlydiminishes
the distance between himselfand the patient by penetratinginto the patient's
body,and increasesit but littleby the caution withwhichhis hands move among
the organs ... The paintermaintainsin his worka naturaldistancefromreality,
the cameramanpenetratesdeeplyinto its web. There is a tremendousdifference
between the picturestheyobtain. That of the painteris a total one, thatof the
cameraman consists of multiple fragmentswhich are assembled under a new
law"-the kind Hildebrand,visitingthe panorama,abhorred.91The tactilequality
of new representationappears again in Benjamin'sdiscussionof Dada art,which,
86. See Levin, "WalterBenjamin"fora discussionof Riegl's influenceon Benjamin;Iversenrefers

to Benjamin's association withRiegl and Benjamin's deploymentof the haptic/opticschema (Alois
Riegl,pp. 15-16).
87. WalterBenjamin,"The Workof Artin the Age of Mechanical Reproduction,"in Illuminations,
ed. Hannah Arendt,trans.HarryZohn (NewYork:SchockenBooks,1969), p. 222.
88. Ibid. As Isabelle Frankhas pointed out to me, thiscriticismis not fullywarranted,since in his
book on Dutch group portraitureRiegl does connect shiftsin artisticstyleto cultural habits of
Dutch seventeenth-century life and particularlyreligiousand mercantilepractices (Das hollandische
Gruppenportrdt, inJahrbuch Kaiserhauses
desallerh6chsten 22, Vienna, 1902, reprintedin 1931).
89. Benjamin,"The WorkofArt,"p. 223.
90. Ibid., p. 221.
91. Ibid., p. 233-34.

HapticalCinema 69
hittingthe spectatorlike a bullet,"happen[s] to him,thusacquiringa tactilequal-

ity."Dada promoted "a demand for the film,the distractingelement of whichis
also primarilytactile,being based on changes of place and focuswhich periodi-
cally assail the spectator."92Benjamin concludes that "by means of its technical
structure,the filmhas taken the physical shock effectout of the wrappers in
whichDadaism had, as it were,kept it inside the moral shock effect."93Cinema is
haptic both because of the cameraman's profilmicpenetration of the world, like
the surgeon'sinternalhandlingof the body,and because of film'sphysicalimpact
on the viewer,especiallythroughits startlingjuxtapositions of scale, time, and
space created in rapid editing. So, while Riegl's termsare inverselyapplied, now
describing more the art maker and perceiver than the object, his distinction
between physicaltouch and distantsightstillsustainsilluminatingresults.When
turningto Burchwe findthe termsdifferently instrumentalized.
In Lifeto ThoseShadowsBurch traces the emergence and consolidation of
cinema in the firstthree decades of thiscentury.In his genealogycinema moved
fromhavingno "language" to constituting"an InstitutionalMode of Representa-
tion,"his vocabularyredolentof the AlthusserianMarxistcontext.94His aim is to
show thischange as, even if inevitable,not natural.It was "a productof History,"
with delays, sidetracks, and detours in "an otherwise ineluctable historical
movement"towardthe reconsititution of realitythroughperspectivalsystemsand
mechanical means.95 Placing cinema within a broadly construed historyof
representation,Burch sees film'sfirsttwentyyearsas "in a sense a recapitulation
of the decades ofworkwhichwentinto the constitutionof monocularperspective
in painting" in the fifteenthcentury.96In other words, the installation of
perspectivein the cinema-the fulfullment of its "three-dimensionalvocation"-
was not immediateand obvious,despite the physicsof the photographiclens, but
was strivenfor and awkward,producing discontinuityin the spatial worldsearly
cinema offeredspectators:"as a whole thiscinema is deeply splitwhere the repre-
sentationof space and volumeis concerned."97
Burch stresses cinema's predominant inheritance from flat models-
chromolithographs,strip cartoons, imagesd'epinal-which encouraged a pre-
Renaissance,planar life in the image. In addition, evennessof lightingfroman
overhead source, the fixityof the camera and its placement at rightangles to
the plane of the profilmicscene, the preferenceforpainted backdrops,and "the
92. Benjamin continues: "Let us compare the screen on whicha filmunfoldswiththe canvas of a
painting.The painting invitesthe spectatorto contemplation;before it the spectatorcan abandon
himselfto his associations.Beforethe movie framehe cannot do so. No sooner has his eye grasped a
scene than it is alreadychanged" (ibid., p. 238).
93. Ibid.
94. Burch,Lifeto ThoseShadows,p. 2. He studiesBritain,France, and America,whichhe groups as
"the capitalistand imperialistWest"on p. 3.
95. Ibid., pp. 2, 7-8,
96. Ibid., p. 163.
97. Ibid., pp. 163, 164.

70 OCTOBER
placing of the actors,alwaysa long wayfromthe camera, oftenspread out in a

tableauvivant,all [facing] front,withoutaxial movementof any kind,"all con-
tributedto the effectof flatness,or whatBurch termsthe "autarchy"of filmsof
the firstdecade.98This set of characteristics shaped a particular,constrictedrange
of relationsbetweenspectatorand screen,an "externality of the spectator-subject"
so thattheviewersawhim-or herselfas "sittingin a fixedpositionin frontofa flat
screen."99Burch singlesout M61is's workas exemplaryin thisrespect;his use of
clearlytwo-dimensional props,grisaillesets,"almostsystematic refusal"of Renais-
sance perspective,preclusionof depth clues, even in trackingshots,and narrow,
lateralspace of action betweencamera and flat,paintedbackdrop,all set viewers
apartfromthe projectedimage in frontof them.
However,and Burch suggeststhis,there was afterall not a complete flat-
ness of the illusion but a "composite picture" in which two modes of
representationcohabited: smoke effectscreated atmosphericdepth, and axial
movementsof actors claimed some space.'oo Further,the "opposition between
the 'M61iesian'affirmation of the surfaceand the affirmation of depth" charac-
terizing the visual historyof cinema before World War I was "alreadyimplicitin
Arrived'un trainai La Ciotat."o101 In addition, as I have suggested,chiaroscuro
playingover the human body movingagainst painted flatsand props, as in the
Magic Forest sequence, stressedthe coexistence of two-and three-dimensional
forms.
Burch's approach invites comparison with Riegl on at least two points
despite its different,political roots. First,he discussesthe beginningsof cinema
as a repetitionof the trajectoryof Westernrepresentation:"If ever therewas a
phenomenon withcauses as unconsciousas theywere conscious,it is the waythe
cinema in some sense recapitulatedthe historyof the pictorialrepresentationof
space in the West."'102 Riegl would surelyhave sympathizedwithBurch's convic-
tion that spatial articulation in film is a critical element of its history.And
second, thereis Burch's chapterheading,"Buildinga Haptic Space."os03 But what
does hapticmean forBurch?
He describesthe evolutionof earlycinemastyleawayfromthe "visualflatness
of interiortableaux" into a formof interiorstagingas if in a three-dimensional
geometricalbox in whichactorsare used "to show thatnone of the space visibly
representedis on a painted backdrop,thatit can all be enteredand touched."104
Buildinga haptic space means movingtowardthe "gradual'conquestof space."' It
98. Ibid., p. 164.

99. Ibid.,p. 165.
100. Ibid., pp. 167-73.
101. Ibid., p. 173.
102. Ibid.,p. 168.
of
103. Burchgivesno particularreferenceforhis haptic,callingit "the technicaltermpsychologists
perceptionhave derivedfromthe Greekwordfortouchandjuncture"(ibid.,p. 173).
104. Ibid.,p. 172.

HapticalCinema 71
entails,besides the directionof actors into everynook and crannyof a box, the
developmentof dramatic,artificiallightingto "give the image relief,"destroying
the boundaries of the frame through dark shadow, implyingoff-screenspace
throughcast shadow,and employingphotographicangles thatavoid frontality.105
Oblique camera angles make visiblemanymore surfacesof tables,floors,and so
on, and thus"multiplythe signsof linear perspectiveacross the visualfield:a pro-
fusion of convergentlines [is] to be presented to the eye to prove that what
confrontsus reallyis a haptic space." Burch makes the finalstep of his argument
when he statesthatcamera movementmaybe "the main guarantorof this'haptic-
06Camera movement provides "at one go . . . both an analogue of the
ity."''"
'motionlessvoyage' [of the spectator]in diegetic space and the tangible proofof
the three-dimensionality of 'haptic' space."107For Burch the haptic is clearlytied
to convictionof spatial illusion,such thata viewerbelieveshe or she could touch
the photographedobjects and actors,as if theyexistedin real space. Arrivalat a
haptic space marksthe end of the "contradictionof surfaceand depth that had
dividedprimitivecinema,"nowonlyoccasionallyself-consciously revisited,as in The
CabinetofDr. Caligari.0os Burch's haptic growsfromthe increased use of varied
shadowand the idea of an invitationintobelievableroom,intoboundlessspace.
All of thisnot onlyrunscounterto Riegl'smeaningsforthe term,but in fact
definesthe optical mode. WithinBurch'sown framehaptic makessense,but it has
lost both the objective,self-contained, clearlyborderedmeaningof Riegl's (foran
art that did not relyon deep shadow and illusion and that could frequentlybe
almostas wellknownthroughtouch),and thevisceral,crowding,physical,dislocat-
ing impact of Benjamin's as he adapts the concept to modernity.The resulting
confusion,as one tries to followthe uses, is a cautionarytale againsttoo loosely
allying the historiographyof one field with the emerging historiographyof
another.And one cannot help regretting thatBurchwas unawareof a paradox that
Riegl tookgreatpains to explain,in termswe mightnow associatewithfilmtheory:
thatwithan increased space and three-dimensionality the figurein a
work of art is also increasinglydematerialized.The period whichwas
mostmaterialistic in artwas the ancientEgyptianwhichrepresentedthe
individualobjectwheneverpossiblein the twodimensionsof heightand
widthbut also touchable to the beholder.From the point when Greek
art consciouslytried to expressthe individualshape also withthe third
dimensionof depth therewas not, as one mightassume,the impression
of increasedmateriality forthe beholder but rathera decreased one as
a consequence of the increasingimportancewhichnow the intellectual
consciousness(experience) gained forthe perceptionof a workof art.
105. Ibid., p. 178.

106. Ibid., p. 180.
107. Ibid., p. 181.
108. Ibid., pp. 183, 184.

72 OCTOBER
This again wasbased on theincreasingeliminationof the senseof touch

in orderto favorthesense ofsight.109
But the "backward"falloutof haptical and optical on theirjourney to film

theoryhas its own, instructivelogic, for surelyboth cases can be argued, even
thoughthe optical characterof filmhas typically been stressed.In Riegl'shaptical
or Hildebrand's Nahbild(and especiallyin art in whichthereis a combinationof
modes, as in the panorama) the viewermustmove to perceivethe art fully,and
Riegl's writingis replete with descriptions of such voyages of the beholder:
ancient Egyptianstatues,when one looks at them froma distance,"make a flat
and absolutelylifelessimpressionand then gradually,fromgreaterproximity, the
planes become increasingly lively,until eventuallythe fine modeling can be felt
entirely,when one lets the tip of the fingersglide over them.""10On the other
hand, in optical art (even optical objectiveartas opposed to optical subjective)it
becomes quite importantnot to move:"Engravedpupils [characteristic of Roman
and laterart] onlymake sense froma fernsichtig pointofview,wheretheyappear as
purelycolorfuleffects,while in the nahsichtig the beholder would not like to see
on the eyeballan alterationof depthwhichin realitydoes not exist."111 In cinema,
in its perplexingcombinationsof farand near,and despite its optical immateri-
alty,both the profilmic material and the viewer are haptically engaged, as
Benjamin argues. But the earlyscreenwas also utterlyhaptic,a surfaceof clearly
delimitedheightand widthwithno visual suggestionof an inside,of any depth.
Onlyin projectionwas itsspatialitytransformed. In anothercontextI have argued
thatEgyptfunctionedas a gatewayto fantasyin the auditorium,a role stemming
in part fromits geographicalplacementat thejunction of East and West.112 The
association of the hieroglyphwith filmhad a similarvalue, connoting the in-
betweenness of the medium, its duality as both writingand image making,
requiringnew skillsof observationand decipherment.Turn-of-the-century dis-
course in art historytells us that Egyptianizing motifsgave cultural life to
anotheraspect of cinematicpassage,fromthe stilland planar to the moving,jar-
ring, intruding, and voluminous, and specificallyinvoked its experimental
refashioningof spatial language. The bas-reliefabove all intimatedthe potential
embellishmentof flatnessthatwas cinema, and, particularlyin alliance withthe
photographed body, its peculiar spatial ambiguity.Such themes and images
expressedthe idea of a mode of representationin the processof transformation-
the photograph, moved by projection, the drawing, swelled into relief, the
boundaryoffrontalspace about to be crossedin theuse ofangledcamerapositions,
movingcamera work,the editingof differentshots into multishotfilm.Egypt's

110. Ibid.,p. 24, n. 2.
111. Ibid.,p. 80.
112. Lant, "The Curse of the Pharaoh,"p. 98.

HapticalCinema 73
iconographyand techniques were emblematic of the changed perceptions the

beginningsof cinema entailed,and even,forRiegl and Worringer, of the massive
upheavals of modernity itself. It was for this paradoxical reason, and not just
throughstylisticsimilarity, that the modernity of Picasso's and Braque's art was
said to be pharaonic.
In mysurveyof film'splace in contemporaryaccounts of artisticperception
it is Hildebrand who leaves the mostnegativeviewof the consumptionof a mod-
ern spectacle, describing the back and forthnessof panoramic viewing as a
crude, perverse sensation,in which the heretoforeuprightcitizen becomes too
involved,physically, literally,with the actual volume and falsenessof that enter-
tainment. In such a setting,bourgeois bodies become part of a mass, need to
sway and bend, are carried away from their known, social niche, and lose
integrityand refinementas theyare no longer able or required to make familiar,
nice distinctionsof near and far.In Benjamin's giddy,oftentriumphantaccount,
bodies, now at the cinema, lie and lounge, have their entrails rummaged,are
bombarded and physiologicallymassaged by the radicalityof film'sspatial and
temporal propositions; no lean-cut, stream-lined,International-style notion of
modern art is here. The idea of filmas a metaphoricaland literalride has been
thoroughlyexamined,both narratologically, and historically,in the phenomenon
of Hales' Tours for example. But in recalling commentatorssuch as Riegl and
Hildebrand we are sensitizedto anotherof its facets,to the eye's pleasure flicker-
ing over a surface,perceivinglayeredspace withoutbeing able to move closer to
run fingerson a stone,or see the gougingof the eye. Recognizingimplied,subtle
depths over a decorated plane was a delight heightened, dynamized, and
enlarged throughcinema, an engagementbadlydisplayedin the artfuljuxtaposi-
tion of differentrepresentationalmodes-drawing, bas-reliefs,incised images,
printed textile undulation, moving human figures-or in the stunningdissec-
tions of M6lies's films.Including the Egyptianateactivated this attention,even
taughtit to us, forit maximaized the range of formsto hand, and set the stage
forthe thrillof depth,our plunge outwardor into deep space.113
113. In a doomed endeavor,Bruce Bryan assessed Egyptianfilmicrepresentationin a 1924 essay,

"Movie Realism and Archaeological Fact." He determinedthat DeMille's The TenCommandments was
"the greatest picture that has ever been made," despite many archaeological errors. Particularly
bothersome was that, "contraryto all other Egyptianpylons,the hieroglyphiccarvings... and the
sculpturedhorses [were] in bas-relief.... Tryand read the hieroglyphicssculptured, not cut in, on the
walls,"he complains, including a production still to illustratethe problematicprotrusionsArtand
Archaeology:TheArtsThroughout theAges,vol. 18, no. 4 (October 1924), pp. 139-40, 144.


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Haptical Cinema

Author(s): Antonia Lant

This content downloaded from 132.236.27.217 on Tue, 16 Sep 2014 13:43:24 PM

In the fourthscene of GeorgesMdlies's ThePalace oftheArabianNights(1905)

OCTOBER 74,Fall 1995,pp. 45-73. ? 1995 October

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:-::-:l:iil::-::-:-:: iiiiiiZ' li --_::::

entwinesdesigned surface,illusionof spatial penetration,and an oriental set, a

1. The filmis also knownas AliBarbouyou

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cinema's firstpublic. One reviewerof a Biograph filmshot froma movingtrain

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Kunstwollen,the "definiteand purposeful"trendor tastecharacteristicof an age,

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13. Ibid., pp. 73, 81.

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thereis the spatialswallowing and rushingalreadydescribed.Reconnectingcinema

20. JacquesAumont,"WhenIs PrimitiveCinema?" (lecturegivenat "Cinema Turns100,"the Third

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sides, and this,througha kind of undertow,broughtthem into another relation.

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29. WilliamH. Goodyear,TheGrammar oftheLotus:A NewHistory ofClassicOrnament as a Development

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parallel betweenfilmicanimationand the raisingof mummiesto the theorization

Depressed by "the povertyof sculpturalart" and short of opportunityfor

34. AntoniaLant, "The Curse of the Pharaoh, or How Cinema ContractedEgyptomania,"October 59

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Successful art brought these two operations into balance, strivingtoward a

forsightand touch,but are unitedin the eye.... The twofunctionsofseeingand touchingexisthere...

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example, he writes:"Sculpturehas undoubtedlyevolvedfromdrawing;by giving

much as the Egyptian-makingthemthe mostspatiallyunifiedand successfulof worksforHildebrand.

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52. There are similarscenes inJoseph

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evolutionarysequence. Their Chinese-dollquality,and the self-unbinding of the

53. Points in the next two paragraphsappear in mycontributionto Cinbmasans Frontieres/Images

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not sacrificethe girl Cabiria, Moloch's three monstrous,isolated eyes blinkand

56. Georg WilhelmFriedrichHegel, ThePhilosophy ofHistory(New York:Dover, 1956), p. 198. Of

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rate registration of the photomontage, combined with the retention of the

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forms,initiallyheld frozenbut in screeningsproferredin motion and potential

62. The bas-reliefas a figureforcinema,or a fixturein cinema,is a richermotifthanspace permits

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hapticworkcould be almostfullyunderstoodin the dark,throughtouch,because

65. Holly,Panofsky, p. 73.

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Riegl annointed ancient Egyptianart the "strictestplane-artin the world";

71. Rieglas discussedbyWorringer, EgyptianArt,pp. 82, 87.

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in fourthcenturyA.D.works,and the "gulfthatseparatesthem... tornopen bythe

83. Ibid., p. 184.

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Riegl's theories combined power of insightwith sufficientlyabstract and

85. For example, HeinrichWolfflinreinterpreted the termsas "linearly"and "painterly"

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altered according to historicalevents and the Kunstwollen, and particularlyat

86. See Levin, "WalterBenjamin"fora discussionof Riegl's influenceon Benjamin;Iversenrefers

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