Yosefa,
A job in UCL in film studies?! What is going on?
H
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Subject: FILM-PHILOSOPHY Digest - 7 Feb 2004 to 9 Feb 2004 - Special
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There are 2 messages totalling 832 lines in this issue.
Topics in this special issue:
1. Film Lectureship at UCL
2. 8.5 Freeman on Lang
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Date: Sun, 8 Feb 2004 18:27:08 -0000
From: Verene Lack-Grieshaber <[log in to unmask]>
Subject: Re: Film Lectureship at UCL
(apologies for cross-posting: could list members signal the post
describe=
d
below to any interested parties)
University College London: LECTURER IN FILM STUDIES (2004)
Location: Faculty of Arts and Humanities or Faculty of Social and
Histori=
cal
Studies*
Grade: Lecturer B
Salary scale: =A326,270 to =A333,679 plus =A32,134 London Allowance
Applicants for this post must have a PhD in some aspect of film or a
cogn=
ate
area, at least two years of university teaching experience and a strong
research record and potential. The successful applicant will be closely
involved with the MA in Film Studies, an inter-departmental programme
launched in 2001 which admits about 25 students a year and currently
administered by the Department of Italian. S/he will also be involved in
teaching film courses to undergraduates. Within two years of appointment
s/he may expected to take up administrative responsibility for one or
mor=
e
of UCL=92s film programmes.
*The successful applicant will be attached to the Department closest to
their primary research interests. This will be negotiated on
appointment.
The appointment will be effective from 1st September 2004 and will be on
=
the
Lecturer B scale. The salary will be in the range =A326,270-=A333,679
plu=
s
=A32,134 London Allowance. For further information, and for informal
enqu=
iries
about the post, please contact Patrizia Oliver, email:
[log in to unmask] or phone (+44) (0)20 7679 7024.
Candidates should submit a letter of application and ten copies of their
=
CV
with contact details of three academic referees.
It is expected that interviews will be held in the week beginning 26th
Ap=
ril
2004.
The closing date for applications is Monday, 8th March 2004.
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------------------------------
Date: Mon, 9 Feb 2004 14:16:24 +0000
From: Film-Philosophy Editor <[log in to unmask]>
Subject: 8.5 Freeman on Lang
| | F I L M - P H I L O S O P H Y | | | |
| | | | | | | | | | | | | | |
=
|
| | | Journal : Salon : Portal | ||| | |
| ISSN 1466-4615 | | |
| || PO Box 26161, London SW8 4WD | | | |
| | http://www.film-philosophy.com | | | |
| | | | vol. 8 no. 5, February 2004 | | | | | |
Joel Freeman
The Semiosis of Death in Lang's _M_:
=46ilm and the Limits of Representation in the Weimar Republic
_M_
Directed by Fritz Lang
Germany, 1931
The cultural production of the Weimar Republic is marked by an
obsession=
with death. Nowhere is this more apparent than in the films of the=
inter-war years. This obsession reaches a remarkable apotheosis in
Fritz=
Lang's _M_ (1931). _M_ brings into focus the absence of presence that
is=
inherent in any attempt to represent death. This is the principal
factor=
that gives _M_ a high degree of visual and conceptual intensity. _M_
makes=
explicit the degree to which film, as a medium, operates as a trope
and=
vessel for death in the cultural arena. When we excavate the conceptual
and=
cultural ground from which _M_ emerges we find that the film is itself=
conditioned by a constant re-discovery of the structurally determined=
relationship of film to death. _M_ offers an unfolding of the formal=
properties of film, which drive film compulsively back into the terrain
of=
death. At the same time the film makes explicit the specific
theoretical=
and historical factors that shape and condition its recourse to=
representations of death. In this sense _M_ can also be seen as an=
intervention in the philosophical and aesthetic discourses surrounding=
death in Germany between the wars.
All of this is only possible because _M_ takes as its organizing
principle a=
self-conscious inquiry into the impossibility of representation that
is=
intrinsic to death. Any work of art that uses death in order to advance
a=
narrative or aesthetic purpose is instantly thrown into an impossible=
position regarding its own effort to offer representation. This=
impossibility is foregrounded throughout the film. Consequently=
representation of death, qua representation, becomes its subject
matter. By=
explicitly thematizing the absence of presence inherent to
representations=
of death, _M_ establishes a unique cinematic semiotics of death. One of
the=
theoretical by-products of this is that it illustrates, in sharp
detail,=
the fact that core elements of the cultural life of the Weimar
Republic=
were predicated on a compulsive return to the problem of the limits of=
representation. _M_ also illustrates the way in which the return to
death=
is itself marked by a desire to overcome the impossible. [1] The virtue
of=
_M_ is that it foregrounds the position of death in a way that
challenges=
normal modes of representation of death. This makes it an ideal site
for an=
inquiry into the fundamental structural features of film. In treating
death=
it employs a method that one might call non-objective representation.
When=
we excavate the theoretical sub-text that conditions _M_ we discover
that=
this method, that of non-objective or non-representative
representation, is=
in aesthetic terms its operative principle. Non-objective
representation is=
what allows _M_ its semiotics of death. It is also what allows _M_ to=
successfully navigate between an aesthetic of pure non-objectivity
which=
was advocated in certain quarters of the avant-garde, [2] and the=
unconsciously mimetic that dominates in art produced for mass
consumption.=
The very notion of non-objective representation is of course
inherently=
paradoxical. But it is only by reading the manifestations of this
method in=
_M_ that we uncover the structural elements that force film, as film,
into=
its compulsive return to death. Thus the traces of non-objective=
representation in _M_ and indeed in film as such, are the aesthetic=
signifiers that allow us to unravel its peculiar semiotics of death.
An inquiry into the relation of the structural features of _M_ reveals
that=
film itself (and not just _M_) is structurally bound to the absence of=
presence. Further, we find that the presence of absence, or the absence
of=
presence is a constitutive feature of representation in general,
whether it=
be pictorial or textually based. Film in particular, as the
paradigmatic=
vessel for the absence of presence is, as such, a trope for death. Its=
formal properties determine that it must operate in culture as a trope
and=
vessel for death. Exactly why this is so will be addressed later on.
For=
the moment it is important to note that inquiry into the formal
properties=
of film does not preclude contextual or historical considerations. In
fact=
just the opposite; in _M_ the operation of film as trope and vessel
for=
death reveals in turn the status of death as a guiding trope for the=
political life of the Weimar Republic. In this regard the formal
properties=
of the film (its narrative content and the historical ground from which
it=
emerges) are all inextricably bound together in death. In _M_ the
essential=
inter-linkage of these putatively separate arenas becomes clear.
_M_ provides us with the material necessary for an understanding of the
role=
that film has as trope for death in the cultural life of the Weimar=
Republic. In order to understand how _M_ allows us this discovery we
need=
to have at hand a sketch of the conceptual ground from which the film=
emerged. _M_'s position as a cinematic moment that provides a view onto
the=
formal properties of film as trope for death is itself only possible=
because of the particular historical and conceptual circumstances that
gave=
it birth. In this sense _M_ supports the notion that every layer of
the=
work of art is conditioned by its historical context. In narrative
terms=
_M_ is most effective when it opens itself to socio-historical and=
philosophical questions regarding the status of death in the Weimar=
Republic. _M_ is thoroughly conditioned by these sorts of contextual=
questions. On no count does _M_ perform its cinematic enactment of
death,=
of the presence of absence, separate from these questions. As such _M_=
throws light on both the conceptual and ideological framework of the
Weimar=
Republic and on the formal properties of film as a medium. These two=
registers, the formal and the contextual, treated together, bring the
death=
in _M_ out of the shadows and afford a view onto how, 'the epitome of
all=
tropes' [3] operates in the cultural arena. When we view _M_ through
these=
registers the film brings us to the realization that death is the
framing=
element for many of the most basic structural features of cultural=
production in Germany between the wars.
In order to gain a foothold into the conceptual and historical context
that=
allows _M_ to operate successfully as trope and vessel for death, we
can=
turn to a perhaps unlikely source, Edmund Husserl. In his Fichte
lectures=
of 1917 Husserl indicates the degree to which, in the aftermath of
World=
War I, death established an extraordinary lordship in the cultural life
of=
the Weimar Republic:
'Need and death are today's teachers. For many years now death is not
an=
exceptional event which permits itself to hide and have its majesty
debased=
through splendid congregations, under piles of bouquets and wreaths.
Death=
has again won back its holy primal right. It is the great reminder of=
eternity in time.' [4]
The sentiments that Husserl echoes here were not at all uncommon among
the=
vast majority of Germans and among its intelligentsia. The 'again' in=
Husserl's phrase ('Death has again won back its holy primal right')=
indicates the historically specific relationship to death that
manifested=
itself in Germany after WWI. It points to the conviction that WWI
brought=
about a return to (in Sigmund Freud's words) old primeval forms of=
barbarity, [5] which many Germans, especially those conditioned by the=
relative comfort and prosperity of Wilhelmine society, imagined had
been=
educated out of civilized Europe. The unadorned barbarism of WWI
proved=
beyond a shadow of a doubt that long cultivated Enlightenment values
were a=
mere delusion, a mask designed to hide and domesticate the fundamental
and=
inexplicable blood lust that lay at the root of 'civilization'. Where
once=
the term civilization could be used with confidence, WWI made it
necessary=
to conceive the term in italics because everything the term was
supposed to=
signify (reason, the autonomous subject, liberal democracy) were=
fundamentally destabilized. Max Horkheimer provides a succinct
treatment of=
this phenomenon in his essay 'The End of Reason'. Though published in
1941,=
and obviously meant to critique the rise of National Socialism, it
echoes=
quite well the troubled and troubling position of reason throughout
the=
inter-war period:
'The fundamental concepts of civilization are in a process of rapid
decay.=
The rising generation no longer feels any confidence in them, and
fascism=
has strengthened their suspicions. The question of how far these
concepts=
are at all valid clamours more than ever for an answer. The decisive=
concept among them was that of reason, and philosophy knew of no
higher=
principle. It was supposed to order the relationships among men and to=
justify the performances demanded of them.' [6]
The conceptual and ethical system that Horkheimer alludes to here found=
itself in an extremely precarious position from the first moment of
the=
Weimar Republic. The validity of reason as the guiding paradigm for=
'civilization' was ruined in part because WWI appeared to bring about
a=
return not just to barbarism, but to a barbarism accompanied by the=
dramatically increased destructive power of industrialized warfare.
The=
marriage of technology and an irrational, elemental blood lust created
a=
new plateau of mass destruction. Mechanized mass destruction
illustrated=
that the belief system traditionally attached to the conceptual nexus
of=
reason ('Vernunft') and education ('Bildung') was itself not only
complicit=
in the slaughter, but in fact the enabling agent for the slaughter.
Thus=
the war exposed the dangers that adhere in instrumental rationality,
but=
which had until the war been largely repressed in the name of the=
enlightenment model of reason, education, and progress. [7] The war
laid=
bare the malignant irrationality that always lurks within the rational=
conceptual order. According to Adorno and Horkheimer in the _Dialectic
of=
Enlightenment_, reason is itself predicated on a desire for violent=
lordship over the objective realm. As such a primal drive to dominate=
nature forms the true essence of the machinery of reason. Consequently=
reason operates as an ideological mask for the drive to domination and
as=
such is itself ultimately irrational in that is leads to
self-destructive e=
nds:
'The absurdity of a state of affairs in which the enforced power of the=
system over men grows with every step that takes it out of the power
of=
nature, denounces the rationality of the rational society as obsolete.
Its=
necessity is illusive, no less than the freedom of the entrepreneurs
who=
ultimately reveal their compulsive nature in their inevitable wars and=
contracts.' [8]
Though these ideas were formulated during and after the second war not
the=
first, it is safe to say that the first war was in many respects the=
principle catalyst for the critical framework that they emerged from.
Not=
until WWI do we see such widespread distrust of rationality as the=
organizing paradigm for Western societies. [9] The shock of WWI led to
a=
great levelling of the conceptual and ethical playing field, leaving in
its=
wake a heightened awareness of the presence of death. Tropologically=
speaking, death visited itself upon Europe, during and after WWI,
wearing=
the mask of a corrupted reason. The mask of reason was found to be a
guise=
for death, and it had at its beck and call a blood-thirsty form of the=
irrational. Death was no longer an entity that operated outside the
secure,=
rationally established boundaries of Enlightened society. With WWI
death=
burrowed its way into the very center of reason itself. The war
illustrated=
that the comfortable boundaries of European societies, putatively=
predicated on rational discourse, were a delusion. The rational=
industrialized lordship of death that marked WWI highlighted the
vicious=
irrationality that lurks within reason. As such death was found to be=
simply waiting patiently all along for the right moment to step
forward,=
take up the reigns of power, and wreak immeasurable havoc.
Consequently=
death erased the foundation of faith in reason that was still a
powerful=
cultural force in Europe and in Germany before the advent of WWI. [10]
Thus=
the trope that inaugurated and guided the psychic life of the Weimar=
Republic was death.
The kind of death that dominated much of the cultural discourse in the=
Weimar Republic was not a traditional form of death. It was a new face
of=
death, one that had ascended to lordship by destabilizing the most
basic=
principles of reason. Death enlisted the very tools that reason had=
provided men in the form of instrumental rationality and technology,
and=
used these tools in the service of a primordial death drive. Sigmund=
Freud's 'Thoughts for the Times on War and Death' provides a concise=
illustration of the damage that war and the primeval death instinct can
do=
to the 'civilized' order:
'To sum up: our unconscious is just as inaccessible to the idea of our
own=
death, just as murderously inclined towards strangers, just as divided=
(that is ambivalent) towards those we love, as was primeval man. But
how=
far we have moved from this primal state in our conventional and
attitudes=
toward death!
'It is easy to see how war impinges on this dichotomy. It strips us of
the=
later accretions of civilization, and lays bare the primal man in each
of=
us.' (299) [11]
The unique shock of the war was contained not just in the presence of
death,=
which always raises its head in each and every war, but the shock was
also=
a result of the way that reason and rationality had been perverted into
the=
mere servants of death. Thus one of the most disturbing truths
hammered=
home by the war was that instrumental rationality itself had
efficiently=
turned the enlightenment model of reason into a thing of ruins. It did
this=
through the efficient exercise of industrialized warfare and the
technology=
of mass destruction. It follows then that in many important respects
the=
post-WWI years in Germany were marked by a shift from reason as the=
predominant cultural paradigm to a period in which no unifying or
guiding=
paradigms were to be found. Death, opportunistic as ever, inserted
itself=
into the ensuing gap and established itself as the guiding trope for
the=
Weimar Republic. At this juncture the fundamental inter-linkage of the=
historical and conceptual context of the Weimar Republic to _M_ ought
to be=
clear. The notion that death was in many respects both the inaugural
and=
guiding trope for the Weimar Republic is corroborated by even a
cursory=
glance at cultural production between 1917 and 1933. Disparate arenas
such=
as literature, art, film, philosophy, psychoanalysis, and sociology are
all=
marked by an attempt to negotiate the visceral intrusion of death into
the=
everyday. [12]
Correspondingly _M_ also takes death as its inaugural moment. The first=
scene is not an actual scene but rather the absence of a scene. The
film=
opens with a long moment of black space inhabited only by the sound of
a=
gong. This opening is already a non-figurative, non-objective,
figuration=
of death. By framing a dead zone _M_ points to the central position
that=
death will have in its entirety. It also indicates a political parallel
in=
as far as death was the founding and inaugural trope for the Weimar=
Republic as a whole. Here we already see at work the aesthetic
principle of=
non-objective representation that I mentioned earlier. The black space
of=
the opening moment is a deliberate framing of the impossibility of=
representation of death. Death operates in the out-of-field, [13] in
this=
sense death is the frame for the entire film and the frame for the
frames=
in the film. Death has to operate in the out-of-field because is a=
signifier that cannot be signified and as such it can only be invoked=
through the manipulation and framing of various kinds of absence. The
black=
space is the quintessential expression of this absence. Thus already in
the=
first seconds of the film death takes up a dominant out-of-field
presence.=
This is a cinematic device, but it is also an indication of the
dominant=
place that death established within the historical and conceptual
context=
from which _M_ emerged.
_M_ is characterized by a fastidious attention to the presence of death
in=
the everyday machinery of German society. One of the lessons of WWI
was=
that the banality, everydayness, and even commodification of death is=
typical of large scale industrialized societies when they embark on war
or=
enter into severe economic crisis. The film's central figure, Beckert,
is=
not a literal figure for death, but he does in part embody what was, at
the=
time, a new sort of everyday banality of death. As such Beckert is the=
locus around which the unrepresentability of death, as expressed in
the=
absence of presence and the banality of death, organizes itself. For=
example, throughout the film Beckert's shadow is much more ominous
than=
Beckert himself. Beckert appears rather innocent and incapable of=
controlling the overwhelming presence of death that dogs his every
step.=
Death is the substance of the out-of-field that accrues around him. If
we=
use Gilles Deleuze's definition of the out-of-field we can see that _M_
is=
predicated on an obsessive reference to the out-of-field presence of
death,=
and also, in more general terms, that death is perhaps the
quintessential=
out-of-field presence for film as such:
'The out-of-field refers to what is neither seen nor understood, but is=
nevertheless perfectly present . . . In one case, the out-of-field=
designates that which exists elsewhere, to one side or around; in the
other=
case, the out-of-field testifies to a more disturbing presence, one
which=
cannot even be said to exist, but rather to 'insist' or 'subsist', a
more=
radical Elsewhere, outside homogenous space and time. Undoubtedly these
two=
aspects to the out-of-field intermingle constantly.' [14]
In _M_ Beckert is the conduit for the out-of-field presence of death.
In=
this sense Beckert is foremost a figure for the everyman who was quite=
helpless to control the lordship of death, one of the dominant features
of=
Weimar culture. Rather than revel in his identity as serial killer he=
appears impotent and disoriented by the murderous death that has
infected=
his shadow. Beckert is not in control of his own status as serial
killer.=
In fact, we never see Beckert commit a murder and we are not given=
irrefutable proof that he is in fact the murderer. At times it seems
that=
Beckert has a shadow double or alter ego that does the killings without
his=
intention. What is important is not whether or not he committed the
murders=
but where Beckert stands in relation to the suffocating absence of
presence=
that shapes the atmosphere of the film as a whole. Beckert is clearly
in=
many respects a victim of the suffocating out-of-field presence,
death,=
which accrues around his being. Death is given its most literal=
tropological representation in the film through Beckert's shadow.
Other=
non-representative signifiers, such as the constant play of shadows
across=
the visual field, or a murdered child's balloon tangled in electric
wires,=
also indicate that death is the ever present out-of-field. In every
case=
Beckert himself is not present at the killing, nor is death ever
literally=
represented. Beckert is merely a figure for the common person who is
in=
essence a helpless witness to the immutable and unrepresentable
lordship of=
death in his own life. In this regard actual murder would be a too=
positivistic and empowering enactment of death. It remains, like the=
out-of-field itself, a disembodied, unrepresentable entity.
When death encounters and is set in conflict with the rational social
order,=
the narrative of _M_ is set in motion. In the most reductive terms=
possible, this is a struggle for domination between the power of death,
the=
serial killer, and the powers of reason, the police. The plot is
dependent=
for its forward motion on a rather familiar pattern of conflict
between=
good and evil. As the story advances the police mobilize the entire
city in=
a search for the murderer. The remnants of a rational social order are=
embodied by the police and in particular in the personage of Inspector=
Lohmann, the head of the homicide bureau. The effort to capture the=
murderer is logical, thorough going, and consummately rational. The
focus=
on the thoroughness of the search reflects the fact that the social
climate=
of the Weimar Republic had been so thoroughly infected by death that
no=
stone could be left unturned in the effort to regain some degree of
control=
over the presence of death. The killer calls forth the presence of
death.=
This alone, once implanted in the minds of the masses, is enough to=
destabilize the precarious social order.
Here _M_ acts as a mirror of a poisoned public sphere. The often
repeated=
phrase 'anyone's neighbor can be the murderer' (or 'the murderer is
among=
us') is indicative of this climate of paranoia and extreme mistrust.
The=
paranoia is not directed at outsiders alone but also reflects an even
more=
unsettling mistrust of self. The mere shadow of the killer becomes
death=
embodied in the public mind. The hysteria is not just a fear of death
as=
other, as wholly outside, but equally a reaction to the fear that death
and=
the irrational can and do spring from within. No one is safe, not from=
one's closest family members or from one's own 'primeval' self. In
this=
sense death, much like the out-of-field in film, is at once inside and=
outside of the public body and each of its citizens. The police search,
in=
as far as it aims at unveiling the source of this widespread paranoia,=
becomes a systematic and thorough, but hopeless, attempt to explain
the=
unexplainable. The presence of the serial killer represents an
embodiment=
of the dark realm of irrational desires and the death drive which,=
according to the lessons of WWI, lurked all along barely beneath the=
surface of civilized society. Thus the search itself is motivated by a=
desire to expose every inch of the public body to the light of reason.
The=
hope being that in this way the sickness embodied in the out-of-field=
presence of death could be expurgated. In _M_ death is the consummate=
harbinger of the unknown, and reason is the only power capable of
cleansing=
it from the public body.
The public itself, the masses, reacts with hysteria to the out-of field=
presence of death because they have a naive and primitive attitude of=
terror in the face of death. The police, a more mature and
'enlightened'=
class, offer a counter to this tendency in the masses. They embody the=
skeptical rationalist credo that nothing can be taken for granted and=
nothing can be assumed. Their belief in the power or reason and
rational=
investigation acts as a kind of talisman against the primitive fear
that=
the shadow of death evokes in the masses. Base, primordial fear of
death=
can be and often has been manipulated for a variety of ideological=
purposes. In _M_ this fear is used to justify the most extreme and
invasive=
sort of total mobilization and public investigation. This aspect of
the=
film reflects the total mobilization for war that Germany underwent
prior=
to WWI, and it also foreshadows the rise of fascism. The police act as=
administrators of life. They represent a hierarchical social structure
that=
relies for its power on its ability to both preserve and deny life. In
this=
regard the police embody the remnants of a social order that offered a=
degree of control over death through the exercise of reason. The power
of=
instrumental rationality to administrate life depends on whether or not
it=
manages to keep death within the bounds of social control. Michel
Foucault=
elucidates this at length in _The History of Sexuality_: 'One might
say=
that the ancient right to take life or let live was replaced by a power
to=
foster life or disallow it to the point of death.' [15]
The impending destruction of this social order is illustrated by the
fact=
that in the end the killer is captured not by the police but by
organized=
criminals. That a band of criminals and outcasts are the first to
locate=
death illustrates the degree to which the rational social order
embodied by=
the police was an entirely unstable entity, incapable of attending to
its=
most basic prerogatives. This aspect of the narrative reflects not only
the=
ineffectiveness of the Weimar Republic as a state but also the more=
broad-based failure of the enlightenment project itself. In this way
_M_=
reveals the degree to which, for its citizens, the Weimar Republic=
represented simply the meagre remains of a misguided and ineffective=
conceptual and social order. As such, in _M_, as in the actual Weimar=
Republic, liberal democracy was predetermined to fail, particularly
when=
confronted with the elusive presence, or absence of presence, of death.
In _M_, in every instance, the negotiation and representation of death=
proves to be a failure. This holds true because any and all
negotiations of=
death qua representation are bound to fail. _M_ performs a constant
marking=
of this failure. As we have already seen the murderer himself is not a=
figure for death. Part of Beckert's function is that he stands as a
marker=
for the failure that adheres in any negotiation of death. Negotiations
of=
death always implode from within, precisely because the ambitions of=
representation meet their limit at death. Death, as a topic, regardless
of=
the discipline, whether in the sciences, philosophy, sociology,
cinema,=
literature, or the arts, is inherently limited to tropological=
representations. Any negotiation that does not first take this into
account=
is bound to fail, not only in its attempt at representation, but also
on=
its own terms because it operates without taking into account the
limits=
intrinsic to its own efforts. Nevertheless, failure at the limit of=
representation, even if of the naive sentimental sort, often proves to
be=
the most revealing sort of failure.
Correspondingly, in _M_, the self-conscious failure and impossibility=
inscribed in the trope of death is perhaps its greatest success. It is
this=
failure that allows us to see the film as an aesthetic intervention
into=
the dominant theoretical and ideological currents of its day. By making
the=
impossibility of representation of death explicit, and by placing this=
impossibility in its social and ideological frame, _M_ acts as a
counter to=
the overwhelming tendency in the inter-war period to make death into a=
subjective and ontologized entity. At a time when death was not just=
metaphorically, but literally everywhere, intellectual consideration
of=
death tended to restrict itself to the arenas of psychoanalysis and=
phenomenology. As a result the specific political and ideological=
ramifications of death in the Weimar Republic were for the most part
left=
uninterrogated. To ontologize or subjectivize death means simply to
place=
the significance of death within a subjective frame and treat it as a=
feature of individual existence, bereft of ideological significance.
Death,=
once subjectivized, is reduced to something that the individual must=
struggle with, either heroically or unheroically, on his own, in his=
own-most-being. Certainly one cannot deny the necessity and importance
of=
ontologically and psychologically oriented inquiries into the meaning
of=
death for individual beings, and in case of Heidegger the
pre-subjective=
issue of Dasein in relation to Being. Nevertheless the ontological and=
subjectivist treatment of death tends to work to repress the political
and=
ideological significance of death as it is manifest in culture. In the=
Weimar period psychoanalysis and phenomenology were the two most
important=
poles in the intellectual terrain that fostered a subjectivized view
of=
death. In Freud's work death is subjectivized by making death a feature
of=
the unconscious, re-cognizable in terms of the death drive or the
primitive=
fear of death manifest in the uncanny. In Heidegger's _Being and
Time_,=
death, or Sein zum Tode, is analyzed as a feature of fundamental
ontology.=
The overcoming of the inauthentic relationship toward death in
everyday=
inauthentic dasein becomes a way for authentic dasein to achieve an=
authentic unoutstrippable, non-relational, anxious resolve in
being-toward-=
death. [16]
_M_ works to counter these tendencies by calling into question the=
traditional ways that death is represented. By highlighting the problem
of=
representation it offers a reminder of the fact that death, whether=
represented at the register of philosophy, literature, or art, is bound
to=
a structural and conceptual absence and impotence. Death, particularly
the=
presence of death in the cultural arena, is something that cannot be=
entirely explained in terms of a subject-oriented psychology, nor can
it be=
entirely controlled and folded into the workings of fundamental
ontology.=
_M_ is a cinematic illustration of the fact that the orders of
language,=
creative discourse, and discursive reason can never grasp death as
anything=
but an absence that marks the limit of human discourse. As such death=
provides the frame for human discourse, but death, as a marker for the=
infinite, cannot be translated into the finite realm of human
cognition.=
For good reason representing and interrogating this limit is often the=
central project of both philosophical inquiry and artistic production.
The=
instructive caution that _M_ offers in this regard is simply that
these=
efforts are ipso facto conditioned to fail. _M_ illustrates that any=
representation of death, from the word to film, is not the being of
death=
but rather a marker for the absence of both death and life. Actual
dead=
bodies fall into this category as well. The corpse is the paradigmatic
case=
for the problem of representation of death. Perhaps even more so than
any=
artistic or conceptual representation of death, a corpse is both
neither=
alive nor entirely dead, in as far as it represents the remnant of a
former=
presence. Both the actual corpse and artificial aesthetic and
conceptual=
representations of death operate in a liminal semiotic terrain between
life=
and death.
The inherent impossibility of representing death is exactly what makes
the=
various attempts to come to terms with it, make sense of it, ontologize
or=
sentimentalize it, both compelling and repugnant. The resulting
struggle,=
the always-hopeless struggle to negotiate death through
representation,=
gives birth to discourses that are often unparalleled in their
intensity=
and cultural significance. This struggle is precisely what gives _M_
its=
cinematic intensity. Death becomes in _M_ the quintessential topic
without=
a topos and thereby elevates the film to a degree of conceptual=
sophistication that defies the labels prurient and sensationalistic,
which=
were initially levelled at it by critics. _M_ calls into sharp relief
the=
impossibility of representing death and thus fixing death within the
order=
of reason. Marking this limit is something that film, as a medium, can=
accomplish more effectively than perhaps any other discourse. Although=
saturated with an atmospherics of death and with a constant, explicit=
thematization of death, _M_ manages to abandon the usual cinematic
methods=
for representing death. At this register it lays bare the basic paradox
at=
work, either consciously or unconsciously, in any representation of
death.=
_M_ exposes the limits of representation and simultaneously brings
about an=
intensification and sharpening of the artistic effort to represent
death.=
It does this not just by rejecting representation, but also by laying
bare=
the structural impossibilities that adhere in its representation. The=
film's method -- non-representative representation -- thereby casts=
critical light upon the practice of representation in the broadest
sense of=
the term.
This calling into question of the practice of representation is made=
possible through the attention _M_ gives to its own cinematic
materiality.=
The principle method that the film uses to highlight its own
materiality is=
the still shot. Thus _M_ self-consciously enacts the dialectical
tension=
between photograph and film. Throughout _M_ the still shot works to=
reiterate the presence of death through the absence of presence. The=
opening frame, a frame of black space, is a case in point. Other
obvious=
examples are the balloon mentioned above and the still shot of the
empty=
table setting where a murdered child was supposed to return for
dinner.=
_M_'s enactment of the dialectical tension between photography and film
is=
indicative of a larger theoretical problematic that adheres in the
very=
materiality of any and every film. The essence of this tension lies in
the=
fundamental ambivalence that is intrinsic to the supposed objectivity
of=
the images that are captured on film. To paraphrase Andre Bazin, the=
photographic image captures its subject and embalms it. In this way,
while=
the subject is given a kind of after-life in the film, it's essential,=
original being is displaced by a mechanical reproduction of the
original.=
[17] Thus the framing of the subject is both a giving and a taking of
life.=
This basic ambivalence and tension adheres in all filmic
representation.=
This problematic was given expression in Bazin's 1945 essay 'The
Ontology=
of the Photographic Image':
'Hence the charm of family albums. Those grey or sepia shadows,
phantomlike=
and almost undecipherable, are no longer traditional family portraits
but=
rather the disturbing presence of lives halted at a set moment in
their=
duration, freed from their destiny; not, however, by the prestige of
art=
but by the power of a mechanical process: for photography does not
create=
eternity, as art does, it embalms time, rescuing it simply from its
proper =
corruption.
'Viewed in this perspective, the cinema is objectivity in time. The film
is=
no longer content to preserve the object, enshrouded as it were in an=
instant, as the bodies of insects are preserved intact out of the
distant=
past, in amber. The film delivers baroque art from its convulsive=
catalepsy. Now for the first time, the image of things is likewise the=
image of their duration, change mummified as it were.' [18]
At this point, with Bazin's observations in mind, it should be apparent
that=
in order to understand the role of death in _M_ we must tie the
conceptual=
terrain in which the film operates to its materiality. Analysis of the=
content of the film has to be put aside, at least momentarily, in order
to=
read the film at this register. Analyzing the use of actual
representations=
of death is less important than excavating the material out of which
these=
representations are moulded. The ambivalence that Bazin points to in
the=
passage above illustrates that film as a medium is more inherently
bound,=
at the structural level, to the representation of death than any other=
media. This is a simple result of the fact that all film, whether=
photography or cinema, is a permanent and apparently objective framing
of=
the object at hand. Whether or not the frame is a single motionless
moment=
in time, as in photography, or the framing of movement and time
together,=
as in film, does not change the fundamental fact that the object is
thus=
framed and preserved. Each event of framing and preservation acts as a=
simultaneous taking and giving of life. Siegfried Kracauer in his
short=
essay of 1927, 'Photography', was one of the very first critics to
notice=
this fundamental ambivalence intrinsic to photograph: 'In the
illustrated=
magazines the world has become a photographable present, and the=
photographed present has been entirely eternalized. Seemingly ripped
from=
the clutch of death, in reality it has succumbed to it.' [19]
The tension between the life-giving and the life-denying properties is
the=
basic structural paradox inherent in all film. This tension drives
film, in=
its innermost cells, again and again to the topic of death. I do not
think=
that the question as to whether or not the materiality of film acts to
deny=
or preserve life can be answered negatively or positively in any
absolute=
sense. Certainly most critics who have entertained this question,
Kracauer=
among them, have tended to answer in the negative. In fact the
tendency=
among theorists of photography and film is to view filmic
representation as=
a sort of theft of the aura or the authentic being of the original.
This=
theft can be seen as a kind of ontological erasure. But the framing of
the=
question in binary terms, as both Bazin and Kracauer do, is less than=
faithful to _M_'s logic of non-objective representation. In order to
avoid=
viewing film as a bringing forth of a multitude of small deaths, we
need to=
allow the ambivalence that is inscribed in the materiality of film --
the=
tension that it calls forth between the life-giving and life-taking=
properties of representation -- to remain detached from any fixed,
absolute=
meaning.
University of California, Berkeley
Notes
1. I don't think it would be going too far to say that this
impossibility is=
one of the central problems in aesthetic discourse in general. At a
very=
basic level any attempt at the representation of something, whether
the=
representation be performed in film, language, gesture, paint, stone,
etc.,=
is caught in the paradox that I describe here. The attempt to give a
thing=
life through representation brings about its death. This is a
consequence=
of the fact that the effort to translate something from one medium
into=
another carries with it a double mark of absence and mummification.
This=
mark is constituted in the fact that the thing represented is no
longer=
present, representation being fundamentally an indication of the
absence of=
the thing and an attempt to freeze that absence at a moment in time.
At=
this basic level all representation is inherently a mummification of
the=
thing represented in as far as representation performs a freezing of
things=
at a moment in time. Thus the basis of representation is a delivering
of=
the thing represented to its death. In a dialectical fashion this
small=
death of the thing is also a delivering of the thing to the threshold
of a=
very different sort of life.
2. See for example Kazimir Malevich's suprematism and in particular his=
theoretical tract, _The Non-objective World_.
3. My discussion of death as trope owes a debt to the work of Elisabeth=
Bronfen. See in particular Chapter 2 of _Over Her Dead Body_: 'Death
the=
Epitome of Trope'. Also of particular interest is the Introduction to
the=
anthology, _Death and Representation_, edited by Elisabeth Bronfen and=
Sarah Webster Goodwin.
4. Husserl, 'Fichte's Ideal of Humanity', p. 112.
5. See 'Thoughts for the Times on War and Death' (1915).
6. Horkheimer, 'The End of Reason', p. 26.
7. This discussion of the troubled status of reason after WWI owes a
debt to=
several sources. Chief among those are several works by the Frankfurt=
School theorists Theodor Adorno and Max Horkheimer. Along with 'The End
of=
Reason' quoted above, the most obvious is _The Dialectic of
Enlightenment_,=
in particular the first chapter, 'The Concept of Enlightenment', and=
Excursus II, 'Juliette or Enlightenment and Morality'. Another key
essay in=
understanding the Frankfurt School critique of reason and instrumental=
rationality is Adorno's 'The Schema of Mass Culture' (1936).
8. Adorno and Horkheimer, _Dialectic of Enlightenment_, p. 38.
9. Another piece that is very helpful is Bernd Hueppauf's Prologue to
the=
collection _Essays on Mortality_. Hueppauf provides a concise summary
of=
the relationship of death and reason, particularly in its post-WWI
manifest=
ation.
10. Of course the Enlightenment was never without its critics. The
claim=
here is not that there was a monolithic agreement of belief in reason
and=
rationality. Hamann and Nietzsche, among others, could be said to be
early=
critics of the Enlightenment project and reason as such. The point
remains=
valid nevertheless: reason, as a cultural and philosophical social
glue,=
lost the basis for its moral justification in the face of WWI.
11. Freud, 'Thoughts for the Times on War and Death', p. 299.
12. The examples cross all disciplinary and cultural boundaries and they
are=
too numerous to cite here. Just to illustrate the degree to which death
was=
central to the times, a few obvious instances are as follows. In
philosophy=
and psychoanalysis there was Freud's 'Thoughts for the Times on War
and=
Death' (1915) and 'Beyond the Pleasure Principle' (1920), Martin=
Heidegger's _Being and Time_ (1927), Franz Rosenzweig's _The Star of=
Redemption_ (1918), Walter Benjamin's _The Origin of the German Tragic=
Drama_ (1927), and Ernst Bloch's _Geist der Utopie_ (1918). Examples
in=
literature from the time period where death is given a leading role can
be=
seen in Doeblin, Kafka, Junger, T. Mann, Hesse, Zweig, and many others.
13. The out-of-field is a term is borrowed from Gilles Deleuze's
_Cinema_. I=
will make further use of it and clarify its applicability to _M_ in
just a =
moment.
14. Deleuze, _Cinema 1_, pp. 16-17.
15. Foucault, _The History of Sexuality_, p. 138.
16. These rather inadequate summaries of Freud and Heidegger are not
meant=
to say anything substantive about the two thinkers. Such an effort
would=
require a great deal more space than is available here. Rather, I want
to=
provide merely an indication, in very broad terms, of two of the
conceptual=
positions that were dominant in around the time of _M_. Such a broad=
characterization allows us to fix more precisely the contributions that
the=
film makes with regard to contemporary discourses surrounding death.
17. Perhaps the first place to go when addressing this problem is
Walter=
Benjamin's famous essay 'The Art Work in the Age of Mechanical=
Reproduction'. My comments here owe a debt to his work.
18. Bazin, 'The Ontology of the Photographic Image', pp. 14-15.
19. Kracauer, 'Photography', p. 59.
Bibliography
Adorno, Theodor, 'The Schema of Mass Culture', in J. M. Bernstein, ed.,
_The=
Culture Industry: Selected Essays on Mass Culture_ (London: Routledge,
1991=
).
Adorno, Theodor, and Horkheimer, Max, _Dialectic of Enlightenment_
(1947),=
trans. John Cumming (New York: Continuum, 1990).
Bazin, Andre, 'The Ontology of the Photographic Image', in _What is=
Cinema?_, Volume 1, trans. Hugh Gray (Berkeley: University of
California=
Press, 1971).
Benjamin, Walter, 'The Art Work in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction',=
trans. Harry Zohn, in Hannah Arendt, ed., _Illuminations_ (New York:=
Harvest/HBJ, 1968).
Bronfen, Elisabeth, _Over Her Dead Body: Death, Femininity, and the=
Aesthetic_ (New York: Routledge, 1992).
Bronfen, Elisabeth, and Webster, Sarah, eds, _Death and Representation_=
(Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1993).
Deleuze, Gilles, _Cinema 1: The Movement-Image_, trans. Hugh Tomlinson
and=
Barbara Habberjam (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1986).
=46oucault, Michel, _The History of Sexuality_, trans. Robert Hurley
(New=
York: Vintage Books, 1980).
=46reud, Sigmund, _Thoughts for the Times on War and Death_ (1915),
trans.=
A. A. Brill and Alfred B. Kuttner (New York: Moffat, Yard and Company,
1968=
).
Heidegger, Martin, _Being and Time_ (1927), trans. John Macquarrie and=
Edward Robinson (New York: Harper, 1962).
Horkheimer, Max, 'The End of Reason', in Andrew Arato and Eike
Gebhardt,=
eds, _The Essential Frankfurt School Reader_ (New York: Continuum,
1982).
Hueppauf, Bernd, 'Death in the History of Ideas in Western Civlization',
in=
Mira Crouch and Bernd Hueppauf, eds, _Essays on Mortality_
(Kensington:=
University of New South Wales Press, 1985).
Husserl, Edmund, 'Fichte's Ideal of Humanity: Three Lectures', _Husserl=
Studies_ no. 12, 1995.
Kaes, Anton, 'The Cold Gaze: Notes on Mobilization and Modernity', _New=
German Critique_, no. 59, 1993.
Kracauer, Siegfried, _The Mass Ornament: Weimar Essays_, ed. and trans.=
Thomas Y. Levin (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press,
1995).
Malevich, Kazimir, _The Non-objective World_ (1924), trans. Howard
Dearstyne=
(Chicago: Theobald Press, 1959).
Copyright =A9 Film-Philosophy 2004.
Joel Freeman, 'The Semiosis of Death in Lang's _M_: Film and the Limits
of=
Representation in the Weimar Republic', _Film-Philosophy_, vol. 8 no.
5,=
February 2004 <http://www.film-philosophy.com/vol8-2004/n5freeman>.
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