Dear Karen,

I think 'imagined seeing' plays an important role in our 'spectating'
experience. A couple of years ago I wrote a small book dealing with this
issue from the point of view of the relation that ancient rhetoricians and
philosophers posited between memory and imagination. Going back to the
founding narrative for the arts of memory (a version of which can be found
in Book II of Cicero's _De Oratore_) one can grasp the role played by the
imagination (and mental images) with regard to memory. In short, it was
understood that as a result of the work done by the imagination, the orator
would construct a 'memoria' of the dicourse or of the notions which he is
trying to retain. This memoria, however, was to be distinguished from the
recollections obtained by way of one's natuaral memory. For the memoria is
not a simple transposition or even duplication of "things" (events,
objects) or "words", which might then engrave themselves, unchanged, in
one's mind; rather, it results from a process of "appropriation" and
"integration" which is simultaneously "symbolic" and "imaginary". The
difference between human memory and, say, computer memory is that the
former can (through the intervention of the imagination) 'translate' data
into a semiotic web/network and, by the same token, transform it and render
it more complex (even if this implies some forgetting). The point is that I
believe the process described by the rhetoricians of antiquity to be
equally applicable to the film spectator. It is not that the latter tries
actively to memorize what he/she is watching by means of a consciously
constructed mnemotechnic, but rather that what he/she retains from a film,
what make an 'impression' on him/her while leaving a trace on the 'soft
wax' of his/her memory, implies equally the work of the imagination and the
creation of a memoria. This memoria corresponds to what the spectator (and
by extension, to what a culture or community of spectators) retains from a
film. It pertains to the appropriation of the film by the spectator for
whom certain images/sounds make an impression and bring out new (mental)
images which organize themselves into a (semiotic) network within the sites
of memory. We each possess inside us a sort of 'imaginary museum' of the
cinema where we keep the various films and film fragments that have touched
us deeply or made a profound impression on us. The memoria (I call it
'figure' in my book) is therefore what one retains from a film, manifesting
itself as a sign or a group of signs that open onto (or that are nourrished
by) the imagination. (It is what I would refer to as the basis of Film
Culture). In this sense, I must admit, it is not without certain
similarities to Eisenstein's idea of 'generalized or global image' (see
"Montage 1937" and "Montage 1938") which he worked out during the 30's and
40's -- although SME's idea was being developed from the point of view of
the filmmaker and thus implies a different epistemology altogether.

Like all "mental images" (dreams, for example) those of the imagination
possess an affective dimension. This was also the point behind Barthes
_Camera Lucida_ (but also, albeit differently, in Eisenstein). I can
imagine without picturing myself in the process of imagining, or I can
imagine without picturing myself in the imagined scene, but I don't think I
can divorce myself from what I imagine (since I am 'affectively' or
emotionally involved in the production of such images). To put it
differently, I can't imagine -- in a strict sense (which does not seem to
be Currie's, for whom "impersonal imagining" appears more akin to Genette's
distinction between homo- and heterodiegetic narrators) -- an "impersonnal
imagining". This, however, does not imply that what I imagine -- although
subjective -- is strictly private, for it can be shared (I add this last
sentence for the benefit of my Wittgensteinian friends at UQAM in Montreal
!).

Yours,

Martin Lefebvre


********************
Martin Lefebvre
Associate Professor

Editor RECHERCHES SÉMIOTIQUES/
SEMIOTIC INQUIRY

Mel Hoppenheim School of Cinema
Concordia University
FB 319
1455 de Maisonneuve, West
Montreal (Quebec), Canada
H3G 1M8

tel. (514) 848-4676/FAX. (514) 848-4255




%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%