Excess and Absence in Harlequin and Beyond

Metro Feature Section challenge to reigning aesthete discourses in the academy’.2 While stylistic excess in non-paracinematic forms adds an air of ‘artistic bravado’3 to the development of a film’s diegesis, in paracinema this excess transcends the diegesis, demanding the ‘profilmic and extratextual aspects of the filmic object itself’4 be employed in a reading of the text in question. The near-fetishistic fascination paracinematic audiences have with these non-diegetic surface elements (unconvincing sets and acting, shoddy scriptwriting, haphazard cinematography and editing) to some degree quarantines these features from the films’ diegetic core. The pleasure of paracinema lies in an excess that often manifests itself in a film’s failure to conform to historically excess and absence in harlequin and beyond delimited codes of verisimilitude, call(ing) … attention to the text as a cultural and sociological document … thus dissolv(ing) In bringing the little-discussed Harlequin into the critical … the boundaries of the diegesis into spotlight, Alexandra Heller-Nicholas argues for the profilmic and extratextual realms.5 existence of an ‘excessive absence’ that is characteristic of Australian paracinema. It is precisely here that Sconce locates the vital deviation between paracinematic ‘reading protocols’ and those of traditional film scholarship. In orthodox Cinema Studies, formal and stylistic excesses are evaluated only in how they relate to the ILM HISTORIES – like any histories 1980) transcends fly-in-the-ointment themes and contexts contained diegetically – are written retrospectively, and analyses of Ozploitation by demonstrating within the text. In paracinema, however, Fseek to articulate the significance just how ingrained the paradoxical notion ‘attention to excess seeks to push the of that which risks being lost. This task of excessive absence is in the Australian viewer beyond the formal boundaries of the is subjective: how much reclamation context. text’.6 needs to be done? Of what, and by who, and for what purpose? These answers Rethinking excess Kristin Thompson’s essay ‘The Concept of are fundamentally political, and therefore Cinematic Excess’ (1986) provides Sconce the debates surrounding Australian film In his seminal 1995 article ‘“Trashing” with a comparative critical treatment of history are not like a history war – they the Academy: Taste, Excess, and an excess with which to frame his exploration are a history war. The re-establishment Emerging Politics of Cinematic Style’, of paracinema. For Thompson, neoformalist of Ozploitation as part of Australian film Jeffrey Sconce maintains that viewing excess is defined as follows: history in Not Quite Hollywood (Mark pleasure for paracinematic1 audiences Hartley, 2008) is a vital step towards the is attained through engagement with Films can be seen as a struggle of articulation of these questions in this non-diegetic, rather than diegetic, filmic opposing forces. Some of these forces national context. But its significance elements. Because paracinematic tastes strive to unify the work, to hold it together transcends film history: it allows the tight are by definition consciously opposed to sufficiently that we may perceive and follow weave of taste, cultural production and ‘mainstream’ Hollywood, paracinematic its structures. Outside any such structures reception, national identity, the notion of audiences are therefore required to be lie those aspects of the work which are ‘exploitation’ and broader cultural and just as familiar with this mainstream style, not contained by its unifying forces – the political discourse to be made explicit. In its if only to define their own aesthetic in ‘excess’.7 defining formal and thematic articulation of opposition to it. It is within this oppositional a uniquely Australian ‘excessive absence’, reading strategy that Sconce identifies the In the neoformalist sense, excess can Ozploitation has a greater significance key role of excess to paracinema. In short, therefore be mathematically deduced than its status as a missing piece in the ‘paracinema hinges on an aesthetic of – anything external to the unifying, jigsaw of the nation’s film history. Horror/ excess, and … this paracinematic interest organisational logic of a given text (the thriller hybrid Harlequin (Simon Wincer, in excess represents an explicitly political ‘dominant’) is, by definition, excessive. 98 • Metro Magazine 162 This definition of excess is therefore Altman’s search for ‘another language, Carol Laseur explicitly exposes in her solely dependent upon an identification of another logic’. discussion of excess as a quantitative the dominant. The problem paracinema ‘moreness’ in Australian exploitation raises for neoformalism hits at the heart Roland Barthes has provided both film.17 But in the case of Ozploitation of the latter’s scientific agenda: how can Thompson and Sconce with insight into horror, I argue that excess is frequently excess itself be the dominant? As Sconce the complexities of excess. Thompson’s marked instead by a sense of ‘something observes: analysis expands upon Barthes’ essay missing’, resulting in a paradoxical excess ‘The Third Meaning: Research Notes on of absence. Consequently, excess will the paracinematic audience is perhaps the Some Eisenstein Stills’ (1970), where, as be employed closer to the sense that one group of viewers that does concentrate the title of suggests, he identifies three Angela Ndalianis employs it in response to on these ‘non-diegetic aspects of the levels of meaning in a still image from Maitland McDonagh’s treatment of Dario image’ during the entire film, or at least Sergei Eisenstein’s Ivan the Terrible (1944). Argento: ‘Excess is not just ‘more’ but is attempts to do so.8 Paracinematic viewing is distinguished from other forms of spectatorship because it not +At the heart of paracinematic excess lies this very invitation to look beyond its assumed simply privileges excess, it also flagrantly oppositionality … in the spirit of Altman’s search flaunts its disinterest in the relationship for ‘another language, another logic’. between diegetic and non-diegetic + elements. Rick Altman’s 1989 essay ‘Dickens, Griffith It is the titular third meaning that is the concerned with a realm that lies outside and Film Theory Today’ shares an interest source of Barthes’ interest. Described whatever system the viewer has adopted in neoformalist notions of excess.9 Honing as ‘obtuse’, Barthes describes what has to make sense of the film.’18 Leading on in on the (neo)formalist dependence on the become familiarly recognised as excess from Ndalianis and Sconce, paracinematic dominant, he acknowledges its usefulness in terms of both its formal construction excess in Ozploitation must be conceived because not only does it identify that films and the emotional response it garners both literally and figuratively in the spatial are made up of a variety of components, it from the spectator. Analysing the different terms of a realm beyond. also emphasises a hierarchal relationship appearances of hair in the image, Barthes between those components and within says: ‘The whole of the obtuse meaning (its Absence in Ozploitation horror these structures.10 Altman summarises disruptive force) is staked on the excessive Thompson’s argument with the simple mass of the hair.’14 Barthes lays the This overwhelming sense of ‘something equation ‘Totality minus dominant equals foundations for Thompson’s identification missing’ is most readily identifiable in Night excess’.11 But he hastens to add that ‘the of excess as that which is peripheral to of Fear (Terry Bourke, 1972) and Patrick right to identify excess carries enormous the dominant. But he also argues that the (Richard Franklin, 1978), where horror is power, always in favour of the dominant. influence of this third meaning is so strong constructed through an excessive absence Totality minus excess equals dominant.’12 as to contain the vital essence of what can of sound. In Patrick this is diegetic, as Altman’s essay focuses primarily upon be deemed ‘filmic’: the title character (played by Robert classical Hollywood cinema, but as Sconce Thompson) unleashes his telekinetic demonstrates so forcefully in the case of it is at the level of the third meaning, and whirlwind of violence while lying comatose excess, it may function more independently at that level alone, that the ‘filmic’ finally and mute in a hospital bed. In Night of from the dominant than Thompson emerges. The filmic is that in the film which Fear, muteness is less a narrative element suggests: cannot be described, the representation than its most striking formal feature. The which cannot be represented.15 absence of spoken language in the film is However strong the dominant voice, arresting – there is no dialogue, and the excess bears witness to the existence of Thompson rejects Barthes’ phrasing of only human sounds are screams, pants, another language, another logic. Unless this ‘obtuse meaning’ predicated upon the and other prelingual utterances. There we recognize the possibility that excess ‘misleading’ nature of his use of the term are other strategies that demonstrate this – defined as such because of its refusal ‘meaning’: simply, she claims it cannot excess of absence: the protagonist in the to adhere to a system – may itself be be seen as a ‘third meaning’ precisely supernatural drama The Survivor (David organised as a system, then we will hear because it is defined as having no meaning Hemmings, 1980) is a pilot

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