Subjectivity-Inducing Mechanisms in Contemporary Estonian Art Film

BALTIC SCREEN MEDIA REVIEW 2014 / VOLUME 2 / ARTICLE Article Darkness on Screen: Subjectivity-Inducing Mechanisms in Contemporary Estonian Art Film

MARTIN OJA, Tallinn University Baltic Film and Media School, Estonia; email: [email protected] 76 DOI: 10.1515/bsmr-2015-0016 BALTIC SCREEN MEDIA REVIEW 2014 / VOLUME 2 / ARTICLE ABSTRACT The main purpose of the article is to bring more clarity to the concept of art fi lm, shedding light on the mechanisms of subjective reception and evaluating the presence of subjectivity-inducing segments as the grounds for defi ning art fi lm. The second aim is to take a fresh look at the little- discussed Estonian art cinema, drawing on a framework of cognitive fi lm studies in order to analyse its borders and characteristics. I will evaluate the use of darkness as a device for creating meaning, both independently of and combined with other visual or auditory devices. The dark screen, although not always a major factor in the creation of subjectivity, accompanies the core problem both directly and metaphorically: what happens to the viewer when external information is absent? I will look at the subjectivity-inducing devices in the fi lms of two Estonian directors, Sulev Keedus and Veiko Õunpuu. For the theoretical background, I rely mostly on Torben Grodal’s idea about the subjective mode as a main characteristic of art fi lm, and the disruption of character simulation as the basis for the fi lm viewer’s subjectivity.

INTRODUCTION tions and projects in order to gain support. For Estonian cinema, the last two decades Additionally, considering the context of spe- has been a time of seeking its identity and cifi c fi lm types, we can observe the strong continuously recreating its language, which international position of independent Esto- has been characterised by a renewal of its nian animation. We can speculate that ani- positions both in technical and stylistic mation has been attracting a signifi cant part terms. The early 1990s brought a change of of the experimental energy, mainly leaving paradigm – the Soviet modes of production feature fi lms with the task of fi nding a bal- were disrupted and new types of practices ance between the popular and the peculiar. and organisations (e.g., private fi lm compa- The style of a limited number of Esto- nies instead of state-governed production nian fi lmmakers can be described as hav- units) had to emerge. Now a model of Euro- ing art cinema properties according to the pean-style state co-fi nancing through the seminal work by David Bordwell, “The Art Estonian Film Institute and Culture Endow- Cinema as a Mode of Film Practice” ([1979] ment of Estonia is quite well established. 1999), Narration in Fiction Film (1986) and The post-Soviet feature fi lms have his later works on continuity editing, e.g. mostly been story-driven for the same rea- Intensifi ed Continuity: Visual Style in Con- sons as elsewhere – fi nancing feature fi lms temporary American Film (2002), as well as is at least partially a business undertaking characteristics more recently defi ned by involving risks and calculations, requiring Annette Kuhn and Guy Westwell (2012). I rather conservative, tried and tested solu- will focus on the fi lms by Sulev Keedus –

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Georgica (Estonia, 1998) and Letters to Recent years have seen a blurring Angel (Kirjad Inglile, Estonia, 2011), and of the formal conventions between main- Veiko Õunpuu – Autumn Ball (Sügisball, stream and art cinemas, though many of Estonia, 2007) and The Temptations of the institutional differences (in modes of St. Tony (Püha Tõnu kiusamine, Estonia, production, distribution and exhibition) 2009). Works by other directors, such as remain in place. With today’s globalisation, Marko Raat, Rainer Sarnet, and Kadri art cinema has become a transnational Kõusaar, also contain elements relevant to phenomenon as the international cultural art fi lm, but these seem to be less promi- fi lm plays to a niche market, with the direc- nent in creating subjectivity. These works, tor regarded as a brand (Kuhn, Westwell as well as the subjectivity in Soviet Estonian 2012: 19). The relative vagueness of defi - cinema, would no doubt provide an interest- nition and blurring of borders mentioned ing fi eld of study for the future. above calls for a new, more technical under- The concept of art fi lm seems unavoid- standing of art fi lm. able in fi lm studies, since it also functions First, I see some problems emerg- as a labelling tool in various institutions of ing from the convergence of art fi lm and cinema. The Oxford Dictionary of Film Stud- auteur cinema. Leaving aside the post- ies defi nes art cinema as fi lm practices modern attempts to fend off the Author in having certain aesthetic properties, most favour of the Text, and various approaches importantly loose, episodic, or elliptical nar- emphasising collective authorship (e.g., ration, as well as image and sound that take Sellors 2007), even if we do not necessar- precedence over plot. These properties are ily try to locate the meaning of fi lm at the usually attributed to the artistic vision of point of reception, several contradictions the director as the auteur. The boundary can be pointed out. A director, or even a between art cinema and avant-garde fi lm producer, of a blockbuster can be treated has seemed fuzzy, especially given their as a brand (thus having signifi cant autho- shared roots in modernism (Kuhn, West- rial connotations) by a marketing system, well 2012: 18), but it has also been observed as well as by the viewer/consumer. Prob- that art fi lm is “neither mainstream nor ably one of the freshest and most provoca- avant-garde” (Galt, Schoonover 2010: 5). tive point made by François Truffaut and This allows us to posit art fi lm somewhere other French fi lm critics involved in the between mainstream and avant-garde. periodical Cahiers du cinéma in the mid- Rosalind Galt and Karl Schoonover dle of 1950s was recognising certain Hol- draw attention to the problems of defi nition lywood directors as auteurs. The fi lms of that art film poses for film scholarship: the arguably the most vivid example of “Is art cinema a genre, in the way that auteurship, Alfred Hitchcock, were popular mainstream criticism often uses the term? studio productions and cannot be consid- A mode of fi lm practice, as David Bordwell ered to be representations of art fi lm per claims? An institution, as for Steve Neale? se. The existentialist adjectives of freedom A historically unprecedented mode of exhib- or authenticity assigned to the works of iting fi lms, in Barbara Wilinsky’s terms? Is it auteurs (e.g., Stam 2000: 83) could eas- … a language able to disarticulate excess, ily characterise art fi lms as well, but I pro- style and politics from taste and to map pose that this link will cause, at least in the promiscuous hybridity of cinematic the context of this article, some confusion forms?” (Galt, Schoonover 2010: 6) Galt and and blurriness. As Graham Petrie has pro- Schoonover see this plurality not just as an vocatively observed, “the auteur theory ambiguity of art fi lm as a critical term, but was essentially an attempt to by-pass the as a central part of its specifi city, a posi- issue of who, ultimately, has control over tive way of delineating its discursive space a fi lm. [---] By distilling something called (ibid.). Transcending categories seems to be “personal vision” from a fi lm, and market- in the nature of art fi lm. ing this as the “essence” of its success, it

78 BALTIC SCREEN MEDIA REVIEW 2014 / VOLUME 2 / ARTICLE was hoped to evade all the sordid and tedi- environment, or creating the viewer’s sub- ous details of power confl icts and fi nan- jectivity in art fi lm mode. cial interests that are an integral part of Keedus, and especially Õunpuu, have any major movie project.” (Petrie [1973] repeatedly been called art-house directors 2008: 110) An even more relevant reason by the media and fi lm criticism, but with- to leave auteur cinema aside and focus on out much deeper analysis of the relevant the art fi lm would be that the latter is more details in their style. Peeter Torop is one attributable to fi lm text and the mode of of the few to describe how Keedus’s poet- its reception, allowing us to be more tech- ics gains its idiosyncrasy and universality nical. Thus I suggest that a more explicit at the same time. Using the sensitive con- distinction between auteur cinema and art fl uence of visual and auditory information, cinema should be made, seeking presuma- the author consciously sets his text into an ble ways for defi ning art fi lm by the means intertextual relationship with Tarkovsky’s of disembodiedness (Grodal 2009: 208), Stalker (Сталкер, Russia, 1979), among and via the latter, by viewer’s subjectivity. others (Torop 1999). On the one hand, it It is signifi cant that while David Bor- proves that many specifi c elements in fi lm dwell’s benchmark works “The Art Cinema work rather unambiguously without further as a Mode of Film Practice” and Narra- explanation, powered by the shared cultural tion in Fiction Film still touch upon author- time-space and psychological properties ship, they do so rather casually, having their of the audience, carrying the connotation emphasis on textual aspects. At the cen- of “art”, “art house”, “independent”, “sub- tre of Bordwell’s approach is the view of art jective”, or sometimes just “weird”. On the cinema as a specifi c mode of narration, in other hand, as I aim to suggest with my arti- which syuzhet (сюжет, plot) is less redun- cle, this cultural/psychological explanation dant than in classical fi lm (Bordwell 1986: fares even better in the framework of Gro- 205), causality is tampered with or repre- dal’s theory. Being conscious of the prob- sented far less explicitly (ibid.: 210), and lems that may arise while defi ning art fi lm, the fi lm suggests, with its gaps and ellipses, it is clear that, in the scholarly context, a ambiguity and connotative reading (ibid.: “gut feeling” is not enough. Thus I also hope 212). A crucial point where all these char- to contribute to the better understanding acteristics converge is the intensifi ed activ- and defi nition of art fi lm, altogether. ity of the viewer. In order to have a better Last but not least, when the 100th understanding of the mechanisms behind anniversary of Estonian fi lm was celebrated that activation I will draw, in particular, on in 2012, The Film Motif of the Century was recent cognitive fi lm theory. I suggest that chosen by a poll. Although not winning, Torben Grodal’s (2009) idea about character “darkness” was included in the set of a few simulation as the default mode of viewing, nominated motifs with “ambiguous eyes” as well as the disruption of that simulation and “a bare tree”. Though “ambiguous eyes” as the basis for emerging subjectivity in the won, darkness defi nitely has at least the viewer, can be claimed as the crucial com- same symbolic, or even literal, power for ponent or even the main device of art fi lm. inducing subjective meanings in viewer. The The applicability of simulation/subjectivity more general aim of my article rises out of opposition will be tested on the aforemen- this. I will attempt to delineate what type tioned small body of Estonian fi lm. of subjectivity Estonian art fi lm prefers The question of confl uence between and what position the use of the darkness visual and auditory information will be sequences occupies therein. touched upon briefl y. In order to narrow down the topic I will concentrate on the vis- DAVID BORDWELL ual rather than the auditory, although never ON ART FILM denying the crucial role of sound in the con- Marking off a segment on the map of a struction of meaning or the simulation of an theoretical territory is a task that has, in a

79 BALTIC SCREEN MEDIA REVIEW 2014 / VOLUME 2 / ARTICLE broader sense, quite similar starting points Art fi lm, in the long run, gains most of its for different fi elds of study. For instance, historical and cultural legacy from liter- the changes in culture during the decades ary modernism; in the realm of cinema, its around the turn of the twentieth century roots are grounded in early fi lm d’art, Ger- produced similar challenges both for liter- man Expressionism, French Impressionism ary theory and art theory. We can retrospec- and post-war Neorealism (Bordwell [1979] tively claim that one of the main tasks of 1999: 716). these scholarly undertakings was describ- Defi ning art fi lm, the early Bordwell, ing the defi ning factors of “popular” and probably not refl ecting explicitly on his “elitist” art, taking a closer look at the dif- path, grabs for the tools of semiotics, not ferences between the functioning of popu- unlike the ones of the Tartu-Moscow school. lar and modern literature, or drawing bor- He sets up a distinction between classical ders between “art for mass consumption” cinema and art cinema, together constitut- and “art for art’s own sake”. This signifi cant ing a binary opposition. Art cinema, Bord- distinction can be approached from the per- well says, defi nes itself against the classi- spective of the production and reception of cal narrative mode, and especially against text. In reception studies, the play between the cause-effect linkage of events. These denying and fulfi lling the audience’s expec- linkages become looser and more tenuous tations is elegantly touched upon in the in art fi lm. The classical mode, prevailing concept of the “horizon of expectations” and widespread, and unmarked in Yuri Lot- (Erwartungshorizont) by Hans-Robert Jauss man’s sense (2004: 53), rests upon particu- (Jauss, Benzinger 1970: 12–14). The ful- lar assumptions about narrative structure, fi lment, clearly, correlates with popular cinematic style and spectatorial activity. text, while surprise or ambiguity correlates Narrative time and space are constructed with the “art mode”. The dynamic nature of to represent the cause-effect chain, nar- Jauss’s concept lets the reference point rative itself projecting its action through fl oat depending on the specifi c reader or the goal-oriented characters. The viewer spectator. Considering the construction of makes sense of the classical fi lm through text, alongside other disciplines, semiotics the criteria of verisimilitude (is x plausi- of culture (especially of the Tartu-Moscow ble?), of generic appropriateness (is x char- school) has helped us see the position of a acteristic of this sort of fi lm), and of com- certain text in its contextual environment, positional unity (does x advance the story?) assessing its connections with other texts, (Bordwell [1979] 1999: 717). To achieve as well as evaluating the fl ow of informa- its ends, classical cinematic representation on the scale of known/unknown or old/ tion has established an idiosyncratic “lan- new. The suffi cient amount of novel infor- guage” or system of meaning, which, on the mation correlates with more exclusive, art- one hand depends on cultural conventions oriented texts. Roman Jakobson’s six func- and continuously building on its history, tions of language (e.g., Waugh 1980) can and on the other hand, as we will see later, be seen as a solid basis for a textual theory depends heavily on psychological proper- that considers both sides – the production ties, the functioning of the brain, and per- and reception. Jakobson’s phatic function ception system of the human species. The is more important in popular texts, meta- art cinema mode, to a great extent, behaves lingual and poetic function in art-oriented similarly to fi ne arts and experimental lit- production. erature, trying to deconstruct the signifying The American fi lm theorist and histo- practices of the classical mode, breaking rian David Bordwell sees art fi lm as a dis- down its conventions, denouncing it, and tinctive practice in the realm of fi lmmaking. depending on it at the same time. In his words, art fi lm possesses a defi nite Bordwell claims that art cinema moti- historical existence, a set of formal con- vates its narratives based on two princi- ventions, and implicit viewing procedures. ples: realism and authorial expressivity. Art

80 BALTIC SCREEN MEDIA REVIEW 2014 / VOLUME 2 / ARTICLE cinema, defi ning itself as a realistic cin- fi lms (The Acid House, United Kingdom, ema, shows us real locations and real prob- 1998, Paul McGuigan; Spun, USA, 2002, lems (alienation, lack of communication, Jonas Åkerlund; The Beach, USA/United etc). Even more important, art cinema uses Kingdom, 2000, Danny Boyle), which employ “realistic” – that is, psychologically com- time manipulation and various audiovisual plex – characters. Art cinema is classical effects in order to convey the character’s in its reliance on psychological causation, subjective experience under the infl uence whereas the characters of classical nar- of drugs. Here we cannot claim with any cer- rative have clear-cut traits and objectives, tainty that these means of expression are the characters of art cinema lack defi ned loans from the art fi lm mode. In fi lm history, desires and goals. As the Hollywood pro- various devices for conveying the subjective tagonist speeds directly towards the target, feelings of a character have been continu- the art-fi lm character slides passively from ously sought for and developed. This dem- one situation to another. However, his or her onstrates, fi rstly, a wide potential of fl ex- itinerary is not completely random. Accord- ibility between the art and classical modes, ing to Bordwell, the progression of narra- and furthermore, that the subjectivity of a tive can take the form of a trip or a search, fi lm character is a special case that must be among others. Art cinema allows the char- treated with caution. For that reason, while acters to express their psychological states; I believe subjectivity is still one of the most they often tell one another autobiographi- important keys to understanding art fi lm, cal events, fantasies, and dreams (Bordwell a character’s subjectivity as a determinate [1979] 1999: 718). factor must be left aside, at least initially. Bordwell touches upon subjectiv- The subjectivity and essence of “art ity while discussing the problems of real- fi lm” can also be approached by considering ism. He says that art cinema’s “realism” the fi lm style, or the construction mode of a encompasses a spectrum of possibilities. text, or more precisely, the editing as one of The options range from a documentary fac- the defi ning constructional activities in the tuality to intense psychological subjectiv- fi lm medium. In his later works, Bordwell ity (Alain Resnais’s Hiroshima, mon amour, frequently touches on continuity editing, as France/Japan, 1959). The “illusion/real- well as other codes familiar to the viewer. ity” dichotomy of art fi lm results when two Continuity editing, developed and crystal- impulses meet in the same fi lm. Thus, art lised in classical Hollywood cinema, mostly cinema leaves room for two reading strate- from the 1910s through the 1930s, has gies: violations of classical conceptions of been a dominant style for a long time. The time and space are justifi ed as the subjec- aim of continuity editing is to create smooth tive reality of complex characters; manipu- transitions of time and space, employing lations of duration are justifi ed realisti- such devices as the establishing shot, 180- cally or psychologically. Bordwell concludes degree rule, eyeline match, diegetic sound, that a commitment to both objective and etc. According to Bordwell’s analysis of the subjective verisimilitude distinguishes art visual style of contemporary American fi lm, cinema from the classical narrative mode even the changes in mainstream cinema do ([1979] 1999: 719). not justify the inception of a new paradigm The subjectivity of a fi lm character is or “post-classical period”, because nearly accompanied by a set of problems, as the all the scenes in contemporary mass- depiction of the character’s (unnatural) marketed movies are staged, shot and cut experience has always coincided with pas- according to a selection and elaboration of sages that are intentionally estranging for options already available on the classical the viewer. We can notice the “embedded” fi lmmaking menu. Bordwell sees more rapid subjective sequences in mainstream fi lms editing, bipolar extremes of lens lengths, throughout the history of cinema from Grif- closer framings in dialogues, and a fi th to the contemporary subgenre of drug free-ranging camera as the markers of

81 BALTIC SCREEN MEDIA REVIEW 2014 / VOLUME 2 / ARTICLE intensifi ed continuity, which is just the pioneering cognitive fi lm theorists, pro- intensifi cation of already established tech- vides a concise description of how an art niques (Bordwell 2002: 20). If we scrutinise fi lm’s authorial intentions are understood the position of art fi lm in relation to the by the spectator. A competent viewer, while aforementioned stylistic canons, the pos- watching a fi lm, expects less order in the sibility of describing art fi lm as a deliber- narrative and more coherent stylistic signa- ate deviation from continuity editing must tures in the narration. The deviations from be taken with a grain of salt. As Bordwell the classical canon – an unusual angle, a states, even the fi lms outside the main- stressed bit of cutting, a prohibited camera stream do not necessarily reject (intensi- movement, an unrealistic shift in lighting fi ed) continuity (ibid.: 21). or setting – in short, any breakdown of the The semiotic approach, on the other motivation of cinematic space and time by hand, emphasises the role of codes, which cause-effect logic – can be read as “autho- the viewer must understand in order to rial commentary” (Bordwell [1979] 1999: grasp the meaning of a fi lm. In his essay 720), or understood as a device of ambigu- “The Viewer’s Share: Models of Mind in ity. Having certain gaps and problems, art Explaining Film”, Bordwell alludes to the fi lm demands a particular reading proce- view that continuity editing could be under- dure (ibid.: 721). As a cognitivist who has an stood as one of the codes that makes a fi lm understanding of the evolutionary biology comprehensible for the viewer (Bordwell infl uencing every facet of our fi lm percep- 2012). But instantly, a shadow would be cast tion, Bordwell claims that whenever we are by one of the most fundamental debates in confronted with a problem in causation, contemporary fi lm theory, namely between temporality, or spatiality, we fi rst seek a the code-centred, representation-oriented realistic motivation (e.g., “Is the character’s view and the more realist, cognitivist-based mental state causing the uncertainty?”). If approach. As a cognitivist, Bordwell mostly that cannot be found, we then seek autho- agrees with Noël Carroll ([1985] 1996), rial motivation (“What is being “said” here?”). Joseph Anderson (1996) and other cognitiv- Quite often, as Bordwell also claims, uncer- ists, that fi lmic perception demands mini- tainties are left to be ambiguous, being mal specialised code-reading, depending understood as such, as obvious uncertain- largely on the automatic skills of ordinary ties (ibid.). perception, which have fi ltered through We could be fully satisfi ed with Bor- millennia of evolution (Bordwell 2012). In dwell’s view of the spectator’s approach to Poetics of Cinema, he attempts to provide ambiguities only if we ignore the human a model for the spectators’ response to species’ constant urge for creating mean- narrative fi lm, arguing that the spectator ing in anything it encounters in its environ- draws on real-world knowledge and aware- ment. As another cognitivist, Joseph Ander- ness of narrative conventions, going beyond son claims, the perceptual system cannot the information directly provided in the tolerate ambiguity; it must obtain informa- fi lm (Bordwell 2008: 11–133). We can con- tion it can act upon; indecision is potentially clude that the seemingly code-independent fatal (1996: 45). Though we can differenti- response is more relevant in mainstream ate between the perceptual system and the fi lms; in art fi lms the importance of cultur- meaning-making system, we have to con- ally learned schemata or knowledge about clude that what is intrinsic to the former the idiosyncrasies of the fi lmmaker gives us is also inherent to the latter. The mind is some crucial clues for understanding them. pragmatic in its own way, attempting to construct a coherent world out of external COGNITIVE FILM STUDIES: stimuli. Doing that, we may have different SPECTATOR’S SUBJECTIVITY mental models for understanding different Cognitivists are most interested in the types of fi lms or different sections of the spectator level. Bordwell, being one of the same fi lm.

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In the viewing process we can encoun- tional, documentary, or avant-garde. The ter several cues, which let us, exactly as same goes for art fi lm: one must be careful Bordwell stated, decide that the segment not to make absolute claims about it. The we see is meant to be ambiguous from the other important point concerns fi lm modes start, as in the case of the aforementioned (Odin’s fi lm semiotics uses a classifi cation drug fi lms that convey the character’s sub- of fi lm types, which depend on the cogni- jective state. But at other times, the art fi lm tive competence of the fi lm’s viewer/reader. mode sets the viewer into a specifi c state For example, among eight basic modes Odin where this abstract ambiguity-evaluation distinguishes between spectacle, fi ctional, cannot emerge. Instead, the viewer’s per- artistic, and home movie modes (Buckland sonal meanings and interpretations quickly 2000: 88–89)). The most important point is start to develop. Although the level of that that these modes are not mutually exclu- personalness is under question, because sive, nor can we overlook the fact that a “personal” interpretations could be inten- specifi c mode is only determined through tionally cued by the fi lmmaker’s skilful the process of reading (ibid.). Transferring manipulation of connotative signs, I see a these ideas to the issue of “art fi lm narra- text with larger or smaller gaps within the tion versus classical narration”, we can visu- signifying structure of fi lm. Filling these alise both “modes” existing together within gaps requires more active viewers; and the same fi lm. Consequently, it would be what’s more, also develops them. Here more precise to make a distinction at the we can speak chiefl y of subjectivity that level of fi lm segments, not the complete emerges in specifi c fi lm segments and is fi lm texts. Thus, we see a fi lm repeatedly induced by these gaps. It works on the level entering and exiting the stage of subjectiv- of a spectator, who, enjoying or suffering a ity. temporary break from narrative, embarks Buckland also stresses the principle on his/her own train of thoughts. I would of relevance. A message can be defi ned as claim (partly infl uenced by Grodal’s work) relevant when the receiver in a communi- that this kind of subjectivity is most rele- cation chain exerts an optimal amount of vant to the art fi lm mode. processing effort (in order to decode the In order to increase the contextual- message), and the acquired information ity of the description of that subjectivity, we is new, while relating, at the same time, to should consider at least one other cogni- the information already acquired by the tivist-related explanation. The semio-prag- addressee (Buckland 2000: 84–85). The matics of fi lm deal with the production and optimal proportion of new and old informa- transfer of meaning in the context of com- tion is the premise for processing the infor- munication models in which a distinction mation with the least effort and, optionally, can be made between the levels of sender the most enjoyment. Based thereon, we and receiver. The dynamics of meaning can visualise two models. According to the are heavily dependent on the competence, fi rst, in an art fi lm, or more precisely, in a knowledge base, and psychic disposition of subjective segment thereof, the relevance the person viewing the fi lm. Warren Buck- of communication drops signifi cantly and land, extrapolating from Dan Sperber and the message is “understood” differently by Diane Wilson’s theory of relevance in com- the sender and the receiver, or is not under- munication (1986) and the semio-pragmatic stood at all. According to the second model work of Roger Odin (1995), sums up the (a more Odinesque one), the classifi cation most fundamental ideas (Buckland 2000: of art fi lm and classical mode is entirely 78–89). He emphasises that the ontology of up to the spectators, who are possibly able a fi lm is not automatically fi xed in advance, read a classical fi lm in the art fi lm mode but is determined through the process of for personal reasons (for example, having watching (or interpreting) a fi lm. No fi lm entirely different cultural backgrounds). The can be determined to be inherently fi c- position I would like to take still strongly

83 BALTIC SCREEN MEDIA REVIEW 2014 / VOLUME 2 / ARTICLE acknowledges the evolutional factors in fi lm hand, a biocultural approach to cinema can perception, a certain measure of common offer fi lm studies the necessary and aca- practices in viewers (which is fi nely expli- demically defensible assumptions, inter- cated in Grodal’s understanding of main- pretive tools, and potential ways of concep- stream fi lm as simulation), and is conse- tualising perennial concerns like authorship quently closer to the former model, without and genre (Andrews, Andrews 2012: 58). denying the adjustments and remarks of Ryan Pierson, reviewing Grodal’s Embod- the latter. ied Visions, sees the humanities’ mistrust Before turning greater attention of science as, at least, a part of the prob- to Grodal, here are a couple of observa- lem (Pierson 2010: 93). Grodal, at a moment tions about the role of sound. As Thomas of promise and uncertainty, when fi lm and Elsaesser and Malte Hagener (2010) state, media scholars want to bring the body into the role of different perceptual channels – their analyses but are not quite sure how to especially the way they relate to each other talk about it, explains several key matters in in fi lmic experience – is still under dispute. fi lm aesthetics through the processes and Elsaesser emphasises the role of sound in architecture of the always-embodied brain, fi lm history, claiming that fi lm was never a with a dense bibliography of theoretical mute medium. He shows how sound, being and experimental research behind it (ibid.). three-dimensional, helps to create space Pierson fi nds that Grodal’s application of around the two-dimensional visual plane. evolutionary psychology as an analytical Elsaesser believes that the main function tool makes him unique. Rather than fi nding of sound is anchoring and stabilising the ways to bracket off cultural variations from viewer’s body in space (Elsaesser, Hagener basic cognition, he looks for a cognitivist 2010: 131), allowing the situation where a explanation of culture itself (ibid.: 94). The “bodily being is enmeshed acoustically, spa- chief target of Grodal’s polemic is cultural tially and affectively in the fi lmic texture” determinism that denies biological fac- (ibid.: 132). Since we can hear in complete tors in the understanding of cultural prod- darkness, sound can provide us with clues ucts, or an unwillingness to acknowledge about our environment, and vice versa: that we are products of evolution. Grodal altering sound from “normal” to ambigu- is making the case that cultural/historical ous, the fi lmmaker can initiate a subjective explanations should fi t into a larger, bio- segment without “alienation” in the visual logically informed framework (ibid.). Pier- channel, casting the viewer into a state son sees the possible diffi culties in treat- that can be metaphorically called auditory ing short-term changes in culture, as well darkness. as privileging the individual psychological factors over social ones in the hierarchy of TORBEN GRODAL: EMBODIED causation (ibid.: 97–98), as a problem that VERSUS DISEMBODIED Grodal’s approach may encounter. In a more REPRESENTATION distinctively opposing camp, Grodal’s ambi- Grodal’s cognitive fi lm theory must be tious approach may cause rather vigorous, approached in a framework that emerged but emotion-driven and oversimplifying through the paradigmatic shift in humani- outbursts. According to Robert Sinnen- ties, namely the cognitive turn toward evo- brink, Grodal assumes that culture refl ects lutionary bioculturalism. As David and biological foundations, much like “vulgar” Christine Andrews point out, fi lm studies Marxists assumed that it refl ected the “eco- have largely avoided the biocultural turn nomic base” (Sinnenbrink 2012: 198). It is that has swept the other humanities fi elds. obvious that both extremes miss part of This resistance may be rooted in the fi eld’s the picture – the duality of socio-cultural recent distaste for grand theories and in the and biological factors must be accepted loose social-constructionist thinking that and scrutinised in their mutual dynamics. is a residue of that distaste. On the other In my opinion, the appearance of cognitive

84 BALTIC SCREEN MEDIA REVIEW 2014 / VOLUME 2 / ARTICLE approaches, such as Grodal’s, should be what we see or hear, and give the quickest seen as characteristic of a period when the reaction at least of our “fast thinking” sys- paradigm is starting to change. In order to tem (Kahneman 2011). Affordances in an introduce the new, the old is inevitably left artifi cial environment – one can include fi lm aside, and after a while, a new balance is into this category – require similar reac- established in the system. tions from us. In that way, affordances are As George Lakoff and Mark Johnson the building blocks of simulation. According have pointed out, when we realise that the to Grodal, the viewer will use all the avail- mind is inherently embodied, the central able information in order to decide on his/ parts of Western philosophy (and other her focus of concern. In general, this focus practices of thinking that are directly infl u- of concern corresponds to what is popu- enced by the idea about the dualism of larly called character identifi cation, or more mind and body) are proven to be wrong. As scholarly, agency simulation (I will hereafter reason is always embodied, the body has a use “simulation”). Our capability of watch- great infl uence on any type of mental activ- ing fi lms is linked to our ability to model and ity. One of the most signifi cant mechanisms simulate ourselves as seen from the out- that connect the body to culture is meta- side (Grodal 2009: 193). phor, and any metaphor, at its deeper level, Grodal argues that prototypical art can be seen as stemming from the imagery fi lms combine stylistic innovation with of the body or its close environment (Lakoff, a claim to higher meaning (Grodal 2009: Johnson: 1999). Applied to fi lm theory, 208). Nevertheless, he quickly gives shape embodiedness means primarily that fi lm to this abstract formulation by observ- perception is shaped and restricted by our ing the correspondence between “higher physical properties, our evolutionary history, meaning” and disembodiedness, in con- our habits and goals as organisms function- trast to mainstream fi lm, which is based on ing in our environment. These goals are tied embodied interaction with an online real- to affordances, a term coined by psycholo- ity (ibid.). Central to Grodal’s theory is the gist James J. Gibson. Gibson defi ned as “all concept of PECMA (perception, emotion, action possibilities” latent in our surround- cognition, and motor action) fl ow. PECMA ings. The affordances of the environment fl ow theory describes how fi lm experience are what are being offered to the animal, relies on a processing fl ow that follows the what the environment provides or furnishes, brain’s general architecture, namely a fl ow either for good or for ill (Gibson 1986: 127). from perception (ear and eye), via visual Basically, all properties of objects that and acoustic brain structures, association allow an individual to act on these objects areas, and frontal brain structures to action (from picking up something off the ground (motor action) (ibid.: 146). According to Gro- to starting and driving a car) can be consid- dal, embodied narratives are based on a ered to be affordances. The term is widely full PECMA fl ow in which perceptions and used in cognitive psychology, environmental emotions result in actions (ibid.: 210). The psychology, industrial design, and probably reason why moviegoers do not stand up or with most benefi t, in the fi elds that need to start acting while viewing the fi lm is a self- model or simulate human conduct, i.e., arti- evident and self-infl icted illusion about the fi cial intelligence, human-computer inter- duality of mind and body, which lets us be action, and game design. “body snatchers” – a simile from a famous Grodal’s (and most other cognitivists’) horror movie used by Grodal – by letting our fundamental claim is that fi lm viewing is feelings power some of the characters we based on our standard experience of the are watching. “In the cinema,” Grodal con- world. This is backed up by the evolutionary tinues, “our minds give up control of our own argument, stating that the need for survival bodies, which are quietly placed in seats has shaped our perception system to take in dark rooms, and what enter the eyes are any stimulation seriously, i.e. fi rst to believe emotionally charged audiovisual data of

85 BALTIC SCREEN MEDIA REVIEW 2014 / VOLUME 2 / ARTICLE relevance for the bodies and minds of char- ings and may, at the same time, make the acters.” (ibid.: 193) Disembodied narratives, fi lm feel less real (Grodal 2009: 229). Our by contrast, block the PECMA fl ow to some sense of objectivity or subjectivity depends degree; here the emotions are channelled more on the issue of control than anything into saturated webs of association, and the that is evaluated on the scale of reality. fi lm narrative as a rule takes place in an The experiences allowing us little scope inner, subjective world (ibid.: 210). for action (e.g., a lack of affordances in our Disembodied representations may environment) are simultaneously labelled also arise when there is a disruption of less real in our minds and more subjec- “dominant experiences” or affordance-like tive. Thus a subjective feeling corresponds cues for the character’s action (for example, to a situation where the environment does the character’s memories or hallucinations not fully support the action. Action may be are presented to the viewer), or the action blocked because of insuffi cient visual infor- perspectives are bleached out, as occurs, mation. For example, scenes that take place for instance, with temps mort – the time in foggy weather can often be described when nothing happens in a fi lm. Such expe- as subjective. In evolutionary terms, the riences are felt to be more permanent than feelings of subjectivity probably represent the emotions cued by the ever-changing warning signals: one must be careful when online narrative; and this sense of perma- acting on such little information (ibid.: 230– nence is central to the experience of higher 231). Perhaps the most celebrated exam- meaning (Grodal 2009: 211). In Grodal’s ples of art fi lm subjectivity come from long description, this “higher meaning” fi nds takes (such as those in fi lms by Andrei Tark- close correspondence with “disembodied- ovsky, Béla Tarr, and others). If a sequence ness”, “disruption of simulation”, and “sub- persists beyond the brief time required for jective meaning” emerging in the viewer. the viewer to make all the propositions cued On the other side are “embodiedness” and by the images, the mind will shift into sub- “simulation mode”, respectively. Seeing the jective mode. Our fi rst procedure in watch- clear and substantive line between these ing a fi lm is to deal with it as a stream of two groups of descriptive terms, I propose, information that cues the construction of based on the cognitivist goal of ground- objective spaces and processes. If we fail ing our basic-level descriptions on brain to fi nd anything that can focus our atten- processes, an attempt to reduce these two tion, we will shift into an unfocused default opposing possibilities to an opposition of mode (ibid.: 233). As we have solved all the the simulation and non-simulation mode imminent “problems” on the screen, our is at least technically justifi ed in the con- mind switches to a less conscious and more text of this article. Let us consider these to associative mode. Different subjectivity- be the ideal extremes: in actual viewing, the inducing modes have one thing in common: experience related to these modes is always our action-based relationship with the envi- mixed to some measure. While watching ronment is blocked or disturbed. classical narrative fi lms (or more precisely, Grodal, sketching out a typology of fi lm segments), the simulation mode is the causes of subjectivity in fi lm, distin- prevalent, and while watching art fi lms, the guishes six main factors: 1) subjectivity by non-simulation mode, or disruption of sim- default, stemming from sequences in which ulation, gives rise to subjective meanings. there are few or no actions; 2) a represented space that impedes perceptual access; GRODAL ON SUBJECTIVITY 3) deviant or distorted enactional or per- According to Grodal, the subjective tone will ceptual access to a represented space; 4) prevail if there are no protagonists in the actions and processes that deviate in cer- fi lm, or the characters’/viewers’ tendency to tain ways from normal objective actions and act is blocked or impeded. This subjective processes; 5) situations with a problematic toning is more connected to intuitive feel- reality status that block interaction; 6) devi-

86 BALTIC SCREEN MEDIA REVIEW 2014 / VOLUME 2 / ARTICLE ant emotional phenomena and reactions texts this turns out to be characteristic of (Grodal 2009: 236). According to this sys- art fi lm. Subsequently I will shortly discuss tem, darkness falls under the second and what conditions need to be met in order to third category, distracting the perceptual claim that a specifi c darkness segment is access to fi ctional space. appropriate to art fi lm. Then I will analyse Evidently, the induction of subjectivity the darkness segments of the aforemen- is not exclusively dependant on visual infor- tioned directors, with the intent of applying mation. A fi lmmaker can trigger the specta- the previously described cognitive frame- tor’s feeling of subjectivity with the sound- work to their fi lms, which are labelled art- track, as sound helps to “place” the viewer house a priori, but not given enough atten- into the fi lm’s time-space. Thus the omis- tion in relation to the criteria of such cat- sion of diegetic sound can suppress the egorisation. My intention is to describe how viewer’s simulation-like activity in favour of the disruption of simulation works in the a disembodied experience. Consequently, in fi lms of these directors, and how signifi cant order to better understand the mechanisms the view impediment is in their poetics. The beyond the spectator’s subjectivity, the following question should also be posed: dynamics of visual and auditory cues must Are there any devices that work in a similar be examined together. manner that can functionally replace dark- Before moving on to the fi lm analy- ness or view impediment? As the previous sis, we need to revisit a simple problem semiotic problem belongs to the paradig- that has already been briefl y touched on matic axis, we should also look at the syn- before. Namely, what is the functional dif- tagmatic level and ask about the immediate ference between darkness in art fi lm and context of the darkness segments, because darkness in classical narrative fi lm? Could the meaning of one element in a sign sys- both be considered the basis for subjectiv- tem always acquires its meaning in confl u- ity? If we take the opposition “simulation/ ence with adjacent elements and receiving non-simulation” as a criterion, we can, with the impact of the whole structure. some reservations, speak about motivated Keedus, both a documentary and fea- and unmotivated darkness. Action-moti- ture fi lm maker, is one of the Europe’s most vated darkness functions as an additional personal, serious-minded, and meticulous component to simulation, not necessarily directors. The multiple layers of his work hindering it, but impeding the simulation are revealed to viewers who are able to read marginally. It transforms the added portion them, namely viewers who have knowledge of subjectivity into a catalyst of narrative of history, as well as an understanding of as in horror fi lms (darkness stressing the symbols, world culture, and human psychol- component of the looming unknown), or in ogy. romance sequences (darkness cutting away Two characters are at the centre of other affordances and leaving only those Georgica, his second feature fi lm. The time relevant to intimacy). The other type of of the fi lm is not specifi ed but hinted at: it darkness is much less connected to actions takes place in the 1950s, during the Soviet and could be defi ned as unmotivated. This occupation when Estonian coastline was a is the one we are interested in. closely guarded and restricted border zone. A boy (Mait Merekülski) who has lost his SUBTLE SIGNS OF ability to speak is sent to a strange island SUBJECTIVITY: MORE THAN for the summer, to live with an old man who DARKNESS IN KEEDUS works as the island guard. The guard, called In the following sections I will discuss sev- Jakub (Evald Aavik), keeps bees and per- eral segments of Keedus’s and Õunpuu’s forms tasks ordered by invisible powers. fi lms in the context of subjectivity. Darkness For example, at night when bombers target can be used on screen as an instrument for the military artillery range on the island, impeding the spectator’s view, in some con- Jakub has to observe the range with bin-

87 BALTIC SCREEN MEDIA REVIEW 2014 / VOLUME 2 / ARTICLE oculars and take notes about where the between the psychoanalytical dream mate- bombs hit. In addition, as a former mission- rial and “real memory”; at the fi rst read- ary to the Wakamba people in Kenya, Africa, ing of the fi lm, the choice of the dream-like he is translating Virgil’s Georgics (Georgica, vision may probably prevail, but typically 29 BC) into Swahili. The idea of farming, of Keedus’s poetics, we seldom encounter containing hope and commitment, is set anything supernatural (except, in Georgica, against an era that is seemingly post-apoc- the scene with dead seamen on board an alyptic, looming with dangers and restric- abandoned ship; a brief scene framed by tions. The metaphorical meaning is even darkness, but only framed by it). If we are more signifi cant: there is a need to heal the avid fi lm watchers, we probably get closer boy and make him speak again. to Keedus’s real talent during the consecu- I will briefl y look at two darkness tive readings and notice how he presents scenes, both of which are compounds of the real and plausible as supernatural sub-sequences occurring several times using the subtle devices of lighting and during the fi lm. The fi rst set of darkness camera angles. shots depicts night bombings, of which the In the most expressive memory/dream fi rst is simply menacing, but the fi nal one sequence, the boy runs and catches up with fatal to Jakub. The second set represents a train as the intermittent darkness looms the boy’s recurring memories and is pre- and the sounds of a sex act are heard. The sented in several parts. In the other shots, boy searches for somebody – we soon real- darkness does not play any signifi cant ise, for his mother. He sees several copulat- role; the overwhelming tonality of the fi lm ing couples, strange and lascivious people (shot by the cinematographer Rein Kotov) in the train’s corridor and compartments, is golden, soft, and mellow, like light at the emerging from the dark for a moment. The “magic hour” of the day. allusion of an orgy and social disruption can In the night-bombing sequences, dark- be grasped at the connotative level. Once ness does not disrupt the simulation, but again, as the view is partially obstructed, partially hinders it. Only the refl ections the viewer is not entirely transported into of the explosions are seen, the sounds subjectivity where his/her own allusion of blasts and aircraft engines are heard; could take over, but rather to a dream-like but no planes or direct fl ashes are seen state where the borders of the entities because of the darkness and the choice are unclear and the identity of persons or of camera angle. These shots still provide spaces have not been established as fi rmly affordances and, consequently, keep the as in a familiar, well-lit environment. action going. Darkness can only modify the We see little darkness-induced sub- simulation, slowing it down and partially jectivity in Georgica, but we should consider distancing characters from the reality of other similar mechanisms that would jus- the storyworld; thus the loss of the horse tify the label of art fi lm. According to Gro- and Jakub can be experienced from an dal’s typology, the fourth (actions and proc- emotional distance. The darkness is never esses that deviate in certain ways from nor- impenetrable, rather it functions as back- mal objective actions and processes) and ground for the action. I suggest that even sixth (deviant emotional phenomena and if the reader/viewer of the fi lm is moving reactions) causes of subjectivity are emi- along the border between simulation and nently relevant. The fi rst and second fac- subjectivity, the darkness, in this case, only tors also have a modest infl uence. Actions enhances the subjective reading in a limited are continuously performed, though not so sense. fast as in classical narrative fi lms. The rep- The second set of darkness episodes resented space offers some obstacles: the comes from the boy’s memory, and is one of fi lm uses few establishing shots, thereby the key sequences depicting the origin of not disrupting the simulation, but slowing it the boy’s trauma. There is no distinct border down. Each new mise-en-scène is usually

88 BALTIC SCREEN MEDIA REVIEW 2014 / VOLUME 2 / ARTICLE presented with a close-up. The eccentric The other segment is relatively short characters, uttering cryptic words (the inner (~20 sec) and the description of its neigh- voice of both characters is represented), bouring shots is needed in order to pro- performing incomprehensible actions or vide meaning to it. Kirotaja gives a ride to performing comprehensible actions too a young cellist, a girl named Merily (Mirtel long, fall into the fourth and sixth categories Pohla) who is living with a rich and eccentric and are probably the most signifi cant sub- man named Elvis (Rain Simmul) who has a jectivity-inducing devices in Georgica. threatening manner; he is under the infl u- Letters to Angel, Keedus’s fourth fea- ence of drugs and has repeatedly promised ture fi lm, carries similar dystopic moods. to kill his girlfriend. He is paranoid and has Jeremia Juunas Kirotaja (Tõnu Oja), a mid- even previously paid Kirotaja to assassi- dle-aged man, comes to his father’s funeral nate Merily – obviously on a whim. The huge from Afghanistan where he has been an house they inhabit is shadowy, fi lled with Islamic fi ghter. He also wants to fi nd out video projections on the walls. We hear low, about his daughter called Angel, whom he threatening sounds in the audio track. The has never seen. The existence of Angel is girl starts to play the cello for Kirotaja, but not verifi ed, only traces of her can be found the private concert is interrupted by a sud- in people’s memories. The most vivid pres- den phone call. Kirotaja is summoned by ence she ever achieves is in Kirotaja’s let- the owner of the car, Senta (Ragne Pekarev), ters. Kirotaja arrives is a neglected small another unstable resident of the depress- town with weird inhabitants. The ironic ing town. Kirotaja returns his down pay- glance of the fi lmmaker presents it as a ment to the half-conscious, drug-dozed metaphor for a small state on the periphery Elvis and leaves the house, hearing Merily’s of Europe or civilisation, where capitalist distant screams. After the protagonist has ideology has almost suffocated humanity. left, the camera lingers in the same position I will also highlight two sequences of dark- for 20 seconds. Here, the mise-en-scène is ness from Letters to Angel. complicated and multi-layered. The shot is In the opening shots, Kirotaja wan- aimed through a door with several square ders through the night in an Afghan set- glass panels. There is a gloomy room behind tlement, dark streets bordered with small the door where we see the contours of Mer- shops and tea houses, emitting light with ily, walking around in distraction and des- the hum of noise and cars lazily driving by. peration, the cello discarded on the fl oor. An At a distance, the peacefully interacting additional layer of the frame consists of the people are faintly seen, but no connection black-and-white video projections on the is made between them and the protago- walls, adding their eerie connotations. Many nist. The shaky, handheld camera follows viewers would probably agree that the word him, and soon the voiceover begins to recite “satanic” is appropriate for characterising his thoughts. Darkness blurs most of his the mood that is further infl uenced by the features. The choice of lighting (the seem- soundtrack, the same droning bass strings ingly amateurish avoidance of artifi cial light and the screams of the girl, heard repeat- allows most of the scene to disappear from edly. our view) has a clear and elaborate pur- The cognitive processes of registering pose. It takes the viewer – after she/he has the contents of the frame and the action of been familiarised with the depicted envi- the girl take less than half of these 20 sec- ronment and sees no new affordance – into onds. The remaining time will likely transfer the “unfocused default mode”. However, this the viewer’s mind into a brief state of sub- mode is not created for the purpose of subjectivity, giving some time to refl ect on Mer- jectivity. The purpose is to set an action- ily’s possible fate or to draw some general- neutral background for the voiceover, which ising parallels between the life of this dys- carries important ideas for the subsequent functional couple, the passive and rather narrative. hopelessly drifting protagonist and even the

89 BALTIC SCREEN MEDIA REVIEW 2014 / VOLUME 2 / ARTICLE

“real world” in general that looms behind protagonist, a writer in existential crisis, is every fi ctional world. played by Rain Tolk. The character is again In Letters to Angel we once again named Mati, like the protagonist in Empty. encounter the rather complicated use of An interesting detail is that in the novel the darkness. The darkness does not function character’s name is Eero, not Mati. This can alone, but co-acts with other devices, shut- be interpreted as a special homage to Mati ting off the simulation only once for a very Unt, the author of the literary texts, or even, limited time (second example). The sec- a disguised attempt to make a fi lm about ond example was given in order to demon- Mati Unt himself. Below, I will look at three strate the mechanism for inducing conno- sequences from Autumn Ball in which dark- tative meaning and to show how the freshly ness functions, one way or another, in con- induced subjective sequence relies heav- nection with subjective feelings. ily on the preceding shots, letting the pre- In the 40-second night scene shot on viously presented ideas echo in its time- the highway (16 minutes into the fi lm) we space. see one of the protagonists, architect Mau- Letters to Angel is once again a rer (Juhan Ulfsak) driving home. The driving remarkably story-driven fi lm. As in Keedus’s scene is too long for a classical narrative other feature fi lms, the story encompasses fi lm and presented in a distinct audiovisual several layers of time, explicated through language (although the partial subjectiv- the characters’ lines, memories, or altered ity of the driving scenes even in such main- locations (the Afghanistan episodes were stream texts as Easy Rider (USA, 1969, Den- fi lmed in Mauritania). The time structure, nis Hopper) are a matter for further debate). the restrained narrative pace, outstand- There are two main features that differ from ing dialogues (written, as in Keedus’s other classical, simulation-wise representation. fi lms, in cooperation with the writer Madis First, the actor’s face is mostly obscured by Kõiv), and once again, the estranging mise- distance and darkness, so it is barely dis- en-scène with eccentric characters are the cernible and the viewer may have trouble most explicit signs of an art fi lm. recognising Maurer. Secondly, there is no diegetic sound, only the slow jazz-infl u- ÕUNPUU’S INTRICATE enced soundtrack. Still, we can consider COMPOSITIONS this sequence partially functional in the Autumn Ball, Õunpuu’s fi rst full-length fi lm, sense of storytelling, showing a character is an adaptation of a novel by the celebrated driving home at night. At the same time, the Estonian postmodern author Mati Unt. The subjective mood is nearby and lurking. fi lm won the Horizons Award at the Ven- The second sequence of darkness ice Film Festival. This is the highest inter- begins around 50 minutes into the fi lm in national recognition any Estonian fi lm has a nightclub, party or concert (which one ever received. Õunpuu is known as a tal- is not apparent). We see a close-up of ented maverick who never graduated fi lm drunken Mati, with no extra light directed school and has a background as a painter at his face and the camera pulling in and and writer. out of focus. In contrast to the various other Autumn Ball features the same core examples, here darkness, along with the ensemble of actors as Õunpuu’s debut short focus changes, works in service of the char- called Empty (Tühirand, Estonia, 2006), acter simulation, conveying the state of a fi nely illustrating his method as a director drunken person. Next, we see people danc- who partly belongs to the cast himself, having, drunken Mati wading through the danc- ing abundant experience with and an inti- ers, trying to dance and fl irt with some girls. mate knowledge of his cast, and therefore In the middle of the sequence the diegetic enjoying better access to his actors’ hidden sound fades away and an extradiegetic capabilities. In Autumn Ball, urban aliena- one takes over. The electro-rock tune of tion and relationship problems prevail. The the dance fl oor turns into an experimental,

90 BALTIC SCREEN MEDIA REVIEW 2014 / VOLUME 2 / ARTICLE dreamy, and sustained sound. The light- go on, followed by a sudden and uplifting, ing changes slightly and the speed of the but very elusive note in the jazz tune. The shot slows down, approaching slow motion. ride continues about ten seconds before Now we only see the profi le of Mati’s head the bus stops and one the fi lm’s protago- against a blurred, light-coloured back- nists, Laura (Maarja Jakobson), enters the ground. These changes have subjectivity- vehicle with her daughter (Iris Persson). This inducing potential, but they do not go all concludes the subjective sequence and the the way yet. Soon Mati sits down at a table, simulation may take over again. exhausted, has a cigarette with his head In order to understand the function of nodding drunkenly. Then the shot starts the shot, we must see how it works in syn- to dissolve into a night scene of a road, as tagmatic relationship with the preceding seen from a moving car’s front window. This sequence. The previous sequence ended transition completes with a driving scene with a tragicomic surprise or unpleas- similar to the previous one, in terms of col- ant punch line. Laura, an unhappy single our and mise-en-scène, but now the view- mother, was romantically approached by point stays inside the car on the driver’s a middle-aged man (Raivo E. Tamm) who position. We do not see who is driving, and drove her home in his car, confessing his soon the shot dissolves back to walking feelings and proposing marriage to her. Mati, seen from behind, staggering down After Laura’s polite refusal, we saw the man the highway with a drunken gait. For a short going back to his cosy home where his wife time, both shots are superimposed onto and daughter await. The subsequent sub- each other. Finally the sequence fades to jective trolleybus sequence lets the emo- black and the music subsides. tion settle in, giving the viewer time to mull At the moment of the fi rst dissolve, over the unequal positions and social gam- subjectivity fi nally takes over. Here, in con- ing strategies of people, or maybe just think fl uence with the depressive soundtrack, about loneliness, experiencing the emotions inferring emptiness and desolation, subjec- that accompany it. tivity works in favour of connotative mean- In Autumn Ball, most of the subjec- ing. The viewer can be partially interested in tive sequences are connected to Mati, dis- where Mati is going or who is driving at the tinguishing him and creating a more inti- wheel, but the subjective mode now prevails mate bond between him and the viewer, and more likely guides the viewer towards making him emotionally signifi cant. The emotions, not character simulation. other remarkable feature of subjectiv- The third darkness sequence under ity in Autumn Ball is the use of a rhythm observation begins about an hour and ten controlling device. Õunpuu uses subjec- minutes into the fi lm. We again encoun- tive sequences, more or less consciously, ter one of Õunpuu’s trademark sequences, as part of the rhythmic composition. He combining the night, a highway, and a mov- gives viewers pauses where the accents can ing vehicle; the passenger is unseen (or reverb and have a deeper effect. rather non-existent in terms of the story- In The Temptations of St. Tony, Õunpuu world), but the camera mimics the posi- creates a storyworld that is saturated with tion of his/her gaze. It is shot from the back symbols, manifesting its defl ection from of a trolleybus, with no lights inside, riding the more or less universally understood through the streets of nocturnal Tallinn. concept of “reality”. In a classical narrative, The shot is accompanied by a very slow the story tends to overshadow the author’s and soothing jazz tune. The majority of the ideas and visions preoccupying most of frame is fi lled with the interior of the trol- the viewer’s receiving capability. Obviously leybus, most of it obscured by darkness. The many art house fi lm directors attempt to length of the shot allows the simulation to overcome this by dismantling the story: subside and subjectivity to take over. Then, breaking the cause-effect linkages, creat- after thirty seconds, the bus’s interior lights ing implausible situations and presenting

91 BALTIC SCREEN MEDIA REVIEW 2014 / VOLUME 2 / ARTICLE characters without clear and defi nite goals. simulation-wise sequences and subjective In short, doing just the opposite of what sequences, i.e., the reality of the storyworld Bordwell posits as the inherent features of and the visions or hallucinations of the the classical narrative mode. The Tempta- character. Towards the end, the subjective- tions of St. Tony is the only fi lm discussed ness of the fi lm gradually increases. Donald here that signifi cantly stands up to cause- Tomberg has understood the fi lm as a story effect linkages, presenting characters more about Tony losing his mind (Tomberg 2009). likely to drift through the situations than act As a device, the increasing amount of sub- determinedly in order to achieve stereotypi- jectivity functions well in conveying this. cal goals as mainstream cinema characters However, the full effect, even if it is intended would. What makes The Temptations of St. by Õunpuu, which I doubt, is denied by a Tony complicated is a structure in which the probable semantic mistake by the author simulation sequences are embedded in a (only if he had the aforementioned intent of wider system. However, the nature of that the full effect). As from the beginning, the “master system” or “master style” is not very viewer is presented a rather deviated sto- obvious. It deviates both from simulation ryworld, where a sharp and total opposition and reality, which, according to Grodal, can of “normality-abnormality” or “reality-mad- be stand-alone in respect to each other. ness” cannot exist. As I suggested, showing The protagonist Tony (“Tõnu” in Esto- Tony losing his mind is rather a secondary nian, Taavi Eelmaa) is a well-to-do mid-level and not a main goal for Õunpuu. manager who suddenly starts to question The intricate composition of The Temp- social reality, attempting to make sense of tations of St. Tony needs more thorough the world in terms of good and evil. I would analysis in order to suffi ciently describe the favour a more openly ideological interpre- functioning of the sign system created by tation and suggest that Tony starts to see Õunpuu. However, since this is beyond the the fundamental drawbacks of capital- scope of this article, I turn back to my main ism. At the beginning of the fi lm, the simu- goal and discuss two sequences where lation seems to work, with certain limita- darkness, one way or another, is involved in tions. Firstly, the black-and-white image the process of creating subjectivity. provides a signifi cant cue to read it as an The fi rst full disruption of the simula- art fi lm. Secondly, two of Grodal’s causes tion happens around 27 minutes into the of subjectivity, “actions and processes that fi lm. Tony is hosting a party at his house. deviate in certain ways from normal objec- The initially wild bash has calmed down, tive actions and processes”, and “devi- several people have left. Tony is standing in ant emotional phenomena and reactions” front of the bathroom mirror, trying to clean start to take effect. The characters around his shirt. He looks out the window and sud- Tony behave grotesquely; especially three denly sees his wife (Tiina Tauraite) kiss- Kafkaesque cops in a dilapidated police ing a guest (Hendrik Toompere, Jr.). With an station, functioning as a parody of state unchanged expression, Tony looks back at institutions and proceedings. In the course the mirror, and the image fades to black. of the fi lm, we are presented with more and The screen is black for ten seconds, accom- more such details, building up a coherent panied by a dark droning ambient sound, storyworld on its own terms – one that is quite similar to the soundtrack of some of probably estranging in most other contexts. David Lynch’s trademark sequences. Then, As the narrative advances, we are occa- a white human shape gradually emerges sionally presented with unmotivated jumps from the dark, slowly walking towards us. from one mise-en-scène to another, includ- She is a Japanese woman in a white dress; ing sequences with more than doubtful the background is still dark and the face of causal relations with the prior shots. Here the woman is blurred. The lighting gives the the cause-effect linkages start to unravel. woman’s face a corpse-like appearance. There are no marked borders between the After 50 seconds, the image of the woman

92 BALTIC SCREEN MEDIA REVIEW 2014 / VOLUME 2 / ARTICLE starts to dissolve into an image of slowly belongs to the same diegetic level as Tony. rolling sea waves, shot from a relatively high Of the ten seconds of silence, two or three angle that keeps the coastline and the sky at most is needed to check the image for hidden, likely making the waves as abstract possible affordances. The remaining time as possible in order to prevent the simula- until the monologue begins is open for view- tion to resume, yet. After twenty seconds er’s subjective thoughts. The monologue of the waves, the dream or hallucination partly diffuses the subjectivity, because the sequence subsides. No extradiegetic sound story told by the man starts to function in follows, but an unfocused image of Tony’s parallel to Tony’s story. The viewer remem- wife appears. She is lying on a bed, panting, bers the abandonment of Tony’s storyworld shaking, and moaning seemingly suffering and starts to hook up with the man’s mono- from a terrible nightmare. logue at the same time. At the connotative level that eerie Jap- After the minute-long monologue, the anese fi gure may suggest a feeling of fore- fi lm cuts to the same mise-en-scène but boding or death (with the woman having to another character – a woman listening certain undead qualities). The sea waves, to the man’s monologue. While the mono- on the one hand, have rather universal sym- logue continues, the camera starts to move bolic value that can encompass a multi- downwards and gives us a better view of the tude of ideas, converging into a Jungian woman’s costume. Only a moment later, a concept of the subconscious or in general, cut is made to the theatre audience, among a chaotic, cosmic uncertainty. On the other whom Tony and his wife are sitting. Now the hand, as water and waves are rather popu- illusion of the two separate diegetic lev- lar symbols in art fi lms, they have the abil- els is disproved and the simulation mode is ity to call upon intertextual links from fi lm totally recovered. Looking back, the viewer history, most notably from Tarkovsky. Tech- realises that his subjectivity had no sub- nically, that sequence of subjectivity repre- stantial “basis” and he was only tricked into sents the fi rst shift in Tony’s mind. As I men- subjectivity while there was “nothing wrong” tioned earlier, the shift in viewer’s mind has with the story. Here, two readings are pos- already begun before, from the fi rst minutes sible. The fi rst one begins at the indicated of the fi lm where reading it as an art fi lm is time before the monologue; the second one suggested by the black-and-white medium replaces the fi rst at the moment when Tony and by deviant situations and characters. was represented again. The next time that the simulation With the last example, I again used the seems to break, or at least take a signifi - concept of darkness only metaphorically, cant shift, is at 42:20. Here the narrative but this example was needed for illustrat- seemingly arbitrarily cuts to a medium shot ing a sort of playful, double-coded device. A of a man wearing a fi refi ghter’s helmet and witty, though not inherently original, burst a strange costume; nothing is seen in the of pseudo-subjectivity was induced. While background. The mise-en-scène is changed the subjectivity in the fi rst example of The from the previous scene (Tony visiting a Temptations of St. Tony was tightly inter- beautiful girl Nadezhda (Ravshana Kurkova) twined with the content level of the story, in her modest home) without an establish- the subjectivity of the second example ing shot, which is required according to the functioned more on the level of style and grammar of classical narrative cinema. The poetics, though still providing some com- man with a helmet stands silently for ten mentary on Tony’s life and the world he is seconds and then starts a monologue about settled in. his life, and about lost hope. There is not indication yet if he is a superimposed char- CONCLUSION acter belonging to a meta-level of the nar- One must be careful when considering rative, which the narrator sometimes brings sequences of darkness as independent into the text in theatre or cinema, or if he subjectivity-inducing devices. In the case of

93 BALTIC SCREEN MEDIA REVIEW 2014 / VOLUME 2 / ARTICLE the fi lms by Keedus and Õunpuu, darkness ness could even be taken to the level of is never a single and stand-alone factor in auditory information, e.g. when diegetic that sense, but functions in a wider mean- sound gives way to extradiegetic sound that ing-making system that contains visual and is incomprehensible, estranging, and fail- auditory signs from the same sequence. ing to locate the viewer in the storyworld’s Additionally, the infl uences of the syntag- time-space. matic axis, i.e. the information from the In most examples, darkness did not adjacent shots or segments, are often cru- stop the simulation totally but rather sus- cial in determining the meaning (and also pended it. There appears to be a border- the subjectivity) of the darkness sequence. line state between simulation and subjec- This dependence could be looser (the Japa- tivity, where the inclination towards one nese ghost woman in The Temptations of or another mode tends to depend on the St. Tony) or stricter (the last example of The specifi c viewer. The slow narrative pace of Temptations of St. Tony or the cellist girl epi- Keedus’s fi lms functions according to this sode from Letters to Angel). However, the scheme, having the ability to bring some infl uence from the syntagmatic axis is not impatient viewers to that in-between state. always needed. The description of the mechanics and func- In contemporary Estonian art fi lm no tions of that borderline state would be one exceptional or overfl owing use of darkness of the most promising subjects for further sequences can be detected. Darkness as study in the fi eld of art cinema and subjec- an Estonian fi lm motif of the century, in the tivity. case of the fi lms discussed here, has rather Besides darkness or obstructing the mythical value. Nevertheless, the Estonian view there are various other subjectivity- cinema of the Soviet era surely deserves inducing devices, as seen in Grodal’s typol- further inquiry from the viewpoint of dark- ogy. In Keedus’s fi lms, subjectivity works ness and subjectivity. One of my intuitions in a sophisticated way. Compared to Õun- is that interesting links between the sub- puu who may present (in The Temptation jectivity and “normal” style of Soviet cin- of St. Tony) “deviate actions, characters or ema can be found in some aspects oppos- phenomena”, Keedus presents inherently ing the Hollywood-based classical narra- realistic situations and locations, using tive cinema as defi ned by Bordwell, and in the stylistic elements that leave an illu- others employing its stylistic infl uences. As sion of deviation or, in any case, still have for contemporary Estonian art cinema, the a specifi c estranging power. In the case of body of fi lm is too small to draw pre-emp- Keedus’s fi lms, even Bordwell’s main cri- tive conclusions about the art fi lm mode as teria for art fi lm do not apply straightfor- a whole. In that axis, the fi rst step of devel- wardly. The cause-effect relationship is not opment would be setting up a more com- broken anywhere; on the contrary, his fi lms’ prehensive comparison with the character- deeper meaning is always inherently con- istic darkness sequences from European or nected to the cause-effect chain in the long American independent art house fi lms. run. Keedus’s representation of events, for It is important to note that the con- instance in Georgica, is not exactly linear in cept of darkness (as a subjectivity-induc- a classical sense. Three stories are inter- ing device) can be used in a metaphorical laced therein: the boy’s story in the past, the sense, widening the scope of its descrip- old man’s story in the past and their com- tive power. Therefore, darkness can stand mon story in the fi lm’s present. If we apply for the obstruction of the spectator’s view Bordwell’s early framework, only the stylis- completely or partially (using various sub- tic features distinguish Georgica as an art devices from an out-of-focus camera to fi lm; but if we delve deeper, we fi nd sub- the over-lighting of a scene), blocking the tle and sophisticated poetics everywhere, access to the affordances and thus hinder- which retard straightforward simulation. ing the simulation. The metaphor of dark- In Keedus’s case, the prevailing “art fi lm”

94 BALTIC SCREEN MEDIA REVIEW 2014 / VOLUME 2 / ARTICLE devices are brilliant at joining the sound REFERENCES Anderson, Joseph 1996. Reality of Illusion. Carbondale: with picture, and working with locations, South Illinois University Press. giving the objects the touch of magical real- Andrews, David; Andrews, Christine 2012. ‘Film Studies and the Biocultural Turn’. – Philosophy and Literature, ism without any special effects. Õunpuu’s 36, 1, 58–78. fi lms are less story-driven than the fi lms by Bordwell, David [1979] 1999. ‘The Art Cinema as a Mode of Film Practice’. – Leo Braudy, Marshall Cohen (eds.), Keedus. The subjectivity sequences in Õun- Film Theory and Criticism: Introductory Readings. 5th puu’s fi lms are more explicit, making Õun- edition. New York: Oxford University Press, 716–724. Bordwell, David 1986. Narration in Fiction Film. Madi- puu probably a more self-conscious and son: University of Wisconsin Press. more intentional art fi lm director. Bordwell, David 2002. ‘Intensifi ed Continuity: Visual Style in Contemporary American Film’. – Film Quarterly, It is important to realise that the 55, 3, 16–28. degrees of reality and subjectivity are not Bordwell, David 2008. Poetics of Cinema. New York: Routledge. necessarily mutually tied to each other. Bordwell, David 2012. ‘The Viewer’s Share: Models of As Grodal pointed out, the feeling of sub- Mind in Explaining Film’. http://www.davidbordwell.net/ essays/viewersshare.php (12 August 2014). jectivity is mostly connected to the lack of Buckland, Warren 2000. Cognitive Semiotics of Film. affordances and the narrowing of the scope Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Carroll, Noël [1985] 1996. ‘The Power of Movies’. – for actions; and there can easily be a story- Noël Carroll, Theorizing the Moving Image. Cambridge: world that greatly deviates from our idea for Cambridge University Press, 78–93. Elsaesser, Thomas; Hagener, Malte 2010. Film Theory: “real”, but can still offer a full-time simula- An Introduction Through the Senses. New York, London: tion. Routledge. Galt, Rosalind; Schoonover, Karl 2010. ‘Introduction: The opposition of the simulation mode The Impurity of Art Cinema’. – Rosalind Galt, Karl and the subjective mode constitutes a use- Schoonover (eds.), Global Art Cinema: New Theories and Histories. New York: Oxford University Press, 3–27. ful and quite precise instrument for defi n- Gibson, James J. 1986. The Ecological Approach to ing art fi lm, which demonstrates cogni- Visual Perception. New York: Psychology Press. Grodal, Torben 2009. Embodied Visions: Evolution, tive fi lm theory’s ability to bring additional Emotion, Culture and Film. New York: Oxford University systematisation into somewhat scattered Press. Jauss, Hans Robert; Benzinger, Elizabeth 1970. fi lm studies. Still, Grodal’s emphasis on ‘Literary History as a Challenge to Literary Theory’. – subjectivity does not diminish the value of New Literary History, 2, 1, 7–37. Kahneman, Daniel 2011. Thinking, Fast and Slow. Bordwell’s initial insights about causality, London: Penguin Books. plausibility, and the ability of advancing the Kuhn, Annette; Westwell, Guy 2012. A Dictionary of Film Studies. New York: Oxford University Press. story. In both cases the ultimate question is Lakoff, George; Johnson, Mark 1999. Philosophy in the whether the viewer fi nds himself in a famil- Flesh: The Embodied Mind and Its Challenge to Western Thought. New York: Basic Books. iar or unfamiliar situation. As this depends Lotman, Juri 2004. Filmisemiootika. Tallinn: Varrak. not only on biological but also on cultural Odin, Roger 1995. ‘For a Semio-Pragmatics of Film’. – Warren Buckland (ed.), The Film Spectator: From Sign constraints, a need still exists for a semiotic to Mind. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, approach in order to complement the cogni- 227–235. Petrie, Graham [1973] 2008. ‘Alternatives to Auteurs’. – tive aspect. Barry Keith Grant (ed.), Auteurs and Authorship. Malden: Blackwell Publishing, 110–118. Pierson, Ryan 2010. ‘Embodied Visions: Evolution, ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Emotion, Culture, and Film by Torben Grodal’. – Critical The author thanks the anonymous review- Quarterly, 52, 2, 93–99. Sellors, Paul 2007. ‘Collective Authorship in Film’. – ers, Eva Näripea, and Katre Pärn, for their The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, 65, 3, helpful suggestions and useful comments. 263–271. Sinnenbrink, Robert 2012. New Philosophies of Film: Thinking Images. London, New York: Continuum. Sperber, Dan; Wilson, Deirdre 1986. Relevance: Communication and Cognition. Oxford: Basil Blackwell. Stam, Robert 2000. Film Theory: An Introduction. Oxford: Blackwell. Tomberg, Donald 2009. ‘Mu silm ja süda – need on sõjajalal’. – Sirp, 15 October. Torop, Peeter 1999. ‘Harimise kunst’. – Teater. Muusika. Kino, 5, 65–74. Waugh, Linda R. 1980. ‘The Poetic Function in the Theory of Roman Jakobson’. – Poetics Today (Roman Jakobson: Language and Poetry), 2, 1a, 57–82.