Robert P. Kolker

RobertP. Kolker 'cinema'to Definingthe film text Metz'sdefinition of the encompassinginsti- tution of production, distribution, exhibition, and What do we mean when we talk about a film? The reception.But that will be the easiestpart of the untan- answersto this apparently straightforward question gling process.Film and the cinemaare sucha regular are not simple, not at all based in common sense, part of our lives, that defining, differentiating, and and go to the heart of the complexitiesof the institu- analysingthem are not only difficult, but also difficult tions,the practices,and the viewing of movies. for many people to accept. Indeed, there are some The terms themselves suggest our uncertaintres. things we would ratherwere left alone,and the movres Cinema,as Christian Metz (1977/1982: 5-9) suggests, are one of them. The oreferenceto think of a film as a impliesthe entireinstitution of filmmaking,film distri- kind of self-constructedpresence, full of story,charac- bution,film exhibition,and film viewing.In Englano, ters, and emotion, is strong.A film is there, complete, the cinemausually refers to the place where a film rs full,and waiting forourgaze. Why makeit moredifficult 'movies' shown. In the United States, replaces than it appears?Precisely because it appearsso simple 'cinema', 'film' and the word is reserved for serious and because the influence of film on our lives is so intent.In Hollywood,the people who makefilmssome- great. 'pictures', 'What timescall them and once referred to them Our first responseto the question is a film?' 'A (somestill do) as'shows'. might be: film is what we see when we go to the lseveryone talking about the same thing? And what cinema (or the movies)or watch a videocassetteor a 'thing'? isthe As we try to untangle a definition of the television broadcast of a film'. A direct enough 'movie'(reserving filmtext, lwill use'film'instead of my response,but one that actually responds to different right to be serious)and will try to restrict the term things. Or, more appropriately,different, but closely E CRITICALAPPROACHES related, texts. We can define a text as a coherenr, screen in any given theatre has been determined by delimited, comprehensible structure of meaning. A the size of the theatre, not by a standard ratio for text is something that contains a complex of events recording and projecting the image. While a standard (images, words, sounds)that are related to each other ratio did existfrom the early 1930sto the early 1950s, within a context,which can be a storyor narrative.All of the advent of different widescreenformats, the small the parts of a text cohere, work together towards a shopping-mall theatre, the need to compose the common goal of tellingus something.In ordinarypar- image ultimatelyto fit on television,makes image lance,a text isalso something physical,like a novel or a size and composition inexact and undependable for book of poems. We all know about a textbook. But a any given film. The film text, in its physical, visible painting is also a text. So is a televisionshow, and the sense, is therefore subject to architecture,to theatre entire processof watching television.In fact,any event management, to the exigencies of broadcast and that makes meaning can be called a text if we can videotape conventions. Almost every videotape isolateand define its outside boundariesand its rnter- releasedin the United Statescomes with two warnings: nal structure-and our responses to it (for a text to be one from the FBl, warning us about copyright restric- 'this completed, it must be seen, read, heard by someone). tions; the other telling us that film has been for- lf we think of this in relationto a film, we begin to see matted to fit you r television'.Physica I textuality, I i ke so how hard it is to define the film text-or texts-which much else in the creationand reception of film, is sub- are physical, narrative, economic, and cultural, and ject to external forces that make it difficult for us to which include production, distribution,exhibition, define it as some essential,unchanging thing. and viewing. Ultimately,the physicalityof film, even the forms of The physical presence of a film constitutes one its projection, are lessimportant than the effect it has aspect of film's textuality: the five or six reels of when we view it. Watching a film is more than any of its 35mm plasticribbon containingphotographic images physicalparts: it is an event that occurswhen the phy- that are projected onto the screenin the theatre,or the sical thing becomes activated by human perception videocassette we rent from the video store with its through some kind of projectionor broadcast.As soon hundreds of feet of magnetized plastic coating con- as a thinking, feeling person is present-viewing the tained in the cassette.A videocassette shown on a film-that person'sexperience is brought to bear on televisionset isnotthe sameas the theatricalscreening the film's images, sounds, and narrative.The viewers of a 35mm print. On the most obvious level,the con- experienceis itselfinformed by the culture in which he ditions of its viewing are not the same. The kind of or she lives. A person's beliefs, understandings,and concentration made possible in a darkened cinema valuesare all activatedwithin the context of film view- where a high-resolution image is projected on the ing. That istrue for the people who created the film as screenis not the same as the bright busy living-room, well. They, too, are a major part of the text. Their or the comfort of the bedroom, where a small, low- beliefs, their understanding of what a film shouro or resolutionimage is projected from behind onto a cath- should not be, the economic constraintsthat allow ode ray tube. The image and the ways in whicn we them to say and do only so much in any given fitm- attend to it are different.The televisionor videotaoed these become textualizeo. image are not only smaller,but also more square.The lsthis any differentfrom our contactwith other works sides of the image are lost on most transfersof film to of the imagination?The German critic Walter Benla- video (almosttwo-thirds of the image if the originalwas min, wrote in his 1936essay'The Work of Art in the Age ,pan filmed in anamorphic wide screen and then and of MechanicalReproduction'thatfilm is unique among scanned'for videotape).The differencein size,resolu- the arts becauseof the fact that it is not unioue. Of all tion, and responsecreates a differenttextual construc- the arts,Benjamin wrote, film iswithout'aura', without tion for televisualas opposed to theatricalviewing. the singularity of the immediate experience of an We can extend these differencesfurther.In theatrical artefact uniquely connected with a singular human exhibition the size, proportion, and resolution of the creative imagination. Film seems to have no origin; film image are no longer under the control of the film- it is there, whole and complete, ready for our enjoy- makers or the audience. They are controlled by the ment or the enjoyment of anyone else with the price physical circumstances,resources, and commitment of admission,a monthly cable fee, or money for ren- of the exhibitor. For a number of vearsthe size of the tal. For Benjamin,film's lackof aura, lack of forbidding @ THEFIIM TEXTAND FltM FORM uniqueness,and its ease of accessmakes it the most and legible to many interpreters,whose responsesare socialand communal of the arts.Film addresses the themselves part of its very textuality and form. world,pierces through the realitiesof dailylife likea surgeon!knife (1936/1969:233) and, by opening perceptionsof the ordinaryto the many,holds the The film text and authenticity possibilityof engagingan audiencein a socialand culturaldiscourse, a mass engagement of the imagi- Textualityand form includequestions about'authenti- nationunlike any other art form. (Benjamin also made city'.Benjamin's concept of thework without aura sug- itclearthatfilmrunsthe riskof forging an authoritarran gests that film removes authenticityfrom its text. assentto thedominant ideology.) However,despite Benjamin'sargument about the Thetextuality of film is thereforedifferent from a lossof aura,actual people do makefilms. But given novelora painting. Less personal, but more accessible. the collaborativeand commercialbasis of filmmak- Neitherunique nor intimate,yet closerto the world ing-so differentfrom the individualcreativity attribu- mostof uslive in, engaged in itsdailiness, and power- ted to the traditionalarts-the creativeauthority of the fullyin touchwith the social.The text without aura filmic text has been at the core of theoreticaland becomesthe text that resonatesacross many fields historicaldebate. andmany consciousnesses. In any film we arewitness One part of the debateinvolves the abilityto find toa richand often conflicting structure of imaginative, and identiiy authoritativetexts for early cinemathat cultural,economic, and ideologicalevents. Because would enableus to createa reliablehistory of early mostfilms are madefor profit,they attempt to speak film.lt isestimated that almost 75 percent of the films tothe largest number of people,and by sodoing have made beforeand just afterthe turn of the centuryno to appealto whattheir makersbelieve are the mosr longerexist. Those that do exist.from the earlytwen- commonand acceptablebeliefs of a potentialaudi- tieth centuryup to the teens,are in questionable, ence.But audiences often respondin waysthe film- ofteninauthentic forms. For example, Edward S. Por- makersdon't

Load more