Race, Psychoanalysis, and Borderline Jean Walton University of Rhode Island, Jwalton@Uri.Edu

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1997 "Nightmare of the Uncoordinated White-Folk": Race, Psychoanalysis, and Borderline Jean Walton University of Rhode Island, [email protected]

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Citation/Publisher Attribution Walton, Jean. “‘Nightmare of the Uncoordinated White-Folk’: Race, Psychoanalysis, and Borderline.” Discourse, vol. 19, no. 2, 1997, pp. 88–109. JSTOR, JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/41389446. Available at http://www.jstor.org/stable/41389446 .

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"Nightmare of the Uncoordinated White-Folk": Race, Psychoanalysis, and Borderline Author(s): Jean Walton Reviewed work(s): Source: Discourse, Vol. 19, No. 2, The Psychoanalysis of Race (Winter 1997), pp. 88-109 Published by: Wayne State University Press Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/41389446 . Accessed: 28/02/2013 14:59

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This content downloaded on Thu, 28 Feb 2013 14:59:48 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions "Nightmare of the Uncoordinated White-Folk":

Race, Psychoanalysis, and Borderline

Jean Walton

Among Europe's experimentalfilms from the 1920s and 30s, perhaps none offersa more fascinatingconjunction of psychoanalysis and representationsof race thanBorderline , the expressionist,inter- racial melodrama produced by the POOL group and directedby KennethMacpherson. The filmstarred Paul and Eslanda Robeson, imagistpoet H. D., and her lesbian companion,Bryher. The POOL group derivedfrom an artisticand domesticmén- age à troisamong H. D. (Hilda Doolittle),Bryher (Winifred Eller- man) , and writer-photographerMacpherson, who marriedBryher to conceal his romanticinvolvement with H. D. in the late 20s. This group published several books on cinema and the firstEnglish- languagejournal devotedto filmas an artform, Close-up (1927-33) ; it also produced fourexperimental films, of which Borderline seems to have been the mostambitious. Much of the POOL group'sinter- est in filmconsisted in exploringits potentialas a psychoanalytic apparatusfor rendering unconscious processes. Among the contributorsto Close-upwas analystHanns Sachs, who wrote regularlyon psychoanalysisand film;the group was particularlyexcited by Secrets of a Soul, Germandirector G. W. Pabst's expressionisticattempt to translatethe rudimentsof Freud's "talk- ing cure" intovisual narrative (See Konigsberg). All of thefilms the

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POOL group made explicitlyconcern psychoanalytic concepts (see Friedberg). Less consistently,the group preoccupied itselfwith the politicsof racial representationin film,devoting at least one issue of Close-upto reviewsand articlesabout problematicdepictions of blacksin popularAmerican and Britishcinema.1 As Susan Stanford Friedman observes,Macpherson and Robert Herring (the latter anothercontributor to were also of the whitecrowd 4 Close-up) "part forwhom the Negro was in vogue.' They regularlyvisited Harlem on theirtrips to the Stateswith Bryher and broughtback to Europe all the latestin black writingand music" ("Modernism"98). Herringintroduced Paul and Eslanda Robeson to H. D.'s circle in the late 20s, and eventuallythe POOL group persuaded the Robesons to take time fromtheir hectic touringschedule to act in Borderlinewhile it was shot in Switzerland.It was Paul Robeson's second filmrole sincehe had appeared in Oscar Michaux'sBody and Soul in 1924. Though Borderlinewas not particularlywell received when it was firstreleased (owing as much to its psychoanalytic preoccupations as to its putativeantiracism), the filmhas since drawnthe attentionof a numberof scholarswith divergent critical concerns. A brief synopsisof its diffuseyet significantplot, its explicitengagement with psychoanalysis, its avant-gardeaesthetic, and itsinterracial content will clarify this interest. Borderlineis an expressionisticdepiction of the sexual and racial tensionsthat develop in a smallEuropean villagewhen twohetero- sexual couples- one white,one black- play out the interpersonal problems arisingfrom the white man's sexual involvementwith the black woman. In the short"libretto," passed out at the initial screeningsof the film,we are told that

ina small"borderline" town, anywhere inEurope, Pete, a negro,isworking in a cheaphotel café. His wife,Adah, who had lefthim some time previously,hasarrived also in the same town, although neither isaware of thepresence of the other. Adahis staying inrooms with Thorne and Astrid. Thorne is a young manwhose life with Astrid has become a tormentto themboth. Both highlystrung, their nerves are tense with continuous hostility evoked by Thome'svague and destructive cravings. He hasbeen involved in an affairwith Adah, and the film opens with the quarrel which ends their relationship.2

As Pete (Paul Robeson) reconcileswith Adah (Eslanda Robeson) in a series of outdoor scenes, Astrid(played by H. D., using the pseudonym"Helga Doom") and Thorne (Gavin Arthur)quarrel until Astridis accidentlystabbed to death. The drama between the twocouples is intercutwith scenes fromthe hotel's restaurant,

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over which a lesbian couple seems to preside (a butch-looking, cigar-smokingBryher plays the café's manageress,while Charlotte Arthuris the femme barmaid). In this interiorsetting, we see townspeople discussingthe interracialaffair while the barmaid encourages general drinkingand merrymaking,the manageress soberlykeeps the books, and a gay-codedpiano player (Robert Herring), witha photo of Pete propped next to him,accompanies the action with what is doubtlessjazz music. Before her death, Astridjealously castigatesThorne in the cafe,stirring up the racist sentimentsof the villagersby calling him a "NiggerLover" and seeming to make a pact witha witchlikeold lady,who later says thatif she had her way,"not one negro would be allowed in this country."These scenes are intercutwith exterior shots of thevillage and surroundingcountryside, where the black couple reconcilesin natural,rustic settings. Astrid' s death leads to furtherracial hatred by the townspeople until Adah voluntarilyleaves and Pete is ordered to depart by a letterfrom the Mayor.Before leaving, Pete appears withThorne in a scene ofmutual forgiveness; they shake hands,and, as thelibretto putsit, "they both realisethat what has happened has been beyond them,and broughtabout by externalcircumstances - thatenmity has been among others,and theythemselves mere instrumentsfor its consummation"(150). We next see Pete waitingalone at the train station.Final shots inside the café indicate that "order" is restorednow thatthe black charactershave been exiled fromthe whitevillage. Overall, the filmindicts the villagers'racist triumph; it also implies,however, that Thorne (unlike the othercharacters) has undergonea transformationas a resultof theseevents and has workedthrough his innerconflicts. In thissense, the film privileges his subjectivityover thatof the othercharacters. Criticalattention to Borderlinehas been diverse,characterizing the film as feminist,modernist, a psychoanalyticexperiment, a lesbian or queer text,a whiterepresentation of blackness,and as a significantmoment in Paul Robeson's filmcareer (see, respectively, Friedberg;Friedman; Morris; Weiss; Cripps; Dyer) . Yetin almostev- erycase, emphasison one aspectof the film's significance inevitably eclipses itsother elements by downplayingtheir interdependency. For example, Anne Friedberg'sdiscussions of the film,arguably the mostdetailed and exhaustiveof sourceson the POOL group's activities,focus on Borderline'sproduction, contexts, and troubled reception,but do not extensivelyinterpret its racial diegesis. On the otherhand, RichardDyer's treatment of Paul Robeson's crossover star status in HeavenlyBodies provides perhaps the most astute, thoughbrief, analysis of the film'sracial politics,noting how "little

This content downloaded on Thu, 28 Feb 2013 14:59:48 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions Winter1997 91 an active role the Paul Robeson characterhas in the narrative" and how the "highlycomplex use of montage onlyreinforces this inactivity"(132) . Whilehis treatmentof thefilm focuses on itswhite constructionof black masculinity,Dyer also notes in passing the presence of gay-or lesbian-codedcharacters in the film("the dyke styleof the innkeeperand her womanfriend, for instance, and the piano playerwith the photo of Pete/Robesonon his piano" [132]) and suggeststhat there are homoeroticelements in the film'sreso- lution.Yet Dyer's exhaustive coverage of Robeson's careermakes it impossiblefor him to explore in depth Borderline's amalgamation of sexual and racial differenceas both were imaginedby itswhite modernistcreators. How do whitefantasies of racial differenceinform and under- writeBorderline's psychoanalytically inflected modernist challenges to a conventionallygendered and sexed statusquo? Byinterpreting Borderlineand its accompanyingtexts, I shall modifythe standard feministquestion that many H. D. scholars ask: What difference do women writersand filmmakersmake in the related projects of modernism,psychoanalysis, and cinematicrepresentation? This essayextends that question by asking, In whatway do thesewomen's fantasiesof racial differenceinflect their gendered differencesin these projects? We should note immediatelythat Borderline's composition and structurealready complicate these questions. For instance, although H. D. and Bryherportrayed Macpherson as Borderline's artisticgenius, the filmwas a collaborativeeffort insofar as the two women defined the charactersthey portrayed and took over the dauntingjob ofediting the film when Macpherson became sickafter the shooting.They also wroteinterpretive and explanatorytexts to accompanythe film(thus influencing its reception) and doubtless contributedto the film'sartistic conception and sexual/racialpoli- tics,even thoughthey downplayed these politics by highlighting the film'sformal properties. We knowthat in theirpersonal lives, H. D. and Bryherchallenged sexual, gender,and domesticconventions, and that H. D. habituallytransposed her personal experiences into her whatcritics and call " literaryprojects, writing biographers romansà clef"that feature her lovers,friends, and closestassociates. Yetas I suggestedabove, littlehas been writtenabout Borderlineas a typeof "filmà clef":The filmexplores the preoccupations,desires, and interrelationshipsof white modernists that are "projected"onto theirblack acquaintances. The filmalso partlyclarifies the forms of racial and sexual differencethat surface in a cinematicventure designedto counterthe blatantly racist productions of the American filmindustry.

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This group's preoccupationwith racial politicswas concomi- tantwith its intense interestin psychoanalysisfor its affirmation of the role of the unconscious in creativityand its availabilityas a discourseof sexual difference.Borderline aids our interpretation of a racial account of psychoanalysis,modernity, and neurosis.In her introductionto H. D.'s Borderlinepamphlet, for instance, Fried- man notes that "H. D. wroteopenly about her identificationwith Robeson as a fellowexpatriate American in her privatelyprinted sketch'Two Americans'and about her eroticattraction to covertly " him in the poem 'Red Roses forBronze' ("H. D." 89). We might wonder how such identificationand desire- primarypsychoana- lyticconstituents - relate to how H. D. incorporatedRobeson into the film'sexpressionist text and used him,via formaltechniques, as a "foil"to offsetthe psychiccomplexity of her own character.3 " "Intothe Labyrinth of the (White) Human Mind As scholarsof the POOL group have observed,H. D., Bryher, and Macpherson greatlyadmired Pabst's psychoanalyticexperiment Secretsof a Soul; theyalso workedclosely with analyst Hanns Sachs, who contributedarticles on filmand psychologyto Close- up. Bryherhad been in analysiswith Sachs since 1928 and H. D. would be analyzed by him in 1931, before startinganalysis with Freudin 1933. Bothwomen closely read thepsychoanalytic journals to whichBryher had subscribedsince the early1920s (Friedman, Penelope's287). In an articleentitled "Film Psychology," published in Close-up in 1928, Sachs analyzed scenes from Eisenstein to demonstrate how a film'sdiegesis "consistsof closelyinterwoven psychological coherencies,"which become visibleonly if a film"can externalise and make perceptible- ifpossible in movement- invisibleinward events"(11). Sachs suggestedthat such "limitedmimetics" as facial expressionsmight better be replaced by focusingthe camera on evocativeobjects or the "smallunnoticed ineptitudes of behaviour describedby Freud as symptomaticactions" (11). Only in thisway could filmbecome "a kind of timemicroscope . . . [that] showsus clearlyand unmistakablythings that are to be foundin lifebut that ordinarilyescape our notice" (12). Accordingly,film functions as an analyst- as "a new wayof drivingmankind to conscious recognition"of those thingsthat would otherwiseremain unconscious (15). Like the POOL group's other filmprojects, Borderline was conceivedin partto continuewhat Sachs arguedwas the intrinsically psychoanalyticnature of Eisenstein 's films.Borderline (and certainly H. D.'s assessmentof it in her pamphlet)was also greatlyinformed byFreud's observationson sexuality,repression, and neurosis.The

This content downloaded on Thu, 28 Feb 2013 14:59:48 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions Winter1997 93 filmaccentuates Freud's ideas witha racializedwhite/black binary thatplaces the black subjectbeyond the "civilized." In an articlewritten after the first public screenings of Borderline , Macpherson explained that the POOL group had contributeda technicalinnovation to theproject of "driving mankind to conscious recognition"of the unconscious:

I decidedto make Borderline witha "subjectiveuse of inference." Bythis I meantthat instead of the method ofexternalised observation, dealing with objects[as in Sachs's discussion ofEisenstein] , I was going to take my film intothe minds of the people in it. . . . Totake the action, the observation, thededuction, the reference, into the labyrinth ofthe human mind, with itsqueer impulses and tricks, its unreliability, itsstresses and obsessions, itshalf-formed deductions, itsglibness, itsoccasional amnesia, its fantasy, suppressionsand desires. (294)

Like much contemporaneouspsychoanalytic discourse, Macpher- son positeda universal"human mind" whose essentiallabyrinthine natureis sharedby male and female,black and white.The film,we are told,gives the effectof entering"into the mindsof the people in it";thus we would expect to knowmuch about the consciousness of each protagonist.In practice,however, the filmdistinguishes greatlyamong theminds it "probes";it deploys montage techniques to enterrepeatedly (if somewhatmechanically) into certainminds (Astrid'sand Thome's) but not others.In thisway, the filmaims to give Astridand Thorne the typeof complexitythat Macpher- son described in his article.We enter Pete's mind less frequently, and oftenthen onlybecause its "placidity"(the wayin which it is "conversantwith nature") contrastswith the turbulenceof both whiteprotagonists. Adah remainsvery much a cipher,functioning as an externalstimulant who triggersthe psychic responses of others (Thome's conflicteddesire, Astrid'sjealousy, Pete's overflowing joy) ; she is neverrendered as a subjectherself. This asymmetrybetween "white" and "black"emerges from the POOL group's racial understandingof Freudian psychoanalysis. H. D. and Bryherdoubtless were familiarwith the thesis " linking neurosis to repressedsexuality in Freud's 1908 paper 'Civilized' Sexual Moralityand Modern Nervous Illness."After summarizing Erb,Binswanger, and Krafft-Ebingon thedeleterious effects of mod- ernizationon the "nervoussystem," Freud argues in thisessay that such claims "proveinsufficient to explain the detailsin the picture of nervousdisturbances": 'They leave out of account preciselythe mostimportant of the aetiological factors involved." "If we disregard the vaguerways of being 'nervous' and considerthe specificforms of nervous illness,"Freud adds, Ve shall find that the injurious

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influenceof civilizationreduces itselfin the main to the harm- ful suppressionof the sexual life of civilizedpeoples (or classes) throughthe 'civilized'sexual moralityprevalent in them"(185). Freud beginsthis article by invoking Ehrenfels, who "dwellson the differencebetween 'natural' and 'civilized'sexual morality.By naturalsexual moralitywe are to understand,according to him,a sexual moralityunder whose dominance a human stockis able to remainin lastingpossession of healthand efficiency,while civilized sexual moralityis a sexualmorality obedience towhich, on theother hand, spurs men on to intense and productivecultural activity" (181). Unlike the authorsFreud later cites,Ehrenfels apparently correctlyattributes "damaging effects" to "civilizedsexual morality," though he misses a "particularone whose significance[Freud] will. . . discuss in detail in the presentpaper ...[:] the increase traceable to it of modern nervous illness- of the nervous illness, thatis, which is rapidlyspreading in our present-daysociety" (182) . Freud then questions the distinctionbetween "natural"and "civilized" desire,in whichthe formerappears "unrepressed"such that "a human stockis able to remainin lastingpossession of health and efficiency"through "selection by virility" (181, 182), whilethe latter is a compulsorymonogamous heterosexuality that can lead to both "productivecultural activity" and neurosis(181). Consideringhow race and sexualityintersect in Borderline, H. D. and thePOOL group frequentlyand unthinkinglyreproduce this distinction between the "natural"and "civilized,"with its apparentlyexplanatory account of culturalattainment and neurosis,as a white/blackbinary: The film'sblack charactersconnote a "natural"sexual moralitythat largelyevades the repressiveinfluence of "civilized"(read "white") moral codes.

"Dark Daemon " and "UncoordinatedWhite-Folk "

In her pamphleton Borderline, H. D. makes racial distinctions among the charactersto whichthe filmseems largelyimpervious; she does so whiletrying to downplaythe film'sracial politics:

Macpherson... is,in no waywhatever, concerned personally with the black-whitepolitical problem ... he says,"here is a man,he is black," hesays, "here is a womanalso of partial African abstraction." He says, not "hereis a blackman, here is a mulattowoman," but "here is a man,here is a woman."Hesays, "look, sympathize with them and love them" not because theyare black but because they are man, because they are woman. (112)

The textis contradictoryhere: If racial distinctionsare not impor- tantcomponents of the characters'constructions, why specify that Adah is "ofpartial African abstraction"? H. D.'s insistenceon Adah's

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"mixed"race seems to correlateclosely to Adah's positionbetween two raciallycoded extremes:At one pole we see what H. D. calls "the half world mondaine, Astridwith Thorne, her lover" (110). " Here whitenessconnotes "overcivilized. At the other pole, wewatch Pete, the 'Veryearth giant,"the "earth-god,"the "greatriver," the "ground under all theirfeet" (111-12); his blackness apparently precedes civilization.Further, Pete's designation as "earth" and "god" removes him from the categorythat dwells between: the human. His precivilizednature renders him prehuman. Anotherpassage in H. D.'s pamphlet suggeststhat these ex- tremesconfirm a susceptibilityto moral corruptionamong whites and a premoral,primordial, godlike innocence among blacks,with Adah occupyingan ambiguous and unstable relationto both extremes:

Peteand Adah escape from their little room and stand on a hillslope. Likea dream,the great negro head looms disproportionate, andwater andcloud and rock and sky are all subsidiary toits being. Like a personal dream,gone further into the race dream, we see (with Pete) hill and cloud as,on that first day, created. Dream merges with myth and Pete, regarding a fairheaven far from the uncreated turmoil ofthat small-town café, says quitelogically, "let there be light."Light has been, itis obvious,created by thatdark dawion, conversant withall nature since before thetime of white man 's beginning. Hissmall sweetheart in her little shop-bought, pull-on soft hat is complementtothis radiant figure. She has sinned, she is not altogether godlike,but she is created on thehill slope with him, apart from the nightmare ofthe uncoordinated white-folk. (122;my emphases)

The "shop-bought"hat (a product of whitecivilization) seems to encode Adah's "white"blood: In the film'slogic, this "white" blood rendersher capable of sinning,which is to say,of makingdecisions in a moral realm. Conversely,Pete's "godlike"blackness exempts himfrom this "moral realm"; apparently, his mindis prehumanand does not correspond to Macpherson's "human labyrinth."Adah is thus an unrepresentablelink betweenwhite and black, civilization and nature,moral and premoral;her mixed blood seemingly overdeterminesher sexual liaison witha whiteman. If in thisfilm herwhiteness makes her capable ofsin, her sin is paradoxicallyto de- sirewhiteness. The filmcannot fullyrepresent this paradox. While Adah thereforesignifies a structuraland thematiclink between black and white,her interiorityis not adequately explored. She becomes the untheorizedground, or excluded middle, on which the black/white opposition of Borderlineis predicated. Giventhis unintelligible middle ground, the filmcannot repre- sentAdah's psychevia itsexperimental montage techniques. What the film does representare the interiorstates of mind at either

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end of thiswhite/black, moral/premoral spectrum: those of Astrid and Pete. These charactersstructurally resonate with each other insofaras the techniqueof "clattermontage" constructs them more insistentlythan it does the other characters(see Friedberg,"Ap- proaching"). Indeed, H. D. drawsattention to how thistechnique (used to revealor externalizeeach character'smind) makesvisible the essentialdifferences that mark their psyches. In the firstsection of her pamphlet,H. D. remarks:"The giant negro is in the high clouds,white cumulus cloud banksin a higherheaven. Conversely, his whitefellow-men are the shadowsof white,are dark,neurotic; stormbrews; there is thatrunic fate that 'they that live by the sword shall the sword.' Or as here that live perish by applied, 'they" by neurotic-eroticsuppression shall perishby the same' (112). Linkingracial typesmetaphorically with clouds, H. D. portrays Pete as "whitecumulus" and the whitecharacters as "dark,neurotic" byvirtue of theirbehaving like storm clouds. Later,referring to the rapid montagesequences, she explainshow the film'swhite/black binaryrecurs, juxtaposing Pete witha waterfall(akin to the white clouds) and Astridwith the "knife"or neuroticsword by which she perishes:

The minuteand meticulouseffect for instance that Mr. Macpherson achieveswith Pete, the negro and the waterfall, orthe woman Astrid with theknife, are so naturalistic,I should say so "natural"that they seem to theuninitiate, sheer "tricks" oraccidents. The effect of the negro, Pete, againstthe waterfall isachieved by a meticulousand painstaking effort on thepart of the director, who alone with the giants of German and Russian productionishis own cutter and will not trust his "montage" toa mere technician,however sympathetic. . . . The same sort of jagged lightning effectisgiven with Astrid with her dagger. The white woman ishere, there, everywhere,thedagger is above, beneath, isall but in her heart or in the heartof her meretricious lover. (118-19)

As H. D. implies,the "clattermontage" technique- "achievedby the meticulouscutting of threeand fourand fiveinch lengthsof filmand pastingthese tinystrips together" to suggesta flickering double exposure (119) - links the two "opposite" characterson whom it is used most frequently:Astrid and Pete. That these two charactersnever appear in the same frameor, indeed, in the same scene, heightenstheir status as contraries:Their positionson the continuumof "civilized"and "natural"apparently are so farapart thatit is impossibleto imaginethem occupying the same cinematic space. As Astrid's"opposite," however, Pete is indissolublytied to her as the blacknessthat the filmabjects to confirmher "purity." The two scenes H. D. describesrepresent peaks of erotic in- tensity:in Pete's case, a "natural"eroticism conveyed by hisjoyful

This content downloaded on Thu, 28 Feb 2013 14:59:48 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions Winter1997 97 mergingwith the elements (waterfall,sky, rocks, and trees; see fig. 1); in Astriďs case, a "repressed"eroticism that results in the frenzied,neurotic manipulation of the knifeleading to her death scene (see fig.2) . Pete reuniteswith Adah in a seriesof shotsthat trackthem wanderingthrough the village's quaint cobblestoned lanes and into the countryside.We see severalpicturesque shots of this countryside- trees,buildings nestled in the mountainside,a horse and cart.We then see Pete reachingdown to pull Adah up to the "hill side" H. D. celebratedin her pamphlet.Presently, the filmgives us severalpanning shots of a waterfall,rushing river, and trees;the frequencyof the cutsincreases until the montagereaches "clatter"speed. At thispoint, the waterfall is juxtaposed withPete's profileset against a bank ofclouds, which exteriorizes his "overflow- ingjoy" at being withhis "sweetheart"again. The rapid montage sequence ends withseveral longer shots of his beamingface against the sky;toward the end ofone of theseshots, the camerapans down fromhis face to Adah's, whichrests on his breast (see fig.3). Later,after several shots establishing the whitecouple's fretful ennui in theirrooms (Astridendlessly adjusting a Victorianshawl; Thorne lyingon hisbed in thenext room; Astrid sitting motionlessly next to a record she has put on the Victrola,feeling neglected no doubt while Thorne strokesand nuzzles the cat) , Thorne pre- pares to leave, carryinga suitcase.Astrid clutches her shawltighter and staresat him fromacross the room, her eyes glisteningwith frustratedtears. Here we get a shot,from her perspective,of the suitcase:The camerazooms in on thisobject; then,in a briefclatter montage sequence, the filmintercuts shots of the suitcase with barelydiscernible frames of Adah's face. This indicateseither that the suitcasebelongs to Adah or thatThorne is going to her.Inter- estingly,although this montage sequence also involvesa character's face, this technique does not give us the character'spsyche, but ratherthat of the montage'spresumed 'Viewer": Astrid. Adah's face functionsas the index forthe "labyrinth"of a whitewoman's mind, but neveras the thresholdof Adah's own psyche. At thispoint, Astrid enters into what we mightcall a "masquerade" of femininity,following Joan Rivière's essay of the previous year,"Womanliness as a Masquerade" (1929) . Accordingto Rivière, women who engage in public displaysof competence in a profes- sionalarena reservedfor men mayfollow that display with flirtatious behaviortoward men theyperceive as hostileto theirproficiency. By seducing "fatherfigures" in theirmale audience, thesewomen, accordingto Rivière,hope to wardoff retaliation for "stealing" the penis that is rightfullya man's. In this context,"womanliness" is a compensatory- not essential- behavior;the masquerade offers

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Fig.1. Pete (PaulRobeson) photographed against the "natural" backdrop ofcumulous clouds. Reproduced with permission by the Beinecke Library, YaleUniversity.

Fig.2. Astrid(H. D.) clenchesher hands in "neurotic-eroticsuppression." Reproducedwith permission by the Beinecke Library, Yale University.

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Fig.3. Pete (Paul Robeson)reconciles with Adah (EslandaRobeson), in her"shop-bought hat." Reproduced with permission by the Beinecke Library,Yale University. self-protectionin a patriarchalsocial sphere. Yet the analysand that most preoccupies Rivièrehas fantasiesof being attackedby a "negro" whom she would seduce and then hand over to the "authorities":"This phantasy. . . had been very common in her childhood and youth,which had been spentin the SouthernStates of America;if a negro came to attackher, she planned to defend herselfby makinghim kiss her and make love to her (ultimately so thatshe could then deliverhim over tojustice)" (37). The true "fatherfigures" in thisimagined scenario set in the "SouthernStates ofAmerica" would not be theattacking "negro," but rather the white male authoritiesrepresenting "justice." To propitiatethe (white) fathers,the white woman fantasizes that she can substitutethe black male body for her own. This suggeststhat the "masquerade" involvesa degree of identificationand desireacross imagined racially defined differences- indeed, a traffickingin the eroticizedblack male body (see Rivière,and Walton,"Re-Placing") . In a bid to preventThorne fromreuniting with Adah (whose face, juxtaposed on the suitcase, indicates that Thorne prefers another "womanliness"to Astrid's), Astridflies across the room in her "feminine"shawl, clutches Thorne, and hangs fromhis neck. She thencollapses to thefloor and lies therein strickencontortion,

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her eyes staringlifelessly. Dropping the suitcase,Thorne kneels at her side, obviouslyfrightened that she has somehow died as a resultof her nervouscrisis (see fig.4). When she mockinglysnaps back to life,he deliberatelywalks around the table, sharpeninga pencil witha knifeat crotchlevel, as if to assertonce and for all that he does indeed have the phallus. A littlelater, Astrid picks up the same knifeand jabs it into the air veryclose to Thorne. Here the "clattermontage" technique recursto implyan intrinsic link betweenAstrid and the knife.That Astridthreatens Thorne withthe knifesignifies that she has relinquishedher (unsuccessful) masquerade of death and is now desperatelyplying the phallus. The rapidmontage sequence juxtaposes theknife with Astrid, some daffodilson the table,and glimpsesof Thome's face and hand as the knifecuts him. The sequence continuesuntil Thorne wrestles the knifefrom Astrid's hand; the twoof themcollapse once more onto the floor. As H. D. suggested,this scene is meant to conveya cause-and- effectrelation between "living"and "dying"by the sword.From this,we understandthat these "uncoordinatedwhite-folk" live and die by "neurotic-eroticsuppression": The erotic is the phallus for which"civilized" white protagonists compete againsta background of "natural,"black supportingcharacters.

BlackScreens , White Filmmaker

The film'sphallic symbolismdoes not properlyacknowledge thatBorderline's white male filmmakerflourishes by the sword; H. D. presentsMacpherson in herpamphlet as thefilm's consummate editor.H. D.'s pamphletalso reiteratesover and again thatMacpherson has masteredfilm directing. According to H. D., his expertisede- rivesfrom being a masterwith the "sword"- as thesplicer and editor of film.However, since Macphersonbecame sickafter shooting the film,H. D. and Bryher,the film'slesbian collaborators,did much ofits remaining editing. They were also largelyresponsible for what theyfelt was itsmost innovative aspect - itsclatter montage. H. D. nonethelessclaimed that Macpherson "is his own cutterand will not trusthis 'montage' to a mere technician,however sympathetic" (119). Consideringthe film'simaginary in tandem with H. D.'s commentary,we find that the categoryof those who "die by the sword"is palpablya gendered and raced category:If it is the white man's prerogativeto be the sword'smaster, the whitewoman takes the fallfor this "mastery." In thisrespect, it is not entirelytrue that "he who livesby the sword must die byit," for in thisfilm women and blacksdie or disappearby the sword:Astrid is literallykilled by the

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Fig.4. Thorne(Gavin Arthur) and Astrid(H. D.) in theirroom, after Astrid's "masquerade" of death.Reproduced with permission by the BeineckeLibrary, Yale University. knifeover which she and her male counterpartstruggle; Pete and Adah are subsequentlyexiled fromthe community.Only Thorne regainssome tranquillityfrom these violent abjections. At no point does the filmallow us to imagine thatPete and Adah (or, indeed, Paul and Eslanda Robeson) "liv[e] bythe sword."The resultof the POOL group's racial application of the primitive/civilized binary explored in Freud's essay:While the black charactersseem "im- mune" to neurosis,they are also barredfrom creative achievement, forthis is reservedfor the "civilized"genius thatH. D.'s pamphlet extols (see fig.5). Beyond thisstructural exclusion, by the 20s and 30s filmmak- ing's apparatus was thoroughlyraced, as a passing referenceto lightingtechniques in independentfilmmaking, published in Close- up, attests.In a 1930 articlein Close-upentitled 'This Year'sSowing," Oswell Blakestonquotes Basil Emmotton how to handle lighting situations.When itcomes to the questionof close-ups, Emmott says, "toget anygod-damned effect that has some vitalityyou mustshoot throughthe cracksof two niggers.This ensures the lens being in shadow and allows you to turnlamps where you will" (483). The footnoteto an asteriskin the textafter the word "niggers"shows no more understandingof this term's racistmeaning than does the passage itself.The note simplyinforms us that "a 'nigger' is a

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Fig.5. KennethMacpherson (behind camera) shootsa scenewith Paul Robeson(right), assistedby Borderline cast and crew.Reproduced withpermission by the Beinecke Library, Yale University. black screen,used to shield the camera fromrays of light"(483n.). Accompanyingthis article, in typicalClose-up fashion, are stillsof the facesof Paul Robeson, Eslanda Robeson, and H. D.; the Robe- son shotsare labeled: "Two characteristicstudies of Paul Robeson, famousnegro singer and actor,in Borderline, a POOL Film,directed by Kenneth Macpherson."Considered withthe photos, the racist termfor the black screensis both a personalinsult to the Robesons

This content downloaded on Thu, 28 Feb 2013 14:59:48 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions Winter1997 103 and a structuralproblem for the POOL group's racial dynamics. Moreover,although film stills in Close-upare oftenjuxtaposed with unrelatedarticles, these stills function as examplesof close-up lighting,illustrating Emmot's remark that "lighting should alterfor each face." This remarkimplies that "Negro" faces require differentlight- ing conditionsthan do "white"faces. I suggesthowever that lighting does not simplyrespond to differentlyraced faces,but greatlyassists in the constructionof thisdifference's meaning. If "lightingshould alter for each face" so thatour racial understandingof each face alters,the apparatus itselfoffers a racial account of its elements' divisionof labor. Abeam oflight is thusdirected "through the cracks oftwo niggers" onto theface in question.Syntactically, this sentence reads as ifthe "cracks"belong to the "niggers,"rather than referring to the space betweenthem. In thisway, the screensare not merely personified;they are also racialized,perhaps even sexualized (they have "cracks"). Close-up,which Macpherson edited, seemed unaware thatcontemporaneous film discourse harbored the racismthat he wantedhis filmto combat.Moreover, H. D.'s suggestionthat Pete is a "daemon" creatorof "light"can be understoodas an ideological inversionof cinema's racial apparatus: "Dream mergeswith myth and Pete, regardinga fairheaven farfrom the uncreated turmoil of thatsmall-town café, says quite logically,'let therebe light.'Light has been, it is obvious, created by that dark daemon, conversant with all nature since before the time of white man's beginning" (122). In thisdepiction, Pete's blacknessremoves him fromthe world of light only to present him as the creator of light: In a system determinedby light,the centeris imagined as the blacknessthat makes lightpossible. In thisideological figure,an unilluminated "darkdaemon" precedesthe "whiteman's beginning"in light;alter- nately,the "daemon"is ludicrouslypraised as a creator.Meanwhile, Macpherson- who places his lightsbetween the black screensthat his colleagues (and perhaps he himself)call "niggers"- "creates" the lightilluminating Pete's "mythic"appearance on the hillside. In the characterof Pete, racial blacknesscombines, via clatter montage,with the waterfallto suggesta gushingthat the filmdoes not suppress- a naturalnessthat somehow escapes neurosis. He and Adah do not, like Astridand Thorne, "liv[e] by the sword" or by "neurotic-eroticsuppression," for theirsex lives apparently are uncomplicated,untainted by civilization and itsdiscontents. By corollary,unlike the white male filmmakerand his white collaborators,Pete and Adah do not consciouslydetermine the images theypresent.

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H. D. extendedthis white fantasy of theblack mind's premoral, natural,"sexual" quality from Pete to Robeson himself,as her fic- tionalaccount of him in "TwoAmericans" attests:

Hisleast movement was so gracious,he didn'thave to think things out. Neverthelesswith an astonishing analytical power, he did think. That was theodd thing about Saul Howard, he did think. He had a mind,a steadfast sortof burning, a thing that glowed like a wholered sunset or like a coal mine,it was steady, a steady sort of warmth and heat, yet all thetime intellectual;hethought notas a manthinks . Paula Howard, his wife, thought moreas white folks, consistently, being more than half white . . . (H. D., qtd.in Guest 199; my emphasis)

In thisthinly veiled fictional portrait, the narrator gives Robeson (as Saul Howard) an abilityto "think,"but onlyif his mind resemblesa "thing"that glows like a "sunset"- a natural,nonhuman element. Interestingly,H. D. does not write,"he thoughtnot as a white man thinks,"but simply,"he thoughtnot as a man thinks."This impliesthat the standardfor human thinkingis a traditionof white thinking,from which Robeson's blacknessnecessarily excludes him. H. D.'s next sentence reinforcesthis suggestion: She tellsus that Paula Howard,standing in forEslanda Robeson, "thoughtmore as whitefolks, consistently, being more than halfwhite." Like Adah in Borderline,, Paula in "TwoAmericans" occupies a middle position betweenblack and white,the human and nonhuman,the civilized and precivilized.4 Borderlineand H. D.'s accompanyingpamphlet consistently con- flateactors with the charactersthey play; we see thiswhen Barbara Guest,H. D.'s biographer,describes the filmas

a mêléeof emotional difficulties, threats ofdeparture, false loves, exagger- ateddespair. The comic relief issupplied by Bryher, who is quite at home witha fatblack cigar in her mouth, going about the business of adding up thecash, while the others seek to destroy themselves. Through itall stalkthe sincere and loving couple, Robeson and his Essie. The Robesons finallyget out of the film by walking off into the mountain while H. D. writhesupon the floor in a deathagony in imitation ofthe final act of JeanneNey. (197)

Guestdescribes the filmalmost entirely in termsof whether various actors/characters are "at home" or "outsiders"in itsrealm:

Robesondoes not fit in. He istoo much himself. He isnot a "borderline" person,even if it is rationalizedthat being black makes him so. He is verymuch a partof the world. His personal beauty and the strength of hischaracter tend to dominate the film, mosdy because Robeson seems unawareof the psychological overtones ofthe film. He musthave been a

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greatadmirer ofEisenstein, and may have been suggested bythat director forthe role, but he has no concept of the scenario of the film, nebulous asit was. (196-97)

Since Guest never explains how she knowsthat Robeson has "no concept of the scenarioof the film,"we mustconclude thatshe derivesthis impression from his performance.She takes her cue fromH. D.'s pamphletin assumingthat the Robesons are not "borderline,"like the whitecharacters, insofar as Thome's "perverse" sexual drives (which his excessivedrinking and interracialdesire signify)and Astrid'ssexual jealousy both denote theirborderline status.This denotation representsthe Robesons as "standoutsor outsidersamong a group of borderliners"precisely because they are not marked by "perverse"or "unwholesome"sexuality: They representa healthy,heterosexual couple untaintedby the neuroses thatinform (white) civilization. Guest's remarkssuggest that the cinematiceffect of "natural" sexualityderives from the Robesons "naturally"exuding thisphe- nomenon while the filmwas shot. She also implies thatRobeson does not "act,"since he is "too much himself';allegedly, his "personal beautyand the strengthof his character"dominate the film, not his conscious method of playinga part. How indeed could he act when he is "unawareof the psychologicalovertones of the film" and "has no concept of the scenario of the film"?Guest refersto "Robeson and his Essie" as a "sincereand lovingcouple" stalking througha filmfull of self-destructive white people. This suggestsnot thatPete and Adah are "sincereand loving"characters in Borderline, but rather that what Guest presumes is the Robesons' "sincere and loving" marriage contrastsradically with the white couple's tormentedrelationship. Consideringbiographical accounts of the Robesons' lifeat the time,we cannot maintainthis fantasy of themas an "unaware"but "sincereand loving"presence in the film(see Duberman) . A diary entryby Eslanda Robeson clarifiesthat the Robesons knewenough about Borderline'sscenario to find its racial dichotomybetween white and black psychesridiculous and offensive:"Kenneth and H. D. used to make us so shriekwith laughter with their naive ideas of Negroes thatPaul and I oftencompletely ruined our make-up withtears of laughter,and had to make up all overagain. We never once feltwe were colored withthem" (qtd. in Duberman 131). From the Robesons' perspective,that "Negroes" are naïve is a preposterouswhite fantasy; the whitefilmmakers "make up" these black actors'faces so thattheir blackness contrasts sufficiently with theircounterparts' whiteness. Robeson's "natural"presence in the

This content downloaded on Thu, 28 Feb 2013 14:59:48 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 106 Discourse19.2 film obviouslyis due to the filmmaker'scalculated techniques. When the Robesons realized whatMacpherson and H. D. wanted themto portray,however, their laughter ruined thisconstruction's make up so thatit had to be reapplied. Clearly,Macpherson and H. D. receivedtheir laughter good-naturedly, for Eslanda adds that "we neveronce feltwe were colored withthem" - thatis, thatPaul and Eslanda's puncturingof whitenaïveté never induced hostility or resistance.However, the Robesons' implicitcritique of the POOL group'sracial fantasies ultimately went unheeded in Borderline, since thisgroup's "naive ideas of Negroes" remained part of the film's fabricand whitereception.

Conclusion

I have argued thatthe POOL group adapted Freud's gendered (and implicitlyraced) accountsof sexual repression,neurosis, and cultural achievement,inserting them into a cinematic machine thatreproduced an alreadyestablished racial binary.This binary resonateswith a problematicFreudian account of femalesexuality and subjectivitythat many feminists have critiqued.Excluded from (or, in Adah's case, misguidedlycovetous of) the "moral" realm of whiteness,Paul and Adah (and for theirwhite observers,the Robesons too) occupy a terrainthat Freud, in his account of the superego, largelyreserved for women and girls. Freud claimed that "the level of what is ethicallynormal [in women] is different fromwhat it is in men. Their super-egois neverso inexorable,so impersonal,so independentof itsemotional origins as we require it to be in men" ("Some" 257). In Freudian terms,that Paul and Adah occupya precivilizedand premoralrealm correlates with their "underdeveloped"superegos, for they are notfully initiated into the symbolicorder, which is determinedas much bywhiteness as bythe phallus. Paul and Adah's absence of neurosis,and theirresultant inabilityto achieve culturally,endorses this reading. I haven't sufficientspace to explore how the film'sdistinc- tionsbetween hetero- and homoeroticismcomplicate these racial and culturalmetaphors. As Borderline'sprecivilized characters, Pete and Adah (and, by extension,the Robesons themselves)seem to displaya naturalheterosexuality that requires no repression;conversely,Astrid and Thorne appear neuroticprecisely because, as productsof modernization,their (problematic) heterosexuality is achieved onlyby repressingunderlying homoerotic impulses. The butch/femmelesbian couple and gay-codedpianist who preside over the café's public space reinforcethis reading of white heterosexuality.Like Pete and Adah, these charactersseem decidedly less neuroticthan the whiteheterosexual couple; theiremotional

This content downloaded on Thu, 28 Feb 2013 14:59:48 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions Winter1997 107 healthis predicatedon theirwnrepressed - or perhapssuccessfully sublimated- homoeroticdesire. As I argue elsewhere,the queer matrixthat these characters represent ensures a homoeroticsubtext thatcomplicates Borderline's "straight" account of interracialdesire (see Walton, "White"). One mightsay that the queer-delineated space of the café "hosts"the "straight"plot, and thatthe white couple is "queered" byits trajectory through that space. The black couple remainsunproblematically heterosexual throughout the film, however,though Robeson's bodyseems to functionas the "natural" black fleshprecipitating the whitecharacters' "perverse" desires. While the black charactersare "available"to the whitecharacters and filmmakersas catalystsfor sexual, psychological, and aesthetic transformation,the reverseis not true. By linkingneurosis, racism, and a form of perverse heterosexuality,H. D. and her collaboratorsarguably intended Borderline to illustratethe limitsof whitecivilization-as-modernity. Insofar as the filmprimitivizes black characters,living "by the sword"or by "neurotic-eroticsuppression" is the sad fate of whitesonly. It is also theirprivilege, however: According to theFreudian model that the POOL group adapted, when the "erotic"is sublimatedand not "suppressed,"the whitesubject can become an exceptional artist, writer,or filmmaker.Cultural achievement is thusthe alternative- perhaps even the solution- to white neurosis. Moreover,in the POOL group's imaginary,only white subjects have homoeroticim- pulses thatneed repression or sublimation;since blacks are statically heterosexualin thisfilm, they have no need to sublimateor suppress theirimpulses. In thisrespect, Borderline gives us theimpression that modernism- or, perhaps more specifically,the "gendering"and "queering"of modernism- was an exclusivelywhite prerogative.

Notes

I thankJim Morrison for launching this project by invitingme to presenton Borderlineatthe Society for Cinema Studies conference in Spring 1995.I also thankAbigail Child and MelissaRagona, whose enthusiastic conversationswith me about the film helped at the early revisionary stages. Thanksto Lee AnnBrown, Mary Cappello, Lise Carlson, and membersof theURI ExperimentalFilm Discussion group, for their shared interest in experimentalcinema, and to myundergraduate and graduatestudents at theUniversity of RhodeIsland for helping me see thefilm with new eyes everytime I taughtit. The URI Councilfor Research kindly granted me summersupport so thatI couldcontinue my work on raceand psychoanalysis.This article is dedicatedto thememory of Marjorie Keller. 1 IntroducingClose-up 5.2 in "AsIs," Macpherson calls for 'The negro documentaireof the negro. . . . The negroas an observerof himself. As his

This content downloaded on Thu, 28 Feb 2013 14:59:48 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 108 Discourse19.2 ownhistorian. As his own agitator" (90) . Arguingthat "international film" is mostauthentic when the director is indigenous to the country or "race"he istrying to depict (only a Pabstcan accurately depict Austria, for example) , Macphersonasks us toconsider the "negro film" and "decidewhether you thinkinternational cinema is heregoing to meana thingwhen a white man directs,no matterhow charmingly, blacks so thatthey must always seemto be direfullydependent on whiteman's wisdom" (87) . Atthe same time,Macpherson (soon to be a "whiteman" director) claims to be able to discernsuperior race traitsin the "looseracial hands" of blackactor StepinFetchit: 'These so utterlynot incantationishgestures are unselfconsciousness,perfectly inherited greatness of race and ofrace mind. . . . We can scrapevery trained toe waggle of a ballerinafor the very least of thesemovements. Making this greatness articulate for the cinema is the fascinatingpioneer work of somebody" (88) . Aswe shall see, the Borderline projectwas Macpherson's attempt to avoid,as a "whiteman" director, the pitfallshe anticipatedin thiseditorial; Robeson was to become the vehicle forexpressing what he tookto be theinherent "unselfconsciousness" of theblack race, in contrastto theoverconsciousness ofthe white. 2 Atthe first screenings of Borderline , the POOL grouphanded out a one-pageplot synopsis, calling it thefilm's "libretto," which suggests that thegroup wanted the film to appear in part as a visual(but silent) operatic performance,built around a barenarrative outline (Friedberg reproduces thelibretto in full; see "Writing"150). One shouldnot confuse this libretto withthe longer interpretive pamphlet that H. D. publishedafter the film's release,entitled simply "Borderline." 3 In "Modernism"Friedman takes up thequestion of H. D.'s erotic attractionto Paul Robeson,but focusesexclusively on her shortstory, "TwoAmericans," her poem, "Red Roses for Bronze," and theinterpretive pamphletshe wroteon Borderline.While drawing on H. D.'s pamphlet, mydiscussion concerns more directly her role in the eroticizedracial representationin the film proper. 4 See Friedman,"Modernism," for a moresympathetic reading of "TwoAmericans."

WorksCited

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