The Movement Image the Movement Image Is a New Project to Encour- Age and Share New Works of Writing About Film

The Movement Image The Movement Image is a new project to encour- age and share new works of writing about film.

Last year the two of us started a home-viewing film night, and this issue’s contributors were par- ticipants (with the exception of the three-thou- sand-miles-away Thom Donovan). An emergent theme of our film night selections was cinema as a vehicle for the repositioning of myths and of the reverse, myth as a vehicle for revolutions in cinema. Some used myth as a sort of prism of heroic time for the ongoing ground of contempora- neous political and social struggles (Electra My Love), others used myth in ironic or exaggerated ways (Parajanov, Funeral Parade of Roses), and still others seemed to use myth to reveal without commentary the ancient in the present (Yeelen, EDITOR’S Dekalog).

So, this issue foregrounds writings on films that NOTE use myth, the myths of film itself and of film-making, myth-making and the unmaking of both. Jamie Townsend writes about the perils of fame and my- thologization of tortured celebrity. Thom Donovan VOLUME kneads nuances of Midsommar and deathless cinema screams. Katy Burnett takes on Once Upon A Time in Hollywood, Tarantino’s retelling of the ONE Tate murders, a Hollywood myth which is mostly a truth, and which Tarantino’s film revises. Paul ex- amines Kieslowski’s Dekalog cycle, nominally inspired by the Ten Commandments but which, over MYTHS ten hours, never names or even remotely alludes to them. Grant writes about Bela Tarr’s The Turin Horse, which mythologizes the man who caused Nietzsche’s mental collapse.

We look forward to more adventures in film writing and conversation, in homage to the still-new, still-strange, grand mass camaraderie of cinema. If you’re interested in contributing to an upcoming issue, email us at [email protected].

Watch! Cover image from Miklós Jancsó’s Electra, My Love Paul and Grant Interior collage from Toshio Matsumoto’s Funeral Parade of Roses 2 3 CONTENTS

from BIG STAR 6 By Jamie Townsend At Whose Expense Are You Held? 14 By Thom Donovan Death and The Maiden 1969 20 By Katy Burnett Parergon on Dekalog 26 By Paul Ebenkamp Don’t Be a Body: Nietzsche’s Eternal Recurrence and The Turin Horse 36 By Grant Kerber

Questions? Comments? Interested in contributing? Email [email protected]

From Derek Jarman’s The Angelic Conversation 4 5 from BIG STAR

By Jamie Townsend

-Sextile Sun - Moon: They have lots of vitality. They like public life, are popular and their company is appreciated. They are balanced, at ease with themselves and usually get on very well with their parents.

It’s June 15th, 1959 and Jayne is on the set of Too Hot to Handle getting ready to perform the film’s titular song-and-dance number. There’s something palpable in the air, a slightly dimmed light or chill that precedes the scene of a disaster. At any moment something could go horribly wrong.

It’s almost five years into her career Jayne’s star is quickly fading. Overexposure coupled with an almost constant stream of tabloid gossip has reduced the vivacious blonde bombshell persona she pioneered in the mid 50s to mere parody. Recently eclipsed by Marilyn as America’s voluptuous yet vulnerable sexpot in a time where squeaky clean family values were de rigor, at the end of the decade Jayne finds herself in a world more weary, troubled, performing to an audience largely bored with schoolboy titillation. Filming in London with early James Bond impresario Terence Young, Jayne is hoping to recapture some of her early magnetism. 6 7 Buttressed by two men in white tuxedos, Janye love interests—a noble Grecian Queen, and the sciousness by an al- rises in front of the velvet curtain. Her unmis- treacherous leader of the Amazons—unknow- ternate route’ ‘The result is a portrait takable hourglass figure further emphasized by ingly pregnant with the couple’s third child. without a face’ a sheer nylon dress appliquéd with strategical- *** ly placed spangles, she coolly smokes a ciga- ‘A road movie sense of *** rette held in a slender ivory holder and sways -23 Square Saturn - Uranus: looseness gave him an ‘In a curious coda he as the title song commences. Under the threat They do not like routine, whether at work or in opportunity to express shows Blake’s ghostly of suspension by 20th Century Fox for flagging their emotional lives. They fight to keep their in- himself like never be- image leaving his body box office numbers in the states and tempo- dependence and freedom of action. They would fore’ and ascending, not by rarily on loan to Britain’s Wigmore Productions, gladly re-make the world. floating up to heaven, Jayne throws herself into the scene’s flirtatious ‘His close identifica- but by climbing – using choreography with an impassioned though ‘It’s the script that leaves Phoenix in a state of tion with troubled out- the frames of a win- slightly robotic vigor. Within two years she will constant vulnerability’ siders dow as a ladder’ be released from her US contract in full. ‘The shifts in narrative aren’t…conventional’ his feel for both litera- In a breathy, slightly inflected British accent ture and the poetry of -Mercury in Capricorn: Janye works the room with ease; her cote- ‘The idiosyncratic stylization…seamlessly inte- the streets Their minds compart- rie of smitten dinner-jacketed backup singers grated with classic tragedy; it’s ambitious, but mentalize impres- sporadically employed as props, backdrops, or he pulls it off’ the way he uses shots sions. They appre- furniture; she navigates the club effortlessly, of lonely highways, ciate structure and assured of their constant presence, attention *** condemned buildings, order. Resourceful, and motility. It’s undeniable; all eyes are on her. landscapes, and natu- reflective, deep think- A single mirrored ball languorously swings, ro- ‘It’s brave of Van Sant ral phenomena to sug- ers. They undertake tating above the tiny stage in the back of the gest the inner lives of lengthy studies or, if club, as she pivots to allow his characters his characters -- all circumstances do not against an ornate pole to simply wander off, these gifts are on full allow, they will teach stage right then de- in the words of John display.’ themselves. Rational, scends to mingle with Webster, “to study the though can be pessimistic, skeptical, and sar- an audience a little long silence”’ ‘He’s essentially making a human comedy, il- castic. Possessing very sharp senses of humor. hot under the collar. luminated by the insight that all experience is Notice everything. Her performance con- ‘That is to say, he’s potentially ridiculous’ cludes yet an afterim- easier on his charac- It’s June 15, 1429 and Joan, dressed in a thin tu- age hangs in the air, ters here, more openly ‘The Shakespearean conceit here is a tricky one nic, hosen, boots and coif mail armor, is swift- a thick faceless vapor affectionate, perhaps but he goes all the way with it’ ly making her way to Chinon. Upon arrival, she undulating to the fad- even sentimental. The petitions the head of the company to fight En- ing notes of hot jazz. style is pillowy and ca- *** glish and Burgundy troops under the banner ressing, silvery mist of France. News of her ecstatic vision of the Before the film is re- hovering over a black ‘Van Sant has made three movies in which the French victory at the Battle of Herrings had leased in December lake. camera follows young men as they wander to already reached the encampment and, though of the following year their deaths’ she had been denied a similar request the pre- Jayne will fly to Italy ‘Gorgeous time lapse vious year, is immediately granted admittance with her bodybuild- shots of nature gath- ‘These deaths are not heroic or meaningful, and to join the Armée de Terre by the capitaine col- er husband Mickey ering its forces, or although they may be tragic they lack the stat- onel. After serving under the Duke of Alençon Hargitay to co-star in dreams of his mother ure of classic tragedy. as standard-bearer in several successful cam- the B-movie flop The collapsing into a vi- paigns, Joan is raised to the status of nobility Loves of Hercules. sion of home, dropping They are stupid and careless. by King Charles before being captured by Bur- With Mickey in the ti- from the sky’ gundian troops and held prisoner in England. tle role, Janye por- If Van Sant is saying anything (and I’m not sure King Charles threatened vengeance for Joan’s trays both of Hercu- The images seem to that he is), it’s that society has created young imprisonment by exacting violence on English les’s broadly painted slip into your con- men who do not live as if they value life’ women captured by the armies of France. But 8 9 nothing could stop a fire inside es showcased to great effect now burning across Europe. on the chart-topping hit “Back and Forth” Aaliyah is quickly No Golden Rose and widely praised as one of the most original, influential It’s June 15, 1928 and a crowd new voices in urban pop. Age is slowly filing through the exit Ain’t Nothing’s co-writer and of Paris’s Cinema Marivaux. producer R. Kelly had become Carl Theodor Dreyer’s The Aaliyah’s mentor and confi- Passion of Joan of Arc has dant during the process of re- just made its long delayed de- cording the album and the two but in France. Though it had would frequently spend time been completed earlier that together outside the studio. year, and had already been Rumors circulated that they screened in Copenhagen, the were involved romantically, Archbishop of Paris, along rumors which were confirmed with a group of French gov- just three months after the ernment censors, had suc- album’s release when Kelly cessful blocked its premier married the then 15-year-old for months and had stripped Aaliyah in a secret ceremony several key scenes from the film. In Great Brit- held at the Sheraton in Rosemont, IL. The of- ain, theaters banned the film entirely due to its ficial certificate of marriage listed her age as crude portrayal of English soldiers. The Passion 18. Though the Kelly denied allegations of the was also heavily criticized by French nationalist marriage publically, the legal union was se- protesters who objected to Dreyer’s adaption of cretly annulled just months later. The following Joan’s life because he was a Danish Protes- year Aaliyah filed to have the court records of tant, as well as the persistent though uncon- the marriage expunged, cut-off all contact with firmed rumors that the film would star Holly- Kelly, and refused to speak about him to any- wood leading lady Lillian Gish instead of a local one. premier rôle féminin. Instead, Dreyer had cast Renee Jeanne Falconetti, a critically celebrat- In a radio interview Aaliyah’s mother Diane lat- ed but largely unknown French stage actress er remarked that everything that went wrong with little previous motion picture experience. in her daughter’s life started with that relation- Knees ground into dirt and flagstone, her face ship. grimaced in an authentic portrait of pain the result of some forced method acting, radiated by No Gold Record. a lower light. On set Falconetti had daily been reduced tears, emotionally and physically ex- -Jupiter in Pisces: hausted by Dreyer’s seemingly endless takes, They attract the most good fortune when they his brutal attempts at capturing the perfect fa- are charitable, tender, devoted, compassionate, cial expression. looking out for the underdog, and giving. They value compassion and charity, and are motivat- No Gold Star ed by a universal vision.

It’s June 15th, 1994 and Aaliyah Haughton’s debut album Age Ain’t Nothing but a Number after Phoenix what was difficult has just been released in the United States. Within a year it will be certified platinum and break the Billboard Top 20. On the strength of in the beginning her beautifully restrained vocal performanc- 10 11 was that I felt robbed do I act? It teaches me to control my voice it can be very lonely

of my memories and… What is Ultimately I think we have a sense though we don’t seem

and if it had happened much later my life? I tend to talk fast of when something is authentic to give a fuck about that, particularly

it would’ve been on a lot of fucking blogs now, jumble words and fucking and when it isn’t…so when death happens every day

you know…you have to be the amount of information flying back and forth I have to abandon my life when I work and you can no longer rely on

really committed is…beyond comprehension and I think that inevitably he disconnected the world you’ve created

I mean really It makes you feel sick about yourself from what initially inspired him

committed…to what it is you want to do and human beings

and in some ways in general…the thing we should be discussing is

it’s hard to swallow…um, you I don’t know

look at yourself and begin to say how about a president who’s lying

‘when have I exploited others world politics…

and been voyeuristic?’ value, the end of an era…right?

I want what you have millions of people all over the world

when you have a self-awareness like that aren’t the family who’ve passed away

It’s like…I think you’re not really in character so now I know that

What do I do?...How if I’m lost in a moment…or not

12 13 At Whose Expense

Are You Held? Notes on Midsommar

Images from Dušan Makavejev’s WR: Mysteries of the Organism and Ari Aster’s Midsommar By Thom Donovan 14 15 The death camp is pretty mid- The elderly couple look fright- There is something terrifying The question for me is not summer solstice really done up ened but hide it well during their about a circle whether the “circle whether one is held but who holds with ancestral tree flower crowns honorary feast I didn’t scream of life” or the “circle dances” of us and at whose expense which is sacrificial rocks tenterhooks for when she dove to her death-rock white settler (hippie) exoduses in to say what are the deaths of oth- the brown people temple yellow having seen this all before the the 60s and 70s just a warm-up for ers that undergird and thus make and triangular like a Laylah Ali forced euthanasia the hatred of ag- Jonestown redolent with the repro- possible our existence indeed our painting complete with hay pyres ing and putrefaction duction of women’s care work and flourishing and what are the col- for the white boy who can’t form separate but equal governance and lective lies and gaslightings that an original thought let alone com- cultural appropriation masking as keep others from knowing their plete a dissertation multiculturalism and diversity coerced and forced deaths?

16 17 Like when Hans or whatever his Neoliberalism i.e. fascism has a Neoliberalism i.e. fascism has a Neoliberal fascism captures this name is leans over the dinner ta- family fetish but also a community family fetish and a community fe- primordial human-animal func- ble to tell the anthropologist that fetish and gifts (of death) are never tish but perhaps also an empathy tion just as it so often does sex so he took their friend to meet her distributed equally the outsider is fetish where what is most valued that we don’t even think about what husband at the train station earlier always the first to die which is all is a “transitional space” shared by a particular expression of empathy that day with families like this who a bit easier to celebrate in Wick- those most (genetically/phenotypi- (crying with another, laughing with needs family or as they say in Joss erman—pagans killing a British cally, i.e. racially) similar that repro- another, sharing another’s deepest Whedon’s Dollhouse call us what cop—more complicated when the duces the identificatory self-other misery and joy) excludes and how you want just don’t call us a family violence is optic white on black/ collapsing environment of mother it facilitates oppression—whereas brown albeit middle-class black/ and child (is this what empathy is, the only ethical expression would brown Americans/Europeans and a recollection/reenactment of that not seem empathic at all but the anthropologists to boot “good enough” environment?) welcoming of others despite our not understanding them—in other words, a borderless (anti-exclu- sionary, anti-enclosing, anti-iden- tifactory) welcoming. 18 19 Death and The Maiden 1969

By Katy Burnett

20 21 The Wife herself, moving through her choreography from the seat with little motions. She likes it when As the film opens we see Sharon dancing in the audience laughs but it’s the closest thing we first class of a Pan-Am flight, Sharon landing get to self-consciousness from her. That she at LAX and collecting her plush dog, Sharon in likes making other people happy. a new convertible with her husband driving up into the hills, but when we first positively iden- The one shred of interiority we receive from tify who she is she’s an object of homosocial Sharon comes six months later, on the night of desire. She’s driving past Rick Dalton’s home August 8th, 1969, known historically to be the with her new hotshot director husband Roman last night of her life. She’s eating at El Coyote Polanski and if we’re looking at her it’s because with her friends on the hottest night of the year she’s hotter than he is, even though he’s more and feels, we hear Kurt Russell clarify in a voi- famous. “The director of Rosemary’s fuckin’ ceover, “a touch of pregnancy-induced melan- Baby,” Rick slurs as the car passes. Rick’s new choly.” She still has her smile. Where is his info neighbors are talking in the car but we can’t re- coming from? Neon signs all over LA light up with satisfying cinematic crackles as the sky

ally hear what they’re saying, the music’s too grows dark. A sadistic Rolling Stones songs loud, we’re in the backseat like kids. This keeps plays over the montage: “Baby, baby, baby, you’re going for the rest of the movie; the music is out of time.” It seems like we’re going to watch consistently too loud, we can’t hear what she’s her die, like this sequence is just the wind-up. saying, but we can’t ask to turn it down. Sharon is very blonde. On her errands I realize The next day we continue to follow her with- she reminds me of Laura Palmer, except Laura out talking to her. She visits an antiquarian knew she was going to die. Is it because we’re book dealer and then a matinée showing of her looking at her like Laura Palmer? The camera is movie from last year, The Wrecking Crew. She angled slightly below her face, so when we look doesn’t seem to notice us. She keeps smiling to at her it’s like we’re looking at a saint. You can’t 22 23 help but think she’s already dead. Does Taranti- kill them themselves. Isn’t it like dream logic, or no want to kill her or protect her? a fairy tale? It’s like the story of the woman who has the gun in the house to defend herself from I do the math and realize that at the time of the intruders. Statistically this woman is likely to murders he was six years old. The scenes in be shot with her own gun, but here through the the car now feel less like history and more like efforts of a wife-killer, the wife survives. the finely-grained memories of early childhood that arise less from incident than from dura- His violence appears at will, tightly directed. We tion. get a hint of it when Rick won’t give back Cliff’s sunglasses he’s borrowed to cry behind. He’s But if history hadn’t turned into myth it’s hard ready to punch Rick in the face in a way that to imagine that Tarantino would have fantasized feels emotionless and impersonal. Rick calls the event in this way. There’s a polaroid of Ro- him a “war hero” behind his back: God knows man Polanski slumped on his porch in the days what that means. When the Manson Family has after the real murder. On the door one of the broken and entered Rick’s house, though, Cliff Manson girls has written the word “PIG” in Sha- and Brandy move together with the easy, slack ron’s blood. pace they’ve kept the rest of the movie to kill the hippies without hesitation.

The Wife-Killer It seems like this is where Tarantino wants us to feel pleasure: the pleasure of redemptive vio- It’s so soothing to watch Cliff driving with the lence, of saving Sharon. Pleasure in an attempt radio on. It feels very intimate. In his driving to reverse history. But this wasn’t where I found scenes time collapses and nothing happens. I it in this movie at all. It was in the memory of could watch for hours. I’m not sure this is really summer afternoons in the car, neon signs and the mark of a “good” movie, though Tarantino preset radio playlists and undirected expanses painstakingly collages plenty of 1969 audiovi- of time, driving that fills up empty hours, driving sual ephemera in the background. To me this that seems to exclude a world where anything specificity feels less about nostalgia and more bad could ever happen. about death, or the heightened memory that remains after a moment of trauma, even if it’s locked up: sounds, smells, irrelevant details. Cliff has a chill delivery and is loving but firm with his pit bull, Brandy. He warns Rick to be ready for pickup right at 7:15 am. When Rick wants to watch his guest appearance on the Sunday night FBI show together, Cliff already has a six-pack in the trunk and suggests they order a pizza. Even more than his driving scenes I wonder if that’s what makes him re- laxing to watch, the way he’s always planned a few steps ahead.

He may have killed his wife, we don’t know, it could have been an accident, though he definite- ly seems capable of murder, or manslaughter, a crime for which he quotes the legal definition off the top of his head. Regardless, in the movie

it turns out Sharon doesn’t die because Cliff and All images taken from Quentin Tarantino’s Brandy intercept her potential murderers and Once Upon a Time in Hollywood

24 25 Parergon on Dekalog

By Paul Ebenkamp

Dekalog One (1988) begins with a close shot of Winter, Iowa, eerie and indefinite, heaving with ice melted at the edge of a pond: opaque lapis weird energy while completely still: for reasons blue, blue like a wet knife, spikes of tough grass both obvious and obscure I know I still remem- in it, lapped by winter wind. ber an entire life-stage thus because of Deka- log, which, after sixteen years of aesthetic and I first saw Krzysztof Kieslowski’s Dekalog films spiritual possession, I distinguish from my own in the winter of 2003. I was in school in Des life only by rote, under the obligations of sanity. Moines, Iowa. A philosophy professor screened the films in a small auditorium. I walked in frig- To me, poems are places. Dekalog may have id early darkness from my apartment alone been the first time I felt this: physical places, through campus to see them, on a walk whose with features and dimensions. That those fea- landmarks and sensations I still feel. tures are words or images and those dimensions the sounds of words or the sequences of And I know why this is so: it’s not that I had an images (these equations are recitations of rei- initial profound experience of art here (for me at fications) is of no particular importance. Bodily least, that takes years of redundancy) but that, I reach out to and arrive in them. This can’t be in the largely unpleasant process of opening done, I’m sure, only through the exercise of de- myself up to an unfamiliar foreign film-thing, sire. It has to exist. The sky is a place that ex- trying not to fidget or be unduly stupid/distract- ists even on the bottom of the ocean. If a poem ed/annoyed for a couple hours, it turns out that doesn’t manifest this placeness, I don’t feel it my whole being was inscribing in itself in fine and I don’t care about it. detail the circumstances of that opening-up: how dark and cold and frustrating winter was, There’s a shot in Dekalog Two of sunlight flaring how peculiar or banal virtually everything about through bare trees as a woman in a car slowly living there was, how it felt to be twenty years follows a man as he walks home, and the cam- old, kite-in-the-wind… era arcs around and slightly away from them to make it seem like she isn’t getting any closer, like they aren’t really moving. The light floods

26 27 a moment of this centrifugal hopelessness. It Editing: direct experience of the proximity of miserliness or incorrigibility. Around this in- correct definition in mechanical terms? It’s a is breathtaking and infinitesimal. The shot begs everything to itself. vidious distinction swirls the realization of im- kind of stacking. It makes sense once you think us to realize our surroundings, begs us to ad- manence, that “the present” is the most ancient about it: how our eyes actually receive the light dress our chronic failure to acknowledge the When I think of emptiness I think not of “space” thing there is; and this fact is either dumb/ob- on a screen. Nothing is moving. In a spirit of presence of other lives in our life. I am always but its opposite, an absence of falsely imposed vious or transcendent/liberating, depending on vigorous clarity, he writes: “For in fact each se- struck dumb by this light. I know it happened distinctions. Spaciousness is a sort of trick of whether I’m conceptualizing it rationally or di- quential element is arrayed, not next to the one here, not far from me, as I was alive then, one the light, a delusion of separateness taught rectly experiencing it. The shot of flaring light in it follows, but on top of it. For: the idea (sensa- day when I was four years old. by ancestry. This doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist; Dekalog Two is an example of this. tion) of movement arises in the process of su- delusions exist like everything else. Anyway, perimposing on the retained impression of the There’s no other end of the earth. Dekalog is one of the works of art that first There’s a term, nioi, that the Basho school of object’s first position the object’s newly visible made me feel this way, in which the difference haikai used to describe the mysterious ways in second position. […] The superimposition of two between belief and unbelief started to lose sub- which verses become poems. I quote Makoto dimensions of the same mass gives rise to a stance, as a modality of thought subsisting on Ueda, editor of the brilliant Basho and His Inter- completely new higher dimension.” largely pride and shame, and to give one’s life’s preters: “Literally meaning ‘fragrance,’ it refers reins to either began to seem to me a mark of to the sentiment or mood of one verse imper- “We are trying here,” he writes, “to derive the ceptibly drifting into that of the next verse, like whole essence, the stylistic principle and the the fragrance of a flower drifting in the wind.” character of film from its technical (-optical) foundations.” Compare this attitude about the ties between proximate or constituent elements in a work of Interestingly at this point he uses Japanese “hi- art with that of Sergei Eisenstein, prime mover eroglyphics” as he calls them to illustrate his of modern ideas of film montage. He disputes idea by analogy: “…in which two independent an earlier theory of Soviet montage, first via ideographic characters (‘shots’) are juxtaposed a synthetic proposition, then via a perceptive and explode into a concept. THUS: technical/phenomenological observation. First: “According to this [earlier] definition… montage Eye + Water = Crying is the means of unrolling an idea through single Door + Ear = Eavesdropping shots… but in my view montage is not an idea Child + Mouth = Screaming composed of successive shots stuck together Mouth + Dog = Barking but an idea that DERIVES from the collision be- Mouth + Bird = Singing tween two shots that are independent of one Knife + Heart = Anxiety, &c.” another.” A great stretch of this idea in practice is the Note the metaphysics: montage is not an idea ending montage of Eisenstein’s Strike (1925), in composed of shot sequences, but—as if exte- which striking workers are butchered by police rior to or transcendent of its units of compo- at midrange and a cow is graphically slaugh- Sunlight flaring through bare trees as a woman in a sition—derived from this apparition of what we tered in close-up. The two killings jumpcutting car slowly follows a man as he walks home, and the may be all too casually calling “shot sequenc- back and forth seem to coil and tear inexora- es.” bly downward. I can feel something of what this

camera arcs around and slightly away from them exacting director-intellectual might have felt

“ He elaborates, conceding in fairness that “We as he assembled his film: the cow’s blood and to make it seem like she isn’t getting any closer, like know that the phenomenon of movement in film body really do seem to fall on top of the dying they aren’t really moving. The light floods a moment resides in the fact that still pictures of a mov- agitators. “ ing body blend into movement when they are of this centrifugal hopelessness. It is breathtaking shown in quick succession one after another. Andrei Tarkovsky, director-poet of post-Eisten- and infinitesimal. The shot begs us to realize our The vulgar description of what happens—as stein Russian cinema, made a well-recorded a blending—has also led to the vulgar notion riposte to Eisenstein’s formalist ‘montage cin- surroundings, begs us to address our chronic failure of montage described above.” He affirms that ema’ philosophy: not because he disputes his to acknowledge the presence of other lives in our life. this definition is correct, “in pictorial-terms, account of its mechanics, but because he feels yes. But not in mechanical terms.” What is the Eisenstein deploying them as an oversharp 28 29 tool of mass cognitive-behavioral engineering. offers solace (solace, which loves discomfort, From Tarkovsky’s Sculpting in Time: “I reject the since I can’t let go of something until I’m hold- principles of ‘montage cinema’ because they do ing it), solace that life on earth is not what any not allow the film to continue beyond the edges scumbled mass of power-opticians and sooth- of the screen: they do not allow the audience sayer sophists say it is. to bring personal experience to bear on what is in front of them on film.… Eisenstein makes thought into a despot: it leaves no ‘air,’ nothing Their films of that unspoken elusiveness which is perhaps “Law” doesn’t notice or describe. let us first the most captivating quality of all art, and which it makes it possible for an individual to relate to see what we a film.” “ From Robert Bresson’s Notes on the Cinema- know to or The ‘air’ that Tarkovsky prizes seems to me quite tographer: like the emptiness that nioi moves through, want to see, boundless yet always precisely here. – Ten properties of an object, according to Leon- ardo: light and dark, color and substance, form and only later In Eisenstein, the sheer tonnage of effort and and position, distance and nearness, movement equipment required to make a film is consonant and stillness. do their sub- with the psychological tonnage of its effects. The first kind is in unison with the second kind. – “Visible parlance” of bodies, objects, houses, tle and unfa- Both are of a gigantism designed to induce and roads, trees, fields. move vast energies. miliar sen- – One single mystery of persons and objects. Dekalog, which is a comparably elaborate proj- sations and ect in terms of planning and personnel, seems – No psychology (of the kind which discovers in comparison awesomely unbalanced, a mas- only what it can explain). associations sive structure (I think of the Hadron Collid- er) built in service of access to the smallest – To move people not with images likely to constellate glimpse of something rare, ineffable, perhaps move us, but with relations of images that ren- inaccessible. der them both alive and moving. as memory

which, like Eisenstein’s emptiness (his space) may be one – To find a kinship between image, sound and of full demonstration; he tells you how it is by silence. To give them an air of being glad to be the presence

showing you. Your eyes are his cinema. Fiat. together, of having chosen their place. Milton: It’s extremely beautiful, frighteningly clear, and Silence was pleased. of ancestors, dislocating in ways that dis-alienate me from history and my surroundings, with all the force or like music of a sudden event that somehow remains sud- “ den as it continues and diversifies. It is unre- Dekalog was made for state-run Polish TV and that seems lentingly committed to its use. aired in the winter of 1988-89; it is a series of made-for-TV movies. Here is a brief scan of my only to re- But Tarkovsky’s, and even more so Kieslowski’s, brain’s conceptual- and memory-responses to emptiness is one of circumambient recognition, the phrase “made-for-TV movie”: cede, offers of a kind that almost always feels delayed. Their films let us first see what we know to or want – Pablum, trash, worse than trite, low-stakes solace. to see, and only later do their subtle and unfa- normative-everything, miliar sensations and associations constellate – cheaply written, cheaply cast, cheaply filmed, as memory which, like the presence of ances- cheaply seen; its moral poverty, its spiritual tors, or like music that seems only to recede, lameness, its cut-corner realities and embar-

30 31 rassing fantasies: an insipid welter of cheap notably in Poland, where church attendance those in grief, as being closer to the divine, and lets of mercury to form a larger question about reminders, neared 95% in the nineteen-eighties)… as such, grievers may be asked to shepherd the meaning of life, about our presence here, – isolation of the small screen in one’s own prayers for others. what in fact went before and what will come rooms; familiarity of surroundings supports the after…” novelty of screen images, I also read that Mother Theresa once responded – the TV itself: its obdurate presence: always There’s a rabbinic concept known by the Hebrew to the question “what do you say to God when Kieslowski’s crypto-metaphysical “question” either on or eerily waiting, “charged” but with- tzimtzum, which holds that God “contracts” to you pray?” with “nothing, I just listen,” and when evokes Deuteronomy 6:20: “What do the de- out significance, be with those who “suffer physical, metaphys- then asked “and what does God say?” she said, crees, the statutes, and the ordinances mean?” – its fallen status as mass-educational tool, ical, social, familial, and personal devastation “nothing, he just listens.” There has always been this question, even or – loneliness (no one holds hands while watch- and abrupt, utter, unexpected duress, finitude, especially at the decrees’ ostensible point of ing TV), and limitation” (from An ex-monastic once origin. When YHWH took the unprecedented – the “rerun” as an accelerant of the annihila- Moshe Gold’s essay told me “Spirituality’s step (attested in Exodus) of speaking directly to tion of aura, on Dekalog One in just whatever we do the Israelites at Mount Sinai, instead of through – the ballyhooed/alleged contemporary loss of the anthology Of El- with our unrest.” Moses as usual, they freaked out and asked recognition of any difference between an image ephants and Tooth- him not to ever do that again. Which he never and a screen, aches, ed. Badowski These four frag- did. Good? – aspect ratio of 4:3 on the analog television and Parmeggiani). ments of ways of Dekalog was made for, way more myopic and This contraction feeling about the “When a minister, rabbi, or priest attempts to claustrophobic than the grandiose 16:9 ratio of mirrors our own be- divine arose in my solve the ancient question of Job’s suffering cinema, fore the mystery of mind in the order through a sermon or lecture, he does not pro- – the humility and well-adjustedness sum- creation. The idea is presented as I sat mote religious ends but, on the contrary, does moned by any director choosing it as a medium, rooted in the sense down to write this them a disservice. The beauty of religion, with – surfeit: the disgust of continuousness, as of shared struggle as section, in a rare atti- its grandiose vistas, reveals itself to man not in when your show is over and then some other described at Mount tude of trust towards solutions but in problems, not in harmony but garbage automatically comes on; overlap of Sinai, when it’s made my own capacity to in the constant conflict of diversified forces and countless half-committed plots simultaneously clear that both the express myself. trends.” This is Joseph. B. Soloveitchik, quoted in the cable narrative universe, Israelites and their in Gold’s essay on Dekalog One. – inconvenience (your program scheduled at a God suffered togeth- I, in my present form certain hour and not others) which prompts ca- er in the house of a sort of truce in the My hunch here is that a habit of deepening the pitulation (just watch something else), bondage (i.e. Egypt, lifestyle wars be- problems of life (in the sense of dimensional- – gaping void of the hour after work before bed, or life on Earth). tween devotion and izing them) is, if I can handle it, one proper way – icy-to-lurid blue/orange color palette, How many have felt, obliteration, am al- to address suffering, illness, old age, death and – the thick screen of convex glass, in their worst mo- most confident I their handmaids urge, doubt, anger, torpor, re- – POETICS OF CONVEX GLASS ments, this contrac- understand what morse, if the alternatives are doing nothing or (scholium on glass: consider the fathomless tion—in such grief Kieslowski meant bloodletting myself with anodyne bromides and influence of glass on civic and religious life; the that you can’t believe when he said “Every endless, insufferable aspirational self-talk. revolutions in perspective; accelerant of both the sun is even ris- question contains science and religion; cousin of ice, soulmate ing, since sorrow a mystery. And it (Listening is nothing; it’s hearing that hurts.) of light, parent of circuitry; its physical fragility seems to be drown- doesn’t seem to me inseparable from its spiritual inviolability; the ing out the sky, while to be an issue wheth- television glass glowing in mortal isolation in at the same time you er or not we succeed contrast to cinema’s curtain or scrim and over- know in your cells that the whole sky, whatev- in deciphering it, since obviously we won’t. […] Seasons: nioi is frequently the vehicle for the head-streaming light: parergon and paragon… er it is, feels and hears everything you’re feel- Within the framework of the film, these mys- seasonal marker that was all but required in the modern hand touching glass as prelude to ing, which is why its spheres rotating as usual teries often involve very small things or things haikai. This is the closest analogy I can find information retrieval… consider the world prior seems so cognitive-dissonant —without ever that are inexplicable, things the heroes do not to the sublimely abundant life of the seasons to glass; consider God prior to glass), thinking about what it is, except as something want to explain, or things about the heroes I do in Dekalog. Realms of a season are the films’ – broadcast circuitry’s embodiment of or de- terribly wrong? not want to explain myself. They are often very circumference: where their states of being are scription of a socius (wherein enough of every- tiny, insignificant things. But I think that there furthest from their stories, and thus where both one is tuned in at any given time to form a pic- And I have read that in many cultures, certain- is a point at which all these trifling matters, all are most clear. ture of us big as any religion) (except perhaps ly not our own, people are actually drawn to these little mysteries, come together like drop- 32 33 A rapidly shifting winter in Dekalog One at once for-TV-movie-plain its pathos of dysfunctional creates and receives the tragic narrative; familial insularity; then a sort of sickly, humid motionlessness characterizes the protago- in Two, a cold indifferent autumn with sudden nist’s flight to the outskirts of the city, the story bursts of marvelous new light, and stark af- not finding real traction until she winds up at a fective imbalances/extremes that no one ac- forested railway station in heavy fog, lost in all knowledges (the apartment building is frozen senses; while the hospital is melting), mirror the montage method of this most subtly irregular film Eight’s opening close-up of bright summer of the cycle; greenery and a spirited old woman exercising along a greenbelt signaling a big tonal shift, as Three’s icy snowbound phantasmagoria, Christ- historical traumas are addressed and old sto- mas-eve midnight to dawn, being the perfect ries semi-reconciled via a subtly anti-state, time/space for two former lovers reenacting ad-hoc restorative justice process, in what is a long-wrecked fantasy of togetherness qua notably both the most Polonocentric and the genre-winking lovers-on-the-run ordeal, all most broadly “Other”-oriented film in the cycle; dazzling lights and empty streets, train sta- tions, highway tunnels, bus terminals, apart- Nine’s gorgeous downpour, reminding us we ments mise-en-scene’d as homes; have seen approximately zero rain in the first eight films, and a neo-Hitchcockian exercise in in Four, an abrupt dryness/thaw from the pre- advanced overhearing that ends in relief rather vious film, something happening too fast in the than happiness, though it is a relief more pre- environment to be called continuous, as the cious by far than happiness, much like the an- protagonists negotiate an extreme rupture in tediluvian notes in Genesis on how God won’t, their definitions of each other; upon reflection, ever do that again, it being pointless to punish anyone; in Five, the jaundiced rot of spring swells and spreads in day-mare mimesis of its story, about and Ten: outlier, a black comedy about black capital punishment and the life-is-death logic markets, riding the cusp of history as it aired of power feeding on what it purports to erad- weeks before Polish communism fell and crony icate, magnifying itself through the effort of capitalism surged, its punchy directorial style creating an appearance of cancelling out; the blasting rad new life into the tenderly expres- passive and seemingly inexorable overlap of sive deadness of everything else in the Deka- state’s punishment with individual’s crime, its log cycle precisely by yanking the magic from pathological reenactment of the initiating vio- its own sky, the whole thing filmed in a weath- lence expressed in a jumpcut so cold and con- erless realm detached from nature, looping cise and brilliant (and unsummarizable) that around the insipid city with nothing going on for the film actually helped roll back capital pun- it, with mediocre rock bands practicing in audi- ishment in Poland after it was aired; toriums and little bourgeoisie restaurants filled with chintz and mirrors and stupid brothers then Six, a lovely muted naturalistic spring, fighting over an inexplicably invaluable inher- more than half taking place at night, this tran- itance of stamps. sitional cusp of the cycle and the follow-up to the utterly bleak Five starts off as a slightly “Don’t run after poetry. It penetrates unaided off-color romantic comedy and then, by shock through the joins (ellipses).” Bresson again. and grace, abruptly shifts into an astonishing depiction of sympathetic longing, the contraction by turns wrenching and serene; Truth is our accident. All images taken from Seven’s dismal indoorsness making made- Krzysztof Kieslowski’s Dekalog 34 35 “Without cruelty, there is no festival.” -Friedrich Nietzsche, Ecce Homo

Bela Tarr’s The Turin Horse opens with a parable about Nietzsche’s mental collapse that sets the tone for the film that follows. The apoc- ryphal story describes Nietzsche witnessing a cabman relentlessly whipping a horse that refused to move on the streets of Turin. Affect- ed by the scene’s cruelty, Nietzsche ran over and threw his arms around the horse, weeping maniacally as he begged its owner to stop. In- consolable, Nietzsche was taken to a friend’s house where he rested for a number of days. Following a period spent in complete silence, Nietzsche uttered his famous last words, “Mut- ter, ich bin dumm” (Mother, I am dumb), and never spoke again, retiring to the care of his family who watched over him until his death some eleven years later. Tarr’s film intimates the other side of this story: the fate of the horse and its vicious owner. In contrast to the vitality with which Nietzsche lived, The Turin Horse is gripping through its barrenness. For two and a half hours, the audience is sieved through the monotonous lives of the film’s characters—a cabman named Ohls- dorfer, his unnamed daughter, and their horse. Their lives on the rural outskirts of Turin are bleak: housed in a single room hut lit only by candlelight, Ohlsdorfer and his daughter struggle to maintain their routine in an increasing- ly isolated and difficult world. Shot in stunning black and white that emphasizes the dystopi- an surroundings, Tarr’s cinematography forces viewers to focus on the subtleties. A 146 minute film composed of just 30 shots—each take av- eraging just over five minutes in length—Tarr uses these long takes to immerse viewers in Don’t Be a Body: the frigid pace of the film’s world as its plot slowly develops and dissolves. The Turin Horse begins where the par- Nietzsche’s Eternal Recurrence able leaves off, opening with a long shot of the horse struggling against a brutalizing wind on and The Turin Horse the trip back from Turin. Both the horse and Ohlsdorfer suffer this onslaught as the camera contorts them through disorienting angles, a reminder of how both man and horse labor to survive the elements. As they make their way, By Grant Kerber we see a spartan, wintry background with foli- 36 37 age flying through the relentless wind. Some- by in need of alcohol and speaks of a nearby recurrence does not have to be the monotony of Silvaplana outside Sils Maria, Switzerland, in thing has gone seriously wrong in this world, town’s annihilation from the ongoing storm. Not a repetitive series of events. Eternal recurrence August of 1881. From the moment it came to him and the struggle to get home through these long after, the well that Ohlsdorfer, his daugh- can be uplifting and affirming through a focus (and he was explicit: he did not ‘discover’ it; the apocalyptic conditions speaks to how unwel- ter and their horse rely on dries up, perhaps on how decisions play out and how choices are thought came to him), Nietzsche recognized the come Ohlsdorfer and his horse are in its ele- due to a curse from visiting gypsies. The char- met by those living them. It is the recognition importance of eternal recurrence. More than ments. Later, the film shows that this is not a acters do little to overcome these hurdles and that decisions are our greatest constant in life the common reference points for his philoso- struggle experienced by all: Ohlsdorfer’s neigh- instead appear hopeless in the face of adversity. and making them is our greatest burden. This phy (such as will to power or the death of God), bor, Bernhard, is able to traverse the weather, The film ends when the winds have died and the approach can liberate us through the choices it is eternal recurrence which runs through Ni- as are a band of roving gypsies who attempt to characters can no longer light flames, resigned we make and our will to become more than our etzsche’s work most deeply. Nietzsche referred steal water from Ohlsdorfer’s well. For Ohls- to wait in silence as their world is plunged into circumstances. By employing monotonous rep- to it as his “thought of thoughts,” and genuinely dorfer and his daughter, however, their lives perpetual darkness. etition and focusing on the habitual approach considered it to be the wellspring from which become hamstrung by their inability to venture Recounting the plot and noting the cen- of his characters, Tarr urges his audience to his other thoughts grew. The passage below outside. trality of Nietzsche in its inception, it’s hard to grapple with the complexities of Nietzsche’s marks Nietzsche’s first thorough documenta- Ohlsdorfer and his daughter embody one look past the thinker’s influence on the film, es- concept. tion of eternal recurrence, appearing in The Gay of the film’s central themes: repitition. They sit pecially his concept of eternal recurrence1. In Science in 1882: in their home, bake potatoes when hungry, and one vein, eternal recurrence can be viewed as unsuccessfully attempt to take the horse out on the agonizing repetition of life. With bluntness, several occasions. In these scenes, the raging The Turin Horse beckons this understanding wind is never far from earshot, often serving as through the repetitive actions of its characters the only sound the audience can hear. Tarr nav- in the face of adversity. But beneath this literal igates the monotony through creative use of the surface lies a more expansive concept. Eternal tools at his disposal. Though Ohlsdorfer and his daughter both eat potatoes and stare out the 1) This essay uses “eternal recurrence” and “eternal return” inter- changeably. They mean the same thing. window in each of the seven days depicted in the film, Tarr changes perspectives and focal points to keep the repetition engrossing. So, as anticipation of the day’s meal begins to build, Tarr plays with the elements on the screen. Whereas one day might focus on Ohlsdorfer’s “Am I certain that daughter filling the pail and boiling the potatoes, another focuses on Ohlsdorfer looking out I would wish to the window as we hear his daughter cooking. Tarr also shifts the depth of field to show more or less of what’s happening in the house. We do this an infinite may see Ohlsdorfer sitting on his bed as his daughter moves through the periphery, or the number of times? camera may whisk us by one of the characters as the other shifts between menial tasks. This should be for In breaking the film down to its bare elements and subtly altering depth and perspective, Tarr brings the film’s repetitive events to life, mak- you the most solid ing them breathe in and out like an organism. Eternal Recurrence However, while its subtle shifts pique center of gravity.” our curiosity, the film never blossoms into any “My doctrine says that the task is to live The greatest weight.—What, if some day or grander narrative; Instead, its plot slowly de- in such a way that you have to wish to live night a demon were to steal after you into volves into greater and greater despair. Over again—you will do so in any case!” your loneliest loneliness and say to you: “This seven days the means of survival for Ohlsdorfer, -Nietzsche’s personal notes, XII, number 116 life as you now live it and have lived it, you his daughter, and their horse are cut off. Where -Friedrich Nietzsche will have to live once more and innumerable once the horse refused to move, he soon refus- The thought of eternal recurrence came times more; and there will be nothing new es to eat. Soon, the neighbor Bernhard drops to Nietzsche while sitting on the shores of Lake in it, but every pain and every joy and every 38 39 thought and sigh and everything unutterably greater gifts but would grasp eternal recur- small or great in your life will have to return rence to take action to attain those gifts them- to you, all in the same succession and se- selves. It is a means of overcoming the monot- quence—even this spider and this moonlight ony of life and the laziness of simply waiting for between the trees, and even this moment and the afterlife. Eternal recurrence brings mean- I myself. The eternal hourglass of existence is ing back into every choice, urging humanity to turned upside down again and again, and you overcome complacency by taking their lives with it, speck of dust!” and their decisions back into their own hands. Would you not throw yourself down and In his analysis of Nietzsche’s eternal gnash your teeth and curse the demon who recurrence, Martin Heidegger touches on this spoke thus?... Or how well disposed would complacency. Speaking of eternal recurrence, you have to become to yourself and to life to Heiddeger states that “If you allow your exis- crave nothing more fervently than this ulti- tence to drift in timorousness and ignorance, mate eternal confirmation and seal? with all the consequences these things have, - Friedrich Nietzsche, The Gay Science, Book IV, then they will come again, and they will be that Section 341 which already was”3 (Heidegger, 135). What Heidegger means by this is that we reap what This short section offers everything needed for we sow: if we allow ourselves to drift through an understanding of eternal recurrence. Cen- life without imparting strength to our convic- tral to the passage is Nietzsche’s reference to tions, we’ll live a life that is tedious, indifferent, the “loneliest loneliness” that gives birth to the and unfulfilling. Such a view further demon- thought of eternal recurrence. This loneliest strates Nietzsche’s efforts to return agency to loneliness is what we’re confronted by in deep our lives. Recognizing the slow and agonizing reflection, when the distance between us and death of Christianity, Nietzsche viewed eter- who we desire to be can be at its greatest. It nal recurrence as necessary to carry humanity is something thought while we are on the cusp over the abyssal nihilism that the death of God of ourselves, trying to find ground amidst the would bring about. With eternal recurrence, tumult of a life lived. It is in this loneliest lone- Nietzsche roils humanity from the womb of a liness that we take account of who we are and listless Christian morality and aims those pre- what we strive for. As the passage indicates, we pared for the journey towards a life lived with can view this confrontation in two ways: one, as greater vitality. a curse that tells us we are exactly as we fear Nietzsche’s concept is an affirmation of we are; or the other, as an affirmation of the being. It is not a sentence to an eternity spent decisions we’ve made and the person we’ve be- in spiral; it is an opportunity to let each mo- come. As such, eternal recurrence feeds on the ment of our existence brim with the passion simplicity of one’s satisfaction with the choices of our calling—that voice that cries out to us one’s made in life. This is why Gilles Deleuze in our loneliest loneliness. Nietzsche employed refers to eternal recurrence as the “being of the eternal return to invoke agency in the lives becoming”2. of those who understood it, making each deci- As this “being of becoming,” eternal re- sion important and each moment one of possi- currence is not so much a solution as it is an ble actualization. In Nietzsche’s view, it was the approach. Frustrated by Christianity’s fatalism, antidote to the nihilistic mollification which had Nietzsche saw eternal recurrence as an oppor- taken hold of the masses. This is best exem- tunity to return agency to our lives. Eternal re- plified by the sleeping shepherd whose tongue currence is not the mere repetition of events, has been bitten by a snake. As he describes it in but how they’re met by those living them, rec- Thus Spake Zarathustra, ognizing that decisions must be made again and again. Through its approach, people would no longer ineffectually wait for the afterlife’s 3) Martin Heidegger, Nietzsche Volume Two: The Eternal Recurrence 2) Gilles Deleuze, Nietzsche and Philosophy, 1962, p.189 of the Same, 1954, p.135 40 41 “A young shepherd [...] had the serpent These passages speak to the willful approach Eternal Recurrence in er and his daughter wait for events to play out crawled into his throat—there had it bitten it- we should employ in the face of eternal recur- The Turin Horse rather than rolling the dice and willing their self fast. My hand pulled at the serpent, and rence. Confronting the circumstances one fac- desires into existence. Their lives are incon- pulled:—in vain! I failed to pull the serpent es is critical to eternal recurrence because—as “On the one side stands the following: ‘Every- sequential, unsatisfactory, and agonizingly re- out of his throat. Then there cried out of me: the passage at the top of this section suggests— thing is nought, indifferent, so that nothing is petitive. It’s everything Nietzsche prescribed to “Bite! Bite! Its head off! Bite!” [...] The shep- one will have to confront those circumstances worthwhile—it is all alike.’ And on the other those haunted by their loneliest loneliness. herd however bit as my cry had admonished again. To be stifled by them is to live a life of side: ‘Everything recurs, it depends on each Perhaps the best example of these char- him; he bit with a strong bite! Far away did contempt and regret. To rise and meet them is moment, everything matters—it is all alike.” acters’ haplessness is when, towards the end he spit the head of the serpent:—and sprang to live the life that one craves to live again. -Martin Heidegger, Nietzsche Volume Two: of the film, Ohlsdorfer gives up on a lamp that up— No longer shepherd, no longer man—a Those who embrace the agency in eternal re- Eternal Recurrence of the Same will not light, stating, “We’ll try again tomorrow.” transfigured being, a light-surrounded being, turn roll their dice and always get the correct This same man who could think of no other way that laughed! Never on earth laughed a man number because they live in the fluidity of the With this understanding, we can see how to move his horse than by whipping it relent- as he laughed!” world. The confidence they exude means that The Turin Horse echoes Nietzsche’s eternal re- lessly shows once more that he lacks any sort - Thus Spoke Zarathustra no matter the number they draw, they’re pre- currence. Ohlsdorfer and his daughter are teth- of ingenuity or originality in his approach. All pared for the circumstances and will roll the ered to the comforts of the familiar and lack is eternally the same. For Olhsdorfer, to try is Rather than allowing the snake to suffocate dice once more. Failure and success are just the tools (and the will) to overcome the unex- to go through the motions; it is not an actual him, Nietzsche believed the shepherd (and what happen in their game; they recognize that pected. They never welcome change, and when attempt to solve the problem, it’s simply trying those who recognize their agency in eternal re- they will keep playing and relish the chances they’re met with it, they grumble with dissat- to fit a square peg in a round hole. Should that currence) should bite down on the snake, thus they continue to take as they confront the eter- isfaction. Whether it’s the neighbor Bernhard’s solution not work, Ohlsdorfer will try it again biting down on nihilism and breathing meaning nal recurrence within their lives. visit, an unexpected caravan of gypsies, or a until it does. This eternal repetition shows Ohls- back into their lives. It is only by making the With this understanding, we can see that stubborn horse, change unsettles our protago- dorfer’s inability to roll the dice and try some- tough choice of biting down on the snake that the eternal recurrence is not just the monotony nists. They’re ill-equipped to handle any change thing different. He always fails into the same one can live to one’s fullest potential. The snake of the same events played out over and over that comes their way and timidly seethe instead act repeatedly. will always try to crawl back in and lull us into again. To say that eternal recurrence is sim- of rising to meet the moment. What is it that causes these people to complacency and routine. The goal of eternal ply repetition is to oversimplify the premise, From the outset, it is clear that Ohlsdor- act in such hopeless ways? Throughout the return is to make decisions that—while un- though it’s through this oversimplification that fer and his daughter are living in one vein of film, we’re given examples of how humanity comfortable—propel us in a direction where we Nietzsche goads the observer into thinking it. eternal recurrence—that of the snake-bitten has given up and lost its way. Detached Chris- can be satisfied with choices and the life we’ve As stated before, eternal recurrence is not the shepherd who is sleeping his way through life. tian symbolism frames the film, showing how made for ourselves. mere repetition of events, but how they’re met Cowering from the outside world, Ohlsdorf- far people have fallen from their belief. The few In contrast to the snake’s nihilistic bite, by those living them. As Deleuze puts it in his words Ohlsdorfer and his daughter speak are Gilles Deleuze uses the example of a dice throw treatise on Nietzsche, “Return is the being of that empty and base, as though they’re being echoed to illustrate the importance of our agency in the which becomes. Return is the being of becom- out long after they’ve lost their meaning. This cycle of eternal return. This concept is central ing itself, the being which is affirmed in becom- is the crux of these characters’ problems: it’s to Deleuze’s analysis of eternal recurrence, as ing” (Deleuze, 24). Eternal recurrence centers “It is no longer a not that the world has crushed their spirits, it’s seen in the two passages below: on this becoming—and the being which affirms that they never developed the ability to coun- it—as an approach. To be is to make choices question of selective teract the world to begin with. They’ve woven “The player only loses because he does not and will ourselves through events. Whether we themselves deeply inside the nihilism of accep- affirm strongly enough, because he intro- choose to do so is yet another choice we make. tance and repetition and have never developed duces the negative into chance and opposi- We can either mollify ourselves to sleep under thought but of selec- a means to overcome the challenges that came tion into becoming and multiplicity. The true the nihilistic bite of the snake, or we can roll their way. They’re so mundane and reliant on dicethrow necessarily produces the winning the dice, aware that wherever they land, we will tive being; for the eter- conformity that we can’t imagine them having number, which re-produces the dice-throw.” 4 gladly roll them once more. a novel solution to a problem they face. Even nal return is being and when they do leave the house to try and find a “The eternal return would become contradic- better place to live, it’s only so they can go back tory if it were the return of reactive forces. being is selection.” to how they lived. They try to carry on their lives The eternal return teaches us that becom- in the exact same way—using the exact same ing-reactive has no being.” 5 tools, the exact same routine—while expecting a different outcome. -Gilles Deleuze Ohlsdorfer and his daughter have turned 4) Gilles Deleuze, Nietzsche and Philosophy, 1962, p.97 5) Ibid, p.72 away from their wills for such an extended pe- 42 43 riod of time that they completely lack the ability taking place outside is not a cataclysm thrust the gypsies seem to get around with consider- Conclusion to think. They represent the worst embodiment upon an innocent population but rather some- ably less trouble. In the scene where Bernhard of eternal return. With them, it is always a re- thing they brought upon themselves. As Bern- is introduced, the slow camera pan from behind “That the universe has no purpose, that it has actionary attempt to square their understand- hard puts it, it is “about man’s own judgement Ohlsdorfer’s head suggests he’s in disbelief that no end to hope for any more than it has causes ing of the world with the events they’re facing. over his own self.” someone could be knocking on the door. If Ber- to be known—this is the certainty necessary Horse won’t move? Whip it until it will. Dying Bernhard then speaks of how waiting for nhard experienced trouble getting to Ohlsdor- to play well.” -Gilles Deleuze, Nietzsche and of hunger? Keep eating potatoes hoping more God’s ultimate victory means the mollification fer’s house, he doesn’t speak of it. Instead, he Philosophy food will appear. Lamp won’t light? Keep try- of “everything that’s excellent, great in some descends into his monologue on how humanity ing until it will. They’re simply going through way and noble.” Bernhard clearly recognizes had this coming, takes his booze, and walks out Through the monotony and repetition of the motions, snake fangs firmly planted in their that outstanding individuals have suffocated of Ohlsdorfer’s house. The Turin Horse, the audience is forced to con- tongues. They are completely unaware of how under the snake’s bite, never willing them- The gypsies who visit Ohlsdorfer’s well front how they’d act differently in these same to do anything besides crawling closer to death. selves to the greatness they could achieve. Hu- are also free in the desolate environment. We circumstances. Boredom is the trigger through manity’s desire to stand and wait for something see them make their way on brilliant white which we begin criticizing the film and inject ponies (who are obedient, mind you), and it our own will on the characters. The austere seems as though the wind—which dominates setting means viewers are not watching a story the foreground—hardly even touches them. In play out so much as they’re traversing the same stark contrast to Ohlsdorfer and his daughter, waters as Ohlsdorfer and his daugher. Tarr said the gypsies are filled with life: as they approach as much in a 2012 interview for The Turin Horse, they are laughing and energetic, speaking jo- stating “The film isn’t the story. It’s mostly pic- vially as they help themselves to water from ture, sound, a lot of emotions. The stories are the well. When Ohlsdorfer’s daughter goes to just covering something...I didn’t want to show speak with them they invite her to join them, you the story. I wanted to show this man’s life”6. saying they’re going to America. They have as- By watching Ohlsdorfer and his daughter pirations and an ability to move through this make unsatisfactory choices again and again, difficult world, again making us wonder why we see their life. It is a grim, barely-alive ex- Ohlsdorfer and his daughter do not. istence that no one would wish for. Instead of The contrast here further illustrates sitting at the table and bitterly eating a boiled the difference of eternal return as burden or potato in silence, we have ample time to won- blessing. While Bernhard and the gypsies can der what would happen if Ohlsdorfer and his be viewed as the eternal return of agency and daughter acted on their desires. Surely they choice, Ohlsdorfer and his daughter are an ex- want to. We’re shown their longing for some- ample of the habitual and accepting. By going thing different many times. Ohlsdorfer takes his through the motions and lacking the conviction horse out at different points but timidly retreats, to impart meaning into their lives, Ohlsdorf- and his daughter is shown longfully looking out er and his daughter have lost the will to push the window more than a few times. These are themselves through difficult events with nov- human people with human desires. They sim- el approaches or useful thoughts. Lacking the ply lack the capacity to act in a way that will will to persevere possessed by Bernhard and achieve their aims. the gypsies, all things are just meaningless re- The magnitude of the problems posed by Nowhere is this complacency more to happen means that there are no great peo- gurgitations for Ohlsdorfer and his daughter. The Turin Horse can’t be lost on Tarr. It would concretely addressed than in the monologue ple left; complacency and systematization have The actual impact of words or actions is lost on be shortsighted to assume he thought this fate by Ohlsdorfer’s neighbor, Bernhard. Bernhard ensured that such approaches have long been them because their options in the world have was faced only by the characters on the screen; comes to Ohlsdorfer to borrow brandy after forgotten. Instead, people have become insip- long since dried up. Their inability to change this is a problem that haunts all of humanity. he’s run out. Upon mentioning the destruction id and beggarly, hopeful that some other force and adapt has now reached its ultimate end. Tarr recognizes people’s inability to meet the of the nearby town, Bernhard plunges into a will come along and deliver their salvation. They have left themselves with no other way. moment, speaking frequently about the dis- monologue that captures the listlessness that Bernhard’s monologue illustrates a di- parate but self-imposed circumstances with brought about the film’s events. He says that vide that puts Ohlsdorfer and his daughter on which we live. In an interview with Paul Sbrizzi

everything’s been “degraded,” pointing out how one side and Bernhard and the gypsies on the 6) Eric Kohn, An Interview with Bela Tarr: Why He Says ‘The Turin meaninglessness and indifference have brought other. Where Ohlsdorfer and his daughter ex- Horse’ Is His Final Film, IndieWire, February 9th, 2012, https://www. indiewire.com/2012/02/an-interview-with-bela-tarr-why-he-says- about the world’s destruction. The destruction perience nothing but hardships, Bernhard and the-turin-horse-is-his-final-film-242518/ 44 45 following the release of The Turin Horse, Tarr we must continue to focus on those things we states, “I don’t know how was [sic] the world. genuinely care about. This is the importance of I know just this world, what we have now, and eternal return and how it can breathe meaning I know only one thing—this is our creation. If back into our lives. this world is shit that’s what we could do. If this world is beautiful that’s also what we could do. But I have to tell you when I am looking around I have a feeling this is a piece of shit. I cannot say this world is nice, beautiful, or working where there’s no humiliation and everybody respects each other.” Tarr uses the helplessness of the characters in The Turin Horse to get us thinking of how they relate to our own lives. Whether it be global warming, the threat of nuclear war, or the magnitude of the systematized world we live in, humans have grown complacent with their own destruction, just as the film’s characters have. This is not Tarr writing off humanity, but rather his plea that we fight for our lives. The Turin Horse is what happens when the Christian God dies and humanity toils under a languishing nihilism. How do we rise to overcome this loss? By sieving the viewer through this monotonous episode, the film forces viewers to confront their own choices and the ways they are going through the motions like Ohls- dorfer and his daughter. Similar to Nietzsche confounding readers with the thought of eternal return, Tarr uses The Turin Horse to provoke criticism of the film’s characters. By employing anti-heroics, Tarr asks the audience how they could do better than the characters on screen. And how can we do better? One way is to do as Tarr has done: to ask the question. By constructing The Turin Horse as he has, Tarr has us look at a life that could be lived and see how unsatisfactory we find it. Once we are on that path, we find parallels in our own lives, and are forced to ask if we’re simply going through the motions ourselves. It is easy to write things off as futile, silly, or stupid, but if that is the case, why do we carry on at all? The point of eternal return is that the dim flicker of belief still resides in us somewhere. Our will remains important, and the agency to enact that will should be a critical focus for all of us, lest we turn out like Ohlsodrfer and his daughter. In a world where meaning is drowned by the All images taken from nihilism of “values” and other empty platitudes, Bela Tarr’s The Turin Horse 46 47 CONTRIBUTOR BIOS

Jamie Townsend is a genderqueer poet and editor living in Oakland. They are half-re- sponsible for Elderly, a publishing experiment and hub of ebullience and disgust. They are the author of Pyramid Song (above/ground press, 2018), and Sex Machines (blush, 2019) as well as the full-length collection Shade (Elis Press, 2015). They are also the editor of Beautiful Aliens: A Steve Abbott Reader (Nightboat, 2019) and Lib- ertines in the Ante-Room of Love: Poets on Punk (Jet Tone, 2019).

Thom Donovan has written numerous books of poetry and an ongoing ante-memoir called Left Melancholy. He is an aspiring horror writer and the cofounder (with Jer- emy Hoevenaar) of the Scary or Die workshop.

Katy Burnett is a writer and translator living in Oakland.

Paul Ebenkamp is author of The Louder the Room the Darker the Screen (Timeless, Infinite Light, 2015) and Parallel Realism (Despite Editions, 2017), is co-curator with Andrew Kenower and Gin Hart of the Woolsey Heights reading series in Berkeley, releases music as Position (paulebenkamp.bandcamp.com), and is at this moment listening to Basic Channel’s “Octaedre”

Grant Kerber is a community organizer and poet. He is the editor of Libertines in the Ante-Room of Love: Poets on Punk (Jet-Tone, 2019) and swears he’s releasing a chapbook soon. Grant is a firm believer in free education and has worked with Bay Area Public Schools, Oakland Free University, and Oakland Summer School to end the scam of overpriced education.

Interested in contributing? Email [email protected]

Image from Toshio Matsumoto’s Funeral Parade of Roses

Back cover image from Miklós Jancsó’s Electra, My Love 48 49 et-one ress