Psychoanalyzing Cinema This page intentionally left blank Psychoanalyzing Cinema A Productive Encounter with Lacan, Deleuze, and Žižek

Edited by

jan jagodzinski PSYCHOANALYZING CINEMA Copyright © jan jagodzinski, 2012. Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 2012 978-0-230-33855-5 All rights reserved. First published in 2012 by PALGRAVE MACMILLAN® in the United States—a division of St. Martin’s Press LLC, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010. Where this book is distributed in the UK, Europe and the rest of the world, this is by Palgrave Macmillan, a division of Macmillan Publishers Limited, registered in England, company number 785998, of Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS. Palgrave Macmillan is the global academic imprint of the above companies and has companies and representatives throughout the world. Palgrave® and Macmillan® are registered trademarks in the United States, the United Kingdom, Europe and other countries. ISBN 978-1-349-34155-9 ISBN 978-1-137-11694-9 (eBook) DOI 10.1057/9781137116949 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Psychoanalyzing cinema : a productive encounter with Lacan, Deleuze, and Žižek / [edited by] Jan Jagodzinski. pages cm Includes bibliographical references.

1. and motion pictures. 2. Motion pictures— Psychological aspects. 3. Lacan, Jacques, 1901–1981—Criticism and interpretation. 4. Deleuze, Gilles, 1925–1995—Criticism and interpretation. 5. Žižek, Slavoj—Criticism and interpretation. I. Jagodzinski, Jan, 1948– PN1995.9.P783P795 2012 791.43Ј653—dc23 2012013712 A catalogue record of the book is available from the British Library. Design by Newgen Imaging Systems (P) Ltd., Chennai, India. First edition: October 2012 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 To Ian Buchanan whose collaborative generosity continues to keep critical thought alive This page intentionally left blank Contents

List of Illustrations ix Preface xi Acknowledgments xvii

Introduction . . . of Sorts, Sort of 1 jan jagodzinski Lacan: Master I 1 Žižek: Master II 7 Slave Revolt: Guattari 10 Badiou: Master III 13 Revolt Slave! Deleuze 17 SchizoCrets 19

Part I Encountering Lacan 1 Light, Camera, Action! The Luminous Worlds of and 45 Hanjo Berressem 2 Hearing Voices: Schizoanalysis and the Voice as Image in the Cinema of David Lynch 71 Frida Beckman 3 Encore: Trauma and Counter-memory in Kim Ki-duk’s Time 89 Meera Lee

Part II Encountering Deleuze 4 Antagonism or Multiplicity: The Struggle between Psychoanalysis and Deleuze in Godard’s Cinema 111 Todd McGowan viii CONTENTS

5 Against Limits: Deleuze, Lacan, and the Possibility of Love 129 Sheila Kunkle 6 Occasioning the Real: Lacan, Deleuze, and Cinematic Structuring of Sense 147 Emanuelle Wessels

Part III Encountering Žižek 7 The Universe as Metacinema 169 Patricia Pisters 8 On the Possibilities of Political Art: How Žižek Misreads Deleuze and Lacan 205 Robert Samuels 9 The Surplus of Legibility: Guilt, Ethics, and Out-of-Field in Deleuze, Lacan, and Žižek 227 A. Kiarina Kordela

Part IV Encountering . . . 01 Living . . . Again: The Revolutionary Cine-Sign of Zombie-Life 249 Jason Wallin

Notes on Contributors 271 Index 275 List of Illustrations

1.1 Lacan’s Three Diagrams 54 Jacques Lacan, Four Fundamental Concepts of Psychoanalysis: The Seminar of Jacques Lacan Book XI (NY: W. W. Norton, 1978), p. 91 and p. 106. 2.1 Aligning the body with an already determined voice 75 2.2 The present becoming thin as a mirror 76 2.3 A song and a tear that already exist 77 From Mulholland Drive (2001) directed by David Lynch, Universal Pictures 3.1 A path crossing of Se-hŭi (Park Ji-yeon) and Sae- hŭi (Seong Hyeon-a) in the opening sequence of Time 90 From Time (Shi gan) (2006) directed by Kim Ki-duk, Happinet Pictures 5.1 Manni and Lola 138 From Run Lola Run (Lola rennt) (1998) directed by Tom Tykwer, Sony Pictures Classics 6.1 Arial View, Dogville 157 6.2 Grace and Tom 159 From Dogville (2003) directed by Lars von Trier, Zentropa Entertainments 01.1 Zombie 250 From Land of the Dead (2005) directed by George A. Romero, Universal Pictures This page intentionally left blank Preface

his collection of chapters addresses the productive encounters among Tthree well-known figures: Lacan, Deleuze, Žižek, as applied to the field of cinema and its discontents. While there is no question concerning the influence of Jacques Lacan and Gilles Deleuze within cinema stud- ies, the extraordinary oeuvre that Slavoj Žižek has produced is equally formidable. Love him or hate him he is a voice to be reckoned with. Can there be such a thing as a ‘productive’ encounter among|between these positions|systems? If you’re a Deleuzian you might ask whether a combi- nation of such strange heterogeneous singularities can come together to form an interkingdom of new desires. Can a species of deleuzežižekians emerge, or is that too monstrous a creature to walk the planet? Or, there may well be a productive repulsion at work, a quarantine enforced around the creature so that its contamination doesn’t continue to spread virally. If you were a Lacanian (early, middle, late?) you might play the analyst to see if a productive signifier might emerge within the clinic of the Academy; if you were a Žižekian, perhaps you would commit an impossible rev- olutionary ‘act’ to crush the soul of the symbolic order. The cinematic field, after all, already has its hard divisive lines and boundaries in place: its cognitivists, neoformalists, phenomenologists, hermeneuticians, and post-structuralists. Some will never budge. Yet boundaries are necessary to play the game of life even though we don’t know when the endgame will come. All we know is that it will, for all of us. When one reads intel- lectual autobiographies like Elizabeth Rudinesco’s on Lacan, or François Dosse’s exploration of the lives of Deleuze and Guattari (and I am sure in the future one will be written that dwells on Žižek’s escapades—stories already circulate), there should be no surprise to learn that academics are no less besieged by demons of their own making and choosing than anyone else. Who isn’t ‘fucked up’ in some way? More important is how one relates in the world knowing one’s flaws. The cinematic field remains teaming with life like those bugs digging away under the well-manicured lawn in the opening sequence of shots of Lynch’s Blue Velvet. I have structured the book in four parts: Encountering Lacan, Encountering Deleuze, Encountering Žižek, and Encountering . . . . xii PREFACE

The friends who have been grouped this way are somewhat arbitrary since many engage all three positions; however, I have staged it this way since some lean more to one position than another. My own encounter in the introduction is also not ‘evenly’ balanced for those who care to read it. The last encounter of the collection is purposefully left open. Within it sits a lone essay by my colleague and friend Jason Wallin. Should you read it, you will know why. Each author in this collection has staged their own production, and has taken their own stance in relation to these three figures. It is best that they speak for themselves. My introduction that follows is of a much dif- ferent order. The collection starts with Lacanian encounters, beginning with a stunning essay by Hanjo Berressem, “Light, Camera, Action! The Luminous Worlds of Jacques Lacan and Gilles Deleuze.” Hanjo meticu- lously explores the way light has been theorized by Lacan and Deleuze, as well as Fritz Heider. This is an underdeveloped area in cinematic theory. Hanjo’s extraordinary ability to cut through, what are always difficult theo- retical conceptualizations, maintains that film studies still need to develop an optical epistemology and an optical . His essay is meant as a prolegomenon to such a project. Next is Frida Beckman’s “Hearing Voices: Schizoanalysis and the Voice as Image in the Cinema of David Lynch,” which explores the voice as theorized by both Lacan and Deluze in David Lynch’s famous Mulholland Drive, which Todd MacGowan has also analyzed. Although we have fre- quented the same conferences together, I have not met Frida personally. I am so grateful she was willing to contribute to this collection. Her work is truly ‘breathtaking.’ Readers will find simply a superb exploration as to how Lacan and Deleuze taken side-by-side can increase the reverberation of our sensitivity to filmic sound. Her essay reminds me of the same care that Mladen Dolar takes in his exploration in A Voice and Nothing More. Here Frida, in my estimation, is able to add a dimension that even Dolar has not yet adequately thought through. Closing this section is Meera Lee’s stunning exploration of the infa- mous South Korean director, Kim Ki-duc’s film Time. “Encore: Trauma and Counter-memory in Kim Ki-duk’s Time” is a tour de force of theoretical agility when it comes to the contortions of the time-image. Meera is able to tease out the contemporary questions of identity, memory, trauma, and especially love in the way they reverberate through the National ‘soul|seoul’ of South Korea. It should be noted that all three authors engage Žižek in their conversations. Section II, the encounters with Deleuze, first draws on two of my friends who have both edited an extremely influential book, Lacan and Contemporary Film. I will be the first to admit that I tried to persuade PREFACE xiii them through my commentary of the ‘evil’ of their ways, but they wouldn’t crack! Todd McGowan’s essay, “Antagonism or Multiplicity: The Struggle between Psychoanalysis and Deleuze in Godard’s Cinema,” is exemplary of the intended spirit of this collection. It is crucial for its problematic. Todd explores a historical dimension of cinema by way of a pivotal figure, Jean-Luc Godard, raising the question as to the consequences of Godard’s ‘break’ within his own trajectory. Todd’s analysis shows why he is one of the foremost Lacanian cinema theorists writing today. Not only does he have a firm grasp of cinematic history, he is also very aware of Deleuzian developments in his field. He puts all those skills to work to argue that Godard indeed made the wrong ‘turn.’ Sheila Kunkle’s essay that follows, “Against Limits: Deleuze, Lacan, and the Possibility of Love,” is equally a defense of Lacan. At issue here is the question of chance and repetition when it comes to Tom Tyker’s Run Lola Run. I tried to also persuade her about the ‘error’ of her ways, but she would have none of it! We have always had a warm relationship, despite any ‘differences.’ It has been many years since I met Sheila at an Association for Psychoanalysis of Culture and Society (APCS) gathering. Sheila exhib- its a quality few academics have: she is extraordinarily bright, but she is also equally modest as she is bright. When one reads any of her essays this becomes quickly apparent. They are simply works of art. Sheila is a con- summate film buff in the way she can pick out details most of us miss. But more, her grasp of Lacan, Žižek, and Badiou is equally impressive, as she too admirably applies these to make the case for Lacan on love. In this section I have also included Emanuelle Wessels’s remarkable essay, “Occasioning the Real: Lacan, Deleuze, and Cinematic Structuring of Sense.” Emanuelle explores to what extent contemporary revisions of Lacanian of the gaze can be aligned with Deleuze’s understand- ing of sense. Through careful exploratory analysis, she raises the question whether a revised return to apparatus theory and film as language may still be productive. To strengthen and make her case Emanuelle analyzes Lars von Trier’s well-known film Dogville. Section III is all about responding to Žižek. The encounters here begin with Patricia Pisters who has been gracious enough to allow me to reprint the first chapter to what has become a seminal book in the field of Deleuzian cinema, The Matrix of Visual Culture. I was indeed fortu- nate to have met Patricia when she feverishly worked with extraordinary energy to organize a Deleuze ‘camp’ and conference in Amsterdam in 2010. There are few scholars whose kindness and good will is immediately felt. Any graduate student under her care knows this well. Patricia continues to advance the field of Deleuzian cinema with her concept of the neuro- image. Her book, The Neuro-Image: A Deleuzian Film-Philosophy of Digital xiv PREFACE

Screen Culture will be released in 2012 by Stanford Press. In this chap- ter, “The Universe as Metacinema,” she offers the scope of Deleuzian film studies when discussing films such as Strange Days. Yet, it is her reply to Žižek in relation to his particular take on Hitchcock that is of interest to the problematic of this collection. Robert Samuels’s chapter, “On the Possibilities of Political Art: How Žižek Misreads Deleuze and Lacan,” is a tour de force through theory. Bob is no stranger to the work of Žižek, nor to the man himself having stud- ied with Žižek in Paris under J-A Miller. Bob’s background in Lacan is impeccable; watching him ‘teach’ is truly fascinating. He is able to render complex issues with ease and make one laugh with a boldness that doesn’t need ‘dirty jokes.’ Bob takes on Žižek’s misreading of Robert Altman’s Short Cuts and Nashville. But this is really a pretense to show how Žižek fails to see Deleuze’s incorporation of CS Peirce’s semiological structure in the two cinema books, and the way this ‘’ has direct ties to Lacan’s own developments. He deftly shows how Žižek contorts Deleuze for his own ends. Bob has developed his own concept of ‘automodernity’ as a way to ‘worry’ the way the new media, cultural studies, and postmodernism have been taken up and celebrated noncritically. The last chapter of this section is Kiarina Kordela’s, “The Surplus Gaze of Legibility: Guilt, Ethics, and Out-of-Field in Deleuze, Lacan, and Žižek.” For anyone who has not yet read $urplus: Spinoza, Lacan, you would find it a compelling read. Though I have not personally met Kiarina, it seems our meeting continues to be a missed encounter since we have attended the same conferences together. E-mail exchanges have been cordial and fun. One immediately senses that this is someone who loves to explore new theoretical territory, is open to the world, and willing to exchange ideas with relish. In this particular chapter Kiarina directly addresses Patricia’s concerns with Žižek and continues to further problematize Žižek’s posi- tion within the context of both Deleuze and Lacan. Kiarina opens up for us the question surrounding the ‘surplus gaze’ of the cinema. We come finally to a section that has its ‘encounter’ yet to come: the beyond that has not happened or about to happen as the ellipse . . . indi- cates. Its place is out of joint (01). I have purposefully put it here to break with the triadic structures that seem to proliferate in the theories I have been reading, and with the structure of the title and contents. The ‘fourth’ has its significance not only in Lacan’s sinthome but as the Outside as well. It has wormed its way in all of the chapters above. I think it is appropriate to place Jason Wallin’s essay, “Living . . . Again: The Revolutionary Cine-Sign of Zombie-Life,” here as a ‘forwarding.’ It is a zombie ‘piece,’ monstrous in its outpourings that seems to say all that has gone before just isn’t radical enough, not abstract enough! The ‘people yet to come’ are already here, PREFACE xv so to speak. The so-called cretins have already become seers, but we are too blind to notice them walking among us. It is a magical piece in its ability to push schizo-cinema to the edge of delirium when it is read. It gives one a sense that all is not lost, although all is lost. Jason is a colleague and friend. I am indeed fortunate that we are ‘mediators’ to one another. I know it all sounds like I have simply overpraised this gathering of friends, gone into the heights of hyperbole so that they all sound so good. Well, they are. The reader will be blown away as they read each chapter, which is a jewel onto itself in the theoretical care taken to for- ward arguments with stance of conviction. Their integrity is remarkable. Finally, I would like to say: I wish it were possible to have all of the above authors’|friends’ names appear on the front cover as a heterogeneous ‘mul- titude’ that helped explore this particular problematic of the book’s title. I am simply their messenger. Alas, when I asked Palgrave, I was told it was against their policy. No more need be said. This page intentionally left blank Acknowledgments

wish to thank the small group of friends who have entrusted me with I their work. I hope that you will not be disappointed when you open the pages and begin to read one another’s contributions. I think you will say it was worth the wait. I want to especially thank Patricia Pisters for her support by offering to republish a groundbreaking essay, which will certainly be a classical piece in the debates that are taking place in cin- ema studies. I have rarely found a more open and giving person. I want to also thank Todd McGowan whom I have had the pleasure to know from the many APCS conferences we have attended. It is also rare to find such a generous scholar whose brilliance and modesty make him someone I love. His work always spins my head, as it should. Thanks also to Sheila Kunkle; there have been few precious opportunities to meet at conferences over these past years. Though I’ve lost touch with her, her endearing spirit is always at hand. Hanjo Bressemmen has my deep- est respects for his remarkable intellect, his modest demeanor, and his ability to work the smooth spaces in the social order. He embodies the paradox of becoming imperceptible. There is always so much to learn from his graphic-like compositions, which seem to always take on the most difficult problematic, always unfolding worlds that I never knew existed. His contribution sparkles. Many thanks to two contributors who have exceeded the meaning of what it means to be patient. When I first approached Emanuella Wessels via e-mail about this collection, she generously offered her contribution. Little did she and I know how long her contribution would take to see the light of day! The same must be said of Robert Samuels, whose sense of social justice and activism holds no bounds. He is truly an ‘organic intellectual’ in the best sense of that word, whom I have known for many years via a chance meeting in New York. He took out the summer to reread Deleuze’s cinema books (Bob had attended Deleuze’s classes in Paris) so that he might respond adequately to Žižek with whom he studied under the tutelage of J-A Miller in Paris. It was unfortunate that his essay sat in my computer for over a year. Many thanks also to Meera Lee with whom I had a brief but fortuitous meeting in Amsterdam where the name Kim Ki-duc found a common xviii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ground for both of us. I thank her for her superbly crafted essay on Time. It has made me realize how far I must yet travel to reach her insights on such an enigmatic director. I would also thank Frida Beckmen for her exquisite contribution to this collection. She shares with us her most recent work on voice. Although our paths must have crossed at confer- ences we did not met. I believe it is only a question of time. My thanks to Kiarina Kordelia as well whose exchanges have helped me clarify my own still confused position. She is an intellect to be reckoned with. I hope that we will meet soon. Last, I would like to thank my colleague in struggle, Jason Wallin. His chapter is anything but stunning, as readers will see. Jason Wallin is as modest as he is bright, and as generous as he is courteous and respectful of others: a real gem. My sincerest thanks to my friend Ron Wigglesworth for making the valiant effort to grace the front cover with one of his amazing prints. It makes the book very special. I am so happy that the cover design was resolved thanks to the efforts of Robyn Curtis at Palgrave.