The Visceral Screen: Between the Cinemas of John Cassavetes and David Cronenberg, a Barthesian Perspective
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The Visceral Screen: Between the Cinemas of John Cassavetes and David Cronenberg, a Barthesian Perspective Robert Furze B.A. (Hons), M.A. (Hons) This thesis is submitted to Dublin City University for the award of Ph.D. in the Faculty of Humanities April 2011 Department of Communications Supervisor: Dr. Pat Brereton I hereby certify that this material, which I now submit for assessment on the programme of study leading to the award of Ph.D. is entirely my own work, that I have exercised reasonable care to ensure that the work is original, and does not to the best of my knowledge breach any law of copyright, and has not been taken from the work of others save and to the extent that such work has been cited and acknowledged within the text of my work. Signed: ID No: Date: TABLE OF CONTENTS Introduction 1 Chapter One: The Visceral: From 40 Adjective to Noun Chapter Two: Experiment 62 Chapter Three: John Casssavetes and 83 David Cronenberg: Lists and Emptiness Chapter Four: Effects 146 Chapter Five: Cities 200 Conclusion 235 Appendix A: The Visceral (A Relational 245 Model) Appendix B: Cassavetes and 247 Cronenberg: An Annotated Filmography Appendix C: Glossary 255 References 259 INDEX OF ILLUSTRATIONS Figure 1: Videodrome (David Cronenberg, 1982 [©Universal 78 Pictures/The Criterion Collection]) Screen capture Figure 2: Shadows (John Cassavetes, 1959 [©Lion 80 International Films/The Criterion Collection]) Screen capture Figure 3: Naked Lunch (David Cronenberg, 1992 [© 137 Twentieth Century Fox/ The Criterion Collection]) Screen capture Figure 4: Naked Lunch (David Cronenberg, 1992 [© 140 Twentieth Century Fox/The Criterion Collection]) Screen capture Figure 5: Videodrome (David Cronenberg, 1982 163 [©Universal/The Criterion Collection]) Screen capture Figure 6: Videodrome (David Cronenberg, 1982 163 [©Universal/The Criterion Collection]) Screen capture Figure 7: Videodrome (David Cronenberg, 1982 164 [©Universal/The Criterion Collection]) Screen capture Figure 8: Videodrome (David Cronenberg, 1982 164 [©Universal/The Criterion Collection) Screen capture Figure 9: Videodrome (David Cronenberg, 1982 164 [©Universal/The Criterion Collection]) Screen capture Figure 10: Videodrome (David Cronenberg, 1982 165 [©Universal/The Criterion Collection]) Screen capture Figure 11: Love Streams (John Cassavetes, 1984 [©Cannon 178 Films]) Screen capture Figure 12: Grand Theft Auto IV (2008 [©Rockstar Games]) 178 Screen capture Figure 13: The Path (2009 [©Tale of Tales]) Screen capture 185 Figure 14: The Path (2009 [©Tale of Tales]) Screen capture 188 Figure 15: Ironmonger Row Bath House (Author’s 205 collection) Figure 16: London's South Bank, and environs (© Google 208 Maps, accessed 10 March 2009) Figure 17: View from Waterloo Bridge looking east towards 209 30 St. Mary Axe ('The Gherkin') and St Paul’s Cathedral (Author’s collection) Figure 18: The London Eye and Big Ben seen from Waterloo 209 Bridge looking west (Author’s collection) Figure 19: View from Southwark Bridge looking north west 209 towards St. Paul's Cathedral (Author’s collection) Figure 20: Eastern Promises (David Cronenberg, 2007 216 [©Pathe/20 th Century Fox]) Screen capture Figure 21: The Birds (Alfred Hitchcock, 1963 [©Universal 216 Pictures]) Screen capture Figure 22: The Visceral (a relational model) 245 ABSTRACT THE VISCERAL SCREEN: BETWEEN THE CINEMAS OF JOHN CASSAVETES AND DAVID CRONENBERG, A BARTHESIAN PERSPECTIVE ROBERT FURZE The thesis discusses two directors who are never considered together in academic discourse. Cassavetes’ perceived focus on events led by the dynamics of performance and his looseness of technique opposes the calculated compositions of the Cronenberg film, with its aesthetic of horrific images and its gallery of emotionally detached protagonists. Yet it is between such opposing methods of cinematic expression that the ineffable qualities of film aesthetics can be discovered. Cassavetes’ cinema achieves this by revelling in a surplus of activity that exceeds narrative, while the indescribable characteristics of the Cronenberg oeuvre is achieved through a systematic emptying of the image’s meaning through a simultaneous commitment to paring back emotion and portraying of images that are controversial and inconceivable. Taken together, the thesis identifies these aspects of film as ‘the visceral,’ a facet of the moving image that most certainly exists, but is resolutely, and disturbingly resistant to interpretation. Roland Barthes’ writings are integral to a theory of the visceral. His re- evaluation of Saussurean semiology as a method of analyzing and undoing ideologically-imposed meanings informs readings of sequences from Cassavetes and Cronenberg’s films. Following Barthes, the thesis suggests that the existence of the visceral is realized as a resistance to ideological interpretations of the image, and so cannot be described. Ultimately, the inability of semiology to fully grasp certain aspects of the filmed image is put forward as a rejoinder to theories of the fiction film as principally a narrative medium. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS The work undertaken here was made possible through funding provided by the Irish Research Council for the Humanities and Social Sciences (IRCHSS). The support offered by IRCHSS through their Postgraduate Scholarship scheme allowed me the space and time to research and to write. This thesis was completed under the guidance of Pat Brereton. As my supervisor, his dedication to the slow flowering of ideas, his patient readings, re-readings and re-re-readings of successive drafts of the chapters featured here have encouraged my development as both writer and academic. My thanks go to him for his tireless enthusiasm to this project, and for his openness and wisdom. Thank you also to Ernest Mathijs and Debbie Ging, who took the time to read this thesis for the viva voce examination, and offered sound advice and observations on its theories and examples; and to Stephanie McBride who gave an insightful assessment of the thesis in an earlier, nascent form. I have had the pleasure of meeting many other academics who have supported my ideas, discussed and challenged them. These are the professionals, colleagues and friends who have often expanded my knowledge through suggesting a book or article here, or a film there. In each case they offered an invaluable ‘take’ on the world of film, on art, literature, architecture or on media in general. These include Mike Madden, whose ideas on rhetoric and cinematic space have greatly influenced my own, and the art historian Mike Belshaw, who made tangible the connections between art, architecture and film for me. Also on this academic frontline: Sheamus Sweeney, for remembering there is ‘something about’ John Cassavetes’ Husbands , Jim Rogers for his insights on the paradoxes of culture, Laura Canning, Eileen Culloty, Brigitte Le Juez, Adam Lowenstein, Deborah Mellamphy, Neil O’Boyle, Des McGuinness, Jeneen Naji and Katharina Guenther. More generally I extend my appreciation to the School of Communications, DCU, and the staff of DCU library. In both cases I thank them for their help and professionalism. For their general insights on the world of film and media: Terri Carroll, Rob Marshall, Michael Moore, Vivienne Mahon, and Grainne MacLoone. A special thank you goes here to Patrick Hooke, for introducing many films to me, many of which I had never heard about before. And to those friends who have sustained me with more general counsel, cups of tea, coffee, food and fun: Ronan Geraghty, Jack Devlin, Sam McKenna, Roman Garcia and Pedro Redondo. Also to my brother, Tony, for the long chats over the years, to my Mother, and the memory of my Father, who introduced me to cinema’s intoxicating magic. Finally, with my biggest thanks, I dedicate this volume to Tina, with love... and to what happens next. INTRODUCTION What does cinema do that language cannot? At root, this is the subject of my thesis. Using two directors who are radically different from each other in their methods and intents, the techniques employed here endeavour to ask questions of cinema that challenges readings of the medium that are centred on issues of narrative and cause- and-effect, alongside other forms of legibility read through consideration of the thrill of the spectacle. It extols the virtue of an aesthetic that defies understanding. In so doing it asks why the established language of cinema, and of the societal forces within which this language operates, is inadequate as a means of penetrating the essence of certain aspects of the filmed image. Along the way, it will discuss film in relation to other arts, in particular painting, sculpture and the video game. CASSAVETES, CRONENBERG, BARTHES: A LITERATURE REVIEW As is made explicit in the subtitle of The Visceral Screen , the focus of this thesis will be the films of two directors, John Cassavetes and David Cronenberg. Why, and how, these two filmmakers’ works are seen to be visceral will be argued in the chapters to come. So too will the theories of Roland Barthes, whose writings suggest a method through which the films can be read. Together, these three individuals – two filmmakers and one theorist – come together to propose a definition of visceral cinema. To this end, the following literature review is intended as a way in to the most pertinent academic resources that support this thesis. John Cassavetes There is an enduring, heroic vision of John Cassavetes that permeates much of the writing about the director. Much of this stems from Cassavetes’ own vociferous antagonism to the Hollywood system, a system that sustained his career as an actor, 1 just as it provided funding for his more personal projects. These projects are perceived as reactions to the more scripted, polished and audience-friendly products of the Hollywood studio. While suggestions that his films were entirely improvised (begun by the insertion of a written credit at the end of his first film, Shadows (1959) 2) have been exposed as an oversimplification (King, 2004), the significance 1 of the director’s work has been as a result of the interplay between the life of the man, his close friends and family and the films they make together away from studio interference.