Affective World Connections in the Contemporary Survival Film

Don’t Let Go: Affective World Connections in the Contemporary Survival Film Simon Reinders 10357491 [email protected] 30 August 2018 Research Master Thesis Departement of Media Studies University of Amsterdam Supervisor: Abe Geil Second Reader: Patricia Pisters 2 Table of Contents 1. Introducing Embodied Connections: Surviving the Precarious Present…….….....5 1.1) From the Group to the Self: Politics of Survival………….…….……….….….5 1.2) Methodology: Two Modes of Survival…...………………………….……..…12 2. Entrapped and Existential Embodiment…..…………….……………...….......…..15 2.1) Inscribed vs. Living Embodiment………………………………….………….15 2.2) Modern Perception and the Existential Life- World……………….…...……...17 2.3) Classic Perception and the Capitalistic Life- world………………....…...….…19 2.4) Aesthetic Cinematic Worlds………………………………………….…..…...20 2.5) Embodied Reactions to Aesthetics Cinematic Worlds……………….….……23 3. ‘Bring Him Back’: The Ideological Survival Film………….………........…….….25 3.1) Narrative: Imagining the World……………………………………...….…….26 3.2) Style: Perceiving the World…………..………………………...…….….........29 3.3) Attunement: Feeling the World…………………...……………...……...........33 4. ‘Never Give Up’: Modern Perception in the Existential Survival Film………......37 4.1) Narrative: Imagining the World Anew…………………………………….…..39 4.2) Space: Proprioceiving the World………………………………………..….…42 3 4.3) Connection: The Life-world of Impressions…………………………….…….47 5. Conclusion……………………………………………………………………...……50 6. Works Cited……………………………………………………………………….....52 4 1. Introducing Embodied Connections: Surviving the Precarious Present “As a matter of principle, humanity is precarious: each person can only believe what he recognizes to be true internally and, at the same time, nobody thinks or makes up his mind without already being caught up in certain relationships with others.” (Maurice Merleau-Ponty, The World of Perception, 87). 1.1. From the Group to the Self: Politics of Survival Cinematic representations of survival have changed over time. This is striking, since most survival films have a remarkably straightforward narrative. Survival films often centre on protagonists who are cut-off from the civilized world and have to survive the perilous environment that lies beyond society. The way these uncultivated lands are survived, however, is subject to constant change. Survivors rarely rely on biological (and thus constant) qualities: they do not survive because of their fears and strengths. Instead, they hang onto their lives because they are driven by historical and cultural values, like family and nationalism. Survival films are therefore: “not so much about clinging onto dear life as making your way, out of the rubble, towards a life with renewed perspective” (Keane, 26). With life stripped to bare minimum, survivors (re)discover what is “really good for you” (ibid.): attachment to the ‘good’ things in the (Western) world, connection to the ideological values that organize the empty world. In the survival film, we come across the historical and cultural norms we imagine make the world an inhabitable place and create a world in which we can be truly alive. 5 Today, survival films are primarily concerned with the image of the disconnected and lone body. In contemporary survival films, an individual body needs to remain visible and connected or otherwise is cast into an empty world that can only be survived. Formulated positively: the films mediate that bodily visibility and connectivity is ‘good-for-you’. Oppositely, the survival film shows the threats of isolation (127 Hours, Boyle, 2010), abandonment (The Revenant, G. Iñárritu, 2015), and being lost (Lone Survivor, Berg, 2013) to always loom. Either way, the contemporary survival films show how the position of the body determines whether we are alive in an inhabitable world or surviving an empty one. Through the contemporary phenomenon of the lone survivor, we can start to think about the cultural norms which we imagine connect our bodies to an inhabitable world. In this study, I argue that the survival film mediates a perception on value. Survival films bring to the fore the cultural values we believe create a safe and stable world. Simultaneously, the survival film shows how disconnection from these values degrades our lives to a non-normative and precarious existence: we cannot belong in a world without these cultural norms, it is empty – we can only survive it. The survival film ‘educates’ the viewer a response to this precarious experience. The films teach us a way to perceive value in an empty world. Here, I draw upon the work of Maurice Merleau-Ponty, who argues that art can ‘educate’ our perception. For Merleau-Ponty, perception determines the manner in which we experience value in the world and, consequently, how we belong in it. This piece of research studies what connection is perceived as ‘good’ for the lone body and how this perception is ‘educated’ to the spectator. In the following chapters, I argue that the contemporary survival film mediates a neoliberal perception on value. In the films, the body experiences precarity because it is disconnected from capital. Under neoliberal rationale, the individual is cast into an empty world if he is not productive. However, I would argue that the rediscovery of the ‘good’ (or: value in the world) can occur in two different ways. Firstly, the disconnected body often perceives value within neoliberal discourse. Here, the protagonist connects to a stable world through productive positioning. The survivors (re)discover how neoliberal logic makes the world inhabitable and our lives meaningful. This means that the spectator is ‘educated’ to desire a productive and neoliberal life. Another way for the disconnected body to overcome precarity however, is to rediscover its existential link with the world. Here, the spectator ‘learns’ to connect with the world through embodied affect. The neoliberal perception of value that I will introduce in this chapter is problematic; there is not enough ‘neoliberal value’ in today’s world. Therefore, the experience of precarity 6 always looms. After the economic crisis of 2008, it has become explicitly hard to be productive all the time. Since many contemporary survival films present connection to neoliberal value as ‘good-for-you’ (the disconnected and surviving body – in order to overcome precarity – should again become productive), the films present something of a ‘false solution’: the spectator is educated to desire a form of life that caused the experience of precarity in the first place. Upholding this contradictory neoliberal perception is therefore ‘cruel’: a meaningful life can never be stable if we believe that ‘meaning’ and ‘value’ can only exist within a neoliberal framework. We will always only survive this form of life. To completely bypass precarity, cinema should educate a perception on value beyond this neoliberal rationale. I will argue that the contemporary focus on the body makes this possible. In film studies, the mediation of a normative rationale ‘educating’ and ‘guiding’ our desires has gained more attention after its affective turn. Once we start to think about the image of the disconnected body in relation to the contemporary neoliberal organization of the world, the politics of emotion is a good place to start. Here, I draw upon Lauren Berlant’s Cruel Optimism (2013). Unfortunately, Berlant reads different kinds of ‘survival films’; her films centre on ‘survivors’ in the lower classes of the Western world who struggle to generate an income through which they can support themselves. Although their physical lives are never in imminent danger, they survive the world (rather than belong in it) because their desired way-of-life does not materialize. They believe their lives will only be ‘good’ or ‘meaningful’ once they have generated a sufficient income for themselves. The world is empty if they cannot do so. Berlant questions why these survivors never imagine another way of belonging in the world. Why do they choose to entrap themselves in a framework that makes them feel lonely and worthless? So, Berlant’s work similarly questions the survivor’s perception of value. Moreover, she researches what happens when ‘valuable’ experiences in this perception are non-existent. Following Berlant’s methodology, we can start to think about the ways in which normative rationales hold back the ability to experience value. The survival film can be seen as a response to a lack of ‘valuable’ experiences. Survivors are cut-off from a meaningful life because they are disconnected from what are imagined to be the ‘good’ things in the world. In Berlant’s words: the films track what happens when the “fantasy” of the “good-life” does not materialize. Fantasy for Berlant, is “the means by which people hoard idealizing theories and tableaux about how they and the world “add up to something”” (2); fantasy allows us to imagine a meaningful life. It transforms experiences into valuable events. However, in everyday-life, experiences often do not fit into our fantasy: they cannot to be transformed into valuable ones. This mismatch is 7 affectively felt: “the present is perceived, first, affectively” (4). We feel we should behave and live our lives in a certain way, while we simultaneously experience that we simply cannot live this way-of-life all the time. According to Berlant, we lack the tools to communicate this affect, as it goes against the dominant rationale through which we make sense of the world. Therefore, this affect is not yet

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