Gloves and Fictitious Crimes

This is, at least, the 12th edition of my attempt to write something about the films, The Blood of the Poet and Rose Hobart. I sit at my desk, in front of my computer [and I sit on trains and in parks and other miscellaneous places, with a notebook and a pen], and try to answer the question: ‘so, what did I think of these films.’

While I resign myself to letting you know that these films intrigued and challenged me, it is by no means an admission that the others didn’t. Berlin Symphony of a City and Man with a Movie Camera were of a genre I had only once encountered in the film Koyaanisquatsi but were sufficiently different that they astounded me. Piccadilly was unlike any other film that I had encountered with respect to the depiction of the Other. Most of the films I had encountered previously – films like Uncivilised, East of Borneo, and even King Kong – were so ingrained in conventional representations of the other that Piccadilly struck me as innovative. Apart from their chairs and penchant for interior design, I knew nothing about the Eames’. And Ozu. A poster-boy for filmmakers who want to violate filmic conventions. A filmmaker who can make lecturers, and this particular student, cry. Especially when a character says, with a smile, ‘yes, it is’ to the question. ‘isn’t life disappointing.’ [As an aside, I also cried in Berlin Symphony of a City and Man with a Movie Camera].

And still, no films have ever bothered me so much as Rose Hobart and The Blood of the Poet. I couldn’t unravel what I felt was the beauty of the plotless, non-sequitar, non-film fan video type film and the one hour long five episode film about the experiences of a man as he searches crevices and keyholes and the universe. This is not unlike my experiences in trying to understand these two films, in trying to understand surrealism and the movements within society that centre these two films in context, in the history of film, in the history of civilisation.

My searches took me everywhere from the Art Gallery of New South Wales to see a surrealist exhibition, to Melbourne to see the legacy of surrealism, to a dinky second hand bookstore, and back to Schaeffer library. I’m no closer to any real conclusions.

I picked up threads that made me laugh [The Simpsons], saw images that frightened me, and screamed upon seeing Un Chien Andalou. It felt like an adventure. As I recall these experience I recall a series of photographs at the surrealist exhibition – I cannot name the artist or images, I can share only my recollections– of a man looking into a department store window and longing to feel a glove, and never being able to, and only being able to scrawl incoherent messages at the bottom of the photographs in biro for the delight of others like me, until of course the same glove presents itself on a vacant bus seat, and he reaches a moment, of feeling, not of clarity. This is not unlike my own adventures.

If I tried to recount to you the narratives of these films I couldn’t. I could, as I have these past 500 or so words, recount my experiences of the films- my frustrations, my first screams and convulsions over a severed moon and slivered eye, my amazement at the visual surfaces and textures of films where words do not matter so much as the feeling of touching velvet and thinking its quicksand.

The conclusions [of sorts]: (1) Film and photography’s inherent duality makes it a perfect medium for invoking the surreal. Commonly perceived as objective, the medium remains open to manipulation, allowing ambiguity to enter, thus, imbued with strange and disturbing qualities these works provoke and intrigue the imagination [this conclusion was partly written on a wall]. (2) Conclusions are unnecessary when you derive as much enjoyment as I have had following clues like a detective. (On that note, the surrealist artworks by Mari Mahr, 13 Clues to a Fictitious Crime circa 1940-1941, 1984 series of 13 @ Art Gallery of NSW).

The Fountainhead

The transformation of Ayn Rand’s The Fountainhead into a film of the same name raises interesting questions about the nature of adaptation. Most often, the register of conversations about the adaptation of a literary text into a film is that of disappointment. Disappointment manifests itself when actors do not faithfully portray the characters of the novel, when paradigmatic indeterminances with respect to mise-en-scene, for instance, costume are rendered in a manner which does not coincide with our personal expectations (think for instance Ellsworth Toohey’s attire which by no means replicate the novel), when central plot features are removed rendering the narrative illogical or incomplete, and definitely when a film fails to capture what we feel is the spirit or the essence of the novel.

Notwithstanding the attempts of at least the last decade to redress the imbalance, the medium of the novel has historically assumed a superior position in the cannons of criticism. This superiority derives from the fact that as we read, we fashion our mind’s imaginary mise-en-scene of the novel on the private stages of our minds. When we are confronted with someone else’s phantasy, as Christian Metz pointed out long ago ‘we feel the loss of our own phantasmatic relation to the novel, with the result that the adaptation itself has become a kind of bad object.’(54-5).*

Fittingly, recent criticism has begun to deconstruct such hierarchies that are embedded in conceptions of adaptation while highlighting the varied signifying potentials of novel and film. Given the varied signifying potential of film, namely the use of sound, dialogue, visual cues such as movement, acting style, grain of voice, and images not available to the novel medium, critics posit the undesirability of literal fidelity. Ultimately, criticism of adaptation should be less rooted in unacknowledged hierarchies and welcome the difference among the signifying potentials of novel and film (76).* Having been aware of the hierarchies that operate with respect to criticism of adaptation, at least in traditional criticism and those that operate at a lay level [how many times have you heard the words- but the book was better! Don’t watch the film, just read the book!], I found myself aware of my own viewing experience. I found myself analysing The Fountainhead for moments where the film hadn’t properly translated into the film medium but reverted to the signifying means available to the novel form, notably, textual features. For instance one of the most jarring, though comic, moments of the film was when the words ‘NOT BUILT’ were scrawled over the drawings of Henry Cameron which had, well, not been built. Though the film indeed recovered, the most disagreeable moment in The Fountainhead was the structuring image of the novel at the outset of the film. The Fountainhead provided an interesting space through which I could interrogate the varied signifying potentials of novel and film and it shouldn’t merely be considered an adjunct of Rand’s novel.

* Stam, Robert, ‘Beyond Fidelity: the Dialogics of Adaptation’ in Film Adaptation, J. Naremore (ed.), London: Athlone, 2000. 54-76.

Tokyo Story

Yasujiro Ozu’s construction of space and the stylistic and narrative elements of Tokyo Story are radically different to those found in most films, especially those encountered in this course. In The Fountainhead, interior space is configured in relation to the psychology of the characters who occupy those particular spaces. For instance, Dominique Francon’s feeble attempt to damage the fireplace in her bedroom signifies her inability to act. The space of the bedroom itself expresses the nature of this inability. That Roark desecrates the rococo fireplace foreshadows his domination of Dominique and symbolises the larger thematic concerns of the novel and film, notably, his disdain for what ought to be antiquated architectural forms.

In Tokyo Story, interior space does not serve this kind of symbolic function. Although the film is concerned with interior space, that space functions in much the same way as the urban landscape does in, for instance, Berlin, Symphony of a Great City, notably, as a space in which the narrative unfolds. Thus, the space in Tokyo Story signifies nothing more than itself, its interiority and domesticity. Ozu makes a feature of this concept, emphasizing that acts within this space are to be understood as concerning relations between people. Elements of style and design do not reflect a character’s interiority as in the case of, for instance, The Fountainhead. Ozu’s style is therefore, cinematic. Ozu never presents such subjective states as dreams, memories, fantasies or hallucinations and thus human agents are only known ‘behaviorally’ through their words, gestures, expressions, routines and decisions (53).^ The interior space, for Ozu, is a place where action unfolds.

However, Ozu’s style, and construction of interior space, is one of the most intriguing features of this film. Despite the fact that interior spaces do not have a significant bearing upon the narrative, they are of equal interest to the narrative. Instead of making narrative events the central organising principle, Ozu emphasises spatial and temporal structures which become prominent aesthetic elements in their own right (409).* According to Bordwell, we watch the narrative action, the spatial relations, and the temporal relations unfold simultaneously, and all are equally dramatic and engaging (405).*

The film deconstructs cinematic conventions and naturalises the domestic space. In not adhering to the basic Hollywood convention of continuity editing or the axis of action, Ozu adds a sense of realism to the domestic space by denying the kind of artifice that inheres in conventional family dramas. According to Bordwell, Ozu’s approach avoids exaggerated action, complex camera movements, and dynamic montage (24).^ Often the camera remains staid as characters exit a room in order to signify the presence and then absence of a character within a particular scene, adding a sense of realism to the domestic space. For instance, the camera will linger for an extra second or two upon an empty room as it does in the final exchange between Kyoko and Noriko. As the movie progresses, it becomes clear that one of Ozu’s greatest achievements is his subversion of Hollywood cinematic techniques. Ozu subverts the Hollywood convention of filming at eye level and redefines the viewing experience through predominantly filming scenes at floor level. Similarly, temporal movement is not highlighted through the use of the typically Hollywood convention of a fade shot to signify the passing of time. Rather, cuts are used which contextualise the coming scene, for instance, one scene is anchored through an establishing shot from the outside of a room to signify a new place, a new room and a new social interaction.

Ozu’s construction of interior space and the techniques pioneered by Ozu, which are radically opposed those that inhere in Hollywood cinema, render Tokyo Story a constantly refreshing film despite having been filmed over half a century ago.


*Bordwell, D., and Thompson, K., Film Art, New York: McGraw Hill, 1997.

^Bordwell, D., Ozu and the Poetics of Cinema, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1988.

Kong and Shosho

And now ladies and gentlemen, before I tell you any more, I’m going to show you the greatest thing your eyes have ever beheld. He was a king and a God in the world he knew but now he comes to civilisation, merely a captive, a show to gratify your curiosity. Ladies and gentlemen, look at…

Kong and, although the gender pronouns in the quote don’t quite fit, Shosho. It was difficult not to draw parallels between the characterisation of Kong and Shosho and their experiences within their respective films. The above quote from King Kong contextualises the kind of power dynamic that inheres in the films King Kong and Piccadilly. Identity in both films is established through binary oppositions. London and New York are established as civilisation or the Occident while contrarily, China and an undesignated island somewhere in the Pacific represent the Orient. Thus, the films protagonists who hail from these places are constructed as ‘the Other’ whose subjugated place in society is central to Occidental imagination.

In Piccadilly, Shosho’s characterisation as ‘other’ is constructed via visual cues. While her Occidental counterpart Mabel is bathed in incandescent light, Shosho is predominantly cast in shadows. The faces of characters in Piccadilly become a screen upon which judgements about character are projected thereby structuring particular interpretations of these characters.

Similarly, costuming functions to acquaint the audience with the ‘otherness’ of characters in both Piccadilly and King Kong. In Piccadilly, Shosho is constructed as other through contrast to Mabel, the archetype of an Occidental woman. While most scenes contain Mabel resplendent in white, Shosho wears her drab scullery outfit, complete with holes in stockings, or black satin clothing recalling conceptions of the ‘Other’ as dangerous and/or lascivious. Shosho’s costuming in the dance scene is one example of the undifferentiated representations of the Orient by the Occident. The Thai costume sported by Shosho functions to signify the homogenized Orient at the expense of Chinese historical and cultural integrity. Similarly, in King Kong, the marital ceremony that takes place on Skull Island, an isolated island located in the Pacific, features the use of leopard skins as an element of set design. Leopards are scarcely found in places other than Africa, and definitely not found to exist naturally on desolate islands in the Pacific.* Maybe, however, I’m asking too much of a film which featured a human-eating-brontosaurus. (Brontosaurus’ are herbivores).

While Kong is transported from the Orient for the gratification of spectators paying top money to marvel at the ‘eighth wonder of the world’, Shosho is similarly brought out of the scullery for the viewing pleasure and entertainment of the Occident by exploiting the otherness of her own culture at the expense of its integrity. In this sense, the central plot features of King Kong and Piccadilly become an allegory for what is going on in mainstream cinema. In films of the era, the cultural integrity of the Orient is of minimal concern, for instance, white actors in ‘yellow face’ acted the parts of most Oriental characters. Concurrently, ‘oriental actors’ such as Anna May Wong experienced the kind of racism that plays out on screen, notably, through wage and billing discrimination. Humorously, also, Anna May Wong was killed off in most of her films. Both King Kong and Piccadilly remain interesting historical artefacts which depict the relationship between the Occident and the Orient in the early 20th century.

The dragon featured in the picture of Anna May Wong would undoubtedly have evoked the concepts inherent in The Bulletin cartoon of the late 19th century which signifies the dangerous Orient (in the form of the dragon) threatening the Occident (signified by the baby).

*Imdb.

Man with a Movie Camera

I’ve delayed posting about Man with a Movie Camera because my Vertov-related excitement has neither subsided, nor crystallised into any particular conception of Vertov’s work. With each new day comes a new perspective, an interesting insight such that I need a warehouse sized sheet (or blogspace as it were) to write what intrigued or bemused me about Vertov, about his theoretical presuppositions, about Man with a Movie Camera, about his other films (namely, Tri Pesni o Lenine), about the nature of avant-garde documentary films, about ideology, about the repercussions that emerge when a society becomes the catalyst for a documentary. The list can, and does, go on.

In the current edition of Sight & Sound magazine, which considers the importance of documentary films as cultural and historical artefacts, one writer suggests that ‘what distinguishes the documentary from all other forms of cinema is its claim to be more reflective of the truth’ (Sight & Sound, p. 22).* What intrigued me about Man with a Movie Camera, about Kino-eye and about Vertov’s other films, was his emphasis on presenting the building blocks of his films with an eye to ‘life as it is’, or, reflective of the truth.^ For Vertov, it was the purpose of film to create an intrinsic relationship between recorded ‘life facts’, or instances of life, and cinematic devices, or techniques such as jump cuts or montage, in order to capture something essential about the nature of life within a particular society. For Vertov, the ‘“film thing”… is the conclusive result of a complete observation [of life] refined and deepened by means of all available optical devices, enhanced by the camera and the result of an experiment in space and time’ (Petric, p. 37).** Furthermore, cinematic devices must refine the meaning of particular images and imbue them with ideological meaning (Petric, p. 30). While this may seem contradictory, Vertov wrote that his purpose was not concerned with the truthful recording of reality but rather recording life by reorganising the historical process with an interest in reality and the organization of that reality (Vertov in Petric, p. 30). Vertov’s conception of the purpose of documentary film can be noted in Man with a Movie Camera through his use of montage. Thus, for instance, criticism of various facets of society, such as religion or the bourgeoisie, is derived through montage. Given this Kino-eye conception of the function of film, how do we understand the self-reflexive function of the cameraman and editor? How do we understand that Vertov is at once, constructing an ideological document while through the cameraman, revealing the constructedness of the documentary film. Isn’t it, after all, the purpose of ideological texts to convey concepts about society as truths and not constructions? Does the fact that Vertov flaunts the documentarists ability to mould perception render Man with a Movie Camera a lesser ideological film? Critics of Man with a Movie Camera have insufficiently and unconvincingly attempted to reconcile these two seemingly contradictory positions. I, like them, cannot.

Vertov’s theoretical position on the nature of film, however, provided a language for documentary film. He discovered a visual language for the representation of space quite different from that of the studios of meretricious commercial cinema (Sight & Sound, p. 26-7). At the expense of narrative, Man with a Movie Camera explored and expanded the principles of montage, which still remain an essential resource to the language of documentary film (Sight & Sound, p. 26). If this is the language that Vertov sought to establish when he declared that ‘this experimental work is made with the intention of constructing a genuine and international and absolutely visual language of cinema’, then, he definitely succeeded.

* Sight & Sound, 17: 9 (September, 2007).
^ Concepts relating to Vertov’s theoretical statements were derived from:
Vertov, D., Kino-Eye, A. Michelson (ed.), Berkley: University of California Press & **Petric, V., ‘Dziga Vertov as Theorist’, Cinema Journal, 18: 1 (Autumn, 1978), 29-44.

Berlin, Symphony of a Great City

Walther Ruttmann’s Berlin, Symphony of a Great City, represented aesthetically, the work of one of the most captivating social theorists of the twentieth century: Georg Simmel. Simmel’s theorising about the nature of the relationship between the individual and the modern metropolis became central to Weimar discourses on urban modernity. Berlin, Symphony of a Great City captures the aura that is represented in the following quote:

Men regard one another, and men are jealous of one another, they writer one another letters or dine together; they meet in sympathy or antipathy quite apart from all tangible interests; their gratitude for altruistic service weaves a chain of consequences never to be sundered; they ask the way of one another, and they dress and adorn themselves for one another;- these are instances chosen at random from the thousand relations, momentary or lasting, conscious or unconscious, transitory or fraught with consequences, which, playing from person to person, knit us incessantly together. Every moment such threads are spun, are dropped and caught up, replaced by others, woven up with others. These… determine all the tenacity and elasticity, all the variegation and unity of this so intelligible and yet so mysterious life of society.
-Simmel*

Berlin, Symphony of a Great City, captures the idea that the city holds infinite possibilities for the individual. At the same time, countless shots concentrate on the faceless-ness of the modern city and capture the twofold nature of Simmel’s critique of modern life in the metropolis. Simmel described the alienation that inheres in modern cities and is captured by Ruttmann in the repeated shots of the increasingly mechanised worklife of the citizens of modernity. For instance, the identity (or lack thereof) of tram commuters is discernable only through images of their legs.

The greatest achievement of Berlin, Symphony of a Great City, is that it does not come to these conclusions for us. The camera is simply a voyeur of these modern processes of mechanization and of industrialisation. Berlin, Symphony of a Great City does not moralise. According to AlSayyad, ‘its techniques of montage thus leave issues open-ended, and it is up to the viewer to interpret its relatively optimistic message.’** This optimism is occasionally challenged by cross cutting shots which juxtapose, for instance, humans with animals or, a courting couple with mechanised toys in a store window. No particular reading of the film is prescribed.

Berlin, Symphony of a Great City is a beautiful and fascinating account of one of the greatest and most turbulent eras of the twentieth century. The film provides a snapshot of a time burdened by war guilt and post war destruction and a place that saw hope through creative expression. While Berlin, Symphony of a Great City provides a portrait of Weimar Berlin, it is also timeless. The film puts forth a generic portrayal of life in the modern metropolis.*** Projects similar to that of Berlin, Symphony of a Great City, that attempted to capture the essence of the city, sprung up in cities the world over. Eugene Atget spent almost 30 years of his life preserving, for posterity, the cityscape of a Paris threatened by modernisation.

Berlin, Symphony of a Great City æstheticizes the everyday experiences in the life of Berlin and the life of all cities. The film reminds its audiences of the wonder and the mystery of life in the city.

Eugene Atget

avenue de segur 1925

magasins du bon marche 1926

rue de ursins 1923

* G. Simmel in H. D. Duncan ‘Simmel’s Image of Society’ in Georg Simmel, 1858-1918, K H. Wolff (ed), Columbus: Ohio State University Press, 1959, 100-118. p. 103.

**N. AlSayyad, Cinematic Urbanism: A history of the modern from Reel to Real, London: Routledge, 2006, p. 35.

***N. AlSayyad, p. 34.

just to make sure it works