House of Leaves: Tenth Anniversary Edition

Appendix IV

A

Related Works

An Introduction to the Appendix

The following appendix contains various collected articles by essayists and theorists from around the world devoted to Will Navidson's first short, "The Five and a Half Minute Hallway."

Quae itinerum ambages occursusque ac recursus inexplicabiles.1

1 ["Passages that wind, advance and retreat in a bewilderingly intricate manner."]

The Problem of Verisimilitude: Žižek's Gothic and "The Five and a Half Minute Hallway"2

Slavoj Žižek['s...] "parallax gap," defined as an insurmountable antagonism between two perspectives on a given objective produced by a shift in the observer's position [...] The reality, according to Žižek, lies not in some impossible synthesis of the two irreconcilable interpretations, but in the gap itself, the ineliminable conflict between opposing perspectives.3

The above quote will come to form the basis of the forthcoming analysis that incorporates a documentarian consideration of Will Navidson's "The Five and a Half Minute Hallway". While enthusiasts and detractors will continue to empty entire dictionaries attempting to describe or deride it, "authenticity" still remains the word most likely to stir a debate.5 The authenticity of The Navidson Record has long been subject to such debate by those who have seen it, and equally by those who have not. However, this appendix is primarily concerned with The Navidson Record's precursor, "The Five and a Half Minute Hallway", and the verification of this film's own authenticity. It stands to reason that disputes surrounding the legitimacy of The Navidson Record would be made consequently irrelevant if its prologue were to be dismissed as artifice. Negotiating the verisimilitude of "The Five and a Half Minute Hallway" provides a number of challenges, not least obtaining a copy of the film from which to discern such truthfulness.7

Dissemination of "The Five and a Half Minute Hallway" seemed driven by curiosity alone. No one ever officially distributed it and so it never appeared in film festivals or commercial film circles. Rather, VHS copies were passed around by hand,

2 Considered for retrospective inclusion on 03.01.2010 to commemorate the tenth anniversary release of House of Leaves - dismissed on grounds of inability to contact Mr. Truant. For the record it would have been the first in a selection of essays that formed a fourth appendix devoted specifically to The Five and a Half Minute Hallway. This entire project was ultimately cancelled. What has been written remains here. This first essay by Zampanó retains many of the stylistic choices of House of Leaves but otherwise conforms to more conventional academic rhetoric. It is not clear when this was written, but in light of this one would assume before the completion of House of Leaves, citing his (possible) descent in madness/insanity as he made further progress with the book. See also footnotes 4 and 5.3 George A. Dunn, 'Being Boomer: Identity, Alienation and Evil', in Battlestar Galactica and Philosophy, ed. Jason T. Eberl, (Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, 2008) p. 136.4 5 It appears in places that Zampanó was fond of several phrases and passages that eventually became part of the main narrative. Their presence here has been preserved for authenticity's sake, and appropriately referenced for cross-referencing purposes.5

7 Currently, that copy may or may not be attached to this piece. Those who have read House of Leaves will understand that Zampanó was not the most attentive maintainer of his sources, as such the film is with the Talmor Zedactur Depositary for restoration and we are awaiting its return at this time.

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Gabriel Reller in his book Beyond The Grasp of Commercial Media (Athens, Ohio: Ohio University Press, 1995) suggests that the appearance of the first short entitled "The Five and a Half Minute Hallway" originated from Holloway: "Holloway probably copied the tape, gave it to a couple of friends, who in turn passed it along to others. Eventually it found its way to the academic set" (p.252).

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a series of progressively degenerating dubs of a home video revealing a truly bizarre house with notably very few details about the owners or for that matter the author of the piece.

In one continuous shot, Navidson, whom we never actually see, momentarily focuses on a doorway on the north wall of his living room before climbing outside of the house through a window to the east of that door, where he trips slightly in the flower bed, redirects the camera from the ground to the exterior white clapboard, then moves right, crawling back inside the house through a second, this time to the west of that door, where we hear him grunt slightly as he knocks his head on the sill, eliciting light laughter from those in the room, presumably Karen, his brother Tom, and his friend Billy Reston - though like Navidson, they too never appear on camera - before finally returning us to the starting point, thus completely circling the doorway and so proving, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that insulation or siding is the only possible thing this doorway could lead to, which is when all laughter stops, as Navidson's hand appears in frame and pulls open the door, revealing a narrow black hallway at least ten feet long, prompting Navidson to re-investigate, once again leading us on another circumambulation of this strange passageway, climbing in and out of the windows, pointing the camera to where the hallway should extend, but finding nothing more than his own backyard - no ten foot protuberance, just rose bushes, a muddy dart gun, and the translucent summer air - in essence an exercise in disbelief which despite his best intentions still takes Navidson back inside to that impossible hallway, until as the camera begins to move closer, threatening this time to actually enter it, Karen snaps, "Don't you dare go in there again, Navy," to which Tom adds, "Yeah, not such a hot idea," thus arresting Navidson at the threshold, though he still puts his hand inside, finally retracting and inspecting it, as if by seeing alone there might be something more to feel, Reston wanting to know if in fact his friend does sense something different, and Navidson providing the matter-of-fact answer which also serves as the conclusion, however abrupt, to this bizarre short: "It's freezing in there."8 Once obtained, and indeed viewed, can the true analysis begin.

Evoking a sense of Robert Flaherty's subtitle and preface to his seminal film, Nanook of the North: A Story of Life and Love in the Actual Arctic,9 was the accompanying statement that claimed all of ["The Five and a Half Minute Hallway] was true.10 Documentary practice has often included such paratextual additions in its efforts to quantify the verisimilitude of the film. Just as Flaherty's subtitle boasts a prima facie veracity to the forthcoming events, so too does Navidson's accompanying statement. The viewer is invited to believe that what they are witnessing is true because the filmmaker has gone out his way to illuminate to them this 'fact'. Unfortunately for Navidson, he does not have the luxury of ignorance that Flaherty had. A modern audience is all too aware of fiction texts that purport to be true, or at the very least are 'based on a true story' (or some such other foundation in truth or actuality). Thus, with an audience educated in the artifice of construction and alert to the possibility of fictionalism and sensationalism, documentaries and fiction films are equally liable to be instruments of repressive ideology, hence equally to be resisted.11

8 House of Leaves, pp. 4-5.9 Nanook of the North, dir. Robert Flaherty (Pathe Exchange, 1922).10 House of Leaves, p. 4.11 William Rothman, ‘The Filmmaker as Hunter: Robert Flaherty’s Nanook of the North’ in, Documenting the Documentary, ed. Barry Keith Grant & Jeannette Sloniowski, (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1998) p. 23.

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Navidson's statement arguably succeeds only in reinforcing any cynical preconceptions the audience may have held previously. Thankfully, his footage has the gravitas to speak for itself.

Something should be said here about Navidson's hand. Barring his clambering through windows, out of all the footage he personally shoots, there rarely exists a shake, tremble, jerk, or even a case of poor framing. His camera, no matter the circumstances, manages to view the world - even this world - with a remarkable steadiness as well as a highly refined aesthetic sensibility.12 Similar to the cinematography of Frederick Wiseman, Navidson knows where to look and how to capture images on film that resonate with meaning despite the uncontrolled circumstances in which he shoots.13 This is not simply an arbitrary aesthetic comparison, but one that also draws attention to Wiseman's proclivity for filming social spaces and institutions. Titicut Follies resonates with social unease because the film captures a dark little corner of society, a private space within a public one. What could be more akin to this than Navidson's hallway?

This is essence of Freud's unheimlich, of Žižek's parallax gap, and of Botting's internalisation of the Gothic;14 that which is familiar made strange, the shifting truth of that which we observe, the domestication of terror. This not only stands true for Navidson and Wiseman, but is indeed the very nucleus of documentary filmmaking. Andrew Jarecki's Capturing the Friedmans started out life as a film about children's birthday party entertainers before locating horror at the heart of American suburbia.15

Bowling for Columbine examines the nature of violence at the core of American civilisation through the lens of the Columbine High School massacre of 1999.16

Documentary filmmaking is Gothic filmmaking. It takes daily life and (re)presents it in a way that is at once both familiar and alien. This is the uncanny. It is our repulsion in the face of recognition, it is the hallway in our house.

Navidson's hallway defies spatial logic. "The Five and a Half Minute Hallway" encompasses a complete circumambulation of the position of the door/hallway to prove the impossibility of its existence. The statement that invites the viewer to believe the actuality of what they are seeing is ostensibly undermined by the implausibility of the hallway. However, the domestic milieu, the background voices, the banality of the mise-en-scene (a muddy dart gun, the rose bushes), Navidson banging his head on the window and the reactive, spontaneous laughter - the very diegesis of the environment - all reinforce the possibility and plausibility of events. The homely locale is an assurance of truth. Both idiosyncratic and anonymous, Navidson's house might as well be our own.

Despite any misgivings concerning the accompanying statement, the initially prosaic visuals begin to destabilise any suspicions. The visual evidence is what you believe, because that is what is shown.17 However, there is a discrepancy between what we believe and what is real. Belief by its very nature is a philosophical ideal

12 House of Leaves, p. 64.13 Barry Keith Grant, '"Ethnography in the First Person": Frederick Wiseman's Titicut Follies', in Documenting the Documentary, ed. Barry Keith Grant & Jeannette Sloniowski, (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1998) p. 240.14 Fred Botting, Gothic, (London: Routledge, 1996).15 Capturing the Friedmans, dir. Andrew Jarecki (Magnolia Pictures, 2003).16 Bowling for Columbine, dir. Michael Moore (United Artists, 2002).

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wholly dependent on intangibility. It is synonymous with faith, conviction and principle, trust and confidence, these intangible and ineffable virtues that more often than not are dependent on the suspension of the real to create grand metanarratives. The temptation, therefore, is choose what is real, to choose what is tangible and effable and rational. However, this is equally problematic for "The Five and a Half Minute Hallway:

Even if we define reality as whatever happens when the camera is on that is spontaneous, unplanned, unrehearsed, and undirected – which neatly sidesteps several thousand years of philosophical speculation about the nature of reality – there is no reason to assume that was captured by the camera is true.18

Real and reality are two very different things, and it is important to remember this distinction in the search for truth. Verisimilitude is the quest for realism, the pursuit of reality to convey the Real. For instance, Alan Rosenthal records Peter Watkins' recollection of the shooting of a scene in Watkins' documentary, The War Game:

We put a mattress down, and got the people to sort of run and pick themselves up off the mattress. ...As you are running, you have to suddenly feel yourself caught and turned by an air current. To achieve this we started pulling them with wires, but finally decided not to do that, as we thought it would hurt them. We also thought it would look false. We also helped the effect by having flares roaring in the background and putting two fans quite close to them to whip bits of shredded paper and flour across, so that you got the visual impression of a sudden whipping across of something. As they ran to a particular spot where their mattress was, the white bits of paper would whip across and catch them. That would be their cue for letting themselves be caught in it and turned.19

17 Barry Hampe, Making Documentary Films and reality Videos: A Practical Guide to Planning, Filming, and Editing Documentaries of Real Events, (Ontario: Fitzhenry & Whiteside Ltd, 1997) p. 65.18 Hampe, p. 31.19 Alan Rosenthal, The New Documentary in Action: A Casebook in Film Making, (California: University of California Press, 1971) p. 162.

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There are many issues at play here. Watkins' film is based on an event that hasn't happened; a nuclear war. How can any (re)presentation of the real be made about an event that is (at the time of the documentary's production and still at this time) fictional? Without delving too deeply into notions of what is fact and what is fiction, is a documentary necessarily fictional if it portrays events that have not happened yet but possess plausible eventuality? Does the fact that their happening is only limited by the chronological progression of time, and if one removed the limitation of temporality from the equation, make their occurrence self-evident? Secondly, the construction of the scene (and it is exactly that, constructed) is pure verisimilitude - the appearance of truth, even in an unreal situation, to give it the look of realism.20

How then is the quest for truthfulness in dialogue with Žižek and the concept of the parallax gap? The answer is that the parallax gap is an intrinsic part of the documentary (it is 'truth' from a shift in the observer's position), and Navidson's film contains a number of parallaxes:

The first four points are relatively simple in comparison to the final two, but raise some interesting details nevertheless. Navidson staring into the hallway exhibits a classic case of Žižek's parallax gap within the context of his [Navidson's] own worldly truthfulness. Navidson's shift in his position is both a literal one (as a man with a movie camera)21 and a mental/emotional one. It is the latter that is of most intrigue. The impossibility of the existence of the hallway forces a shift in the observer's position that alters his reality. Navidson's "insurmountable antagonism" is the destabilisation of the truth of his world, and, by extension, ours, for his world is our world (thus fulfilling the consequence of 2) as well). One must also consider that Navidson's view of the hallway is not (for the duration of the film) purely through his own eyes, but is mediated by the camera. Though ultimately we, as the audience, arrive at the same unsettling disjuncture as Navidson, it is important to remember each party's mediated view of the world. Our reaction can only ever be based on Navidson's footage, not the actual event. As Sandy Flitterman-Lewis perceives, Navidson witnesses, we merely observe:

With the observer, the camera documents; with the witness, the

20 Hampe, p.31.21 This qualification by Zampanó is indeed perfectly accurate in describing Navidson's literal, physical movement, but the whether it was Zampanó's intention to directly reference Dziga Vertov's, Man with a Movie Camera is still, at this time, unknown. Enquiries have been made.

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1. Navidson and the hallway;2. The audience and the hallway;3. The audience and Navidson;4. The audience and the film;

and perhaps, most disturbingly;

5. The hallway and Navidson;6. The hallway and audience.

camera testifies, renders an account...The witness [Navidson] has a subjective relation to the image (the ability to see oneself in the scene), transforming what is seen through the prism of human feeling by means of communication.22

It comes as no surprise that Navidson's experience of the hallway is far more subjective (and thus personal) than our own. Whereas 'truth' is a universal concept, its permutations vary greatly in each individual. Navidson's subjective relationship to the hallway strikes at the foundations of his personal truths, because, as Flitterman-Lewis identifies, his role as witness enables his ability to see himself in the scene. Much has been made of the hallway and the cavernous and labyrinthine passages of its exploration in House of Leaves as abyss, reflection, window on the soul and so forth; various interpretations by various critics, all of whom cannot know the subjectivity of Navidson's experience - transforming what is seen through the prism of human feeling by means of communication. To question what the hallway might represent is to disregard the totality of Navidson's experience through that unique and individual prism of human feeling. Whatever he sees, we can only be sure of one thing; at that moment, what was true became untrue, whatever had been made inside Navidson to that day was then unmade. This is the essence of Gothicism in Žižek's parallax gap, the unmaking of truths by a shift in the world of the observer's truth.

As the audience watches Navidson, regardless of his personal experience, we are left questioning not just the verisimilitude of events but also of Navidson himself. We are reminded of Mitchell Block's 1974 short No Lies,23 in which both director and actress produce stunning performances as a young woman relates details to an off-camera Block of her being raped. The cinéma vérité style, the frankness of the conversation and the prima facie evidence of the interview technique all contribute to the appearance of truthfulness. When the film ends, it is revealed to have been a work of fiction.24 The same cautions are applied to Navidson, provoking the third parallax gap.

Actor or otherwise, Navidson is a real person, his existence cannot be disputed. However, like Nanook claims that its protagonist is a real person, real people, too, are characters within fictions (we are creatures of our own imaginations and the imaginations of others). And real people are also actors (we play the characters we, and others, imagine us to be, the characters we are capable of 22 Sandy Flitterman-Lewis, ‘Documenting the Ineffable: Terrors and Memory in Alain Resnais’s Night and Fog', in, Documenting the Documentary, ed. Barry Keith Grant & Jeannette Sloniowski (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1998) p. 209.23 No Lies, dir. Mitchell Block (Direct Cinema Lts, 1974).24 See Rothman's account of the actress-camera relationship of Nyla in The Filmmaker as Hunter: Robert Flaherty’s Nanook of the North’ in, Documenting the Documentary, ed. Barry Keith Grant & Jeannette Sloniowski, (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1998) p. 29. 'To act as if she is the character she is playing, an actress must act as if no camera is in her presence. But how is it possible for the actress to have a real relationship with the camera, a relationship through which a character is capable of being revealed? For the character to act as if no camera is present, there is no reality that must be denied. But for the actress to act as if no camera is present, she must deny the reality of the camera in her presence. To deny this camera’s reality, she must acknowledge its presence in a particular way. And if the camera is to sustain the fiction that the character is real, it must relate to the actress in a particular way, must acknowledge her presence and deny her reality.'

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becoming).25 The parallax is thus complete. On the one hand, Navidson is real, he is the father of Chad and Daisy, the husband of Karen and the photographer of Delial. On the other, he is a construct, a character. He plays all of these roles to all of these people all of the time. And so what is real, and who is Navidson? More importantly, who is Navidson to the audience? Or to himself? As Rothman posits, '[i]f Nanook were really the mythical figure of Flaherty’s titles – part primitive savage, part hero, part innocent child, part sage – who would the filmmaker be, mythically, to film him?' Navidson is both star and filmmaker of his own film. In the face of the hallway, he is at once both and neither. The two irreconcilable entities do not force a choice between one or the other but create Žižek's ineliminable conflict between opposing perspectives. To the audience, Navidson is both creation and absolute, both filmmaker and subject.

ParallaXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX26

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XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXThe images on the screen may be both real and true, but if they lack the appearance of truth, the documentarian sets up a credibility gap with the audience that he or she may never overcome.27XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXBenjamin Noys XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX 'the problem with the Real is that it happens and that’s the trauma.’28

25 Rothman, op. cit., p. 25.26 See Jean-Pierre Geuens, Film Production Theory, (Albany: State University of New York Press, 200), p. 172. "The camera therefore stands metaphorically for everything one can possibly shoot. It is but another word for language. Speaking like Heidegger, one could say that the camera is the little dark house of being." 27 Hampe, p. 69.28 Benjamin Noys, 'The Horror of the Real: Žižek’s Modern Gothic', International Journal of Žižek

Studies, Volume: 4. Issue 4, (2010) p. 3.

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XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX to Flitterman-Lewis' statement that what is witnessed transforms what is seen through the prism of human feeling by means of communication. By means of communication. This is integral to understanding the fourth and fifth points. It implies a dialogue between Navidson and the hallway. Navidson's subjective revelations are not passively attained but are arrived via the process of conversation with the hallway. You must understand that I do not mean conversation in the way you and I would talk to one another, but something that transcends language to communicate on an alternative, perhaps metaphysical plane.29 Thus, just as Navidson is witness to the hallway, the hallway is witness to Navidson. From a purely physical perspective, the hallway is an edificial incongruity, quite literally the gap, but in dialogue with Navidson it is now also an observer, a witness. This is not just the essence of Žižek's parallax, rather it is his parallax, the true parallax. The hallway is both the insurmountable antagonism and the irreconcilable conflict. It is in a perpetual state of flux, a constant shift, ever the same, and not what it used to be.30

There is another question yet to be answered; Navidson's reason for filming. His initial exploration of the hallways and the circumambulation of his house indicate a level of familiarity with its presence; the reactions of his friends and wife seem to support this. Thus, it is safe to assume that Navidson has undertaken a conscious choice to film the hallway, as opposed to already having his camera in hand and stumbling upon its existence. This is a question that been asked before of films with a similar aesthetic, with some providing better reasons than others. Myrick's and Sánchez's The Blair Witch Project, though seminal at its time, failed to satisfactorily deal with the protagonists' cinematic zeal.32 Recent attempts at this style, for example, Balagueró's and Plaza's REC and REC 2 have more appropriately integrated and justified this aesthetic.33/34

It is posited here that Navidson's reason for filming is not entirely of his own volition. Though his career as a photojournalist undoubtedly imbues him with the passion to document on film,

29 This is one of the incredibly rare occasions that Zampanó talks about himself (although in the abstract) or even uses the first person singular. Whether this is an indication of returning lucidity or increased mental instability we are undecided, but felt its inclusion warranted note. 30 Ce centre avait pour fonction non seulement d'orienter et d'équilibrier, d'organiser la structure - on ne peut en effet penser une structure inorganisée - mais de faire surtout que le principe d'organisation de la structure limite ce que nous pourrions appeler le jeu de la structure. Sans doute le centre d'une structure, en orientant et en organisant la cohérence du système, permet-il le jeu de éléments à l'intérieur de la formetotale. Et aujourd'hui encore une structure privée de tout centre repésente l'impensable lui-même [...] C'est pourquoi, pour une pensée classique de la structure, le centre peut être dit, paradoxalement, dans la strucutre et hors de la structure. Il est au centre de la totalité et pourtant, puisque le centre ne lui appartient pas, la totalité a son centre ailleurs. Le centre n'est pas la centre.3032 The Blair Witch Project, dir. Daniel Myrick & Eduardo Sánchez (Artisan Entertainment, 1999).33 REC, dir. Jaume Balagueró & Paco Plaza (Fox Searchlight Pictures, 2007).

- REC 2, dir. Jaume Balagueró & Paco Plaza (Magnolia Pictures, 2009).34 Zampanó accurately emphasises the similar aesthetic, though it is interesting to note his choice of examples as being fiction films. See also footnote 4.

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Žižek questions the hierarchical filmmaker/camera binary; 'Does a camera always follow an action or does it sometimes lead or stalk? Or mislead? Or wander?! Does a camera have an unconscious?'35 The concept of the motivated camera destabilises the privileging of the filmmaker in his/her relationship with the camera. Though Barthes would maintain that the camera is an extension of the eye,36 for Žižek the camera is not absorbed as part of the body but stands as a separate and potentially devious entity. This is what Edward Branigan examines in his book, Projecting a Camera: Language-Games in Film Theory.

Žižek argues that motivated camera movements have traditionally functioned within one of six stylistic paradigms that evoke one or more psychic states by recalling the three psychic stages [the oral, anal and phallic stages]:

0. Zero-Degree Filmmaking, where the montage is invisible and the camera is "neutral," resulting in the illusion of a homogenous reality, as in silent, slapstick film;

1. Classic Analytic Montage, i.e., Pudovkin's montage, as well as parallel montage, i.e., Griffith's cross-cutting montage;

2. Eisenstein's Intellectual Montage;

3. Welles's Inner/Interior Montage;

4. Rossellini's Anti-Montage, based on "the 'miracle' of fortuitous encounters"; and,

5. Hitchcock's Blot, where "the 'true' action is repressed, internalised,

35 Edward Branigan, Projecting a Camera: Language-Games in Film Theory, (New York: Routledge, 2006) p. 59. 36 Roland Barthes, Camera Lucida, (New York: Hill & Wang, 1981).

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subjectivised" into "the domain of what is prohibited."37/38

Of this list, it is Žižek's fifth point that we are most interested in.

The repression and internalisation of 'true action' into the domain of the prohibited is a rather apt description for Navidson's hallway. Whatever Navidson's intentions in filming the hallway, he has had the power and control removed from his hands, or quite literally, replaced in his hands by the camera. The motivated camera as 'Hitchcockian Blot' is, in its explanation, unmistakably Gothic:

Žižek argues that Hitchcock creates [...] a (i) feeling of menace, threat, horror, anxiety, strangeness, hidden or double meanings, or a feeling for the uncanny, by (ii) embedding a small anomalous feature, an incongruous detail, something that does not belong, that is out of place, that sticks out [...] into the (iii) natural, familiar, ordinary, even idyllic landscape of our lives. For Žižek the phallic blot functions as a "double framing": first, the blot frames a "hole" in the fabric of the real world, of normality, but only after it has been recognized and "removed" as anomalous (leaving behind the "hole" as a 'window' onto the unseen, the forbidden, the repressed). Secondly, the newly created "hole," in turn, acts to frame the "whole", the rest of the real, from the inside out(ward) - ultimately out toward the spectator and into the spectator's psyche to open up the repressed of the unconscious (a 'window onto the soul').39

Hitchcock's "double framing" also recalls the parallax gap, and now we have the fully formed image of the Gothic aesthetic. It would be hard to argue that Navidson's film belongs to a Gothic 'genre' (whatever that may be defined as being), but rather that its inherently voyeuristic themes, the multiplicity of looking, is both Gothic and

37 Branigan, pp. 42-4. 38 The six stylistic paradigms (0-5) are coordinated with the psychic states as follows: oral (0), anal (1), excessively anal (2-4), and phallic (5). Žižek links the oral with metonymy, the anal with metaphor, and the phallic with a "signifier without a signified" - with "total ambiguity" - as well as with hallucinatory desire, dread, and compulsion linked to the uncanny. - Branigan, p. 47.39 Branigan, pp. 48-939

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Gothicised. Subjectively, the viewer, like Navidson, is forced to look inwardly, to question themselves and their beliefs; what is real? And what is not? Verisimilitude, the quest for truthfulness, is not just an exterior pursuit, but is unalterably bound to identity. Fundamental truths about a person and the world around him/her ultimately define the very nature of being.

In his 1955 documentary on the Holocaust, Nuit et Brouillard (Night and Fog),41 Alain Renais wanted the public “to be shaken by what is not seen."42 Perhaps this is the best answer to the question of verisimilitude. Relocating the Gothic, terror and horror from the outside back to the inside comes as a reaction to our own refusal to admit the negativity at the heart of our existence, to deny that the truth of the self has been destabilised, in an effort to recapture reality and the Real. However, even this can only ever be a temporary transgressive manoeuvre as the Real always remains fundamentally untouchable: outside the law and language.43 Navidson's own quest for truth is inexorably bound with the human condition; just as the audience seeks to ratify his and his film's claims of truthfulness, so he seeks to capture (quite literally, on film) his own truths. In the vast nothingness of the hallway, all are shaken by what is seen and by what is not seen. The hallway is Žižek’s true parallax; gap and observer, seen and not seen, dark chest of wonders and cavernous void. These paradoxical binaries, this ineliminable conflict between opposing perspectives, these contra-truths are the truth, and indeed the only truth.

41 Nuit et Brouillard, dir. Alain Renais (Argos Films, 1955).42 Charles Krantz in Flitterman-Lewis, p. 213.43 Noys, p. 4.

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