RPWG READING WEEK 8

7/25/2019 RPWG READING WEEK 8

1/40

Radical

PedagogyWorkingGroup

week 8:

Yvonne Rainer &Anna Halprin

BHQFU - SP 2016


2/40

Looking

Myself

n the

Mouth

Sliding

Out

of

Narrative

nd

Lurching

Back In, Not Once but...

Is the

"New Talkie"

Something

to

Chirp

About?

From Fiction

to

Theory

(Kicking

and

Screaming)

Death

of the

Maiden,

I

Mean

Author,

Mean

Artist...

No,

I

Mean

Character

A

Revisionist

Narrativization

f/with

Myself s Subject (Still Kicking)via

John

Cage's Ample

Back

YVONNE

RAINER

I.

A

Likely

Story:

What

Know

and

What

Think

I

Feel

She

says,

"Yes,

I

was

talking

with

Joan

Braderman

about

the

subject

in

signifying ractice,

nd

she

brought

up

the

dea

that

everything

s

fiction

xcept

theory."

Hard as

she

tries to

focus on

this

most

intriguing

dea,

she

finds

herself

distracted

y

the

recognition

f

an

annoying

habit to which

she

reverts

henever

discussing

heory,

iz.,

tendency

o

transform

heory

nto

narrative

y

nterpolat-

ing

what

she

calls

"concrete

xperience"

n

theform

f

a

first-person

ronoun

and

progressive

erb,

uch

as

"Yes,

I

was

talking

with

.."

or

"I've

been

reading

this

book by..." or,evenworse,

"Yesterday

s I was

walking

down

Broadway

was

thinking..."

The

obvious

motive

might

be

to

bolster or

support

her

own

argumentby

referring

o known

and

respected

igures

ho

have

advanced

similar

arguments,

r

to

make an

analogy

that

might

lluminate

the

ssue at

hand.

There

is,

however,

nother

way

to

describe

the

phenomenon

which

points

to either

conflict

r

a

contradiction-depending

on

how

one

looks

at

it.

(Artist

s

Exemplary

Sufferer)

(Artist

s

Self-Absorbed

ndividualist)

(Artist

s

Changer

of

the

Subject)

She

knows

that

the content

of

her

thoughts

onsists

entirely

f

what she's

read,heard,spoken,dreamt, nd thought bout what she's read,heard,

spoken,

dreamt.

She

knows

that

thought

is

not

something

privileged,

autonomous,

originative,

nd

that

the

formulation

"Cogito

ergo

sum"

is,

to

say

the

least,

This content downloaded from 204 147 202 25 on Mon 11 Jan 2016 16:34:24 UTC
http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsphttp://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp


3/40

66

OCTOBER

inaccurate.She knows too thathernotionof"concrete xperience" s an idealized,

fictional

ite where

contradictions

an

be

resolved,

personhood"

demonstrated,

and desire fulfilled

orever.Yet all the same

the

magical,

seductive,

narrative

properties

f

"Yes,

I

was

talking..

."

draw her

with an

inevitability

hatmakes

her

slightly

dizzy.

She

stands

trembling

etweenfascination

nd

skepticism.

he

moves

obstinately

etween

the

two.

"Yes,

I am

constructed

n

language,"

she

thinks.

And

no,

I

don't think

've

ever

really

advocated a 'restored

ntegrity

f

the self.'"

She

pauses,

bites at a

cuticle,

and

finally-in

a burst

of

sheer

exasperation--faces

he camera

squarely

and

blurts,

"But

when

I

say,

Yes,

I

was

thinking

.

,'

you'd

just

better elieve

me "

Linguistically,

he author

s

never

more

than

the nstance

writing,ust

as

I

is

nothing

other

than

the

instance

saying

I:

language

knows a

'subject',

not a

'person',

and this

subject,

empty

outside of

the

very

enunciation

which defines

t,

sufficeso make

language

'hold

together',

suffices,

hat s to

say,

to exhaust

t.

-Roland Barthes'

(Artist

s

Medium)

(Artist

s

Ventriloquist)

II. The Cagean Knot

In the

late 1950s

and

early

1960s

the

ongoing

modernist ssault took

as

its

targets

ertain

ssumptions

by

then odified

n the

nstitution

f

American

modern

dance:

the

necessity

f musical

accompaniment;

the

nadmissability-and

neces-

sity

of

transformation--of

veryday

movement;

he

rigid

and inviolable

separa-

tions

between

humorous,

tragic,

ramatic,

nd

lyrical

orms;

heexistence f

rules

governing

equence

climax

and

development

of movement

"theme

and

varia-

tions"),

and

the

relationship

f movement

o

music,

cliched

notions

of

coherence

and

unity,

nd exact

conditions

under which "dissonance"

might

replace

"har-

mony" (as in "modern" themesof "alienation"). You heard a lot of Bartokat

dance

concerts

n those

days.

The

forerunners

f this

assault were Merce

Cunningham

and

John Cage.

(Artist

s

Innovator)

In

mutual

determination

hey

ucceeded

n

opening

a veritable andora's

Box,

an

act

that launched

in due course

a

thousand

dancers',

composers',

writers',

nd

performance

rtists'

hips,

to

say

nothing

of

the

warms

f

salubriously

nasty

deas

it loosed

upon

an

increasingly

eneral

populace,

ideas which are

apparent

even

today

n

fluxus-like

unk

performances.

would venture

o

say

that

by

now

the

1.

"The

Death of the

Author,"

Image-Music-Text,

trans.

Stephen

Heath,

New

York,

Hill

and

Wang,

1977,

p.

145.



4/40

Looking

Myself

n the

Mouth

67

"Cagean effect"s almostas endemicas the encounter roup. I say"Cagean" and

not

"Cunninghamian"

because

it is

Cage

who

has articulated

nd

published

the

concepts

which

I shall be

addressing

here

and which

have

been

especially

problematic

n

my

own

development.

t

is

not

my

ntention

o force he

id shut

on

John's

Box,

but

rather o examine certain

roubling

mplications

f his ideas

even

as

they

ontinue to lend themselves

o

amplification

n

art-making.

Only

a man

born

with a

sunny

disposition

could

have

said:

This

play,

however,

s

an affirmationf

life,

not an

attempt

o

bring

order ut of chaos nor to

suggest

mprovements

n

creation,

ut

simply

a

way

of

waking up

to the

very

ife we're

living

which

is so

excellent

once one getsone's mindand one's desires ut of tswayand lets tact

of

its

own

accord.

-John

Cage2

(Artist

s

Consumer)

Let's

not

come down

too

heavily

on

the

goofy

naiveteof

such

an

utterance,

on its

nvocation

of

J.

J.

Rousseau,

on

Cage's

adherence o

the

messianic

deas of

Bucky

Fuller

some

years

back,

with

their

otal

gnoring

f

worldwide

truggles

or

liberation

and

the

realities

of

imperialist

politics,

on

the

suppression

of

the

question,

"Whose life

s

so

excellent

nd

at

what

cost to

others?"

et's

focuson

the

means

by

which

we will

awaken to

this

excellent ife:

bygetting

ur

minds

and

desiresout of theway,by

making way

for n artof

ndeterminacy

o be

practiced

by

everyone,

n

art

existing

n

the

gap

between

ifeand

art.

All

thisand

more

has

been

stated

hundredsof

times n

more

ways

than

one.

Who am

I

and

what

is

my

debt

to

John

Cage? My

early

dances

(1960-62)

employed

chance

procedures

r

improvisation

o

determine

equences

of

choreo-

graphed

movement

phrases.

At

that

point,

for

some of

us who

performed

t

Judson

Church n New

York

City,

epetition,

ndeterminate

equencing,

equence

arrived t

by

aleatory

methods,

nd

ordinary/untransformed

ovement

were

a

slap-in-the-face

o

the old

order,

and,

dimly

beknownst o

us,

reached

straight

(Artist

s

Transgressor)

back to the surrealists ia the expatriatedDuchamp. Our own rationaleswere

clear,

on-the-offensive,

nd

confident.

We

were

"opening

up possibilities"

and

"thwarting

xpectations

nd

preconceptions."

A

frequent

esponse

to

the

baffle-

ment

of

the

uninitiatedwas

"Why

not?"

We

were

receivedwith

horror

nd

enthu-

siasm.

I

can't

beguile myself

nto

thinking

hat

the world

has

not

been the

same

since.

What

is

John

Cage's

gift

o

some

of us

who

make art?

This:

the

relaying

f

conceptual

precedents

for

methods of

nonhierarchical,

ndeterminate

rganiza-

tion which

can

be used with a

critical

intelligence,

that

is,

selectively

nd

2.

Quoted

in

Richard

Barnes,

"Our

Distinguished

Dropout,"

in

John

Cage,

ed. Richard

Koste-

lanetz,

New

York,

Praeger,

1970,

p.

51.



5/40

68

OCTOBER

productively,not, however,so we may awaken to this excellentlife; on the

contrary,

o we

may

the more

readily

waken

to the

ways

n which

we have

been

led

to believe

that this ife s so

excellent,

ust,

and

right.

The

reintroduction

f

selectivity

nd

control,however,

s

totally

ntithetical

to

the

Cagean

philosophy,

and it

is

selectivity

nd control that I

have

always

intuitively-by

this

I

mean "without

question"-brought

to

bear on

Cagean

devices

in

my

own work. In the

light

of

semiological

analysis

I

have

found

vindication

of those ntuitions.

n the same

light

t is

possible

to see

Cage's

de-

centering-or

violation of the

unity-of

the

"speaking subject"

as

more

apparent

than real.

Beforegoing on I wish to say that t makes me mad that, s important

figure

s he is to

any

discussion

of

American

modernism,

ohn

Cage

has not

to

my

knowledge

been

examined within the

framework f the

various

reworkings

f

Freudian

and

Marxist

theory

hat

have

been

accumulating

with

such

impressive

results

ver the

past

two

decades.

n

France nd

England

this s in

part

attributable

to

the fact

hat

uch theoretical

writings

have

concentrated

n

literature nd film

to

the xclusion of

music.

Not that he

French-with their

endency

o

romanticize

American

"irrationalism"--could

do him

ustice

at this

point.

The

English

know

little

about

him,

and the Germans

zeroed

in on

him too

early

to

make use of

Frenchcritical

theory.

am

ignorant

f

writings

n him

that

may

have

appeared

in othercountries n which he has performednd lectured xtensively,uch as

Sweden

and

Denmark. In

America I

tend

to blame

the

avant-garde

critical

establishment or

ts

neglect

of this

most

influentialman.

So whom

does

that

leave? Me?

Well,

sometimes artists

rush in

where critics

refuse to tread. In

(Artist

s

Failed

Primitive)

(Artist

s

Failed

Intellectual)

the

noisy

silence

that

surrounds he

man,

I

shall

produce

a few

semiotic

chirps.

III.

Five-Hundred-Pound

Canary

What

are

the

implications

of

the

Cagean

abdication of

principles

for

assigning

importance

nd

significance?

method for

making

indeterminate,

r

for

randomizing,

sequence

of

signifiers

roduces

a concomitant

rbitrarinessn

the relationof

signifier

o

signified,

situation

characterized

ot

by

an

effacement

of

signifiers y

signified

s in Gone

with

the

Wind,

nor

by

a

shifting

elationship

of

signifier

o

signified

hereby

he

ignifier

tself,

r

the

ct of

signifying, y

being

foregrounded,

becomes

problematic,

but

by

a

denial and

suppression

of

a

relationship

ltogether.

What

is

this but an

attempt

o

deny

the

very

unction f

language

and,

by

extension,the signifying ubject, which is, according to Lacan's definition,

dependent

on

and

constructed

through

and in

systems

of

signification,

.e.,

language?



6/40

Looking Myself

n the Mouth

69

A signifying ractice .. is a complexprocesswhich assumesa (speak-

ing)

subject

admitting

f

mutations,

oss of

infinitization,

iscernable

in the

modifications

f

his

discourse but

remaining

rreducible o

its

formality

lone,

since

they

efer

ack on the one hand to

unconscious-

instinctual

processes

and,

on the

other,

to the socio-historical on-

straints nder which the

practice

n

question

is carried

n.

-Julia

Kristeva3

The

highestpurpose

is to have

no

purpose

at

all.

-John

Cage

For Cage, eitherto problematize, .e., call into question, a "purposive"

subject,

r to

grant

dmission to a

"mutating,"

finite

ne,

would have been to

risk

becoming

reentangled

n those hated measurements

f

genius

and

inspiration

(Artist

s

Shaman)

(Artist

s

Visionary)

that

particularly

nfested

he

world of

music,

and

in

those

"ambiguities,

hidden

meanings

which

require nterpretation),

. silent

purposes

nd

obscure ontents

(which give

rise to

commentary).""

age's

solution was

to

throw

ut

the

baby

with

the bathwater.

n

the absence

of

a

signifying

ubject,

not

only

"modifications

f

discourse" become

untenable,

but also the

concept

of an

unconscious which

manifests tself n the heterogeneitynd contradictions f the subject as it is

positioned

in

relationships

of

identity

nd

difference

y

"socio-historical

on-

straints,"

not

the

east

of

which

is the

patriarchal

order tself.

Trying

to

operate

outside

of

these

rocesses, Cagean

"nonsignifying

ractice"

ees

tself s

existing

in a

realm

of

pure

idea,

anteriorto

language-without

mind,

without

desire,

without

differentiation,

ithoutfinitude.

n a

word,

thatrealm of

dealism which

so

much of

our

capricious,

wavering,

lawed,

urching

twentieth-century

rt has

similarly

failed-while

being

so

committed-to

violate.

Surrealism,

unable

to

accord

language

a

supreme

place

(language

being

a

system

nd

the

aim of

the

movement

being,romantically,direct ubversionof codes-itself moreover

llusory:

a code cannotbe

destroyed;

nly 'played off'),

ontributed

o

the

desacralization

of

the

image

of

the

Author

by

ceaselessly

recommending

he

abrupt

disap-

pointment

f

expectations

f

meaning.

-Roland

Barthes5

From

the

standpoint

of

consumption,

if

meaning

is

constantly

being

subverted efore

practice

that

refuses o

make or break

igns,

f

the

avowed

goal

of a

work

is a

succession

of

"nonsignifying ignifiers,"

ne is

leftwith

an im-

3.

"The

Subject

in

Signifying

ractice,"

Semiotext(e),

no.

3

(1975),

19.

4.

Michel

Foucault,

"What Is

an Author?"

Screen,

vol.

20,

no. 1

(Spring 1979),

17.

5.

"Death

of

the

Author,"

p.

144.



7/40

70

OCTOBER

penetrableweb of undifferentiatedvents et n motionbyand referringack to

the

original

flamboyant

rtist-gesture,

n this case the abandonmentof

personal

taste.

The work thus

places

an audience in the "mindless"

sensual?)

position

of

appreciating

manifestation f

yet

one more

Artist s

Transcendental

Ego

and excludes t from

articipation

n

the

forming

f

the

meanings

of

that

manifestation

ust

as

surely

s

any

mono-

lithic,

unassailable,

and

properly

alidated

masterpiece.

ohnCage

can now-and

perhaps

always

could-be

safely

aught

n

any

high

school

music

appreciation

course.

His

genius

is

beyondquestion;

the

product

of that

genius beyond

ambi-

guity.

What was it

actually

thatmade me

choose

music

rather han

painting?

Just

because

they

aid nicer

things

bout

my

music than

they

id

about

my

paintings?

But

I don't have

absolute

pitch.

I

can't

keep

a tune.

n

fact,

have no talent

for

music.

The last time saw

her,

Aunt Phoebe

said,

"You're in the

wrong profession."

-John

Cage6

(Artist

s

Misfit)

I was telling some of my studentsat the Whitney ndependentStudy

Program

that

ten

years go

I

had

been invitedthere

o

conduct

a

seminar.

had

begun

by

playing

a

record

of Billie

Holiday

singing

"The

Way

You Look

Tonight," repeatedly ifting

nd

replacing

the

arm

of

the

record

player

as,

with

increasing

difficulty

nd

embarrassment,

tried o learn the

melody.

couldn't

get

it

and had at

length

to

give

it

up.

At

this

point

in

the

story

Marty

Winn

said,

"So

they

hired

you "

IV.

Bang

the Tale

Slowly

After had beenstudyingwith himfor woyears, choenberg aid,"In

order to

write music

you

must

have a

feeling

for

harmony."

then

explained

to him

that had no

feeling

or

harmony.

He then

aid that

would

always

encounter n

obstacle,

that

t

would be

as

though

came

to a wall

through

which

I

could

not

pass.

I

said,

"In

that

case

I will

devote

my

ife to

beating

my

head

against

thatwall."

-John Cage7

I

was

just

beginning

to

congratulate

myself

or

having

finally riumphed,

n

Journeys

from

Berlin

/1971,

over

the

tyranny

f

narrative.

didn't

need

it

6.

A

Year

from

Monday,

Middletown,

Wesleyan

University,

967,

p.

118.

7.

Ibid.,

p.

114.



8/40

Looking

Myself

n the Mouth

71

anymore, toldmyself. he distinctpartsof thatfilmnevercome togethern a

spaciotemporal

ontinuity.

rom this

point

of

view,

narrative eemed

no

longer

to

be

an

issue.

If the

filmmade

any

effortoward

ntegrating

he

eparate speakers,"

it

was at the

evel

of

another

kind of

discourse,

ropelled

not

by

narrative,

ut

by

a

heterogeneous

nterweaving

of

verbal

texts

acting

on/against/in

relation

to

images.

What a

thrilling

dea: to be free f the

compelling

and

detested

omina-

tion

of

cinematic

narrativity

with

its

unseen,

unspoken

codes for

arranging

images

and

language

with

a

"coherence,

ntegrity,

ullness,

and

closure,"

so

lacking

in

the

mperfect eality

t

purports

o

mirror.

Upon

closer

examination,

however,

t becomes clear that

particular spect

of narrative,namely character, s a consistentpresence n Journeys romBer-

lin/1971

s

it

is-often

by

dint

of

its

conspicuous

absence-in

my

three

revious

films. t

was,

in

fact,

decisive

factor n a

move from ance to

film

n

the

early

70s.

Upon

closer

examination

t

seems to

me

that

am

going

to

be

banging my

head

against

narrative or

long

time to

come.

But once

we have been

alerted o

the

ntimate

elationship

hat

Hegel

suggests

exists between

aw,

historicality,

nd

narrativity,

e

cannot

but be

struck

by

the

frequency

with

which

narrativity,

hether f the

fictional r

the

factual

ort,

resupposes

the existence

f

a

legal

system

against

or

on

behalf

of

which

the

typical

gents

of a

narrative

ccount

militate.

-Hayden

White8

"Language

knows a

'subject,'

not

a

'person,"'"

says

Barthes.

A

central

presumption

of

narrativity

s

that

"subject" may

become

synonymous

with

"Authority

f

the

Law"

in

an

unseen

leap

that

s

implicit

in

every

nstance

of

narrative

discourse.

n

literature t

has

traditionally

een

the

author-conflated-

with-narrator

hat

has

occupied

this

position

of

authority.

n

mainstream inema

a

more

encompassing

llusionism

tends

o

suppress

the

presence

f

the

writer/di-

rector

o a

greater

egree.

As a

consequence,

authorial

status s

assumed

exclu-

sivelybya "character," designationwhich-with all of ts mplicitcompound-

ing

of

self-contained

narrator,

person,"

"persona,"

and

legal/psychological

existence-blocks

the ntrusion

f an

anterior

uthorship,

t

once

embodying

he

representation

f,

and

unseen

leap

between,

ubject

and

legal system.

Godard

was

probably

the

first

director

working

within

the

illusionist

narrative

ilm

tradition

to

"meddle"

with

the

integrity

f

this

usually

singular

speaking position.

He

accomplished

this

by

having

a

given

character

peak

from

different

uthorial

positions,

ncluding

thatof

performer,

ut

also

by

ntroducing

the

presence-usually

in

voice-over-of

another

uthorship,

commentator ei-

ther

ufficiently

filled

n"

to

be

a

character,

or

sufficiently

omniscient"

to

be

a

8.

"The Value of

Narrativity

n

the

Representation

f

Reality,"

Critical

nquiry,

vol.

7,

no.

1

(Autumn

1980),

17.



9/40

72 OCTOBER

narrator, oridentifiable ithanyconclusiveness s speakingtheopinions ofthe

director/writer

imself,

ven when

it is

unquestionably

the

voice of the

director

that

we

hear.

The tension

attendant

on

this

splitting

of

authorship among

character,

performer,

ommentator,

nd director/writer

roduces

fissures

nd

contradictionswhich

the viewer must

consciously

register

n order to

"get"

anything

rom he

film.

Who

speaks

in

the

narrative)

s not

who

writes

in

real

life)

and

who

writes s

not

who is.

-Roland Barthes

The

thing

that

pushed

me

towardnarrative nd

ultimately

nto

cinema was

"emotional

life."

I

wished not

exactly

to

"express"

emotion,

certainly

not to

mimic

it,

and

I

wasn't

sure whether

recognizable

social context

would

play

a

part.

I

knew

little more than that

its

means

of

presentation

would be

largely

language,

and

that when

spoken,

it

would be

spoken

by

someone. Not that

I

hadn't

used

spoken

texts efore. n

every

ase,

however,

ither

isjunction

between

movement nd

speech

or

the

separation

nherent n dance

presentation

etween

what

is

performed

nd the

person

performing

t

had

prevented

he

speech

from

beingreceived s "belongingto" theperformer tteringt.Upon takingup film,

would

perforce

be

dealing

with an

entirely

different

egister

of

relationship

between

"spoken"

and

"speaker."

The

problem

would be not so

much

in

getting

them

together

s

tearing

hem

part.

I

was not

only

entering

new

medium,

but was

jettisoning

whole lexicon

of

formalized

movement nd

behavior,

ealizing nstinctively

hat

certain onces-

sions to

"lifelikeness"

would

have

to

be

made.

For the

most

part

my

speaking

performers

would

be

doing

what

people,

or

characters,

o

often

do in

"the

movies": sit

around, eat,

walk down

the

street,

ide

bicycles,

ook

at

things,

tc.

f

they

danced in

my early

films,

gave

them

good

reason

by

assigning

them

the

occupation "dancer."

From the

beginning

I

used a

loose,

paratactic,

nondramatic

onstruction,

more

narrative n

feeling

han fact.

My

primary

mission,"

as

I

see it

now,

was to

avoid

narrative

ontextualizing

hat

would

require

synchronized,

naturalized"

speech

to

continue for

very

ong

in

any

given

seriesof

shots.

could never

uite

satisfactorily

ccount-publicly-for

the

necessity

f

my

particular

lternatives o

conventional

narrative ilms.

veered

unsettlingly

lose to

formalist

eneraliza-

tions

"It

hasn't

been

done;

it's there

o

do;

it's

another

possibility' )

to the

point

of almost

denying altogether

hat

my

enterprise

ad

any

significance

s

social

criticism,

r

that t

was an

"intervention"

gainst

llusionist

cinema.

Or

I

about-

faced and tookup thecudgelsof the llusionist-cinema-produces-passive-viewer

argument.

felt

nadequate

to the

taskof

advancing

more

pertinent

rgument

o

supportmy

aversionto

the

"acting"

and

"acting

out"

requiredby

the

narratologi-

cal character.



10/40

Looking

Myself

n

the

Mouth

73

As

recently

s

summer

of

1980

I

find

myself aying

in Millennium

Film

Journal:

Previously

used

whatever

nterested

me. I was able to

absorb

and

arrange

most materials

under some

sliding

rule

of

thumb

governing

formal

uxtaposition. Everything

was subsumed

under

the kinds

of

collage strategies

hat

had

characterized

my dancing,

and could

even

include a kind

of

mechanistic,

r

quasi-psychological

narrative.9

Still

laboring

under

ong-standing

agean

habits

of

thought

bout what 'd

done-and

here

I'm

talking

iterally

bout

doing

one

thing

and

describing

t

as

another-I was willing to annex my labors to that segmentof the surrealist

tradition

which,

from

Schwitters

o

Cage

to

Rauschenberg,

has

used

"collage

strategies"

o

equalize

and

suppress

hierarchicaldifferentiations

f

meaning.

On

another

face of

it,

my

work can

be,

and

has

been,

read as

a

kind of

reductivism

coming

out

of

60s

minimal

art,

a

view

which

I

myself

eld when I

was

making

dances.

It

still seems that the refusal to

invest

my

film

performers

ith

the full

stature

nd

authority

f characters

hares at some level the same

impulse

that

substituted

running"

for

dancing"

many years

go.

What marks

this

refusal

n

the medium

of

film

s

not

simply

n

obsolescentholdover

from

n

earlier

way

of

doing things

s thatfrom

he

the

very

utset t was

brought

o

bear

against

a

full-

blown institution nd manifested tself n specific,pertinent, nd contesting

strategies.

Speaking

of the medieval

annals,

an

early

form

f

European

historiography,

Hayden

White writes:

For

the

annalist,

there

s

no

need to

claim the

authority

o

narrate

events

since there is

nothing

problematical

about their

status as

manifestations f a

reality

that

is

being

contested.

Since

there s

no

"contest,"

there s

nothing

to

narrativize

...

It

is

necessary

nly

to

record

them n the

orderthat

they

ome to

notice,

for

ince

there s

no

contest,

here s no

story

o

tell.10

The

implied

narrator

f the

nnalist's

account

s

the

"Lord,"

whose

supreme

authority

as

subsumed

all

human

need to

change

"the order

in

which

things]

come

to

notice."

Here we

can discover

he

tory

f

John

Cage

come

full-circle.

or

all of

John's

Buddhist

eanings

and

egalitarian

espousals,

for

ll

of

his

objections

to

hierarchies

nd

consequent

seeming

to

operate

n the

space

left

y

the

absence

of

God,

his

ideas lead

inevitably

back to

the

"no

contest"

of

White's

early

historian.We

can't have it

both

ways:

no

desire nd no

God.

To

have

no

desire-

for

"improvements

n

creation"-is

necessarily

oequal

to

having

no

quarrel

9.

Nodl

Carroll,

"Interview

with a Woman

Who

...,"

Millennium

Film

Journal,

nos.

7-9

(Fall-

Winter

1980-81),

44.

10.

White,

p.

22.



11/40

74

OCTOBER

with-God-given-manifestations of reality. Any such dispassionate stance in

turn

obviates the

necessity

f

"retelling"

the

way things

have

been

given.

The

converse

f this

situation

s

a state

f

affairs

hich

Cage-rightfully-most

feared:

we

are surrounded

by

manifestations

f

reality

that are not

God-given

but

all

fucked

p by

human

society

nd thatmustbe

contested

nd reordered

y

human

"NarrativizingAuthority"

which,

by

so

representing

hem,

will

impart

to events

an

integrity

nd coherence ut

to the

measure

of

all-too-humandesire.

Maybe

'm

being

simple-minded

when

say

the

problem

not

the

olution)

s

clear:

to track

down the

Narrativizing

Authority

where

it

currently

ives and

wallop

the

daylights

ut

of t. And where

does

it now live?

The

battle

one is not a

sereneplane of ndeterminacyutside oftheoverdeterminationsfnarrative, or,

as

I

put

it

in

1973,

"somewherebetweenthe excessive

pecificity

f the

story

nd

the

emotional

unspecificity

f

object-oriented

ermutations,""thinking

t would

be

something

ike

steering

etween he

narrativity

f

Scylla

and the

formalism

f

Charybdis.

(Is

who

speaks [in

the

essay]

The

Artist

[in

real

life]

and is The

Artist

who

is?)

In cinema thebattlegroundsneither etweennoroutside.The battleground

is

narrativity

tself,

oth

its

constructs/images

nd

the

means

by

which

they

re

constructed;

oth its

signs

and

its

signifiers.

V. In

the

N.A.'s Lair

The

reluctance

o

declare ts

codes characterizes

ourgeois

society

nd

the

mass

culture

ssuing

from t:

both

demand

signs

which

do not ook

like

signs.

-Roland Barthes12

By

refusing

o

assign

a

'secret',

n

ultimate

meaning,

o

thetext

and

to

the

world as

text),

writing]

iberates

what

may

be called

an anti-

theological activity,

n

activity

that is

truly

revolutionary

ince

to

refuse o

fix

meaning

s,

in

the

end,

to

refuseGod

and his

hypostases-

reason,

science,

aw.

-Roland

Barthes'3

11. YvonneRainer,Work1961-73,Halifax and New York,The PressoftheNova ScotiaCollege of

Art

and

Design/New

York

University

ress,

1974,

p.

244.

12.

"Introduction o

the Structural

Analysis

of

Narratives,"

mage-Music-Text,

.

116.

13.

"Death of the

Author,"

p.

147.



12/40

Looking Myself

n

the Mouth 75

Dan Walworth.

House

by

the

River: he

Wrong

Shape.

1980.

Arguing

with

Douglas

Beer about Dan Walworth's

film,

A

House

by

the

River:

The

Wrong

Shape,

stirred

p

some

thoughts.

here

are

a number

f

clues

in this

film

pointing

to the

instability

f the

narrative,

mean

a

fragility

n the

relationship

f

speech

to

speaker,

ction to

actor.

This

instability

n

turn ells

us

thatwe aretolistento theverbal ext, historical ritique f thebourgeoisfamily,

in its own

right,

at

least

not to

judge

it

primarily

nd

absolutely

from

the

standpoint

f

its

having

emanated

from he

ips

of a

"bad actor" or a

particular

character,

n

thiscase a

seventeen-

r

eighteen-year-old

tudent.

rue,

recognition

of

the

character:

student,"

nd

situation:

"presentation

f

paper,"

does

affect

ur

reception

f

the text.Whatever

ne's initial

impulse,

however,

o

discredit

r

be

inattentive ecause

"it's

only

a student's erm

paper"

is

quickly mitigated

by

a

number

f factors.

n

this

kind of

film he

various

representations

f social

reality

do

not

have,

necessarily, quivalent

relations to

their

referents

ith

respect

to

meaning.

The

"classroom"

is stable as a

signified

nsofar as

it

consistently

illustrates hosepartsof thetext hatdealwith chool.The "student," n theother

hand,

is not.

What

with the

prolongation

of

the

classroom

hot,

the

formality

f

its

fixed

framing,

nd

the

density

nd duration

of

the student's

reading,

our

"reading"

of

the

performance

moves back and forth

rom character"

o

"agent-

for-transmitting-a-text."

he effectf thismovement

s to

put

both the

representa-

tion and

the verbaltext

nto

a

precarious

balance:

the

characterization

onstantly

dissolves

and reforms-the

signifier-performer

lternately xposed

and covered

over-and

at the ame time

heunstable

ignified-"student"

pills

over s

a

kindof

metaphor,

ratherthan

identity,

nforming

he

spoken

text

s

being

other than

authorial,

as

being

in

a

state

of

flux,

n

process,

to-be-scrutinized

y

the

artist-

filmmaker nd "audience-filmmaker."he audience,ratherthan

moving

from

perception/recognition

o

identification/repulsion

ow

passes

from

ecognition

to

critical ttention.



13/40

76

OCTOBER

Do I seem to be paraphrasingBrecht?Yes and no. I'm not mentioning

knowledge/understanding.

ou

can

lead a horse to

water;

you

cannot

make it

drink.

This texthas

been

concerned

with

the

necessity

or

problematizing

fixed

relation

of

signifier

o

signified,

he

notion

of a

unified

ubject,

nd,

specifically,

within

the

codes of narrative

film

practice,

the

integrity

f the

narratological

character.

Any

such

problematizing,

alling

into

question,

or

"playing

off" f the

terms

f

signification

f

necessity

nvolves n

"unfixing"

f

meaning,

a

venturing

into

ambiguity,

n

exposing

of the

signs

that constitute nd

promulgate

ocial

inequities.

I have also analyzedthe contradictionsn John Cage's conceptsof indeter-

minacy.

It is

important

that

Cage's

efforts o

eliminate and

suppress

meaning

should

in

no

way

be confused

with

the

refusal

to

fix

meaning

of

which Barthes

speaks. Cage's

refusal

of

meaning

is an

abandonment,

n

appeal

to

a

Higher

Authority.

he

refusal that

has been of

more concern

to me is a

confrontation

with-and

within--authorial

ignifying

odes.

I

wouldn't

go

so far s Barthes

n

calling

such

confrontation

revolutionary

ctivity,

t least not at this

point

in

time.

Nevertheless,

nsofar s

it nvolves

certain mount

of risk nd

struggle,

t

s

an

important

nd

necessary

ctivity.

A

last

paraphrase

on the

battleground

of cinematic

narrativity:

s the

character ies it is not nconceivable hat omemembers f the udiencewill come

to

their

enses.

And I

don't mean

Aristotle.



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Documents

RPWG READING WEEK 8